Theodore Maly (1894 – 20 September 1938) was a former

Roman Catholic Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *'' Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a lette ...

priest and

Soviet The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...

intelligence officer An intelligence officer is a person employed by an organization to collect, compile or analyze information (known as intelligence) which is of use to that organization. The word of ''officer'' is a working title, not a rank, used in the same way a ...

during the 1920s and 1930s. He lived illegally in the countries where he worked for the

NKVD The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (russian: Наро́дный комиссариа́т вну́тренних дел, Naródnyy komissariát vnútrennikh del, ), abbreviated NKVD ( ), was the interior ministry of the Soviet Union. ...

and was one of the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...

’s most effective

spymaster A spymaster is the person that leads a spy ring, or a secret service (such as an intelligence agency). Historical spymasters See also *List of American spies *List of British spies * List of German spies *List of fictional spymasters This is ...

Early life

He was born in

Austria-Hungary Austria-Hungary, often referred to as the Austro-Hungarian Empire,, the Dual Monarchy, or Austria, was a constitutional monarchy and great power in Central Europe between 1867 and 1918. It was formed with the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of ...

in 1894 at

Timișoara ), City of Roses ( ro, Orașul florilor), City of Parks ( ro, Orașul parcurilor) , image_map = Timisoara jud Timis.svg , map_caption = Location in Timiș County , pushpin_map = Romania#Europe , pushpin_ ...

Hungary Hungary ( hu, Magyarország ) is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning of the Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Croatia a ...

, (now

Romania Romania ( ; ro, România ) is a country located at the crossroads of Central Europe, Central, Eastern Europe, Eastern, and Southeast Europe, Southeastern Europe. It borders Bulgaria to the south, Ukraine to the north, Hungary to the west, S ...

) into a middle-class family. His father was an official of the Ministry of Finance. He entered a

monastic order Monasticism (from Ancient Greek , , from , , 'alone'), also referred to as monachism, or monkhood, is a religious way of life in which one renounces worldly pursuits to devote oneself fully to spiritual work. Monastic life plays an important rol ...

and studied

theology Theology is the systematic study of the nature of the divine and, more broadly, of religious belief. It is taught as an academic discipline, typically in universities and seminaries. It occupies itself with the unique content of analyzing the ...

and philosophy. At the outbreak of

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

he enlisted in the

Austro-Hungarian Army The Austro-Hungarian Army (, literally "Ground Forces of the Austro-Hungarians"; , literally "Imperial and Royal Army") was the ground force of the Austro-Hungarian Dual Monarchy from 1867 to 1918. It was composed of three parts: the joint arm ...

. He attended the Military Academy and graduated in December 1915 with the rank of cornet. He was serving as a

second lieutenant Second lieutenant is a junior commissioned officer military rank in many armed forces, comparable to NATO OF-1 rank. Australia The rank of second lieutenant existed in the military forces of the Australian colonies and Australian Army until ...

when he was captured by the

Imperial Russian Army The Imperial Russian Army (russian: Ру́сская импера́торская а́рмия, tr. ) was the armed land force of the Russian Empire, active from around 1721 to the Russian Revolution of 1917. In the early 1850s, the Russian Ar ...

on the Eastern Front in 1916. Maly later related his experiences to a friend:

During the war I was a chaplain, I had just been ordained as a priest. I was taken prisoner in the
Carpathians The Carpathian Mountains or Carpathians () are a range of mountains forming an arc across Central Europe. Roughly long, it is the third-longest European mountain range after the Ural Mountains, Urals at and the Scandinavian Mountains at . The ...
. I saw all the horrors, young men with frozen limbs dying in the
trenches A trench is a type of excavation or in the ground that is generally deeper than it is wide (as opposed to a wider gully, or ditch), and narrow compared with its length (as opposed to a simple hole or pit). In geology, trenches result from erosi ...
. I was moved from one camp to another and starved along with other prisoners. We were all covered with vermin and many were dying of
typhus Typhus, also known as typhus fever, is a group of infectious diseases that include epidemic typhus, scrub typhus, and murine typhus. Common symptoms include fever, headache, and a rash. Typically these begin one to two weeks after exposure. ...
. I lost my faith in God and when the
revolution In political science, a revolution (Latin: ''revolutio'', "a turn around") is a fundamental and relatively sudden change in political power and political organization which occurs when the population revolts against the government, typically due ...
broke out I joined the
Bolsheviks The Bolsheviks (russian: Большевики́, from большинство́ ''bol'shinstvó'', 'majority'),; derived from ''bol'shinstvó'' (большинство́), "majority", literally meaning "one of the majority". also known in English ...
. I broke with my past completely. I was no longer a Hungarian, a priest, a Christian, even anyone's son. I became a Communist and have always remained one.

He voluntarily joined the

Red Army The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army (Russian: Рабо́че-крестья́нская Кра́сная армия),) often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic and, after ...

in 1918 and participated in the

Russian Civil War , date = October Revolution, 7 November 1917 – Yakut revolt, 16 June 1923{{Efn, The main phase ended on 25 October 1922. Revolt against the Bolsheviks continued Basmachi movement, in Central Asia and Tungus Republic, the Far East th ...

. Maly later became a member of the Russian Communist Party (b) in 1920.

Illegal identities

The Soviets recognized that his passionate pride, intellect and charm were assets, and in 1932, he assumed the identity of Paul Hardt, a Central European intellectual, and travelled to

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

to control two

British Foreign Office The Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) is a department of the Government of the United Kingdom. Equivalent to other countries' ministries of foreign affairs, it was created on 2 September 2020 through the merger of the Foreign ...

spies:

John Herbert King John Herbert King, alias 'MAG', was a British Foreign Office cypher clerk who provided Foreign Office communications to the Soviet Union between 1935 and 1937. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison as a spy in October 1939. King was recruited b ...

and

Ernest Holloway Oldham Ernest Holloway Oldham (September 10, 1894 – September 29, 1933) was a British traitor, employed as a cipher clerk in the British Foreign Office. He spied for the Soviet Union between 1929 and his death in 1933, in return for money. His job ...

. Another identity that he used in England was Mr Peters, an Austrian who had spent time in a monastery before becoming a captain in the Russian cavalry.

Espionage activities

He was one of the controllers of the British Soviet

spy ring known as the

Cambridge Five The Cambridge Spy Ring was a ring of spies in the United Kingdom that passed information to the Soviet Union during World War II and was active from the 1930s until at least into the early 1950s. None of the known members were ever prosecuted for ...

Kim Philby Harold Adrian Russell "Kim" Philby (1 January 191211 May 1988) was a British intelligence officer and a double agent for the Soviet Union. In 1963 he was revealed to be a member of the Cambridge Five, a spy ring which had divulged British secr ...

, Donald Maclean,

Guy Burgess Guy Francis de Moncy Burgess (16 April 1911 – 30 August 1963) was a British diplomat and Soviet agent, and a member of the Cambridge Five spy ring that operated from the mid-1930s to the early years of the Cold War era. His defection in 1951 ...

John Cairncross John Cairncross (25 July 1913 – 8 October 1995) was a British civil servant who became an intelligence officer and spy during the Second World War. As a Soviet double agent, he passed to the Soviet Union the raw Tunny decryptions that influ ...

and

Anthony Blunt Anthony Frederick Blunt (26 September 1907 – 26 March 1983), styled Sir Anthony Blunt KCVO from 1956 to November 1979, was a leading British art historian and Soviet spy. Blunt was professor of art history at the University of London, dire ...

. Maly also controlled

Arthur Wynn Arthur Henry Ashford Wynn (22 January 1910 – 24 September 2001), was a British civil servant, social researcher, and recruiter of Soviet spies for the KGB. Early life Wynn was the son of a professor of medicine. Educated at Oundle School, he ...

, founder of the Oxford spy ring, who had been recruited by

Edith Tudor-Hart Edith Tudor-Hart (''née'' Suschitzky; 28 August 1908 – 12 May 1973) was an Austrian-British photographer and spy for the Soviet Union. Brought up in a family of socialists, she trained in photography at Walter Gropius's Bauhaus in Dessau, an ...

. In 1937, he left England on a false passport to escape arrest for his involvement in the Woolwich Arsenal spy case. It is assumed that he was tipped off before

MI5 The Security Service, also known as MI5 ( Military Intelligence, Section 5), is the United Kingdom's domestic counter-intelligence and security agency and is part of its intelligence machinery alongside the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6), G ...

could arrange for his arrest. While in England he was involved with fellow spy the Irishman

Brian Goold-Verschoyle Brian Goold-Verschoyle (5 June 1912 – 5 January 1942) was an Irish member of the Communist Party of Great Britain who was recruited by the Soviet NKVD as a courier between its moles and their handlers in London. After being sent as a radio tec ...

who delivered documents to Maly from the Foreign Office given to him by

Final days

In 1937 as the Stalinist terror took hold, Soviet intelligence personnel working abroad became principal targets of suspicion and were subject to recalls to the Soviet Union. In June, Maly received orders from

Moscow Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 million ...

to return. He knew his background in the atmosphere of the time made his position particularly dangerous: 'I know that as a former priest I haven't got a chance. But I've decided to go there so nobody can say: "That priest might have been a real spy after all'".Andrew, Christopher. "The Defence of the Realm The Authorized History of MI5". 2009. , P.183 Maly returned to Moscow and worked at the Lubyanka. Any hope of returning to

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...

was dashed with the

defection In politics, a defector is a person who gives up allegiance to one state in exchange for allegiance to another, changing sides in a way which is considered illegitimate by the first state. More broadly, defection involves abandoning a person, ca ...

s of

Ignace Reiss Ignace Reiss (1899 – 4 September 1937) – also known as "Ignace Poretsky," "Ignatz Reiss," "Ludwig," "Ludwik", "Hans Eberhardt," "Steff Brandt," Nathan Poreckij, and "Walter Scott (an officer of the U.S. military intelligence)" ...

in July 1937 and

Walter Krivitsky Walter Germanovich Krivitsky (Ва́льтер Ге́рманович Криви́цкий; June 28, 1899 – February 10, 1941) was a Soviet intelligence officer who revealed plans of signing the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact after he defected to ...

in October 1937. Alexander Orlov reports in the ''Secret History'' that Maly disappeared from his post in November 1937 but is contradicted in West's ''Crown Jewels'', which cites a document that indicates that Maly was still at work on May 23, 1938. Although the exact date of Maly's arrest is unknown, it was probably after May 1938 and before Orlov's own defection to

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and the Car ...

in July 1938. Under interrogation, Maly confessed to being a

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) **Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ger ...

agent. On September 20, 1938, a tribunal sentenced Maly to death under

Article 58 Article 58 of the Russian SFSR Penal Code was put in force on 25 February 1927 to arrest those suspected of counter-revolutionary activities. It was revised several times. In particular, its Article 58-1 was updated by the listed sub-articles and ...

(6) of the Criminal Code, and he was executed at the

Kommunarka shooting ground The Kommunarka firing range (russian: Расстрельный полигон «Коммунарка»), former dacha of secret police chief Genrikh Yagoda, was used as a burial ground from 1937 to 1941. Executions may have been carried out th ...

soon afterwards. The

Soviet government The Government of the Soviet Union ( rus, Прави́тельство СССР, p=prɐˈvʲitʲɪlʲstvə ɛs ɛs ɛs ˈɛr, r=Pravítelstvo SSSR, lang=no), formally the All-Union Government of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, commonly ab ...

rehabilitated Maly on April 14, 1956.

References

Sources

* John Costello, ''Mask of Treachery'', Warner Books,1990. * Peter Wright, ''Spy Catcher'', Viking Adult, 1987. * Hede Massing, ''This Deception'', Duell, Sloan, and Pearce, 1951. * Alexander Orlov, ''The Secret HIstory of Stalin's Crimes,'' Random House, 1953. * Elisabeth Poretsky, ''Our Own People: A Memoir of Ignace Reiss and Friends'', University of Michigan Press, 1969. * Nigel West and Oleg Tsarev, ''The Crown Jewels: The British Secrets at the Heart of the KGB Archives,'' Yale University Press, 1998. * William E. Duff, ''A Time for Spies: Theodore Stephanovich Mally and the Era of the Great Illegals'', Vanderbilt University Press, 1999. {{DEFAULTSORT:Maly, Theodore 1894 births 1938 deaths People from Timișoara Hungarian communists Hungarian spies for the Soviet Union Great Purge victims from Hungary Executed Soviet people Austro-Hungarian military personnel of World War I Hungarian prisoners of war World War I prisoners of war held by Russia Former Roman Catholics Hungarian emigrants to the Soviet Union Catholic priests convicted of crimes Soviet rehabilitations 20th-century Hungarian Roman Catholic priests Majors of State Security