The grandfather of the famous spy Jan Marsalek was also a spy

Meeting in Marienbad

December 26, 1964. A man checks into a hotel in the Czech spa town of Mariánské Lázně (better known by its German name, Marienbad). From the outside, it looks like a typical Christmas holiday at the healing waters. But the real purpose of his visit is quite different. Three days later, he meets with an employee of the Czechoslovak state security (StB). The meeting has been in the works for months, and even his companion, with whom he arrived, has no idea.

The two men sat together in a hotel room for four hours, and ten days later, another meeting took place. The guest fully lives up to his Czech operational pseudonym—Zvědavý Pán, which translates to "Curious Gentleman." "The meeting achieved its goal," will later be recorded in a special services report.

And about the agent himself, they will write:

"A willing and honest employee who always helps us when the opportunity arises." A 50-year-old native of Vienna, a former police officer and current official of the Austrian Ministry of the Interior, "completed the task in full." As a token of gratitude, he receives a bottle of plum brandy. His real name is Hans Marsalek.

Two Sides of One Life

Hans Marsalek was born in Vienna in 1914 to a Czech family. He joined the socialist youth. When, after the Anschluss of Austria, he was drafted into the Wehrmacht, the man fled to Prague, where he joined the anti-Nazi underground. In 1941, Hans was arrested by the Gestapo and sent to the Mauthausen concentration camp, where he became a camp clerk.

Thanks to his records, which documented the crimes of the Nazis, Marsalek was nicknamed the "chronicler of Mauthausen." Ten years before his death, in 2001, he was awarded the Honorary Decoration for Services to the Republic of Austria.

Павялічыць

After the war, Hans Marsalek participated in the creation of a new internal intelligence agency—the Vienna State Police, which was located in the Soviet occupation zone. Ironically, he was responsible there for... counterintelligence.

It was at this time, in 1946, that his first contact with Czechoslovak intelligence took place. But after four meetings, cooperation was terminated due to suspicions that he might be exposed.

This is evidenced by documents from his personal file, which Die Zeit journalists found in the archive of Czech security services in Prague. It contains more than 500 pages.

According to the documents, Marsalek was re-recruited in 1961. The meetings always took place on the territory of Czechoslovakia, most often in Marienbad, where he could come under the guise of treating rheumatism and kidney disease.

The most surprising thing is that Hans is the grandfather of Jan Marsalek, the most wanted man in Europe, who is suspected of stealing billions in the German concern Wirecard and who also spied for Eastern intelligence services.

The Work of the "Curious Gentleman"

As Die Zeit writes, at the time of the meeting in Marienbad in 1964, Hans Marsalek had been spying for Czechoslovakia for three years. As an employee of the Austrian Ministry of the Interior, until 1963 he held the position of criminal investigator, and later—director of the Mauthausen Memorial.

As an employee of the criminal police, he performed a wide range of tasks: he searched databases for people of interest to intelligence, selected candidates for recruitment in the state apparatus, and transmitted secret information from the police and the ministry—from information about shelters to passport data.

According to historian Sabine Nachbauer, who studied the Marsalek case, "This information could be used to find people, recruit informants, or infiltrate agents." It was from the 1960s that Czechoslovak special services began to work more actively not only against Western intelligence, but also directly against Austria and its institutions.

Marsalek was extremely useful. At the height of the Cold War, he supplied information from the very heart of the Austrian security apparatus: about the army, internal affairs of the police, counterintelligence resources.

When his handler asked him whether the Austrian state security was systematically monitoring the employees of the embassies of socialist countries, Marsalek replied in the negative, explaining that it "does not have the resources for this due to the general state of affairs and limited resources."

Motives: Ideology or Revenge?

What made the Resistance hero spy? Historian Sabine Nachbauer, who studies the activities of Czechoslovak special services in Austria during the Cold War, believes that "a high degree of willingness to take risks and ideological conviction" were necessary for such work.

This is confirmed by the fact that Marsalek categorically refused money (with the exception of a one-time sum of 1000 crowns), saying, as recorded in one of the documents: "We are working on one front for one cause."

However, there could also be personal motives. The influence of communists on the Austrian police was rapidly decreasing. At one of the meetings, Marsalek complained to his handler that he was being passed over for promotion because he was a member of the Communist Party of Austria. Thus, perhaps he was driven not only by ideology, but also by a sense of revenge. At the same time, there is no indication in the case that he was coerced or blackmailed.

Did Grandfather's History Influence Grandson?

Historian Thomas Riegler in the Austrian State Archives found a case on Hans Marsalek, according to which even in the 1950s there was a "strong suspicion" that the man, being an employee of the state police, was transferring documents to the Soviet occupation authorities. It is assumed that it was this information that led to the abduction of four people. Two of them were spies of the Wehrmacht, another was a source of the Americans. However, the case never went beyond suspicions.

Павялічыць

Riegler believes that "the biography of the grandfather is the key to understanding the motives of Jan Marsalek and his passion for espionage. As if someone is following in someone else's footsteps." Even the name "Jan" is a Czech version of the name "Hans."

And even if no one in the family knew about the secret of the grandfather, it was certainly known that Hans Marsalek worked in counterintelligence after the war and often traveled around the Eastern Bloc.

The family is silent about this. Jan's mother declined to comment. However, it is known that Jan was very proud of his grandfather as a hero of the Resistance, although he never mentioned his possible espionage activities.

Ten Years of Work

According to archival documents, Hans Marsalek's cooperation with Czechoslovak intelligence lasted about ten years. Interestingly, in 1968 he openly supported the "Prague Spring," but even after the introduction of Soviet tanks, he continued to be considered a "loyal friend of the CSSR."

A key moment in Hans Marsalek's spy career occurred in 1963. Before that, he was a policeman, which gave him access to valuable information. But in 1963, he was transferred to the Ministry of the Interior to the position of head of the Mauthausen Memorial Complex. Although Marsalek repeatedly promised his handler to return to the police service, this never happened. As a result, Czechoslovak intelligence began to gradually lose interest in him.

Павялічыць

The special services used his new status and international contacts several more times. Under the guise of participating in meetings of the International Committee of Mauthausen Prisoners, he traveled to Brussels and Antwerp, where, according to the case files, he had to look for opportunities to spy on Western armies and even try to "penetrate the NATO center."

In 1970, cooperation was terminated. At the last meeting in Marienbad, as stated in the case file, "the service thanked him for his cooperation and presented the informant with a small farewell gift." What this gift was, the documents do not specify.

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