Spies and diplomats in Bismarck’s Germany: collaboration between military intelligence and the Foreign Office, 1871–1881

Abstract

Hidden in the political archives of the German Foreign Ministry is a treasure trove of documentation concerning the activities of military intelligence in the 1870s. These secret dossiers not only reveal how closely the army’s newly formed Bureau of Military Intelligence worked with Bismarck and his diplomats in the first decade of the Empire’s existence. They also offer new insights into the operations and achievements of the Germany army’s early espionage activities. Up until now, little has been known about these years since all of the relevant archival material was thought to have been destroyed in April 1945. So for the first time, this study is able to tell the closely linked tales of these early German intelligence operations and how they were monitored and used by the diplomats in Berlin. The resulting picture of productive collaboration between soldiers and civilians undermines further the validity of increasingly outdated stereotypes concerning the role of “militarism” in the German Empire.