Вальтер Николай: от историографического мифа к источникам = Walter Nicolai: From Historiographical Myth to Sources

Baranov, Nikolay (2024) Вальтер Николай: от историографического мифа к источникам = Walter Nicolai: From Historiographical Myth to Sources. RUSSIANSTUDIES.HU, 6 (2). pp. 41-62. ISSN 2677-0660

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Abstract

Military intelligence history (MILINT) is a relatively young academic focus of historical research that still remains on the margins in history studies. Both in mass media and history writings, the obscure activities of intelligence services always seem to demand some kind of personification in order to provide a ‘face’ to murky organizations. A prominent spy or an important consumer of intelligence might fulfill this function. Most often, however, he has been a chief of a particular service. In the case of Colonel Walter Nicolai, who was in charge of Germany’s most important military intelligence department, Abteilung IIIb, from 1914 to 1918, he does not provide a very clearcut image of his organization. In fact, Nicolai’s personality must be sought somewhere between a mysterious intelligence figure and a uniformed clerk. It is also somewhere between these extremes that one can find a clue to a decisive phase of Germany’s military intelligence history. Nicolai’s personal papers, which constitute the most complete and informative set of unpublished sources, are now stored in the Russian State Military Archive (RGVA. F. 1414 k) and are available to researchers. Unfortunately, a significant part of these sources has not yet been put into academic circulation. This paper comprises three parts. In the first part, the personality and activities of Walter Nicolai are considered in the historiographical context. The second part is devoted to the characteristics of his archival heritage. The third part is the first Russian translation of a small extract from Nicolai’s papers. The text contains the author’s assessment of two women associated with German military intelligence – Mata Hari and Elisabeth Schragmüller. It may shed light on one of the rare stories in the gender history of the Great War.

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