Current Issue

Intelligence, Media, and Terrorism:
Imperial Germany and the Middle East
by SHLOMO SHPIRO -- abstract

When the German Kaiser Wilhelm II visited the Orient in 1898, the ambiguous interaction based on conflict and cooperation between ‘open media’ and ‘secret intelligence’ for the first time was brought to the international arena. The German secret field police (Geheime Feldpolizei), created after a failed attempt at Bismarck’s life in 1866, and headed by Dr. Wilhelm Stieber, played an important role in this episode. It was to protect the monarchy, to censor the developing German press (which was perceived as a potential political threat), and to supply information independently of the Army General Staff. It soon was discovered that the foreign press, in fact, was a useful source of information, and at the same time, could be used for propaganda. With the announcement of the Kaiser’s visit to the Orient and the murder of the popular Austrian Empress Elisabeth, a frenzy of intelligence and media activity was triggered. Journals all over Europe commented on the Kaiser’s journey – the British and the French being less enthused about the intrusion into their spheres of influence – , and anarchist reporters traveled to the places that Wilhelm II was expected to visit. Because of an impressive international intelligence cooperation, in which the German secret services were the first to realize the potential of modern media as a source of information as well as an tool for control, any assassination attempts that may have been planned, suppressed at the very outset.