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

Roman Catholic The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics worldwide as of 2025. It is among the world's oldest and largest international institut ...

priest and

Soviet The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

intelligence officer An intelligence officer is a member of the intelligence field 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 r ...

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

NKVD The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (, ), abbreviated as NKVD (; ), was the interior ministry and secret police of the Soviet Union from 1934 to 1946. The agency was formed to succeed the Joint State Political Directorate (OGPU) se ...

and was one of the

Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

's most effective spymasters.

Early life

He was born in

Austria-Hungary Austria-Hungary, also referred to as the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Dual Monarchy or the Habsburg Monarchy, was a multi-national constitutional monarchy in Central Europe#Before World War I, Central Europe between 1867 and 1918. A military ...

in 1894 at Temesvár,

Hungary Hungary is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning much of the Pannonian Basin, 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 and ...

, (now Timișoara,

Romania Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central Europe, Central, Eastern Europe, Eastern and Southeast Europe. It borders Ukraine to the north and east, Hungary to the west, Serbia to the southwest, Bulgaria to the south, Moldova to ...

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

theology Theology is the study of religious belief from a Religion, religious perspective, with a focus on the nature of divinity. It is taught as an Discipline (academia), academic discipline, typically in universities and seminaries. It occupies itse ...

and philosophy. At the outbreak of

World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

he enlisted in the

Austro-Hungarian Army The Austro-Hungarian Army, also known as the Imperial and Royal Army,; was the principal ground force of Austria-Hungary from 1867 to 1918. It consisted of three organisations: the Common Army (, recruited from all parts of Austria-Hungary), ...

. He attended the Military Academy and graduated in December 1915 with the rank of cornet. He was serving as a second lieutenant when he was captured by the

Imperial Russian Army The Imperial Russian Army () was the army of the Russian Empire, active from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was organized into a standing army and a state militia. The standing army consisted of Regular army, regular troops and ...

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

During the war I was a
chaplain A chaplain is, traditionally, a cleric (such as a minister, priest, pastor, rabbi, purohit, or imam), or a lay representative of a religious tradition, attached to a secular institution (such as a hospital, prison, military unit, intellige ...
, 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 and Southeast Europe. Roughly long, it is the third-longest European mountain range after the Urals at and the Scandinavian Mountains ...
. I saw all the horrors, young men with frozen limbs dying in the trenches. 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 exposu ...
. I lost my faith in God and when the
revolution In political science, a revolution (, 'a turn around') is a rapid, fundamental transformation of a society's class, state, ethnic or religious structures. According to sociologist Jack Goldstone, all revolutions contain "a common set of elements ...
broke out I joined the
Bolsheviks The Bolsheviks, led by Vladimir Lenin, were a radical Faction (political), faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP) which split with the Mensheviks at the 2nd Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party, ...
. 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, often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Republic and, from 1922, the Soviet Union. The army was established in January 1918 by a decree of the Council of People ...

in 1918 and participated in the

Russian Civil War The Russian Civil War () was a multi-party civil war in the former Russian Empire sparked by the 1917 overthrowing of the Russian Provisional Government in the October Revolution, as many factions vied to determine Russia's political future. I ...

. 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 Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...

to control two

British Foreign Office The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) is the ministry of foreign affairs and a ministerial department of the government of the United Kingdom. The office was created on 2 September 2020 through the merger of the Foreign an ...

spies: John Herbert King and Ernest Holloway Oldham. 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:

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 that had divulged British secr ...

, Donald Maclean, Guy Burgess, John Cairncross and

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

. Maly also controlled Arthur Wynn, founder of the Oxford spy ring, who had been recruited by Edith Tudor-Hart. 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 MI5 ( Military Intelligence, Section 5), officially the Security Service, is the United Kingdom's domestic counter-intelligence and security agency and is part of its intelligence machinery alongside the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6), Gov ...

could arrange for his arrest. While in England he was involved with fellow spy the Irishman Brian Goold-Verschoyle who delivered documents to Maly from the Foreign Office given to him by John Herbert King.

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 is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Russia by population, largest city of Russia, standing on the Moskva (river), Moskva River in Central Russia. It has a population estimated at over 13 million residents with ...

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 continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...

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 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, Northern and Western Hemisphere, Western hemispheres. North America is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South Ameri ...

in July 1938. Under interrogation, Maly confessed to being a German agent. On September 20, 1938, a tribunal sentenced Maly to death under Article 58 (6) of the Criminal Code, and he was executed at the

Kommunarka shooting ground The Kommunarka firing range (), former dacha of secret police chief Genrikh Yagoda, was used as a burial ground from 1937 to 1941. Executions may have been carried out there by the NKVD during the Great Terror and until the war started; altern ...

soon afterwards. The

Soviet government The Government of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) was the executive and administrative organ of the highest body of state authority, the All-Union Supreme Soviet. It was formed on 30 December 1922 and abolished on 26 December 199 ...

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 World War I chaplains