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Follow on Google News | A British secret agent right in front of the HabsburgsBy: Austrian Science Fund FWF A British secret agent in a monk's habit? "Maurus Alexander Horn or, to use his cover name, Mister Bergström could be described as a predecessor of James Bond", says Claus Oberhauser from the University of Innsbruck. Horn (1762–1820) From diplomat to secret agent Horn's career as a secret agent is now being examined in detail for the first time in the context of the three-year FWF project "Diplomacy from the underground. The remarkable career of Alexander Horn". "Horn was, in fact, involved in trading secret information for the British crown in Linz, Vienna, Prague, Znaim and Frankfurt for around 15 years. His workload was ambitious. He provided two to three written reports to the British Foreign Office every week. A total of around 900 such dispatches exist covering the period 1805 to 1811", says Oberhauser. The project is analysing the political contexts in which Horn's meticulous records were used. Horn also played a role in the Alpenbund, a Tyrolean resistance movement against Napoleon at the time, and as a go-between in obtaining financial support for Andreas Hofer's Tyrolean Uprising from the British. Social networking A skilled and successful networker, Horn obtained his information through his dynamic correspondence with other diplomats, politicians and decision-makers. "The private correspondence will play an important role in the project", says Oberhauser. One important starting point, for example, is the exchange of letters with British nobleman and politician Lord Spencer. The latter supported Horn in his endeavours and he, in turn, obtained rare books, prints and manuscripts from monastery holdings for Lord Spencer. The cultural history of espionage The FWF project also establishes a link with current events in that it explores the amount of leeway available to individual actors, who – then as today – often played and play a double role in the diplomatic service and field of espionage. "The communication between these actors also indicates the networks that existed between them and reflects the correspondents' perceptions of contemporary events. The revealing nature of such correspondence has also been demonstrated, not least, by Wikileaks publications and the current NSA scandal", explains Oberhauser. The project contrasts the belief in a truth or even conspiracy behind official policy-making with the interpretation of the written sources: These can reveal how political actors constructed their concepts of truth and value in relation to political and socio-cultural realities in discourse and attempted to legitimise them. In this way, established narratives as habitual views of familiar historical events like the French Revolution or the Tyrolean Uprising and possible mythical and heroic inventions can be scrutinised with a view to establishing a broader perspective. Personal Details Claus Oberhauser studied historiography, history and German and carried out extensive research visits to Washington, Vanves/Paris, London and Edinburgh. Together with Niels Grüne, he is spokesman for the "Political Communication" Publication: Claus Oberhauser: "Die verschwörungstheoretische Trias" (2013), ISBN: 978-3706553070 End
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