Connecting Intelligence Historians since 1993
2025 IIHA Annual Conference in cooperation with Akademie für Politische Bildung, Tutzing
Tutzing, September 26–28, 2025
Please register with the Akademie für Politische Bildung Tutzing.
Programme 2025:
Friday, 26 September 2025
2.00 pm Arrival, Coffee and Tea
3.00 pm Welcome Address: Michael Mayer & Shlomo Shpiro
3.15 pm Panel 1: Intelligence in Post-War Transition
Chair: Michael Mayer
Dieter Bacher, Ludwig Boltzmann Institute, Graz: Chances, Limits and Rivalries. Czechoslovakian-Hungarian Intelligence Cooperation in Cold War Austria, 1948-1971
Steve Long, Xi‘an Jiaotong-Liverpool University (XJTLU): Anglo-American Covert Operations in Albania, 1949–54: Cooperation and Competition with Yugoslavia
4.30 pm Break
5.00 pm Panel 2: Lessons to Be Learned
Chair: Anna Abelmann, Munich
Russell Traver, Washington, D.C.: A Practitioner’s Perspective on the Limits and Potential of Intelligence
Tugba Yürük Eksioglu, Ankara University: Paying the Price: Turkish Intelligence in Libya and Foreign Policy Miscalculations
6.30 pm Dinner
7.30 pm Bodo Hechelhammer, University of Southern Denmark/BND: The German Services and the Challenge of Intelligence History
Saturday, 27 September 2025
8.00 am Breakfast
9.00 am Young Researchers Forum
Forum A
Chair: Thomas Wegener Friis, University of Southern Denmark, Odense
Nick Miller, University of Edinburgh: The CIA and Kim Il-Sung: Hereditary Succession in Communist Politics
Yuval Peleg, Hebrew University of Jerusalem: The Mossad and the Renewal of Israeli-Zaire Relations in the 1980s
Saoud Al-Eshaq, Oxford University: Iran’s Intelligence Bureau and the West’s Anti-Communist Struggle
Forum B
Chair: Charlotte Backerra, University of Klagenfurt
Katja Højgaard Petersen, University of Southern Denmark, Odense: Guarding Democracy – The Surveillance of Far-Right Extremism by the Landesamt für Verfassungsschutz in West Berlin, 1951-1990
David Shakarishvili, Klaipeda University: Authoritarian Intelligence and the Erosion of Institutional Trust
Ante Gugic & Ante Batistic, Dr. Franjo Tudjman Defense and Security University, Zagreb: Overload and Uncertainty: Intelligence Decision-Making in the 21st Century
Luka Knez, University of Zadar: Hezbollah on Trial: The Role of Yugoslav State Security
10.30 am Break
11.00 am Panel 3: Intelligence Cooperation
Chair: Dieter Bacher
Adrian Hänni, Institut für Zeitgeschichte, Munich: Counter-Terrorism Across the Alps: The Hidden Story of the Club des Cinq
Wolfgang Krieger, University of Marburg: International Intelligence Cooperation: A Neglected Field in Intelligence History
12.30 pm Lunch
2.00 pm Panel 4: Human Intelligence Challenges
Chair: Stephanie Kirchweger
Samantha Newbery, University of Salford: The Human Factor: Using Terrorist Informers in Northern Ireland
Paulette Pepin, University of New Haven: Nicolas Bodington: Betrayer in the Special Operations Executive?
3.30 pm Coffee Break
4.00 pm Panel 5: Intelligence in the Immediate Past
Chair: Gordan Akrap, Dr. Franjo Tudjman Defense and Security University, Zagreb
Shlomo Shpiro, Bar Ilan University: Towards a Theory of Covert Action
János Kemény, Ludovika University of Public Service, Budapest: OSINT and the War in Ukraine
Omid Townsend, King’s College London: Russian Illegals and the Changing Technological Landscape
5.30 pm IIHA Members Meeting
6.30 pm Dinner
Sunday, 28 September 2025
8.00 am Breakfast (Check-Out by 8.45 am)
9.00 am Panel 6: Security and Intelligence
Chair: Thomas Wegener Friis, University of Southern Denmark, Odense
Piia Vuorinen, Tiina Lintunen, University of Turku: People’s Rights vs. National Security: Finnish Security Police in the 1920s
Florian Altenhöher, Berlin: German Intelligence and the Manhattan Project: A What-If Analysis
10.15 am Break
10.30 am Panel 7: Covert History
Chair: Samantha Newbery, University of Salford
Stefanie Kirchweger, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat Gan: From Covert Action to Diplomacy: The Emergence of a Hidden Field
David Chambers, Washington, D.C.: Leo Krzycki and the Legacy of Past Intelligence Knowledge
11.45 am Closing Remarks
12.00 pm Lunch, End of Conference