Need to Know XIII and the 2024 IIHA Annual Conference:
Intelligence in Central and Eastern Europe (Intermarium) and the Soviet (Russian) Factor

Warsaw, October 14–16, 2024

Lech Kaczyński Central History Point of the Institute of National Remembrance, Marszałkowska 107 (entrance from Świętokrzyska Street)

Programme 2024:

14 October 2024

16.00 – 17.30 Young Researchers Forum

Chair: Jacek Tebinka (University of Gdańsk)

Suzanne Freemann (Massachusetts Institute of Technology): Soviet KGB during the Contemporary War in Ukraine: Insights Gained from a Broader Archival Approach

Jesper Jørgensen (University of Southern Denmark/ABM): Intelligence and Activism in the Short 20th Century

Mary Barton (University of Washington): Intelligence and proliferation of small arms in the 1920s

Matteo Giurco (University of Florence): No One, and One Hundred Thous The arduous pursuit of sources for the history of Italian intelligence services

18.00-19.00 Annual meeting IIHA
(members only, there is a possibility to join IIHA during the conference)

15 October 2024

8.00-9.00 Registration

9.00-9.30 Introduction

Karol Nawrocki (President of the Institute of National Remembrance, IPN)

Shlomo Shpiro (Chairman of the International Intelligence History Association, IIHA).

9.30 – 11.15 Panel I: Intelligence in Central and Eastern Europe (Intermarium) and the Soviet (Russian) Factor

Chair: Bernd Schaefer (Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars)

9.30-9.45 Władysław Bułhak (Institute of National Remembrance), Thomas Wegener Friis (University of Southern Denmark): Russian/Soviet Espionage in Intermarium. Past and Present.

9.45-10.00 Tomas Sniegon (Lund University): The Ideology of Chekism’ in the Soviet Union (and Post-Soviet Russia)

10.00-10.15 Mark Kramer (Harvard University): The Soviet KGB and Moscow’s Concerns about Western Attempts to Undermine the USSR

10.15-10.30 Elena Grossfeld (King’s College London): Bio-geese and combat mosquitoes – the revival of KGB’s strategic narratives

10.30-10.45 Barak Bouks/Shlomo Shpiro (Bar-Illan University): Russian and Iranian Intelligence Influence Operations in the Ukraine and Gaza Wars

11.15-11.30 Coffee Break

11.30- 13:00 Panel II: Soviet/Russian Intelligence and Counterintelligence Operations in the Region

Chair: Sylwia Szyc (Institute of National Remembrance)

11.30-11.45 Magdolna Baráth (Historical Archives of the Hungarian State Security): A failed attempt to build a Hungarian-Soviet intelligence network in South-Eastern Europe in the late 1940s

11.45-12.00 Kevin Riehle (Brunel University London): The KGB’s Use of Austria as a Facilitation Venue for Illegals Operations

12.00-12:15 Tomasz Kozłowski (Institute of National Remembrance): From reshuffle to coup d’état. KGB plan to overthrow the First Secretary of the Polish Communist Party in 1981

12.15-12.30 Douglas Selvage (German Federal Archive): Active Measures in Service of Empire: the KGB, its fraternal Organs, and the Intermarium, 1966-1989

13.00- 14.15 Lunch Break

14.15-15.45 Panel III: The Communist intelligence community

Chair: TBA

14.15-14.30 János Kemény (National University of Public Service in Budapest): “The Soviet Files”. The Hungarian (communist) intelligence Looking Eastwards through the West

14.30-14.45 Przemysław Gasztold (Institute of National Remembrance): No Longer Friends, Not Yet Enemies? The Relationship Between Polish and Soviet Military Intelligence, 1989-1990

14.45-15.00 Paul Maddrell (Loughborough University): Big brother, little brother: the Stasi and the MGB/KGB, 1950-1989

15.00-15.15 Nadia Boyadiyeva (Bulgarian Academy of Sciences):  Bulgaria’s Intelligence Connections with the Soviet KGB and GRU

15.45-16.00 Coffee break

16.00-17:15 Panel IV: Lessons in Counterintelligence

Chair: Shlomo Shpiro (Bar-Illan University)

16.00-16:15 Dieter Bacher (Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Research on the Consequences of War): CIC activities against Soviet Intelligence is Cold War Austria 1953 to 1957

16.15-16.30 Benjamin B. Fischer (former CIA chief historian): Master of the Spy Game: Rem Krasilnikov and the Destruction of CIA Moscow Station

16.30-16.45 Ines Reich, Enrico Heitzer (Brandenburg Memorials Foundation): All spies? On persecution practices of the Soviet Secret Services in the years after WWII using the example Soviet Military CounterIntelligence in Potsdam and the Soviet Special Camp No 7/No 1 in Weesow and Sachsenhausen  (1945-1950)

Dinner reception (by invitation only)

16 October 2024

9.00-10.40 Panel V: Intelligence in Intermarium in Interwar period

Chair: Wolfgang Krieger (University of Marburg)

9.00-9.15 Andrejs Gusachenko (University of Latvia): Interaction Between Secret Services and Russian Anti-Bolsheviks in Latvia in the First Half 1920s

9.15-9.30 Igor Kopõtin (Estonian Military Academy): Bureau Cellarius: the Abwehr in the Eastern Baltic on the eve of the Second World War

9.30-9.45 Juho Kotakallio (University of Helsinki):Observing Soviet Russia on the Shores of the Baltic Sea. The Anglo-Finnish Intelligence Cooperation 1918-1939

9.45-10.00 Tilman Lüdke (Arnold Bergstraesser Institut) Near and Middle East Arnold-Bergstraesser-Institut, Soviet Muslim Nationalists in Poland and Beyond: Coveted by Hostile Parties

 

10.40-11.00 Coffee break

11.00 – 12.15 Panel VI: Intelligence and Counterintelligence Operations against Soviet/Russian Intelligence and Russian state and community

Chair: Charlotte Backerra (University of Göttingen)

11.00-11.15 Aiga Bērziņa-Kite (University of Latvia): Political police of the Republic of Latvia 1919-1924: introduction of civilian counterintelligence

11.15-11.30 Mika Sounpää (University of Turku): State Police Counterintelligence Practices and Surveillance of the Russian Émigré community in Finland, 1939-1944

11.30-11.45 Richard Skaife (Lieutenant Colonel (Retired) British Army): German Planning and Intelligence Limitations – Operation Barbarossa

12.15-13.30 Lunch break

13.30-15.00 Panel VII: Soviet/Russian Intelligence Operations in Border Regions (cases)

Chair: Peer Henrik Hansen (Museum Langeland)

13.30-13.45 Zi Yang (Nanyang Technological University): Stalin’s Spies Versus Stalin’s Pawn: The Rise and Recoil of Soviet Influence in Interwar Xinjiang

13.45-14.00 Aleksandar Životić (Belgrade University): Soviet military intelligence and the Kingdom of Yugoslavia (1934-1941)

14.00-14.15 Marek Hańderek (Institute of National Remembrance): The role of Polish intelligence in Soviet intelligence assessment of the situation in People’s China during the Cultural Revolution.

14.15-14.30 Catalin Costea (University of Bucharest): The Soviet Union military intelligence (GRU) activities and its role in the Romanian Revolution

15.00-16.00 End of the conference and the presentation of the next conference venue and idea