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Annual Conference 2025, 26–28 September, Tutzing

2025 IIHA Annual Conference in cooperation with Akademie für Politische Bildung, Tutzing:

Power & Peril: Potentials and Limits of Intelligence

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

Russ 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, 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
Diana M. Popa, Red Sky 4, The Hague: Optimizing Synergy in Intelligence Collaboration
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: Shlomo Shpiro

Samantha Newbery, University of Salford: The Human Factor: Using Terrorist Informers in Northern Ireland
Paulett 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

Paul Schliefsteiner, Austrian Center for Intelligence, Propaganda, and Security Studies, Graz: History Repeating Itself? Ableitinger and Ott in Comparison
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: Michael Wala, Ruhr University Bochum

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