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Concept
Alexander Radó
Summary
Alexander Radó (5 November 1899, Újpest, near Budapest – 20 August 1981, Budapest), also: Alex, Alexander Radolfi, Sándor Kálmán Reich or Alexander Rado, was a Hungarian cartographer who later became a Soviet military intelligence-agent in World War II. Radó (codename "DORA") was also a member of the resistance ( Widerstandskämpfer) to Nazi Germany, devoted to the service of the so-called Red Orchestra, the Soviet espionage and spy network in Western Europe between 1933 and 1945. Within the Red Orchestra he headed the Switzerland-based Red Three group, one of the most efficient components of the Soviet intelligence network.
Radó was born into a middle-class Jewish family in Újpest, at the time an industrial suburb of Budapest. His father ( Gábor Reich) was first a clerk at a trading firm and later became a wealthy businessman through the ownership of a small timber works. His mother was Malvina Rado. He had two siblings, a brother Ferenc Rado (Francis Radó) and a sister Erzsébet Klein (Elizabeth Klein) . As a six-year old, Radó was presented with a book about a trip to Japan on the trans-siberian railway. The book contained a page that folded out into a map of the Russian Empire. The vision of the map made an indelible impression on Radó that began an interest in maps and mapmaking that would last his whole life. As a child, Radó attended school at a Budapest "gymnasium" and would travel to Italy and Austria for his summer holidays. While at school, he became interested in politics in 1912, due to him witnessing the suppression of a unemployed workers demonstration by the police. During this teenage years this developed into Radó becoming devoted communist and he became part of a small socialist group that included Mátyás Rákosi and Ernő Gerő. Rákosi and Gerő would later become leading functionaries in the Hungarian Communist Party.
In 1917, Radó was drafted into the Austro-Hungarian army. His parents managed to use their influence to ensure Radó was posted as a junior staff officer in artillery stationed at the barracks of Fortress Artillery in Budapest.
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