"Alexander Schmidt": This code name was the beginning of months of research that SPIEGEL, ZDF, STANDARD and the Russian-language platform "The Insider" dedicated to the search for the fugitive ex-Wirecard board member Jan Marsalek.

The reporters probably got closer to the Viennese native than any of their colleagues before.

In the end, they discovered three false identities that Marsalek was supposed to be using in Russia - and numerous indications that the ex-top manager had been in a relationship with Russian intelligence services for many years.

All dubious paths lead to Vienna

Many traces of research converge, once again, in Vienna.

Former Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution Martin Weiss has been considered one of Marsalek's closest advisors for years.

Together with another ex-agent named Egisto Ott, he obtained a lot of information for Marsalek, some of it presumably through illegal access to internal databases.

A list of the people who were supposed to have been questioned contains 309 names, and there are probably a few more.

Marsalek apparently wanted, among other things, information on Austrian management consultants, an ÖVP politician, the publicist Max Zirngast (KPÖ), who was imprisoned in Turkey at the time, or the masterminds of the Ibiza video.

But Kremlin-critical journalist Christo Grozev was also exposed.

Slow clarification

It is now also clear that Marsalek's henchmen were crucially involved in the events that triggered the scandalous house search by the Office for the Protection of the Constitution in 2018, which continues to shake Austria's security to this day.

The picture is somewhat clearer, but many questions still remain unanswered.

However, just like in Germany, the political will for enlightenment seems to be finite.

The Greens and CDU can at least imagine the appointment of a special investigator in the parliamentary control committee.

In Austria, such initiatives or a U-committee on Russia's attempts to influence Austria are not on the agenda, although there is enough to shed light on, from the Marsalek affair to the gas supply contracts between Gazprom and OMV.

However, the three major parties – ÖVP, SPÖ and FPÖ – all have their own problem areas when it comes to these issues, which they would rather not see spread in the election year.

It would be particularly important now to find out as much as possible about the involvement of the domestic authorities and politics with Russia.

So that Austria is no longer seen as Russia's "Trojan horse" in Europe, as investigative journalist and SPIEGEL author Christo Grozev calls it.

Social media moment of the week:

Lena Schilling, the Austrian Green Party's top candidate in the EU elections, fell into the trap set by satirist Peter Klien.

When asked when Norway introduced the euro, Schilling didn't have an answer - but the Nordic state isn't even in the EU.

The result: a lot of malice, sometimes of a sexist and hateful nature.

Stories we recommend to you today:

  • The uncanny double life of Jan Marsalek:

    Research by SPIEGEL, STANDARD, ZDF and “The Insider” reveals how close ex-Wirecard board member Jan Marsalek has been with Russian secret services for a decade.

  • Reconstruction of a crime:

    Three sex workers were killed in a brothel in Vienna.

    The suspected perpetrator is an asylum seeker from Afghanistan who actually wanted to return to his homeland.

    How did the crime come about? 

With best regards from Vienna,


Fabian Schmid, senior editor Investigativ DER STANDARD

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