@article{ref1,
title="Celebrity suicide of a pre-World War I spy",
journal="Crisis",
year="2021",
author="Arendt, Florian and Mestas, Manina",
volume="ePub",
number="ePub",
pages="ePub-ePub",
abstract="BACKGROUND: Alfred Redl, a colonel in the Imperial and Royal General Staff and Deputy Director of Military Intelligence for the Austro-Hungarian Empire, was a leading figure of pre-World War I spying. The &quot;spy of the century,&quot; as he has been called, died by suicide in Vienna on May 25, 1913. It was a big news story based on espionage, sex, and betrayal. <br><br>AIM: We aimed to test whether this celebrity suicide elicited an increase in suicides - a phenomenon consistent with the &quot;Werther effect.&quot; Method: Given daily suicide numbers were not available, we conducted archival research. Civil death registers for the city of Vienna were used to identify suicides before and after Redl's suicide. <br><br>RESULTS: The analysis indicated that more people died by suicide in the immediate aftermath and that the quantity of news reporting on Colonel Redl predicted the number of suicides per day - a pattern that is consistent with the Werther effect. Limitations: Causal interpretations are limited. <br><br>CONCLUSION: Given the fact that the &quot;Redl affair&quot; is relevant for many scientific disciplines, we discuss multiple contributions to suicide research, history, media research, and research on intelligence and counter-intelligence.<p /> <p>Language: en</p>",
language="en",
issn="0227-5910",
doi="10.1027/0227-5910/a000762",
url="http://dx.doi.org/10.1027/0227-5910/a000762"
}