serviceyears death_date children allegiance birth_date alma_mater codename death_place imagesize spouse image name occupation death_cause caption birth_place award article_title birth_name
1919 -- 1937 1937 1899 roman soviet union 1899 faculty of law , university of vienna ignace ludwik ludwig hans eberhardt steff brandt walter scott reiss ignatz reiss ignatius s. reiss ignace poretsky lausanne , switzerland 160px elsa `` elisabeth k. poretsky , '' aka `` elsa reiss bernaut '' -rrb- -lrb- aka `` else bernaut '' aka ignaz reiss soviet union.jpg ignace reiss spy strangulation and/or machine gun ignace reiss podwołoczyska austria-hungary -lrb- pidvolochysk -rrb- , then in galicia , order of the red banner ignace reiss
 nathan markovic poreckij
ignace reiss

ignace reiss -lrb- 1899 -- 1937 -rrb- -- aka `` ignace poretsky , '' `` ignatz reiss , '' `` ludwig , '' `` ludwik '' , `` hans eberhardt , '' `` steff brandt , '' nathan poreckij , and `` walter scott -lrb- an officer of the u.s. military intelligence -rrb- '' -- was one of the `` great illegals '' or soviet spies who worked in third party countries where they were n't nationals in the late 1920s and 1930s .
an nkvd team assassinated him in september 1937 near lausanne , switzerland , a few weeks after he declared his defection in a letter addressed to joseph stalin .
he was a lifelong friend of walter krivitsky ; his assassination influenced the timing and method of whittaker chambers ' defection a few months later .
