Nadolny in 1933
Rudolf Nadolny was the son of the landowner August Nadolny and his wife Agnes (Nee Drinker), and was born at Lötzen in Upper Stürlack
Nadolny attended the grammar school and high school in Lötzen in Rastenburg. After high school Nadolny served as one-year volunteer with the Grenadier-Regiment Friedrich Wilhelm I. No. 3 in Rastenburg.
1896 Then he took his degree in law from the University of Koenigsberg on. There he became a member of the VDST fraternity. After graduating in the fall of 1896 he was clerk at the District Court in the small town on the Rhine .
1901 After his second state examination in the summer of 1901 Nadolny worked as judge in Konigsberg circuit.
1902 Apr. He was called to the Foreign Office in Berlin.
1903 . His diplomatic career began as vice consul in the Consulate General in St. Petersburg .
1905 Nadolny married Aenny Matthiesen. They had three children: Burkhard , Ursula and Anorte.
1907 he went back to the Foreign Ministry, where he served as Counsellor in charge of trade policy.
1912 to 1914 he took over diplomatic missions in Iran , Bosnia and Albania .
1914 At the outbreak of World War I , he joined the army, first as adjutant to the 5th Grenadier Guards regiment. His task was the monitoring of detainees in Ruhleben.
In the autumn of 1914 he was in the news department of the Deputy Chiefs of Staff and then in the spring of 1915 appointed as head the newly formed Section on the General Staff of the Field Army. Anothe reference is to him as the Chief of " Sektion Politik " of the General Staff
He seems to have been in Dept IIIb in Mar 1916 Though the CIA website says that Rudolf Nadolny directed Sektion P, the German military’s sabotage department, and not Sektion IIIb, the military intelligence service
Other sources say Nadolny was the director of Abteilung IIIb from September 1914 until July 1916 was Rudolf Nadolny while intelligence operations were under the command of the relatively inexperienced but capable Walther Nicolai.
1915 Jan 25. Sabotage cable sent
He seems to have been based at Bamberger Strasse in Berlin
1916 Feb. A conference took place at which Captains Nadolny and Marguerre of Section III B, and Herrmann, Dilger, and Hilken were present. Nadolny was one of the heads of Section III B. One of his major duties was to act as liaison officer with the Foreign Office in order to harmonize secret service work with Germany's foreign policy. At this conference, Nadolny and Marguerre brought up the subject of the destruction of munitions plants in the United States. Marguerre and Nadolny then showed them a new incendiary device. This consisted of a slender glass tube drawn to capillary dimensions in the center. The top part of the tube contained sulphuric acid; the bottom half a mixture of chlorate of potash and sugar.
1916 Jul. Nadolny was in the Foreign Office as charge d'affaires to Kermanshah and sent to Persia, where he opened the embassy. The German government supported the "provisional Iranian government" led by Reza Khan Nezam al QOLIE Saltaneh . Nadolny was to ensure the independence of Iran against a background of the Anglo-Russian invasion of Iran by Russian and British troops. Nadolny organized the financial and military support to the Persian Gendarmerie under the command of Colonel Pesyan and financial backing of William Wassmuss who had built up a resistance movement against the British forces..
1917 Mar the German embassy in Kermanshah had to be abandoned, whereupon even the Iranian resistance against the Russian and British troops broke down. After the dissolution of the embassy Nadolny re turned to Berlin and was until 1919 Eastern policy adviser for the Foreign Office. In the peace negotiations with the Bolsheviks, which were ended with the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, Nadolny was a part of the negotiating delegation, led by Richard von Kuhlmann.
In the Weimar Republic he was appointed chief of the office of Reich President Friedrich Ebert.
In January 1920 he was appointed to the Minister in Stockholm .
From 1924 to 1933 he was ambassador in Turkey .
1932/1933 Nadolny also led the German delegation at the Geneva Conference on Disarmament of the League of Nations .
Nadolny was awarded in August 1933, the ambassadorship in Moscow. He did not agree with the anti-Soviet foreign policy of the Nazi government. From then on he devoted himself to farming on his property Briesen in Uckermark and on his orchard at Katharinenhof Gransee in Upper Havel .
After the Second World War, Nadolny was committed to national unity of Germany. At the request of leaders of the German Red Cross, he took over in June 1945 the reorganization of the DRC. When the Allied occupation forces disbanded the DRC in October 1945, Nadolny resigned as chairman of the DRC.
From 1949, Nadolny lived in Rhöndorf and he died at the age of 79 in a hospital in Dusseldorf-Benrath .