Are there any female intelligence officers in history? The most famous spies in history. Famous female spies from the Old Testament
Once upon a time, women were considered weak creatures and good for nothing. This is what gave them excellent cover for espionage activities. “Women have a clear advantage in covert wars because they are able to multitask,” Tamir Pardo, head of the Israeli national intelligence agency Mossad, told Israeli publication Lady Globes...
I have a friend who can look her husband straight in the eye, and even under the pressure of irrefutable evidence, swear that, for example, this handbag was bought at an incredibly huge discount (which is not true).
Another has the password to her boyfriend’s email and access to his profiles on social networks, while he himself, naturally, is blissfully unaware of the monitoring of his every virtual step by a seemingly inexperienced girlfriend in technology.
When I chat with my friend Jimmy, he kindly explains that they are “angels in disguise.” “Women,” he says, “are born with an extra helix in their DNA. Men can run around with their gadgets, while women have an antenna built into them. He's a natural spy."
Russian spy disguised as a city and country woman
As humorous as Jimmy's explanation may sound, there is something to it.
Last week, in a somewhat shocking departure from normal protocol, the head of Israel's national intelligence agency, the Mossad, took a moment to speak positively about female agents. “Women have a clear advantage in secret wars because they are able to multitask,” Tamir Pardo told Israeli publication Lady Globes. He also added that women are "better role players" and are superior to men when it comes to "suppressing the ego to achieve operational objectives."
“Women assess situations better. Contrary to stereotypes, women are superior to men when it comes to understanding territory, reading situations, or spatial awareness. If they are good, they are excellent.
In popular culture, we are forced to believe that popular spy protagonists are men like James Bond or Jason Bourne, promoting the myth that the best spies are men, with women doing their part by acting primarily as honey traps.
Prado's merit lies in the fact that he significantly raised the role of women in perhaps one of the most dangerous professions on Earth. "We're all afraid," he said. “Fear does not take into account gender differences.”
A young Israeli, Simone Cohen, told me: “When I was serving, I noticed that most of the instructors were women. When I asked why, I was told that women have a greater impact because they seem to be better students...”
One of the CIA's most closely guarded secrets
Lindsay Moran worked for the CIA for five years. Having been trained at the infamous "Farm" in techniques such as surveillance, counter-surveillance, and survival techniques such as weapons handling, and defensive driving [driving backwards while looking only in the rearview mirror], she was then sent to Eastern Europe on a recruiting mission. agents to receive and transmit intelligence to the CIA.
She told me that the CIA's best-kept secret was that the agency's best operatives were women. “The women I trained with and later served with were the best recruiters of the foreign agents who are the cornerstone of intelligence work.”
So what makes women the best in this profession?
People skills
The ability to easily make friends, read people - determine their motivations and weaknesses. “When we are trained to 'identify and evaluate' potential sources, it all comes naturally to women. I felt like I had been doing this my whole life,” Lindsey explains.
Applied acumen versus physical strength
Contrary to popular belief that you need to be physically fit to outwit the enemy, it is actually a matter of being able to identify the danger posed by a person or situation, in other words, being smart, which is the key to survival in an operational environment.
“Women are already determined to ensure the safety of their environment. We are always on the alert for dangerous situations, and we are on the lookout for suspicious types, for people who may be following us. We compensated for the “weakness of our sex” by developing “applied cunning.”
Women have a "nurturing instinct"
The officer's main activity - which is just a technical term for an agent or spy - is the processing of foreign assets, or "sources." You could even say that it differs little from the maternal role. “You train your sources to keep themselves safe. Often, you have to deal with not the most reliable and changeable people - whose behavior is similar to that of a child - and you must protect them from all kinds of misfortunes.”
Women are the best listeners
Handling an agent requires listening to their problems and concerns. “Many of the men in my group were taught how to listen or how to receive information. It comes naturally to us women,” says Lindsey.
Female spies love to invent operational legends
She says women always have the advantage of creating plausible explanations for why they might want to meet a man in a parked car, in a hotel room or in the secluded area of a restaurant on the outskirts of town. “The standard legend is that we are in a relationship. This is plausible under any circumstances anywhere in the world.”
This is the reality of spy games for women. As for the movies, let's just wait until the movie James is replaced by some Jane...
Famous spies
The most famous spy of all time is Mata Hari(1876-1917). Her real name is Margarita Gertrude Celle.
As a child, she managed to get a good education, as her father was rich. The girl lived for 7 years in an unhappy marriage on the island of Java with her drinking and dissolute husband. Returning to Europe, the couple divorced. To earn a living, Margarita begins a career first as a circus rider, and then as an oriental dancer. Interest in the East, ballet and erotica was so great that Mata Hari became one of the celebrities of Paris.
The dancer was recruited by German intelligence before the war, and during it she began to collaborate with the French. The woman needed money to cover her gambling debts. It is still not known for certain what high-ranking fans told her, and what Mata Hari conveyed as an agent.
However, in 1917 she was captured by the French military, who quickly sentenced her to death. On October 15, the sentence was carried out. The true reason for the artist’s death may have been her numerous connections with high-ranking French politicians, which could have affected their reputation.
Most likely, the role of Mata Hari as a spy is exaggerated, but the dramatic plot of the seductive agent attracted the interest of cinema.
Bell Boyd(1844-1900) better known by her nickname La Belle Rebelle. During the American Civil War, she was a spy for the southern states. The woman passed on all the information she received to General Stonewall Jackson. No one could have suggested espionage activity in the innocent questions of the soldiers of the Northern States Army.
There is a known case when on May 23, 1862, in Virginia, it was Boyd who crossed the front line in front of the northerners to report on the impending offensive. The spy was shot from rifles and cannons. However, the woman dressed in a blue dress and cap was not afraid.
When the woman was captured for the first time, she was only 18 years old. However, thanks to a prisoner exchange, Boyd was freed. But a year later she was arrested again. This time a link awaited her. In her diaries, the spy wrote that she was guided by the motto: “Serve my country until my last breath.”
Pauline Cushman(1833-1893). And the northerners had their own spies. Polina Cushman was an American actress; she also did not remain indifferent during the war. And she was eventually caught and sentenced to death. However, the woman was later pardoned. With the end of the war, she began to travel around the country, talking about her activities and exploits.
Yoshiko Kawashima(1907-1948). Yoshiko was a hereditary princess, a member of the royal family of Japan. The girl got so used to someone else’s role that she loved to dress in men’s clothing and had a mistress.
As a member of the imperial family, she had direct access to the representative of the royal Chinese dynasty, Pu Yi. In the 1930s, he was about to become the ruler of the province of Manchuria, a new state under Japanese control.
In essence, Pu Yi would become a puppet in the hands of the cunning Kawashima. At the last moment, the monarch decided to refuse this honorary title. After all, it would be she who would essentially rule the entire province, listening to Tokyo’s orders.
But the girl turned out to be more cunning - she placed poisonous snakes and bombs in the royal bed in order to convince Pu Yi of danger. He eventually succumbed to Yoshiko’s persuasion and in 1934 became Emperor of Manchuria.
Amy Elizabeth Thorpe(1910-1963). This woman was engaged in more than just diplomatic activities in Washington. The intelligence officer's career began with her marriage to the second secretary of the American embassy. He was 20 years older than Amy, she traveled with him around the world, not hiding her numerous novels.
The husband did not mind, because he was an agent of British intelligence - his wife’s entertainment helped to obtain information. After the unexpected death of her husband, agent “Cynthia” heads to Washington, where she continues to help the country with cheap temptation and bribery. The Englishwoman used her bed to obtain valuable information from French and Italian employees and officers.
Her most famous spy trick was opening the French ambassador's safe. Through skillful actions, she was able to do this and copy the naval code, which later helped the Allied troops to land in North Africa in 1942.
Gabriela Gast(b. 1943). This woman studied politics at a good school, but after visiting the GDR in 1968, she was recruited by intelligence officers there. The woman simply fell in love with the handsome blond Schneider, who turned out to be a Stasi agent. In 1973, Gabriela managed to get a position in the German Federal Intelligence Service in Pullach.
In fact, she was a spy for the GDR, passing on the secrets of Western Germany for 20 years. Communication with Schneider continued throughout this time. Gabriela had the pseudonym "Leinfelder", during her service she managed to climb the career ladder to a senior government official.
The agent was exposed only in 1990. The following year she was sentenced to 6 years and 9 months in prison. Having been released in 1998, Gast now works in an ordinary Munich engineering office.
Ruth Werner(1907-2000). The German communist Ursula Kuczynski was already actively involved in political activities in her youth. However, after marrying an architect, she was forced to move to Shanghai in 1930. It was then that the Soviet secret services recruited her, giving her the pseudonym “Sonya.”
Ruth collected information for the USSR in China, collaborating with Richard Sorge. The husband had no idea what his wife was really doing. In 1933, the woman took a special course at an intelligence school in Moscow, then returned to China and continued collecting valuable data.
Then there was Poland, Switzerland, England... Sonya's informants even served in the intelligence services of the United States and Europe. Thus, with its help, invaluable information was obtained about the creation of an atomic bomb in the United States directly from the project engineers!
Since 1950, Werner lived in the GDR, writing several books there, including the autobiographical “Sonya Reports.” It is curious that twice Ruth went on missions with other intelligence officers, who, only according to impeccable documents, were listed as her husbands. However, over time, they really became like that, out of love.
Violetta Jabot(1921-1945). This Frenchwoman was already a widow at the age of 23; she decided to join the ranks of British intelligence. In 1944, the woman was sent to occupied France on a secret mission.
She landed by parachute. At the destination, Violetta not only transmitted data on the number and location of enemy forces to headquarters, but also carried out a number of sabotage actions. The April part of the tasks was completed, the woman returned to London, where her little daughter was waiting for her.
In June, Jabot is back in France, but now the mission ends in failure - her car is detained, the ammunition for the shootout runs out... However, the girl was captured and sent to the Ravensbrück concentration camp, which became famous for its brutal torture and medical experiments on prisoners.
Having gone through a series of tortures, Violetta was executed in February 1945, just a few months short of the Victory. As a result, she became only the second woman in history to be posthumously awarded the St. George Cross (1946). Later, the intelligence officer was awarded the Military Cross and the Medal for Resistance.
Josephine Baker(1906-1975). This American woman's real name was Frieda Josephine MacDonald. Her parents were a Jewish musician and a black laundress. Because of her origin, she herself suffered a lot - already at the age of 11 she learned what a pogrom in the ghetto was.
In America, Baker was not liked because of the color of her skin, but in Europe she gained fame during the Parisian tour of the Revue Negre in 1925. An unusual woman walked around Paris with a panther on a leash, she was nicknamed "Black Venus". Josephine married an Italian adventurer, thanks to which she acquired the title of count. However, her place of activity remained the Moulin Rouge, and she also starred in erotic films. As a result, the woman made a great contribution to the development and promotion of all types of black culture.
From left to right: Regina Renchon ("Tigy"), wife of Georges Simenon, Simenon himself, Josephine Baker and her first husband, Count Pepito Abbitano. It is unknown who is fifth at the table. And there’s probably a waiter, always ready to pour some champagne.
In 1937, Baker easily renounced her American citizenship in favor of French, but then the war began. Josephine became actively involved in the action, becoming a spy for the French resistance. She often visited the front and even trained to be a pilot and received the rank of lieutenant. She also financially supported the underground. After the end of the war, she continued to dance and sing, acting in television series along the way.
Baker devoted the last 30 years of her life to raising children whom she adopted in different countries of the world. As a result, a whole rainbow family of 12 children lived in her French castle - a Japanese, a Finnish, a Korean, a Colombian, an Arab, a Venezuelan, a Moroccan, a Canadian and three Frenchmen and a resident of Oceania. It was a kind of protest against the policies of racism in the United States.
For her services to her second homeland, the woman was awarded the Order of the Legion of Honor and the Military Cross. At her funeral, official military honors were provided on behalf of the country - it was carried out with 21 rifle salvos. In the history of France, she was the first woman of foreign origin whose memory was honored in this way.
Nancy Wake(Grace Augusta Wake) (b. 1912). The woman was born in New Zealand, and unexpectedly received a rich inheritance, she moved first to New York and then to Europe. In the 1930s, she worked as a correspondent in Paris, denouncing the spread of Nazism.
With the German invasion of France, the girl and her husband joined the ranks of the Resistance, becoming its active member. Nancy had the following nicknames and pseudonyms: “White Mouse”, “Witch”, “Madame Andre”. She and her husband helped Jewish refugees and Allied soldiers cross the country. Afraid of being caught, Nancy left the country herself, ending up in London in 1943.
There she was trained as a professional intelligence officer and returned to France in April 1944. In the Overan area, the intelligence officer was involved in organizing the supply of weapons, as well as recruiting new members of the Resistance. Nancy soon learned that her husband had been shot by the Nazis, who demanded that he indicate the location of the woman.
The Gestapo promised 5 million francs for her head. As a result, Nancy returns to London. Post-war she was awarded the Order of Australia and the George Medal. Wake published her autobiography, White Mouse, in 1985.
Christine Keeler(b. 1943). The former British model, by the will of fate, turned out to be a “call girl”. In the 60s, it was she who provoked a political scandal in England, called the Profumo Affair. Christine herself acquired the nickname Mata Hari of the 60s.
While working in a topless cabaret, she simultaneously entered into a relationship with the British Minister of War John Profumo and the USSR naval attache Yevgeny Ivanov. However, one of the beauty’s ardent admirers pursued her so persistently that the police, and later journalists, became interested in this case.
It turned out that Christine was extracting secrets from the minister, then selling them to her other lover. During the loud scandal that broke out, Profumo himself resigned, soon the Prime Minister, and then the Conservatives lost the elections. The minister, left without work, was forced to get a job as a dishwasher, while Christine herself earned even more money - after all, the beautiful spy was so popular with journalists and photographers.
There are many women's names in the history of intelligence activities. Famous female spies included gifted writers, excellent translators, wonderful actresses, and businesswomen. Not all of them were natural beauties, but in love, marriage, diplomacy, intelligence, creativity and much more, they were head and shoulders above other representatives of the fair sex. They lived at different times, they had different destinies, and the results of their activities were sometimes ambiguous. The only thing that unites them is love for the Fatherland.
It’s easy for us to imagine this woman. According to contemporaries, the princess served as the prototype for Countess Helen Bezukhova from the novel War and Peace. Skavronskaya-Bagration wore her blond hair around her head in the shape of the handles of a Greek amphora, had a thin figure, alabaster-white shoulders, and was slightly myopic. Until old age, she remained a coquette and, already confined to a wheelchair, wore open gauze dresses.
The famous French historian Albert Vandal directly pointed out that Ekaterina Pavlovna was engaged in diplomatic espionage in favor of Russia. The archives are mostly silent on this matter. However, there is indirect evidence. The first private holiday that Alexander I attended in Vienna, occupied by Russian troops, was a ball given by the countess in honor of the Emperor...
The wife of Major General Bagration, betrothed to him by Emperor Paul I himself, inherited beauty and coquetry from her mother, and eccentricity and a penchant for extravagance from her father. The Skavronskys descended from the Latvian serf Karl Samuilovich, who received the title of count thanks to his sister Martha, who became Empress Catherine I. Although for a representative of the ancient Bagration family, marriage with the great-granddaughter of a serf was a misalliance, by that time the Skavronskys were already firmly part of the Russian elite.
It was difficult for the hospitable prince to support his motley wife on his salary alone, however, they did not live together for long - the war began. Shortly before the Battle of Austerlitz, Ekaterina Pavlovna moved to Vienna, where she moved in a circle of learned men and in a whirlwind of great society. The Parisian newspaper Moniteur wrote in those days. that the princess's house became the center of a better society.
The salon of the princess, who loved to talk about politics, was visited by sovereigns and crowned heads, including the Prince de Ligne, as well as the great poet Johann Wolfgang Goethe. At the same time, those around knew about the hostess’s anti-Napoleonic views.
In Vienna she became the mistress of the Austrian statesman Clemens Metternich. In 1803, they had a daughter, whom the diplomat recognized as his own. In 1806, the Prussian Prince Ludwig became seriously interested in the princess, who broke off relations with Princess Solms because of his Russian passion. True, the prince soon died in battle, and Bagration’s wife returned to Vienna again. Modern historians are baffled by evidence that the princess, together with General Bagration, opposed Metternich. What is this - patriotism or jealousy? Or maybe a mystery from the history of espionage?
By the way, while living in Paris, the princess remarried Lord Gowden, from whom she soon divorced, demanding that during the divorce she retain the surname of her first husband. It is known that until his death on the Borodino field, the general not only did not hold a grudge against his wife, but also... did not consider her divorced from him! Despite the vicissitudes of family life, Prince Bagration was offended that his wife did not receive the Order of St. Catherine at the same time that he was awarded the Order of St. Andrew the First-Called Apostle. It’s interesting to know: for what merit?
In the West, the double agent of the GPU and the British Intelligence Service was called the Russian Milady. Countess Zakrevskaya, Countess Benckendorff, Baroness Budberg are one woman, and her last names are not underground nicknames or spy pseudonyms.
Born Maria Ignatievna Zakrevskaya, she was the daughter of a Senate official, but she wanted more: to become a Russian aristocrat. However, Mura's first husband, to her disappointment, made a mistake. The Baltic nobleman Ivan Benckendorf never had the title of count and was distantly related to the chief of the gendarmes. And only her second marriage turned the adventuress into a real Baroness Budberg. She will complete her life’s journey under this surname, but will separate from her husband almost on the second day after the wedding.
Benckendorf was shot by security officers in 1918, and Mura was allegedly sent to prison for spying for Great Britain. After all, her lover, the head of the English mission, Bruce Lockhart, was involved in the case of the so-called ambassadorial conspiracy directed against the Bolshevik government. However, a week after her arrest, aristocrat Mura entered Lockhart’s cell arm in arm with one of the founders of the Cheka. So, together with Yakov Peters, she finds herself on the pages of the history of Soviet intelligence.
It was argued that the “iron woman” (as Zakrevskaya was called by Gorky, who dedicated his epic novel “The Life of Klim Samgin” to her) was saved by the intercession of the “petrel of the revolution.” And she, in turn, saved the life of her lover Lockhart and... found herself in the arms of science fiction writer H.G. Wells. But this is only the external side of the life of this extraordinary woman, in the creation of myths about which both she herself and her biographers had a hand. Meanwhile, very few people knew about her “official affairs.”
It should not be surprising that Mura became a double agent working for enemy intelligence. On the one hand, she studied at Cambridge, was in love with Lockhart and Wells, and she considered Russia, Britain’s ally in the Entente, and not the newly formed USSR, her homeland. On the other hand, she remained a Russian patriot.
In the German-occupied Baltic port city of Libau (now Liepaja), military sailors loved to look into the pastry shop where Klara Izelgof ran. British historian Hector Bywater called her Katrina Izelman, and Valentin Pikul in his novel Moonsund called her Anna Revelskaya. Under this name she entered the history of intelligence. The woman came from a Russian family that owned lands in the Baltic states.
When talking about this Russian patriot, they usually mention three feats she accomplished. In November 1916, a squadron of the Kaiser's fleet lost in one night an eighth of all the destroyers lost in the First World War. On October 12, 1917, the German squadron, having irretrievably lost ten destroyers and six minesweepers near the Moonsund archipelago, left the waters of the Gulf of Riga, failing to capture Petrograd. And on June 17, 1941, information received from Anna helped save the Soviet navy from destruction.
In the first case, Anna Revelskaya took advantage of her attractive appearance and deftly tricked the commander of the Tethys cruiser, Lieutenant von Kempke, who was in love with her. Skillfully playing on her lover’s jealousy, she slipped him misinformation about the location of minefields in the Gulf of Finland, allegedly installed there by Russian sailors. As a result, eight of the 11 pennants that were the pride of the 10th German mine cruiser flotilla were sunk. The loss of brand new ships, just launched from the shipyards, turned out to be irreparable. The threat from the sea for Russia has been postponed indefinitely.
Less than a year later, the intelligence officer provided valuable information that helped save Petrograd, but not to the tsarist secret service, but to the representative of the Provisional Government. And on the eve of Hitler’s aggression against the USSR, Anna contacted the Soviet embassy in Berlin in order to inform the exact date of the border crossing by enemy armies.
Information about Hitler's impending offensive, as is now known, flowed into the Kremlin from various sources, but Stalin refrained from active action. The Red Army soldiers were strictly forbidden to respond to the “provocations” of the fascists.
Because of this order, most of the Soviet aviation was destroyed right at the airfields, infantry units were badly damaged, and the tank and artillery fleet was thinned out. However, the navy of the Country of the Soviets had practically no combat losses in the first days of the war. But not because the naval bases turned out to be inaccessible to the Luftwaffe aces. The fact is that the naval attache spoke with Anna at the Berlin embassy and information about the insidious strike landed on the desk of the People's Commissar of the Navy Nikolai Kuznetsov.
Admiral Kuznetsov believed Anna Revelskaya's intelligence and took additional precautions. Two or three days before the start of Operation Barbarossa, the Baltic, Northern and Black Sea fleets were put on high alert.
Much more is known about this woman’s appearance than about her life. She starred in 145 films and performed on stages in many European countries. Her aunt was Anton Chekhov's wife, the famous actress Olga Knipper-Chekhova, and her husband was the nephew of the great writer Mikhail Chekhov, who later became famous as a Hollywood director and teacher.
After the divorce, in 1920, Olga moved to Germany, allegedly to continue her education. Intelligence General Pavel Sudoplatov in his memoirs confirms the fact that Chekhova was recruited by Soviet intelligence services several years before her departure. On a voluntary and unpaid basis. At first, in a foreign land, she was forced to sell chess pieces she carved with her own hands. Soon one of the Russian princes noticed her and helped her get a job at a Berlin film studio. In 1928, Olga received German citizenship.
At this time, Chekhova began actively studying English. But it was not the laurels of European actresses who achieved success in the “dream factory”, nor the crazy American fees of Greta Garbo and Marlene Dietrich that attracted the rising cinema star. Her goal was to enter high society, to attend social events swarming with foreigners. Mostly English speaking.
After Hitler came to power, Olga Chekhova was invited to a informal reception hosted by Propaganda Minister Goebbels. The Fuhrer was delighted with the beautiful and witty woman. He gave her his photograph with a dedicatory inscription. Since Hitler and Goebbels were obsessed with cinema, the doors to the Imperial Chancellery opened before Frau Chekhova.
The Fuhrer often compared Olga Chekhova with his favorite Swedish actress Zara Leander, who, by the way, also collaborated with Soviet intelligence. Under the pseudonym RoseMarie, she met with her contact Zoya Rybkina in Stockholm to convey secret information. And only in 1953 Beria instructed Rybkina to become Olga Chekhova’s liaison. There is a version that she transmitted valuable information to Moscow through her personal driver.
In 1945, Himmler, who suspected something, planned the arrest of Frau Chekhova. But the Gestapo men who came to her apartment saw the Fuhrer sitting at the table, and the arrest failed.
During the battles for Berlin, Olga was arrested by Smersh counterintelligence fighters. After the interrogation, Chekhov was taken to Moscow on a special flight. According to unreliable information, Stalin personally presented Olga Chekhova with the Order of Lenin. Three months later, she again flew to Berlin, where, by order of Beria, she was settled in a luxurious villa in the eastern part of the city. The security of the country house was provided by three soldiers of the 17th separate rifle battalion. At Chekhova's request, the house was repaired, as well as two cars that belonged to her.
In post-war Germany, Olga Chekhova continued to act in East German films. In 1955, she founded the successful Olga Chekhova Cosmetics company in Munich. Intelligence historian Anatoly Sudoplatov suggested that the cosmetics company was created almost entirely with Moscow's money for contacts with the wives of NATO officers. Thus, Stalin’s prediction that “actress Olga Chekhova will be useful after the war” came true.
In general, many mysteries are associated with her name. For example, there were rumors that the actress, with the support of Walter Schellenberg, tried to save Yakov Dzhugashvili from a concentration camp. And Russian President Boris Yeltsin stated that traces of the missing Amber Room lead specifically to Olga Chekhova.
Secret diplomacy and intelligence are initially aimed at creating an aura of secrecy around their activities. Spies are not public people until they are caught. It’s a different matter when it comes to lovely ladies and especially those who hang around in the highest circle for a long time. They did not remain incognito, but their true identity was hidden by a veil of secrecy.
Famous female spies from the Old Testament
The first known female spy in European intelligence history worked for selfish reasons. The Philistine Delilah (Delilah), who is described in the biblical Book of Judges, not only learned the secret of the irresistible power of the hero Samson, but also helped to capture him. Having received the necessary information and the appropriate reward, the heroine of the Old Testament cut the hair of the big man, thereby turning him into a miserable slave.
White and fluffy, but with a bloody bearded head in her hands, another spy is depicted in world art. The beautiful Judith infiltrated the camp of the commander Holofernes to behead the enemy of her people. True, the old warrior did not find words of love for the girl and therefore he stupidly drank himself into insensibility, trying to seduce her.
Women also played their role in the history of industrial espionage. Chinese emperors treasured the secret of silk production like the apple of their eye. Women's hair put an end to the Great Silk Road. In their intricate hairstyles, beauties carried silkworm eggs from the Middle Kingdom to neighboring countries. Even the most vigilant customs officer would not have dared to delve into the works of art that adorned the lovely heads.
There were women who headed the secret services. Theodora, who earned money by selling her own body, an actress by profession and vocation, became the Byzantine empress in 527. From the palace in Constantinople, she sent instructions to her secret agents throughout the empire. She personally supervised the actions of the scouts. According to modern historians, her husband Justinian the Great did not do anything without consulting his clever wife.
On October 5, 1917, the most famous female spy in history, Mata Hari, was shot. She was a courtesan and exotic dancer. Today we remember Mata Hari and several other women who were involved in espionage.
Mata Hari (1876-1917)
Mata Hari is the dancer's pseudonym; in fact, her name was Margarita Gertrude Celle. Mata was from a wealthy family and received a good education. In her youth, she married a man with a bad reputation: he drank and cheated on her. After living on the island of Java for almost seven years, Hari returns to Europe, and in order to survive on something, she gets a job as a rider in a circus, and later begins working as a dancer. Hari was one of the most famous women in Paris and became famous for the fact that she did not hesitate to pose for artists, as well as dance almost naked. German intelligence recruited Mata, and during the war the woman began collaborating with the French. Historians have never been able to find out what Mata conveyed to high-ranking officials. In the fall of 1917, the woman was captured by the French military and sentenced to death. They say that Mata was shot only because she was in contact with many politicians and military officers, which could have a negative impact on their reputation. Historians are confident that the dancer's role as a spy was too exaggerated.
Christine Keeler (born 1942)
A model from Britain worked part-time as a call girl, and in the sixties she provoked a huge scandal, which was even given the name “The Profumo Affair”. Keeler was called the new Mata Hari. She danced half-naked in bars, met with the Minister of War Affairs, John Profumo, and also with Sergei Ivanov, the naval attaché of the Soviet Union. Soon Scotland Yard became interested in the girl, and the police established that Christine was passing on all the information about Profumo to one of her lovers. The minister had to resign and then work as a dishwasher. As for Keeler, she earned not only a lot of money, but also a scandalous reputation and fame - her photographs regularly appeared in newspapers and magazines.
Nancy Wake (1912)
Nancy was not born into a wealthy family, but unexpectedly received a huge inheritance, and soon moved from New Zealand, first to the USA, then to Paris. She worked as a correspondent and wrote articles against Nazism. When German troops invaded France, Nancy and her husband joined the Resistance. The woman had many nicknames, including “Witch”. She provided assistance to the Allies and Jewish refugees. In 1943, Nancy fled to London, completed a special program and became an intelligence officer. For a long time she was engaged in the supply of weapons and the recruitment of new people into the ranks of the Resistance. Nancy's husband was captured by the Nazis and shot because the man did not say where his wife was. The Gestapo promised to pay five million to anyone who could tell where Nancy was. The woman managed to escape, and in the mid-eighties she even wrote an autobiography.
Violetta Jabot (1921-1945)
This girl lived a very short life, but left a huge mark on history. When Violetta was 23 years old, her husband died, and the Frenchwoman became a British intelligence officer. She was sent to France on a secret mission: Jabot transmitted data on the forces and numbers of the enemy, after which she returned to London to her daughter. The next trip to France turned out to be a failure - Violetta was captured and placed in one of the concentration camps. Jabot was tortured for several months, and shortly before the Victory the girl was executed. In 1946, she was posthumously awarded the St. George Cross.
Ruth Werner (1907-2000)
In her youth, the girl became interested in politics, but was forced to move with her husband from Germany to Shanghai. She was recruited by the Soviet intelligence services, and Ruth collected information for the USSR in China. Her husband did not know that Werner was collaborating with Richard Sorge. In 1933, Ruth took special courses at an intelligence school in Moscow, after which she engaged in espionage not only in China, but also in England, Switzerland, Poland and the USA. With Werner's help, the USSR received information about the atomic bomb created in the USA. Werner was never arrested. After the end of the war in 1950, the woman moved to the GDR. Ruth had two intelligence colleagues who, according to documents, were “listed” as her husbands. In real life, later they actually became the spouses of the intelligence officer.
Anna Chapman (born 1982)
The most famous spy of our time. Anna lived in the UK since 2003, and in 2006 she left for the USA, where she ran a real estate search company. In the summer of 2010, she was arrested by the FBI, and a few days later, Chapman admitted to being an espionage. She collected information about influential people, politics in the Middle East and US nuclear weapons. Journalists became interested in Anna, and soon information leaked that Chapman began espionage when she lived in London. It was proven that the girl was dating one of the peers from the House of Lords. Some time later, Chapman was deported to Russia.
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Margareta Zelle was a Dutch national and exotic dancer who lived in Paris and became famous for her performances throughout Europe under the stage name "Mata Hari", which means "sun" in Malay ("mata" - eye, "hari" - day) . She was executed by the French authorities for passing information to the Germans during the First World War. But many modern historians argue that Margaretha Zelle was more of a scapegoat than a spy. Mata Hari moved among high-ranking officials and spoke several languages. Recruiters from both sides approached her about collecting and transmitting military information. Whether she ever spied on the French or Germans is unclear, but in 1917 the French arrested her on suspicion of espionage. Zelle was tried behind closed doors (court materials are still classified) and sentenced to death.
Kristina Skarbek: Churchill's favorite
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The daughter of Polish Count Jerzy Skarbek, she became one of the first women to serve in the British Foreign Office's Secret Intelligence Service (SIS/MI6) during the Second World War. She went by the pseudonym "Christine Granville" and is said to have been Churchill's favorite spy. Krystyna Skarbek, known for her courage and intelligence, once skied across the Tatra Mountains to the Slovakian-Polish border to deliver information to Nazi-occupied Poland. In 1952, she died tragically at the hands of a rejected admirer. She was awarded the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, the George Medal and the French Military Cross.
Nancy Wake: White Mouse
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The Allied spy, originally from New Zealand, was so elusive that the Gestapo dubbed her the “White Mouse.” In 1943, Nancy Wake became the most wanted person by the Gestapo. A price of 5 million francs was put on her head.
In 1940, Wake was living in Marseille with her French industrialist husband when Hitler's army marched into France. She soon joined the Resistance movement, became a courier and helped prisoners and refugees leave the country. In the end, she herself had to flee to England, where she trained with the Special Operations Executive. The Gestapo tortured and killed Nancy's husband when he refused to reveal her whereabouts. Wake returned to France in 1944 by parachute and coordinated guerrilla attacks on German garrisons. After the war, she was honored by the governments of France, Great Britain and the United States. She died in London in 2011 at the age of 98.
Violetta Chabot: captured by the Gestapo
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Violette Chabot is the daughter of a British and French mother, born in France. She joined the Special Operations Executive after her husband was killed at the Battle of El Alamein in Egypt in 1942. In 1944, she was captured by the Gestapo in France. First interrogated and tortured, then sent to the Ravensbrück concentration camp, where they were executed in 1945. Violetta was 23 years old. She was posthumously awarded the French Military Cross and Britain's George Cross for " acts of the greatest heroism or most remarkable courage under extreme danger" In 1958, RJ Minnie’s book “And Write Her Name with Proud” was filmed, dedicated to the life story of Violetta Chabot.
Virginia Hall: Lame Lady
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The Gestapo considered Virginia Hall " the most dangerous of all Allied spies" She was born in the USA, served at the American embassy in Warsaw and hoped to build a diplomatic career, but lost her leg in a hunting accident in 1932. I had to forget about my career. Virginia moved to France, where she worked briefly in the ambulance service, then went to London and joined the Special Operations Executive. She soon returned to France, recruited Resistance fighters and helped escaped prisoners of war, and for cover she called herself a reporter for the New York Post. When Klaus Barbie, known as the “Butcher of Lyon,” came on her trail, Virginia had to flee France through the Pyrenees Mountains to Spain. The wooden prosthesis, which was installed in place of her leg amputated from the knee, became the reason for the nickname “Lame Lady”. The limp slowed her down, but didn't stop her. Returning home to America after the war, she continued to work for the CIA until her resignation in 1966.
Ethel Rosenberg: spy, accomplice, accomplice?
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Ethel Rosenberg and her husband Julius were sentenced to death in 1953 in the United States for their participation in a conspiracy to transfer American nuclear secrets to the USSR during World War II. The Rosenbergs were Jews and communists, so many considered them victims of anti-Semitic and anti-communist hysteria. Picasso wrote that their execution would be " crime against humanity", Pope Pius XII, Albert Einstein and the writer Thomas Mann also petitioned unsuccessfully for the Rosenbergs to be pardoned. President Harry Truman avoided making a decision, and Dwight Eisenhower, who replaced him in 1953, approved the death sentence.
The current consensus is that Julius was indeed a spy and Ethel merely an accomplice. This couple is the only time civilians have been executed for espionage in the United States.
Ursula Kuczynski: Atomic Espionage
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Ursula Kuczynski is a woman with many pseudonyms: Ruth Werner, Comrade Sonya, Ursula Hamburger, Ursula Burton. She joined the German communists, and while living in China in the 1930s, she was recruited by the USSR Main Intelligence Directorate, collaborating with intelligence officers Richard Sorge and Agnes Smedley. In 1941, while living near Oxford, England, she began working with physicist Klaus Fuchs, who was involved in atomic espionage for Moscow. In 1950, during interrogation, Fuchs admitted to passing on military secrets and served nine years of a 14-year sentence. And Kuczynski returned to Germany and took up journalism. She died in Berlin in 2000.
