died in prison
The Russian singer received huge fees, was friends with Chaliapin, and the army of her fans was led by Nicholas II himself. After the revolution, Nadezhda and her husband ended up in exile, but her popularity did not fade away: foreign newspapers wrote about a real “spitting mania”! True, the couple did not live by songs alone: in 1930, the artist and her husband were recruited by the Soviet secret services.
Since then, the singer’s husband has been collecting information about emigrant circles, and Plevitskaya has been writing intelligence reports to the Lubyanka. In 1937 married couple were exposed: Nikolai went on the run and died, and Nadezhda was sent to prison, where she died just three years later.
Mata Hari
She was sentenced to death for espionage
Of course, the most famous female spy of all time is the Dutch Margaret Gertrude Celle, aka Mata Hari. Her fate was not easy: at the age of 18, the girl got married, but her husband turned out to be an alcoholic who beat her and accused her of all sins. Eight years later, the couple divorced, both children born in an unhappy marriage died, and Margarita, finding herself in poverty and loneliness, moved to Paris. It was there that she received her legendary pseudonym and became famous thanks to her explicit dancing, which was somewhat similar to a modern striptease.
Mata Hari was a double agent during the First World War: she worked simultaneously for the Germans and the French. The exact circumstances of her recruitment by the German side are still unknown, but something else has been established: as soon as the woman found out that the French had exposed her, she came to the local intelligence services with an offer of cooperation. In 1917, Mata Hari was arrested in Paris on charges of espionage and sentenced to death.
Christine Keeler
became the “Mata Hari” of the 60s, but with one caveat: she remained alive
Already at the age of 16, the British woman, escaping boredom, moved from the outback to London, where she became a topless dancer and call girl. Subsequently, she earned herself the title “Mata Hari of the 60s”: Christine’s lovers included British Secretary of War John Profumo and the naval attache of the Soviet Union, Yevgeny Ivanov. The police found out that the beauty was selling secrets for the latter British. flared up loud scandal, called the Profumo Affair.
John had to resign and become a dishwasher, Stephen Ward, who brought Keeler together with her lovers, was convicted and then committed suicide, Evgeniy was recalled to Moscow, where he was deprived of all prospects for the failure of the operation. His wife left him, and then Ivanov simply drank himself to death. But the fatal Christine, having become notorious, sold her story to journalists for a lot of money. Keeler is now 74 years old and lives in Britain with her cat.
Nancy Wake
became an intelligence officer and almost built a political career
Nancy Wake is a real James Bond in a skirt. Her life story is amazing, and her autobiography “White Mouse”, released in the 80s, became a bestseller! After the Germans occupied France in 1940, a woman living in Marseille began working in the Resistance.
Nancy knew her job so well that the Gestapo gave her the code name “White Mouse” because of her elusiveness. 5 million francs were promised for her head! After the network was discovered, the spy left, leaving her husband in the city. After the war, I learned that the Gestapo executed him for refusing to give up Nancy’s location. After the war, Wake received numerous awards, worked as an Air Force intelligence officer, and even tried to launch a political career in Australia. She lived 40 years of marriage with her new husband and died at the age of 98.
Violetta Jabot
died in captivity
When Violetta's husband, Frenchman Etienne Jabot, died in World War II, she decided to join British intelligence. The woman spoke excellent French and, having undergone combat training, in 1944 went on her first mission to occupied France: to carry out demolition work and transmit information about the location of enemy defense factories. I did it.
Unfortunately, the second task ended tragically for Violetta: Jabot was captured, where she was tortured and later shot. The spy did not live to see victory for only a few months.
Josephine Baker
transmitted messages to fellow intelligence officers using sheet music
Having suffered because of her skin color in the United States, Josephine moved to France, where she gained fame as a singer and cabaret dancer. The Second has begun World War- and Baker immediately joined the Resistance. Baker's fame and charm helped her stay above suspicion when she was extracting secret information from the enemy.
The singer left intelligence messages on musical notations using invisible ink. After the war, Josephine devoted herself to raising children: she adopted 12 orphans from different countries with different skin colors. The spy died on April 12, 1975, just 4 days after presenting her anniversary show Joséphine.
In March 1862, the trial of the famous intelligence officer Rose O'Neill Greenhow took place. She was accused (deservedly) of passing on information during Civil War in the USA in favor of the Confederacy: it informed the southerners about the deployment of northern troops. But there was no evidence against Rose O'Neill. Before her arrest, she ate all the documents incriminating her. After the trial, she went to Richmond, where Southern President Davis Jefferson awarded her a $2,500 bonus.
Two years later, Rose O'Neill drowned. They said about her that she was an amazing spy, because she knew the plans of her enemies better than President Lincoln. What would the allies do if not for her natural charm and modest feminine beauty?
Success is in many ways easier for the fair sex - and all thanks to their appearance. In this selection you will find the most beautiful spies in the world who have also achieved a lot in their field.
1. (1942-2017). "Mata Hari of the 60s." The former British model also worked as a prostitute, but she brought more benefit to intelligence. While working in a topless cabaret, she had an affair with the British Minister of War John Profumo and the USSR naval attache Yevgeny Ivanov.
But Christine did not need lovers for personal purposes: she extracted secrets from the minister, then selling them to her other lover. During the ensuing scandal, Profumo himself resigned, soon after the Prime Minister, and then the Conservatives lost the elections.
After the scandal, Christine became even richer than before: the beautiful spy was incredibly popular with journalists and photographers.
2. Cohen Leontine Teresa (Kroger Helen)(1913-1993). She was a member of the US Communist Party and a labor activist. In New York, at an anti-fascist rally in 1939, she met Morris Cohen, who later became her husband. Cohen collaborated with Soviet foreign intelligence.
It was on his tip that she was recruited. At the same time, Leontina guessed about her husband’s connections with the USSR. Without hesitation, she agreed to help state security agencies in the fight against the Nazi threat.
During the war years she was a liaison agent for the foreign intelligence station in New York. Before last days Throughout her life, she continued to work in the illegal intelligence department. She was buried at the Novo-Kuntsevo cemetery.
3. Irina (Bibiiran) Alimova(1920-2011). A veterinarian by profession, Alimova became an actress because of her beautiful appearance. After the role of Umbar's lover in the film of the same name, the girl became famous. She continued to study acting.
With the beginning of the war, Bibiiran wanted to go to the front and fell into military censorship. After the war, she received an offer to work in local counterintelligence. In 1952, under the pseudonym Bir, she went to Japan to work illegally in the Soviet station, which was being revived after the death of Richard Sorge.
Its chief was our intelligence officer, Colonel Shamil Abdullazyanovich Khamzin (pseudonym - Khalef). They entered into a fictitious marriage, Alimova became Mrs. Khatycha Sadyk. But after a few years, their relationship moved from the category of legends to real romantic love.
4. Nadezhda Troyan(1921-2011). During the war, finding herself in the occupied territory of Belarus, Nadezhda Troyan joined the ranks of the anti-fascist underground. She was a messenger, scout and nurse in partisan detachments. Participated in operations to blow up bridges and attack enemy convoys.
Her most significant feat was the destruction, together with Elena Mazanik and Maria Osipova, of the fascist Gauleiter of Belarus, Wilhelm von Kube. The women placed a mine under his bed.
5. Anna Morozova(1921-1944). In the 1930s, the largest military airfield was built in Seshche, where Morozova grew up. Anna Morozova worked there as an accountant. When the airfield was captured by Hitler, she left with the Soviet troops, and then returned, supposedly to her mother. She remained to work for the Nazis as a laundress.
Thanks to the data she transmitted, two German ammunition depots, 20 aircraft and 6 railway trains were blown up.
In 1944, the girl was seriously wounded, and in order to avoid being captured, she blew herself up with a grenade along with several Germans.
She was recruited by German intelligence before the war, and during it Mata Hari began collaborating with the French. She used the money she received to cover her gambling debts.
The girl had many connections with high-ranking French politicians who were afraid of a damaged reputation. Some historians believe that Mata Hari did not prove herself very strong as a spy.
In 1917, she was declassified by the French military and sentenced to death. On October 15, the sentence was carried out. Perhaps this was not even done because of her work as a scout.
7. Violetta Jabot(1921-1945). At 23, she became a widow and joined the ranks of British intelligence. In 1944, she went to occupied France on a secret mission to transmit data on the strength and location of enemy forces to headquarters, as well as to carry out a number of sabotage actions.
After completing the assignments, she returned to London to her little daughter. After some time, she flew to France again, but now the mission ended in failure - her car was detained, she fired back for a long time, but the enemy turned out to be stronger.
She was sent to the Ravensbrück concentration camp, famous for its brutal torture and medical experiments on prisoners. The tortured Jabot was executed in February 1945. She became the second woman in history to be posthumously awarded the St. George Cross. Later, the intelligence officer was awarded the Military Cross and the Medal “For Resistance.”
8. Amy Elizabeth Thorpe(1910-1963). Her intelligence career began when she married the second secretary of the US Embassy. The man was 20 years older than Amy, and she cheated on him left and right. The husband did not mind: he was an agent of British intelligence, and Amy’s lovers helped to obtain information.
But her husband died, and agent Cynthia went to Washington, where she continued her activities as an intelligence officer: through her bed she obtained 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.
9. Nancy Wake (Grace Augusta Wake)(1912-2011). A girl born in New Zealand suddenly received a rich inheritance and moved to New York and then to Europe. In the 1930s she worked as a correspondent in Paris, criticizing Nazism.
Together with her husband, she joined the ranks of the Resistance when the Germans broke into France. During its activities, the White Mouse helped Jewish refugees and military personnel cross the country.
Afterwards she was involved in organizing arms supplies and recruiting new members of the Resistance. Soon Nancy learned that her husband was shot by the Nazis because he did not tell about Nancy’s whereabouts. The Gestapo promised 5 million francs for her head.
10. Anna Chapman (Kushchenko)(b. 1982). She moved to England in 2003, and since 2006 has headed her own real estate search company in the USA.
While married to artist Alex Chapman, she tried to obtain information about US nuclear weapons, politics in the East, and influential people. On June 27, 2010, she was arrested by the FBI, and on July 8, she admitted to espionage activities.
Moreover, as it turned out, Chapman was in a relationship with a certain peer from the House of Lords and even saw some princes. Funds for luxurious life she received business that was sponsored by some unknown person. As a result, Anna was deported to Russia under the spy exchange program.
11. Josephine Baker (Frida Josephine MacDonald)(1906-1975). The daughter of a Jewish musician and a black washerwoman. Became popular during the Revue Negre tour in Paris in 1925. Baker walked around Paris with a panther on a leash, for which she was nicknamed Black Venus.
She married an Italian adventurer and became a countess. She worked at the Moulin Rouge, but also starred in erotic films. In 1937, she renounced her US citizenship in favor of France, and then a war began, in which Black Venus actively became involved, becoming a spy.
Baker trained to be a pilot and received the rank of lieutenant. Transferred money to members of the underground. After the end of the war, she continued to dance and sing, and also acted in television series. For her services to France, she was awarded the Legion of Honor and the Military Cross.
Exactly one hundred years ago, on October 15, 1917, a death sentence was carried out at a military training ground in Vincennes (a suburb of Paris). The firing squad fired a salvo that ended the life of Mata Hari, perhaps the most famous spy of the 20th century and one of the most mysterious figures in the First World War. As noted in some sources, after the shooting, one of the officers approached the woman’s body and, just to be sure, shot her in the back of the head with a revolver.
Mata Hari, real name Margaretha Geertruida Zelle, was born in the Dutch city of Leeuwarden on August 7, 1876. She was the only daughter and second child in a family of four children, Adam Zelle and Antje van der Meulen. The father of the future spy was the owner of a hat shop. In addition, he managed to make successful and effective investments in the oil industry, so he became a fairly rich man who did not skimp on education for his children. Until the age of 13, Margareta attended only upper-class schools. But in 1889 Adam Zelle went bankrupt and soon after divorced his wife, who died in 1891. So the family was completely destroyed. After the death of her mother, her father sent Margareta to her godfather in the small town of Sneek. Afterwards she continued her studies in Leiden, where she received the profession of a teacher in kindergarten, however, when the director of the local school began to openly flirt with the girl, her offended godfather took her from this school. A few months later, the girl left Sneek to join her uncle in The Hague. According to another version, it was Margareta who became the culprit of the scandal with the director of the school, having accepted his advances, the community of the town did not forgive the young girl for her frivolous behavior, and this was what was connected with her early departure.
Drastic changes in the girl’s life led to the fact that in 1895 she met 39-year-old Captain Rudolf McLeod, a Dutchman of Scottish origin, through an advertisement and almost immediately married him. At that time, Margaret was only 18 years old. It’s difficult to say what exactly prompted the girl to take such a hasty step. Perhaps it was because she did not have sufficient means of subsistence, so she decided to marry a wealthy man. She could also strive for the calm and measured life that she had as a child.
Margaretha Gertrude Zelle, circa 1895
After the wedding, the newlywed couple moved to the island of Java (then it was the Dutch East Indies, today it is Indonesia). Here they had two children - a son and a daughter, but their family life clearly did not work out; it was impossible to call it happy. Margareta's husband turned out to be an alcoholic who behaved quite aggressively with his wife and often raised his hand to her; on top of everything else, he openly supported his mistresses. In the end, Margareta began to lead a similar life, who did not sit at home, as was expected of a decent wife, but had fun at local officer receptions, which often became the cause of family scandals. Disappointed with her wife, the girl moved to live with another Dutch officer, Van Redes.
For a long time, Margareta studied Indonesian traditions, in particular, she worked in a local dance group. In 1897, for the first time in her correspondence, she called herself the artistic pseudonym Mata Hari (literally from the Malay language “eye of the day” or more simply - the sun). After long and persistent persuasion, the girl returned home to her legal husband, but his aggressive behavior remained the same. Therefore, trying to distract herself and forget the hated family life, Mata Hari continued to study local culture and traditions.
Margaretha's cheese died in 1898 at the age of two. It is believed that he died from complications of syphilis, which was passed on to him from his parents. At the same time, the spouses themselves claimed that he was poisoned by the servant. In any case, their family life collapsed completely after that. After returning back to Holland, the couple divorced in 1903. At the same time, Rudolph sued his wife for the right to raise their daughter, who died in August 1919 at the age of 21. The suspected cause of her death was complications of syphilis. In any case, the death of the son and the collapse family life were a serious test for Margaret, who, after returning to Europe, was left without a livelihood, experiencing real poverty.
She decided to go to Paris to earn money. In the capital of France, she first performed as a circus rider, choosing for herself the name “Lady Gresha McLeod.” Great fame came to her in 1905, when she became famous throughout Europe as a performer of “oriental style” dances, at the same time she began performing under the pseudonym Mata Hari, under which name she forever went down in history. Some of her dances were something very close to modern striptease, which was still an unusual phenomenon for Western viewers of the 20th century. Often at the end of the number, which was performed on stage in front of a narrow circle of connoisseurs, she remained almost completely naked. Mata Hari herself said that she was reproducing real sacred dances of the East, which were supposedly familiar to her from childhood. She mystified her interlocutors in every possible way with various stories of a romantic nature. For example, she told me that she was a real princess - the daughter of King Edward VII and an Indian princess, that she had a horse that only allowed its owner to saddle it, that she spent her childhood in the East and was brought up in a monastery and other stories that created the necessary for her mysteriously romantic background. It is worth noting that Mata Hari, as they say, found her niche; at the beginning of the 20th century, Europe experienced great interest in everything that was connected with the East and ballet, as well as erotica. Mata Hari's great success in Paris soon spread to other European capitals.
European newspapers wrote about her: “This naked dancer is the new Salome, who makes any men lose their heads.” She herself said this about herself: “I never knew how to dance well, people came to look at me in crowds only because I was the first who dared to appear naked in front of the public.” It is worth noting that she often danced truly naked. Unlike Isadora Duncan, who performed in transparent robes, Mata Hari performed completely naked. Her rather curvy body wore nothing but jewelry and accessories that covered her breasts.
She soon began to enjoy her fame and glory and began to gain numerous wealthy admirers. One of them was a French rich man who invited Mata Hari to perform at the Museum of Oriental Art. Her photographs captivated most of the male population of the Old World, over time she became a very successful courtesan and was in relationships with numerous high-ranking politicians, military officers and others. influential people in various European countries, including France and Germany. Biographers would later estimate that she had more than a hundred different lovers.
She was often given expensive gifts, but despite this she experienced financial difficulties and quite often borrowed money. It is believed that one of her passions was card games, which could have been spent on large sums money. Before the outbreak of World War I, Mata Hari met a police official from Germany. Some researchers believe that it was at that moment that she came to the attention of the German intelligence services. In 1911, the famous Milan opera house La Scala engaged Mata Hari for the winter season. At the same time, she even negotiated with Sergei Diaghilev about performing in his ballet, but they ended in nothing. In the summer season of 1913, she performed in the capital of France at the Folies Bergere theater, and on March 23, 1914, she signed a contract with the Berlin Metropole Theater, she was supposed to perform in the ballet “The Thief of Millions.” The premiere of the ballet was scheduled for September 1, 1914, but a month before this date the First World War broke out.
On August 6, 1914, the dancer left Berlin for Switzerland. However, she was denied entry into this country, while her luggage managed to cross the border in a freight car. Mata Hari was forced to return back to the capital of Germany, from where she went to her homeland - the Netherlands. In Amsterdam, she found herself in a rather difficult situation, since she had previously lost all her belongings. Mutual friends introduced her to Consul Karl Kramer, who headed the official German information service in Amsterdam. One of the German intelligence departments was hidden under the roof of this service. By the end of the autumn of 1915, German intelligence finally recruited Mata Hari, who could move freely around Europe as a citizen of a neutral country. Her first task was to find out in Paris the immediate plans for the offensive of the Allied troops. In December 1915, Mata Hari arrived in France, where she began to carry out this mission.
From Paris they left for Spain, this trip was also of a reconnaissance nature. On January 12, 1916, she arrived in Madrid, where she contacted the military attaché of the German Embassy, Major Calle. The latter immediately ordered the information received to be transferred to Consul Kramer in Amsterdam. This encryption was intercepted by British intelligence. After meeting Calle in Madrid, Mata Hari returned to The Hague via Portugal. As a Dutch citizen, she could travel from France home and back, but the countries at that time were divided by the front line, so her route usually ran through Spain and Great Britain. Over time, her movements attracted the attention of Allied counterintelligence.
Mata Hari in 1915
Once again, returning to Paris, in the second half of 1916, Mata Hari learned that a person close to her, Staff Captain Vadim Maslov, after being wounded near Verdun, was undergoing treatment at the Vittel resort, located in a restricted front-line zone. Vadim Maslov was an officer in the Russian expeditionary force, he was half her age, but at the same time he wanted to take her as his wife. In order to get to her lover, Mata Hari turned for help to the French military authorities, who set her a condition: to obtain secret information from her high-ranking German acquaintances. And she agreed to these conditions, essentially becoming a double agent.
Early next year, the French sent her on a minor mission to Madrid, where Allied suspicions of her spying for Germany were finally confirmed. The radio exchange of a German agent in Madrid with the center was again intercepted, which featured agent H-21, converted by the French, who arrived in Spain and received an assignment from the local German station to return to Paris again. Perhaps the Germans deliberately declassified Mata Hari because they wanted to get rid of the double agent by handing him over to the enemy. One way or another, on the morning of February 13, 1917, Mata Hari was arrested in Paris on charges of espionage. She was placed in the Faubourg-Saint-Denis prison in Saint-Lazare. The interrogations of the alleged spy continued for four months, the last one taking place on June 21, 1917. At the same time, the woman insisted that she worked exclusively in the interests of France and in Madrid lured important information from Major Calle. The trial of Mata Hari began on July 24, 1917 and was held behind closed doors. The very next day, Margaretha Gertrude Zelle was sentenced to death. Appeals filed by her lawyer and appeals for clemency to the French President led nowhere. On October 15, 1917, the death sentence was carried out.
After the execution, Mata Hari’s body was not claimed by any of her relatives, for this reason it was transferred to the anatomical theater. So her head was embalmed and preserved in the Paris Museum of Anatomy. But in 2000 it turned out that the head was missing. According to experts, the loss occurred even earlier - in 1954, when the museum was being moved. In any case, this episode only added mysticism and mystery to the already rather complicated life story of Mata Hari.
Today, some historians believe that the harm from Mata Hari’s activities (her effectiveness as an intelligence officer) was seriously embellished. It is unlikely that the information actually obtained by her (if such a thing existed at all) was of significant value to the warring parties. According to historian E.B. Chernyak, the death sentence could have been influenced not by Mata Hari’s espionage activities, but by her connections with representatives of the French political and military elite. The danger of disclosing information about these connections, the fear of making them widely public, could have influenced the quick imposition of the death sentence.
Possessing a number of undeniable talents and a rich imagination, Mata Hari played the role of a high-society spy. She played it from beginning to end: until the charges were brought, the trial and the death penalty. All this fit perfectly into her “cinematic” biography of an exotic oriental dancer, femme fatale and spy, providing her with greater fame than other, much more effective intelligence officers of her time.
To summarize, we can say that Mata Hari became one of the most famous women of the 20th century. Having lived only 41 years, she was able to go down in history, forever inscribing her name in it. The biography of this woman, the history and description of her life, the photographs that have survived to this day are still the subject of increased attention not only from numerous historians (both professionals and amateurs), but also from the most ordinary people worldwide.
Information sources:
https://ria.ru/spravka/20160807/1473729485.html
http://interesnyefakty.org/mata-hari
http://stuki-druki.com/authors/Mata-Hari.php
Open source materials
Spies... Such mysterious, brave and desperate personalities that appeared in the history of any country from its very first pages. Heroes for one state and traitors for another. When becoming a spy, a person lost absolutely everything - from a reliable roof over his head to his pets. Incredible dangerous job, which required simply unimaginable courage and a lot of honed skills. They worked in the name of their Cause, in the name of their Faith, knowing that they could give themselves away at any moment, and realizing that even the smallest mistake could lead them to death. The most interesting personalities in all of history. We present to you the top 10 most famous spies in the world!
Emil Julius Klaus Fuchs was a member of Communist Party Germany since the early thirties. The theoretical physicist worked on the atomic bomb for a long time and developed models of the hydrogen bomb. When the Nazis came to power, he fled to England and began working for Soviet Union. He transmitted data on the production of uranium in the United States and the creation of a hydrogen bomb. Fuchs's activities in the USSR helped to significantly shorten the period of creation of the atomic bomb. I would like to note that Klaus Fuchs worked for ideological reasons, and not for remuneration. He was sentenced for passing on military secrets to 14 years, of which he served 9 years, returned to Germany, was awarded the highest award of the GDR - the Order of Karl Marx, and lived there until the end of his days.![](https://i2.wp.com/t10p.ru/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/belli_bojd.jpg)
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For some, Milady from The Three Musketeers was the embodiment of deceit, and for others, she was an exemplary intelligence officer for Cardinal Richelieu, who managed to complete the task of her patron even while being captured by Lord Winter.
But in real life There were also enough female spies (for their part, of course, intelligence officers) who successfully carried out such operations that James Bond himself would have turned green with envy. Here is a list of the most famous female spies in human history.
1. Ana Montes
An employee of the US Defense Intelligence Agency felt passionate sympathy for Liberty Island and openly disagreed with foreign policy USA in relation to Cuba. Therefore, when Cuban officials approached her one day, Ana agreed to carry out secret assignments for them.
Montes not only had access to state secrets (particularly the invasion of Afghanistan), but also had a photographic memory. It made it easier for her to remember necessary documents. When her colleagues became suspicious of Montez, she agreed to take a polygraph test to prove her allegiance to the United States. And she passed it successfully.
She secretly worked for the Cuban government for several years until the FBI got on Montez's trail. In 2002, Ana pleaded guilty to espionage and received a 25-year prison sentence.
2. Josephine Baker
The American-born black singer and dancer quickly became one of the most popular and highest-paid entertainers in Europe in the 1920s. Dressed only in her famous banana skirt and colorful jewelry, she performed on stage at the famous Parisian cabaret Folies Bergere. And she even gained access to the center of the musical and theatrical world of America - Broadway.
However, what most people don't know is that Baker was not only a talented singer and dancer, but also a successful spy. She worked for the French Resistance during World War II, smuggling secret messages in music books and sometimes even in her underwear. For her work, Baker received military honors from the French government after the war.
3. Anna Chapman
One of the most famous Russian intelligence officers of the 21st century operated in the United States under the guise of an entrepreneur. She spent years in the United States trying to gather any kind of information that could be useful to the Russian government.
In 2010, Chapman was arrested in New York, admitted that she collaborated with the Russian Federation and, together with other defendants in this case, was exchanged for several Russian citizens who were accused of spying for the United States and England.
She was accused of trying to seduce ex-NSA and CIA employee Edward Snowden in order to keep him in Russia, but the flirtation between the two exposed agents did not result in a strong and happy marriage.
4. Nancy Wake
“The White Mouse,” as Nancy was known during her time in the French Resistance, quickly became a heroine of the movement. Her successes included establishing links between the British military and the French Resistance, saving Allied lives by smuggling them through France into Spain, and collecting and storing weapons for the Allied advance.
She was often credited with eliminating German spies, and Wake was once rumored to have killed a German with her bare hands by cutting off his larynx using a special move. In 1943, the Gestapo placed a reward of 5 million francs on the head of the “White Mouse”. However, the Nazis never managed to capture her. Wake died at the ripe old age of 98 in 2011.
5. Virginia Hall
This British spy was known to German counterintelligence under the name "Artemis". During World War II, she worked with the French Resistance, rescuing prisoners of war and recruiting hundreds of people to work against the Nazis (who called her "the lame lady" because Hall had a wooden prosthetic leg instead of one).
Using her keen mind to stay one step ahead of the enemy, Hall conducted successful intelligence activities and, unlike Noor Inayat Khan, managed to escape the Gestapo dungeons. She became the only woman to receive the Distinguished Service Cross, the second most prestigious military award in the United States.
6. Mata Hari (Margaret Gertrude Zelle)
She is perhaps the most famous female spy in history, although not the most successful. This exotic dancer, famous at the beginning of the 20th century, traveled around Europe, telling interesting but completely untrue stories of her youth. She assured some that she was a princess, the daughter of King Edward VII and an Indian princess. She told others that Indian priestesses taught her to dance.
Mata Hari's seductive appearance and occupation gave her the perfect cover to spy for Germany during the First World War. This beauty was famous for making high-ranking lovers from different countries, extracting from them details about weapons and the number of troops. However, there is speculation that her effectiveness as a spy was greatly overestimated.
In 1917, Mata Hari was captured by the French and executed for spying for the enemy. A dramatic end to a dramatic career.
7. Noor Inayat Khan
Nur's father Inayat Khan came from a princely Indian family, so Nur can safely be called an Indian princess. But instead of a luxurious and carefree life, a bright, glorious, albeit short career as a British intelligence officer and radio operator awaited her.
During World War II she was part of the Resistance movement in Paris under code name"Madeleine." While many other members of the Resistance were arrested, Khan evaded arrest time and time again by moving frequently and remaining in constant radio communication with London. Unfortunately, the long and successful career of the Anglo-Indian intelligence officer ended when she was betrayed to the Nazis by a local Frenchwoman. Khan ended up in the Gestapo, but even under torture she did not give out the encryption codes. She tried to escape several times and was finally sent to the Dachau concentration camp, where she died.
8. Kristina Skarbek
This Polish woman was one of the most beautiful and successful spies in the world. During World War II, she carried out secret missions for the Allies in Nazi-occupied Europe, in particular, organizing the work of couriers in Poland and Hungary.
One story tells how Skarbek escaped from the police by biting her tongue and pretending that she was dying of tuberculosis. She also used her beauty as a bargaining chip, extracting valuable information from her Nazi lovers.
Perhaps it was Skarbek’s personality that inspired Ian Fleming when describing Vesper Lynd in the book “Casino Royale”.
9. Melita Norwood
The innocuous secretary of the British Non-Ferrous Metals Research Association (also known as "BNF") in the 1930s was responsible for things like arranging meetings and processing paperwork. Nothing serious. Except the BNF was actually a front for the Tube Alloys project, the UK's nuclear weapons program.
Although Norwood lived and worked in Britain, she was Russian at heart, identifying with the communist ideologies of the Soviet government. She collaborated with the KGB, working, as they say, for an idea, and not for money.
For 40 years, Melita transferred documents classified as “secret” to the USSR, including those related to the nuclear program. Much of this information was used to modernize Russian nuclear technology.
After Norwood's activities became known to the general public (thanks to the betrayal of intelligence officer Vasily Mitrokhin), she was asked to reveal the identities of her Russian accomplices. She refused, saying she couldn't remember their names due to memory loss. As Mayakovsky wrote: “Nails should be made from these people. There couldn’t be any stronger nails in the world.”
10. Belly Boyd
"Southern Belly" aka Isabella Maria Boyd played vital role in many Southern victories during the American Civil War. Finding herself in Martinsburg, occupied by the northerners, she collected information about enemy troops and transmitted information to the leadership of the Confederacy. One of these letters ended up in the hands of the northerners. Isabella's handwriting was recognized and threatened with reprisals, but the threat was not carried out.
After the war, the ex-spy of the southerners lived first in Canada, then in England and visited America several times with lectures and stories. Belly Boyd died in her native country, and a museum named after her still operates in Martinsburg.