During World War II, women of all backgrounds work as spies: Krystyna Skarbek, the Polish aristocrat whose daring exploits earn her the title of "Churchill's favorite spy," Andrée de Jongh, the Belgian girl whose ambitious escape network will save hundreds of Allied airmen, Josephine Baker, the glamorous singer whose fame provides the perfect cover for her anti-Nazi activities, and brothel owner Kitty Schmidt, whose Nazi-run establishment offers both secrets and pleasures.
Ended
Female Spies: Courage and Espionage in WWII
August 9, 2024
August 23, 2024
1
6
English
Joey Guerrero was a Filipino spy who suffered from leprosy and extracted important information from Japanese soldiers. Marie Madeleine-Fourcade worked for the French and British secret services; after the war she became a member of the European Parliament. The French agent Violette Szabo was exposed by the Nazis and died in the Ravensbrück concentration camp. Pearl Witherington was the only woman to command a network of resistance groups in France. Long before Julia Child became a cooking icon in the USA, she worked as an intelligence officer. Vera Schalburg, alias Vera Eriksen, a native Russian, spied for the German Abwehr. Her cover was exposed in England in 1940 and she was imprisoned, after which her traces were initially lost. In 2012 her story was made into a film (“The Beautiful Spy”). The German Ursula Kuczynski - code name: Sonja - joined the Soviet military intelligence service GRU during the Second World War.
View Episodes