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Video: 5 bravest spies to kill Nazis during World War II
2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55
Intelligence has always been considered a purely male business, but history knows many cases when it was women who became fearless spies. They sometimes did the impossible and carried out incredible intelligence operations. Every scout during the Second World War was ready to perform a feat for the sake of defeating the Nazis. It didn’t matter if she worked for British intelligence or Soviet intelligence.
Maria Bobyreva
During the war, a graduate of the Kharkov Institute of Foreign Languages became a scout and worked behind enemy lines in the units of the Wehrmacht, Gestapo and Abwehr. She served as a secretary at the German headquarters in Vinnitsa, and all classified information was sent directly from the headquarters to the underground and partisans. Important papers hidden by her before the retreat of the Germans made it possible to save many residents of Vinnitsa, and to whitewash someone's reputation.
Later, the girl took part in the work of a reconnaissance and sabotage group near Krakow, where she was engaged in blowing up bridges, roads and trains. She was captured, tortured, held in solitary confinement and released by the partisans after she was sentenced to death.
In the post-war years, she returned to her main profession - teaching foreign languages. She has received many awards and was an honorary citizen of several cities in Poland and the Czech Republic.
Odette Hallows
In 1932, 19-year-old Odette, born in Amiens, married a British officer, and 10 years later she became a liaison for the French section of the Special Operations Directorate - the British intelligence and sabotage service. As part of a group in France, she recruited and worked with Resistance fighters, blew up bridges and trains, transmitted secret messages. In 1943, Odette Hallows was arrested along with her leader, Peter Churchill, and subjected to inhuman torture by the Gestapo.
Even after they pulled out all her fingernails and put a hot iron on her back, the brave woman refused to cooperate with the Germans. She claimed that Peter Churchill was her husband and nephew of the British Prime Minister. In 1943, she was sentenced to death, but the sentence was not carried out, and Odette herself was sent to Ravensbrück. It was the legend of her relationship with Churchill that allowed her to survive. After the war, the scout became a Knight of the Order of the British Empire, the Legion of Honor and the Cross of St. George.
Maria Fortus
A brave woman who was born in Kherson in 1900 in a Jewish family, by the will of fate, became a participant in three wars: two civil wars (one of them in Spain) and the Great Patriotic War. In 1941, she took up the post of chief of staff of the 588th Women's Air Regiment, called the Night Witches. Later she moved to the reconnaissance and sabotage partisan detachment under the command of Dmitry Nikolaevich Medvedev, took an active part in military operations. She actively collaborated with the legendary Nikolai Kuznetsov, was engaged in planning sabotage.
After being wounded, she transferred to the reconnaissance department of the headquarters of the 3rd Ukrainian Front. But Maria Fortus could not only deal with organizational work, and therefore often went to the rear of the enemy and took part in military operations. She did not leave intelligence in the post-war years, however, in 1955 she was forced to resign with the rank of colonel for health reasons.
Virginia Hall
Even a serious leg injury did not prevent this woman from becoming a scout. Virginia Hall, in her youth, accidentally shot herself in the leg and part of the limb had to be amputated, so she moved with the help of a special prosthesis, but she always limped, for which she later received the nickname "Lame Lady". By the beginning of World War II, an American by birth and lover of vocation travels ended up in France, where fate gave her a meeting with a British intelligence officer. It was he who did everything to make the incredibly charismatic Virginia a scout as a result.
As early as 1942, the Gestapo was looking for the "Lame Lady, the Most Dangerous of All Allied Spies." She created her own spy network, coordinated resistance groups, provided other agents with money and weapons, evacuated downed pilots, treated and hid the wounded. After the war ended, Virginia Hall returned to the United States where she was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross. She became the spouse of one of her colleagues, with whom she worked together in the rear and served at the headquarters of the CIA.
Nadezhda Troyan
The fearless girl, whom Adolf Hitler himself called his personal enemy, was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union at the age of 22. Her impeccable knowledge of the German language allowed Nadezhda to collect secret information during the war and pass it on to the underground in Smolevichi, Minsk region.
Later, the girl went to the partisan brigade of Uncle Kolya (Pavel Lopatin), participated in military operations, blew up bridges, attacked enemy carts. And together with Maria Osipova and Elena Maznik, Nadezhda Troyan took part in a successful operation to eliminate the Gauleiter of Belarus Wilhelm Kube. In the postwar years, Nadezhda became an employee of the Research Institute of Health Education in Moscow.
On September 22, 1943, the General Commissioner of Belarus Wilhelm Cuba was eliminated. In fact, Gauleiter was removed by three Soviet women. The operation to destroy one of the fascist leaders, who was responsible for the deaths of a huge number of civilians, was of great importance.
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