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Women spies everyone should know:
Marthe Cnockaert
Vera Rosenberg Atkins
Krystyna Skarbek
Violette Szabo
Marthe Cnockaert
Vera Rosenberg Atkins
Krystyna Skarbek
Violette Szabo
Marthe Cnockaert was the most badass woman of the First World War. She worked as a nurse for German soldiers, even receiving honors for her work, all while reporting information back to England. She coded and carried information, which took skill and was highly dangerous.
When German officers were interested in her, she encouraged that interest in order to obtain information, but she rejected their sexual advances. Yes! Using men but not letting them use you is a BOSS move.
She disguised herself as a German soldier in order to destroy telephone wires. She also helped to blow up a German sewer.
Vera Rosenberg, forced to change her last name at the start of the Second World War, worked behind the scenes. She supplied spies with their cover identities, files, stories, items, etc. While she was of utmost importance during the war, her shining moment came after the war.
Once the camps were liberated, Vera set off to trace the fates of 118 missing agents, successfully discovering 117 of them. She was particularly concerned with the 13 missing women, to whom she referred to as "our girls."
Vera felt an obligation to find out what happened to these agents who so bravely served their country. She went out of her way to make sure their stories had a proper ending. A true angel.
Krystyna Skarbek was another boss like Marthe. She managed to escape arrest twice. During her second arrest, she bit her tongue to the point of drawing blood, coughed it up and convinced her interrogators she had TB. Wanting nothing to do with that, they released her.
Another time when Germans stopped her and ordered her to put her arms up, she raised her arms to reveal unpinned grenades. The Germans ran away! Sounds like a scene right out of a movie.
An intelligent and skillful woman, she survived the war, but unfortunately, she was killed by a male stalker in 1952 at the age of 44.
Violette Szabo, described as an athletic tomboy growing up, was a fierce woman. After her husband was killed in the war, she told an agent that she wanted to kill Germans. She was sent to France as a courier.
Her first mission was successful, but her second mission led to her capture. She was executed at the age of 23, leaving behind a 3 year old daughter, now aged 78. Tania is pictured wearing her mother's George Cross medal.
