Related Research Articles
Wilhelm Franz Canaris was a German admiral and the chief of the Abwehr from 1935 to 1944. Canaris was initially a supporter of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi regime. Following the German invasion of Poland in 1939, however, Canaris turned against Hitler and committed acts of both passive and active resistance during the war.
Hugo Bleicher was a sergeant in Nazi Germany's Abwehr assigned to the Geheime Feldpolizei in German-occupied France during World War II. Described as a "super spy-catcher," Bleicher infiltrated resistance networks in France and was responsible for the arrest of more than one hundred French resistors and British Special Operations Executive (SOE) agents. Most of the SOE agents he captured were later executed.
Henri Louis Honoré, comte d'Estienne d'Orves was a French Navy officer and one of the major heroes of the French Resistance, said to be the "first martyr of Free France".
Virginia Hall Goillot DSC, Croix de Guerre,, code named Marie and Diane, was an American who worked with the United Kingdom's clandestine Special Operations Executive (SOE) and the American Office of Strategic Services (OSS) in France during World War II. The objective of SOE and OSS was to conduct espionage, sabotage and reconnaissance in occupied Europe against the Axis powers, especially Nazi Germany. SOE and OSS agents in France allied themselves with resistance groups and supplied them with weapons and equipment parachuted in from England. After World War II, Hall worked for the Special Activities Division of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).
The Solf Circle was an informal gathering of German intellectuals involved in the resistance against Nazi Germany. Most members were arrested and executed after attending a tea party in Berlin on 10 September 1943 at the residence of Elisabeth von Thadden. The group's downfall also ultimately led to the demise of the Abwehr in February 1944.
Erich Vermehren, also known as Erich Vermeeren de Saventhem or Eric Maria de Saventhem, was an ardent anti-Nazi, an agent of the Abwehr, the German military intelligence organization, and later a leading Catholic Traditionalist.
John Codd was an Irish-born British Army corporal during World War II, who went on to serve in the German Intelligence service (Abwehr) and the Sicherheitsdienst, the foreign intelligence arm of the SS.
Günther Schütz was a German citizen who worked for German Intelligence (Abwehr) during World War II, he was deployed to Ireland, however, after parachuting to the wrong location he was apprehended by Irish police, and spent much of the rest of the war in prison, barring a brief escape.
Karl Bömelburg was an SS-Sturmbannführer (major) and head of the Gestapo in France during the Second World War. He notably had authority over section IV J, charged with the deportation of the Jews, for which Alois Brunner was responsible. His aliases included Charles Bois, Mollemburg, and Bennelburger.
Henri Lafont was an underworld figure who headed the Carlingue, French auxiliaries for the German security services, during the German occupation of France in World War II.
Joseph Joanovici was a French scrap metal merchant who supplied Nazi Germany and funded the French Resistance with the proceeds during the German occupation of France in World War II.
Georges Delfanne, called Christian Masuy was a Belgian collaborator and spy during the German occupation of Belgium in World War II.
Horst Gustav Friedrich von Pflugk-Harttung was a German intelligence officer and spy.
The Abwehr was the German military-intelligence service for the Reichswehr and the Wehrmacht from 1920 to 1945. Although the 1919 Treaty of Versailles prohibited the Weimar Republic from establishing an intelligence organization of their own, they formed an espionage group in 1920 within the Ministry of Defence, calling it the Abwehr. The initial purpose of the Abwehr was defense against foreign espionage: an organizational role that later evolved considerably. Under General Kurt von Schleicher the individual military services' intelligence units were combined and, in 1929, centralized under Schleicher's Ministeramt within the Ministry of Defence, forming the foundation for the more commonly understood manifestation of the Abwehr.
Augustin Přeučil was a Czechoslovakian military pilot, who during World War II worked as an intelligence agent for Nazi Germany. In 1941, whilst serving with the British Royal Air Force, he stole a fighter aircraft from England, and flew it to Occupied Europe where he surrendered it to the German authorities. He later worked in Occupied Central Europe with the Gestapo. Shortly after the war he was executed in Prague by the Czechoslovakian authorities for treason.
Robert Alesch was a Catholic priest and collaborator with Nazi Germany during the Second World War.
Christiaan Antonius Lindemans was a Dutch double agent during the Second World War, working under Soviet control. Otherwise known as Freddi Desmet, a Belgian army officer and SOE agent with security clearance at the Dutch Military Intelligence Division of the SOE (MID/SOE). He was known by the soubriquets "King Kong" or in some circles as "le Tueur" as he was reportedly ready to shoot at the slightest provocation. There is speculation that Lindemans was a member of Colonel Claude Dansey's Z organisation.
Ángel Alcázar de Velasco was an apprentice bullfighter, Falangist, journalist and spy.
Véra Obolensky was a French Resistance member during World War II (1939–45). She served as secretary of the OCM, an important resistance organization, until her arrest in December 1943. She was deported to Germany and executed there after the Liberation of France.
Hillel Katz was a Polish Jewish Communist, who was an important member of a Soviet espionage network in occupied France, that the German Abwehr intelligence service later called the "Red Orchestra". In the role of an underground executive and recruiter, he acted as both secretary and assistant to Leopold Trepper and liaised between Léon Grossvogel and Henry Robinson in matters relating to the running of the French covert black market trading company Simex. Katz had a number of aliases that he used to disguise his identity, including Andre Dubois, Rene and Le Petite Andre.
References
- Magazine Historia Hors Série n°26 1972 by Jacques Delarue
- Les comtesses de la Gestapo ed. Grasset, 2007 by Cyril Eder, ISBN 978-2-246-67401-6
