German soldiers eagerly enjoyed the services of a luxury brothel in Lyon. They did not know that their moments of pleasure would pay them dearly, because prostitutes deliberately infected them with venereal diseases and drove them into drug addiction. They were commissioned by - according to the Gestapo - "the most dangerous Allied spy of World War II" - one-legged American woman, Virginia Hall.
Virginia Hall was born on April 6, 1906 in Baltimore, Maryland. Her parents - banker Edwin Lee Hall and his wife (and secretary) Barbara Virginia Hammel dreamed of a happy, quiet life for her with a wealthy, well-disposed husband. Virginia, however, had other plans.
Virginia Hall. How did the most dangerous agent of the Second World War fought with Germany?
She dreamed of a job in diplomacy, but even despite her excellent education (she studied at the prestigious Radcliffe College and Barnard College at Columbia University and at several European universities), it was not easy for her to find employment. Finally, in 1931, she accepted a job as a secretary at the American embassy. It was just the beginning of her dizzying career that led her, among others, to to… the most popular Lyon brothel in the collaborative Vichy.
Agent with prosthetic leg
Virginia's dream of diplomatic work was shattered when in 1933, as a result of an unfortunate hunting accident, a woman lost her left leg (the limb was amputated below the knee). She was given a wooden prosthesis.
Hall wasn't about to break down, however. She affectionately called the prosthesis Cuthbert and decided to change her career path. Circumstances were favorable to her. In 1939, when the war broke out, she was in Paris. After the German aggression against France, she joined the sanitary service. She rode an ambulance under fire, assisted the Allied airmen. After the capitulation she decided to flee via Spain to Great Britain.
German soldiers entering a French brothel
Just then, at one of the Spanish railway stations, a fearless woman was noticed and recruited by British spy George Bellows. Author of the biography of Hall A Woman of No Meaning , Sonia Purnell writes:
Trusting his instincts, the agent made the most important decision of his life that would restore hope for an eventual Allied victory in France. When he was saying goodbye to Virginia, he surreptitiously gave her the phone number of a London "friend" that might help her find a useful job - and insisted that she contact her as soon as she arrived.
Even if the US State Department underestimated her virtues, Bellows knew he had just met someone of exceptional strength.
Thus, Virginia began her adventure with British intelligence Special Operations Executive (SOE, Special Operations Board) as agent 3844.
Spy in the brothel
In 1941, SOE did not have a single spy in occupied France. But soon - thanks to Virginia Hall - that was about to change. The British desperately needed information from within the collaborative Vichy state, and the brave American was going to provide it.
As Marie Monin, correspondent of the American newspaper "New York Post", and in addition a disabled woman, she did not arouse suspicions among the Germans and the French cooperating with them . She quickly managed to organize a network that became the nucleus of the French resistance movement. One of its most important elements was ... a brothel in Lyon belonging to Germaine Guérin. In the book A Woman of No Meaning Purnell writes:
W maison close downstairs, the gleaming Germaine greeted German officers, French policemen, Vichy officials and industrialists separately. She watered them black market Scotch whiskey and fed them excellent steaks at astronomical prices, but she put away some of the goods for her friends.
The text was created, among others based on the book by Soni Purnell "A Woman without a Meaning", which has just been released by Agora.
Clients never asked her questions or tried to search the property. They enjoyed delivering Germaine with virtually unattainable fuel (they had no suspicion that it was carrying London and SOE agents in its car.
Hall and Guérin have established a partnership that has proven extremely fruitful for British intelligence. At the urging of Virginia, Germaine agreed to provide rooms in the brothel as hiding places for SOE agents and escaping Jews. She also harnessed her subordinates to spy, whose charms were eagerly used by German officers and officials of the Vichy government.
Heroin and syphilis in Germany
Germaine's "girls" were engaged in gathering intelligence. They watered their customers with strong drinks that loosened their tongues, and when they lost consciousness from the intoxication, they rummaged through their pockets and photographed secret documents. Sonia Purnell describes:
(...) some did even more, using heroin smuggled through diplomatic mail from London. Drunken Germans were tempted by the proposal of a "small line" to "see what happens."
If everything was going according to plan, the men quickly became addicted and mysteriously disabled; some pilots had vision problems and were grounded. It was a dangerous and unorthodox but effective form of warfare.
After the war, she was awarded the Cross of Outstanding Service and was one of the first women to be hired as an analyst at the CIA.
Equally unorthodox was the action initiated by Dr. Jean Rousset, who collaborates with Hall, to ... fight Germany with the use of venereal diseases. The doctor had the devilish idea of infecting as many of his enemies as possible with gonorrhea or syphilis. To this end, he issued white cards confirming that the prostitute was healthy. Obviously false. Purnell concludes:
One could infect a dozen enemy soldiers - the Germans were encouraged to visit the brothels, believing it would increase their motivation to fight - and only then did it begin to heal. Others sprinkled powder on customers' clothes to itch to make them nervous.
The woman the Gestapo feared
It was not only Guérin and Rousset who passed the information and obeyed Virginia's orders without blinking an eye. The charismatic agent operated not only under the guise of a brothel. She also dealt with small sabotage. poisoned food intended for export to Germany, and organized a transit route to Spain.
In November 1942, her SOE mesh was broken (Hall's associates were released by a German informant), but Virginia herself managed to escape. She was awarded the Order of the British Empire for her services, but this was not the end of her service. In 1944 she returned to France - this time as an agent of the American Office of Strategic Services (OSS) under the pseudonym "Diane".
After the war, she was awarded the Cross of Outstanding Service and was one of the first women to be employed as an analyst at the CIA. She retired at the age of 60. She died on July 12, 1982.
Although in 1942 the Gestapo in a special announcement called her "the most dangerous of all allied spies", to be "found and destroyed" , today hardly anyone knows who the Nazis meant. Sonia Purnell's book, which brings to light completely new facts about Virginia Hall, has a chance to change that.
Sonia Purnell's book "A Woman of No Importance" has just been released by Agora Publishing House.
Bibliography:
- C. Gralley, Hall of Mirrors:Virginia Hall:America's Greatest Spy of WWII , Chrysalis Books 2019.
- K. Wężyk, The most important spy of World War II never got caught, although she wore a four-kilogram prosthetic leg , Wysokie Obcasy (access:August 24, 2021).
- Ł. Zaranek, She was leading the Gestapo by the nose with the prosthetic leg , TVP Info (access:24/08/2021).