by Larry Loftis
Münchof . . . no food: Ibid. In her debriefing, Odette mentioned (or the officer taking notes heard) that they had gone to “Malschoff.” No such town exists, and it appears that she meant (or said) “Münchof,” some twelve miles away.
mown down by SS machine guns: HS 9/648.4.013, UK National Archives; Tickell, Odette, 280.
“What do you want?”: Tickell, Odette, 280–81.
“Adolf Hitler . . . is dead”: Ibid.; Imperial War Museum (IWM), Oral History, interview with Odette Marie Céline Sansom, produced October 31, 1986, catalogue number 9478, Reel 2.
“If Hitler should be”: Churchill, Spirit in the Cage, 212.
Execute all British: Ibid., 214–15.
May 1 . . . three in the afternoon: HS 9/648.4.013, UK National Archives.
“Ist Frau Churchill”: Tickell, Odette, 281; HS 9/648.4.013, UK National Archives.
head was shaved . . . “fresh”: IWM, interview with Odette Sansom, October 31, 1986, catalogue number 9478, Reel 2.
the other women . . . still warm: Ibid.
three cars . . . SS officers: HS 9/648.4.013, UK National Archives.
white Mercedes: IWM, interview with Odette Sansom, October 31, 1986, catalogue number 9478, Reel 2. In Tickell’s 1949 account (281), Sühren’s Mercedes is black; however, in Odette’s 1986 interview, she recalls that it was white.
“Get out”: Tickell, 282.
von Schlabrendorff: Churchill, Spirit in the Cage, 215–18.
Kreisau Circle: See, for example, William Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of the Third Reich, 374.
Canaris had sent him to England to warn Churchill: Hassell and MacRae, Alliance of Enemies, 56.
Gestapo tortured him: Von Schlabrendorff’s statement regarding his torture is set forth in Rürup, Topography of Terror, 174–76.
“We are not out”: Churchill, Spirit in the Cage, 218.
“Where is your cousin?”: Ibid., 219.
arranged them in a pile and struck the match: Tickell, Odette, 282.
“In God’s name” . . . Colonel von Bonin: Churchill, Spirit in the Cage, 220.
Pragser-Wildsee Hotel . . . stationed Kesselring’s men: Ibid., 221–22.
Garibaldi . . . Attwood: Ibid., 221–24.
Red Army . . . Berlin . . . May 2: Dear and Foot, Oxford Companion to World War II, 1301, 1336.
“Do you want to”: IWM, interview with Odette Sansom, October 31, 1986, catalogue number 9478, Reel 2.
deserted wood to be shot: HS 9/648.4.013, UK National Archives.
“This is Frau Churchill”: IWM, interview with Odette Sansom, October 31, 1986, catalogue number 9478, Reel 2; Tickell, Odette, 283.
“No, if you don’t mind”: IWM, interview with Odette Sansom, October 31, 1986, catalogue number 9478, Reel 2; Churchill, Spirit in the Cage, 233; Tickell, Odette, 284.
documents in Sühren’s briefcase: IWM, interview with Odette Sansom, October 31, 1986, catalogue number 9478, Reel 2; Churchill, Spirit in the Cage, 233.
Footsteps: Tickell, Odette, 285.
CHAPTER 20: PIERRE
American soldiers arrived . . . Partisans: Churchill, Spirit in the Cage, 224.
May 4 . . . Lüneburg . . . May 7 . . . Reims . . . Berlin: Dear and Foot, Oxford Companion to World War II, 1336; Warlimont, Inside Hitler’s Headquarters, 1939–45, 517.
Verona . . . May 9 . . . Naples . . . Lieutenant Colonel Hedin: Churchill, Spirit in the Cage, 226–28.
“You won’t know”: Ibid., 230–31.
Queen Alexandra’s Military Hospital: Odette received treatment here as well as at St. Mary’s Hospital in Paddington—the archive files suggesting that the Queen Alexandra’s visit came first. See HS 9/648.4.044, UK National Archives.
fifth vertebra: Churchill, Spirit in the Cage, 232. See also Imperial War Museum (IWM), Oral History, interview with Odette Marie Céline Sansom, produced October 31, 1986, catalogue number 9478, Reel 3.
severe anemia . . . injections . . . “intense general medicinal”: HS 9/648.4.019, HS 9/648.4.026, and HS 9/648.4.032, UK National Archives.
nervous tension and articular rheumatism: HS 9/648.4.019, HS 9/648.4.026, and HS 9/648.4.032, UK National Archives.
sepsis: IWM, interview with Odette Sansom, October 31, 1986, catalogue number 9478, Reel 3.
had killed . . . Reinhard Heydrich: Höhne, Order of the Death’s Head, 495.
She would die: In an interview with the London Dispatch on November 30, 1958, Odette stated: “I have had many operations since the war. Several times they have come to say good-bye because I was expected to die.” Starns, Odette, 112. The SOE archive files do not mention Odette’s sepsis or operations, although Peter wrote in 1946 (correspondence to Colonel Perkins on May 23 at HS 9/648.4.017, UK National Archives) and again in 1954 (Spirit in the Cage, 234) that Dr. Markowicz had saved her life (see infra and accompanying text), and medical correspondence on 8 November 1945 refers to her “severe illness last summer.” HS 9/648.4.044, UK National Archives. Odette mentions her septic toe in her 1986 interview with the Imperial War Museum. IWM, interview with Odette Sansom, October 31, 1986, catalogue number 9478, Reel 3. See also HS 9/648.4.043, UK National Archives.
CHAPTER 21: HUNTING THE HUNTER
aka Monsieur Jean, Jean Verbeck: Hugo Bleicher’s aliases can be found throughout KV 2/164 and 2/2127, UK National Archives.
Sams . . . “the Order Service”: Hugo Bleicher, Colonel Henri’s Story, 167. For details of the hiding arrangement and persons involved, see KV 2/164 (4B), UK National Archives.
May 31: Bleicher remembered his arrest date as June 15 (Colonel Henri’s Story, 168), but the official arrest report reveals the date to be May 31, 1945. KV 2/164 (unpaginated, but appearing between pages 7a and 7B).
Dutch militia: Bleicher remembered that the arresting party was composed of Dutch militia; the official arrest report, however, records that they were Canadian soldiers from “11 Cdn F S section,” with the 1 Canadian Corps taking custody of Bleicher. It is likely, then, that a small band of Dutch militia—who knew of Bleicher’s hideout—led the arrest and were backed by Canadian soldiers who had liberated the city. KV 2/164 (unpaginated, but appearing between pages 7a and 7B).
Betrayal! . . . reverse of the medallion: Bleicher, Colonel Henri’s Story, 169.
Camp 020: For Bleicher’s Camp 020 file, see KV 2/164, UK National Archives. In particular, see MI5’s Ian Wilson’s summary report of Bleicher and his work on page 2B.
“The British Secret Service”: Bleicher, Colonel Henri’s Story, 173–74. While Hugo didn’t know it at the time, one of his interrogators was none other than F Section’s Vera Atkins. “I was startled one morning to be visited by a very pretty young woman officer in uniform,” he wrote later. “She turned out to have more aplomb than all the other officers put together. She boxed me in with astonishing ease and consummate tactics. Luckily my memory is good or she might well have put me in an awkward position. She seemed also to be quite tireless in her questioning and if the conducting officer had not felt hungry at lunch time and urged her to break off the interrogations, she would have kept me on tenterhooks for a great deal longer.” Ibid., 174, 176.
Walter Schellenberg: Hugo wondered why Schellenberg was also not in solitary but, instead, was allowed to mingle with other prisoners. As the SD’s foreign intelligence chief, had he not been aware of the Nazi atrocities? He had not, Schellenberg said during their dinners together. “Only later did I learn,” Hugo wrote in his memoirs, “that as Chief of the Secret Service Schellenberg had done all he could to shorten the war.” Bleicher, Colonel Henri’s Story, 176.
Indeed, for more than two years Schellenberg had risked his own life in trying to convince Heinrich Himmler to separate from Hitler and seek peace with the West. At the end of 1944 Schellenberg initiated a meeting between Himmler and Jean-Marie Musy, former president of Switzerland, to discuss release of some prominent Jews in concentration camps, and to float peace feelers. In February 1945 Schellenberg broker
ed a similar meeting with the Swedish Red Cross’s Count Bernadotte. Schellenberg pushed Himmler to discuss not only camp evacuations but also peace. Finish with Hitler, he urged, and finish the war.
“So you are demanding that I depose the Führer?” Himmler had asked.
“Yes,” Schellenberg replied. “You still have enough higher SS leaders and you are still in a strong enough position to arrest him.”
Himmler relished the notion of being the country’s leader, but lacked the courage to pursue Schellenberg’s plan.
See Höhne, Order of the Death’s Head, 568, 570–71; Schellenberg, Memoirs of Hitler’s Spymaster, 428–29, 433–54; Shirer, Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, 1114, 1116.
A rumor . . . “Where is the plane”: Bleicher, Colonel Henri’s Story, 177.
“Do you know me”: Ibid., 178.
CHAPTER 22: FANNING THE DAMNED
specialists: HS 9/648.4.043, UK National Archives.
Dr. T. Markowicz: See HS 9/648.4.019, 9/648.4.026, and 9/648.4.032, UK National Archives.
saved Odette’s life: Churchill, Spirit in the Cage, 234; HS 9/648.4.017, UK National Archives.
nervous condition and anemia: HS 9/648.4.019, UK National Archives.
full disability pension: Churchill, Spirit in the Cage, 234; HS 9/648.4.020, UK National Archives.
$2,000: Churchill, Spirit in the Cage, 234.
He had escaped: See “The Arrest of Fritz Suhren” (footage of Sühren’s recapture) and accompanying description, Imperial War Museum, catalogue number MGH 617.
Sühren and SS Sergeant Hans Pflaum: “Wie ein SS-Mann aus Varel eine Agentin als Geisel ahm,” Nordwest Zeitung, NWZOnline.de, April 30, 2015.
“You arrested my”: Bleicher, Colonel Henri’s Story, 178–79.
Lucas: For details on Lucas (Pierre de Vomécourt) and Bleicher’s arrest and subsequent involvement with him, see KV 2/164 (10B), UK National Archives; Carré, I Was “the Cat”, 130–50; Philippe de Vomécourt, Army of Amateurs.
“Then Lucas will”: Bleicher, Colonel Henri’s Story, 178.
“Have you had” . . . “You are not a convict”: Ibid., 179.
11 rue des Saussaies . . . French Ministry of the Interior: Foot, SOE in France, 109.
“I told you”: Bleicher, Colonel Henri’s Story, 180.
“They were all truthful” . . . “Mon Dieu” . . . “The chief of”: Ibid., 186–87.
“Through him”: Ibid., 129.
almost tearful . . . prior August: Foot, SOE in France, 361.
“You should have” . . . “I am sorry”: Cookridge, Inside S.O.E., 369–70.
“I often suspected”: Ibid.
“Promise me, Monsieur Jean”: Bleicher, Colonel Henri’s Story, 190.
“So I went into”: Ibid.
“It was I who” . . . “like two souls”: Ibid., 191.
“Congratulations” . . . “The George Cross”: Imperial War Museum (IWM), Oral History, interview with Odette Marie Céline Sansom, produced October 31, 1986, catalogue number 9478, Reel 3. Odette’s George Cross was officially announced in the London Gazette on August 20, 1946.
“I am going to stay”: Starns, Odette, 113, citing an interview with Odette in the Daily Telegraph, August 21, 1946.
“Mommy, is the George Cross”: IWM, interview with Odette Sansom, October 31, 1986, catalogue number 9478, Reel 3.
Member of the Order of the British Empire: HS 9/648.4.002, .008, .010, .011, and .045–51, UK National Archives.
promoted to lieutenant: HS 9/648.4.055 and HS 9/648.4.056, UK National Archives.
injections . . . guards . . . Lord Chamberlain: Churchill, Spirit in the Cage, 235–36.
CHAPTER 23: COMPLETING THE LOOP
“Madame, His Majesty” . . . “If you will kindly”: Churchill, Spirit in the Cage, 236.
Mrs. Sansom was infiltrated: London Gazette, August 20, 1946; Churchill, Spirit in the Cage, 236–37.
“I asked that”: Churchill, Spirit in the Cage, 237.
“Foreseeing that she would”: Affidavit of Simone Hérail taken at Narbonne, France, on March 20, 1946. HS 9/648.4.038 and HS 9/648.4.039, UK National Archives.
“mysterious”: Imperial War Museum, “The Arrest of Fritz Suhren,” catalogue number MGH 617.
Sühren’s guards: Churchill, Spirit in the Cage, 234.
screams of women: London Times, December 17, 1946; Imperial War Museum (IWM), Oral History, interview with Odette Marie Céline Sansom, produced October 31, 1986, catalogue number 9478, Reel 2.
General C. L. Stirling: London Times, December 17, 1946.
“Bleicher’s methods”: Buckmaster, They Fought Alone, 230.
“It was generally conceded”: Bleicher, Colonel Henri’s Story, 191.
“Bleicher has had”: KV 2/164 (2B), UK National Archives. And from another report: “Bleicher . . . claims always to have been anti-Nazi . . . and to have struggled throughout the war to protect agents captured through his efforts from maltreatment at the hands of Amt. IV. There is a good deal of evidence to show that at least the latter part of this claim is to some extent justified. It is to the credit of Bleicher and his superior officers that the promises given to captured agents . . . have been carried out. He caused captured agents to be treated as Prisoner of War even in cases where, under international law, the Germans were entitled to impose the death penalty.” KV 2/164 (10B), UK National Archives.
“extremely nice and polite”: KV 2/2127.1 (unpaginated, but see entry at 1943 in the fourth page of Bleicher’s personnel file), UK National Archives.
“There is no doubt”: Buckmaster, They Fought Alone, 230.
EPILOGUE
“There is no other”: Imperial War Museum (IWM), Oral History, interview with Odette Marie Céline Sansom, produced October 31, 1986, catalogue number 9478, Reel 2.
“Madam” . . . “this is”: Ibid.
Trude . . . had been a governess: HS 9/648.4.044, UK National Archives; IWM, interview with Odette Sansom, October 31, 1986, catalogue number 9478, Reel 2.
asked if she could work: IWM, interview with Odette Sansom, October 31, 1986, catalogue number 9478, Reel 2; Churchill, Spirit in the Cage, 243.
married the Fresnes guard captain: Churchill, Spirit in the Cage, 243.
“What happened to me”: IWM, interview with Odette Sansom, October 31, 1986, catalogue number 9478, Reel 2.
“No, never”: Ibid., Reel 3.
“They were in”: Ibid., Reel 2.
“There was nothing”: Ibid., Reel 3.
“No. Why?”: Ibid.
September 1946 Hugo Bleicher: Cookridge, Inside S.O.E., 371.
Tettnang: Churchill, Spirit in the Cage, 243; Cookridge, Inside S.O.E., 371–72.
le Belge and Roger Bardet . . . sentenced . . . released: Churchill, Spirit in the Cage, 242; Cookridge, Inside S.O.E., 372 (writing that Bardet was released in 1955).
publication of Odette: As occurs with many sensational stories, a few challenged the book’s veracity. In SOE in France, M. R. D. Foot—who had interviewed neither Odette nor Peter Churchill (who later sued Foot’s publisher for libel, and won)—writes that Tickell’s account was “partly fictionalised” but “also accurate in parts” (411). In the 2000 reprint of William Mackenzie’s The Secret History of SOE (1948), Foot (who provided the introduction and notes) reasserted the charge, writing that Odette became “a national heroine on appearance of film Odette based on Jerry Tickell’s often inaccurate life of her with the same title” (252, note *). In Odette: World War Two’s Darling Spy, Starns alleges twice that Tickell’s authorized biography was “fictionalised” (12, 125).
However, neither Foot nor Starns cited examples in Tickell’s biography where they thought the account was fictionalised. While Tickell’s work is not error free, the book’s accuracy was personally confirmed at the time by Odette and Peter, the individuals who knew the story best, and is corroborated in most places by SOE reports and interrogations now in the UK National Archives. Odette also wrote the foreword to the book
and would continue to defend it years later. When asked if Tickell’s biography was accurate or if any corrections needed to be made, Odette was unequivocal: “No. There are not. I think it was as it was . . . I’m sure that it’s difficult for people to believe some part of it, but it did happen the way it did, and I can’t alter the fact. I did survive, and I know I should not. I don’t take any pride in that; it has nothing to do with me whatsoever.” IWM, interview with Odette Sansom, October 31, 1986, catalogue number 9478, Reel 3. Peter would also vouch for the book’s accuracy in his 1954 account of his own captivity, Spirit in the Cage: “Little by little, Odette told me her dreadful story. Since it has been accurately and sensitively told by Jerrard Tickell in his book Odette . . .” Spirit in the Cage, 232.
Eppenschlag . . . Herbert Pakusch: Hans von Begerow, “Wie ein SS-Mann aus Varel eine Agentin als Geisel ahm,” NWZ online (Nordwest-Zeitung, Lower Saxony, Germany), April 30, 2015.
Deggendorf . . . Rastatt . . . convicted . . . hanged: Ibid.
“Madame” . . . “I have no right”: Churchill, Spirit in the Cage, 251.
“In bringing Paul Steinert’s”: Ibid.
the king and queen of England: Footage from the premiere, including coverage of the king and queen, Odette, Peter, and Anna Neagle, can be seen at: www.youtube.com/watch?v=_giTVe5apbU.
“It took her one year”: IWM, interview with Odette Sansom, October 31, 1986, catalogue number 9478, Reel 3.
Arnaud . . . Rawicz extermination camp . . . gassed: Cookridge, Inside S.O.E., 183.
most highly decorated: Australia’s Nancy Wake received more total decorations (twelve), but five of those were campaign awards, and four were awarded more than twenty-five years after the war. Odette’s George Cross and Member of the Order of the British Empire, however, were higher decorations than any received by Wake (both women received France’s Chevalier de la Légion d’honneur, Odette in 1950, Wake in 1970). As such, Nancy Wake was World War II’s most decorated woman, while Odette was the war’s most highly decorated woman.
APPENDIX
some alleged that Maurice: In an article for the Daily Mirror, Buckmaster countered: “The penetration by the Germans in the summer of 1943 of the so-called ‘Prosper’ circuit was a serious setback to our operations . . . But it represented one success only—admittedly with grave repercussions and gave rise to a large number of arrests. It did not stop the progress of the French Section toward its objective: the constant harrying of the German forces and the stranglehold on the German economic machine in France.” Daily Mirror, December 1, 1958; Starns, Odette, 132, citing TS 58/1160, UK National Archives.
