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The Lost Women Spies S01E06 Ranked
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Short filmTranscript
00:03World War II is over, but British women agents remain missing throughout Europe.
00:14The other English women, how many were there?
00:18Answer me!
00:20Nazi radio mastermind Josef Goertz gives spymaster Vera Atkins an explosive testimony.
00:28Yes, I believe that's him.
00:31Implicating Henri Derricourt as the double agent who betrays the British SOE to the Gestapo.
00:43Derricourt is arrested in Paris, but has Vera really got the man who betrayed her women agents?
00:52Whitehall has closed down the special operations executive.
00:58But Vera has evidence from a French resistance fighter that her agent, Noor Inayat Khan, could still be alive.
01:07Vera will not give up.
01:10One agent who does make it back alive is Odette Sansom.
01:14She is driven out of Ravensbrück concentration camp by its commandant, Fritz Surin.
01:21This man is a war criminal.
01:22Surin is now on the run.
01:25But his deputy, Johann Schwarzhuber...
01:28What happened to her?
01:29They were shot.
01:31...is in custody, awaiting the Ravensbrück trial.
01:46It's the 5th of December, 1946.
01:50In Hamburg, in the British zone of occupied Germany...
01:55...the Ravensbrück trial begins.
02:00The defendants are concentration camp personnel from all divisions of the camp.
02:07SS officers.
02:09Camp doctors.
02:11Female guards.
02:13It is a Nazi camp like no other.
02:19Ravensbrück was a concentration camp, and unlike every other concentration camp, it was a concentration camp for women.
02:28It was particularly horrifying.
02:30For the sensibilities of people in the 1940s as well, where women are meant to be kept out of combat,
02:36out of war, and treated with some level of humanity,
02:39Ravensbrück was a particular horrific site to end up in.
02:47The Ravensbrück trial is important, and it's unique because of the treatment of prisoners within the camp.
02:54In particular, the medical experiments that had been carried out for sterilisations, for example.
03:04Vera's role in the trial is to manage the extensive evidence she has brought together, passing it on to the
03:12prosecutors.
03:17But she must not reveal her role to the international press.
03:35The trial features one of the camp's most notorious SS officers.
03:44The trial features one of the prisoners, Johann Schwarzhuber.
03:47He is about to face one of his accusers.
03:52Barrister, could you please say who this man in front of us is?
03:56Johann Schwarzhuber.
04:00And who is your next witness?
04:04Adette Sansom.
04:09Adette Sansom is a star witness for the prosecution, giving damning testimony about what happened at the camp,
04:17at the hands of Schwarzhuber and others.
04:22The court hears from Odette and other witnesses about the treatment of female agent Violette Sabo,
04:31who is described talking about my baby, my baby, her young child left behind in Britain.
04:46And how Violette and two other agents, Lillian Rolfe and Denise Bloch,
04:54are brought from the punishment block, emaciated, dirty and weak.
05:06They are then taken behind the crematorium building and shot.
05:14The trial would have been difficult for Vera as the witnesses took the stands.
05:19Although she'd probably already interviewed some of them previously,
05:22she may have compartmentalised it in some way.
05:26But having seen and spoken to and befriended the agents that she had sent into the field,
05:32the realisation of what these women had sacrificed
05:36and what the overarching impact on their families were going to be,
05:40it must have been harrowing for her.
05:45At the end of the trial, Schwarzhuber is sentenced to death
05:51and executed on the 3rd of May, 1947.
05:56Five of the female guards are also executed.
06:01Fritz Suren, the commandant, remains a fugitive from justice.
06:08But before the closing statements are finished,
06:12Vera is already on her way to try and track down the last of her lost women spies,
06:17Noor Inayat Khan.
06:31Previously, Vera received a letter from a French resistance fighter,
06:37Yolande Lagrave,
06:38claiming she had contact with Noor
06:41in a prison in Pforzheim in the west of Germany.
06:49This directly contradicted Vera's evidence
06:52from crematorium stoker Franz Berg.
06:55He claimed that Noor was killed
06:57at the Natsviler concentration camp in France.
07:03Vera already has an eyewitness testimony from Natsviler
07:07saying that Noor is dead.
07:08And now she has another eyewitness testimony saying,
07:11no, that is not true, she is here.
07:12What eyewitness do you trust?
07:15How does Vera make this decision?
07:18She needs some sort of corroborating evidence
07:21to prove one way or the other.
07:26So what did happen to Noor?
07:30Vera needs another witness statement.
07:35So she decides to interrogate one particular Gestapo soldier
07:40for a second time.
07:45Max Vassmer transported SOE agents
07:48to Dachau concentration camp
07:50in September 1944.
07:56Vassmer claims that he transferred three women
08:00to the camp,
08:01even though other witnesses say
08:03there was a fourth woman.
08:06A woman from Pforzheim prison.
08:17Three.
08:19You're sure it was three?
08:23Three women.
08:26Not men.
08:27Women.
08:32Because the other guards say you're wrong.
08:41The receipt said three women.
08:46That is not what I asked.
08:48Did you take three women?
08:57Three.
08:58Four.
08:59What's the difference?
09:00It's all the difference.
09:09So it was four.
09:11Four.
09:12Four.
09:17Four.
09:18Three from Karl Sragoa.
09:22And another.
09:28From...
09:30Four time, I think.
09:35Please tell me what they looked like.
09:39All of them.
09:44She looked like she may have been Indian.
10:00Vassmer describes the fourth woman.
10:04giving a description of a woman who Veera believes is Noor Inayat Khan.
10:31Vassmer reveals that Noor is taken outside the camp with the other women and made to kneel in front of
10:38a mound of earth.
10:42The only word Noor says, before she is shot, is the French word for freedom, Liberté.
10:55Thank you, Herr Vassmer.
11:00We're done.
11:03Veera can now put to rest her quest to find out Noor's story and her final resting place, the concentration
11:11camp at Dachau.
11:21Now, Veera must ask the hardest question of all.
11:26Who betrayed her women agents?
11:30Who is the person that betrayed Noor?
11:35Violet Sabo?
11:38And all of Veera's other women spies, so they ended up in the hands of the Nazis.
11:46Could it have been Henri Derricor?
11:50There were allegations, but Veera still doesn't know for sure.
11:58The man who would know
12:02is Hans Kiefer,
12:05the man in charge of Nazi intelligence in Paris.
12:12To find him, Veera needs the SAS.
12:23SAS intelligence officer, Major Bill Barkworth, and his men stake out a small town in southern Germany.
12:34They've received a tip-off from Veera that Hans Kiefer has been spotted here.
12:40It is Kiefer's hometown.
12:42They are looking for the caretaker of a local hotel,
12:46who signs the town hall register as Hans Kiefer.
12:51The name is suspiciously similar, with only one F removed.
13:14The name is kopii is wooden in its hands to the human城.
13:25Theлив
13:25The needy
13:33The two
13:44Hans-Joseph Kieffer, senior counterintelligence officer, 84 Avenue 4, Paris.
13:55Yeah.
13:59Get him out of here!
14:04Barkworth and Vera have their man.
14:08Now, it is their chance to find out who betrayed all of Vera's women agents.
14:18It is January 1947.
14:22Vera is face to face with her secret enemy, Hans Kieffer.
14:29Hans Kieffer is a lifelong Nazi, so he joined the Nazi party in the early 1920s, so very,
14:35very early on.
14:36And he rises to become, during the war, the head of the Gestapo and SS operation runner
14:42in Paris.
14:46So this was an operation specifically aimed at hunting down mostly special operations
14:53executive agents in the field, so agents of the SOE in France.
14:57But the thing about Hans Kieffer is he's a fascinating individual, because he's not like you would
15:02imagine your archetypal SS bruiser.
15:05He's a subtle, wily, clever fox.
15:11Vera has waited almost two years for this moment.
15:15The chance to interrogate the man who could answer all her questions, the man who holds
15:23the key to her lost women spies, and what really happened to Knorr, codename Madeleine.
15:33Berlin considered the French section of SOE particularly dangerous.
15:41Both the Führer and Himmler had shown a personal interest.
16:08I remember Madeleine.
16:16refused to cooperate, unlike the others.
16:26She tried to escape with a group of male agents.
16:31It would have ruined us if she made it back to SOE, ruined me.
16:38So I sent her away.
16:43She ended up in Fortsheim, I think.
16:51She was a brave one.
17:00Her name was Knorr Inayat Khan.
17:06She is most likely dead.
17:10Shot through the head at Dachau.
17:19Kieffer, if one of us is going to cry, it is going to be me.
17:23You will please stop this comedy.
17:31Who betrayed them, Kieffer?
17:34Who betrayed Knorr?
17:39You're asking me if there was a traitor in your ranks?
17:48Why are you asking me?
17:52You know yourself?
17:54There was one.
17:57You recalled him to London.
18:01Gilbert?
18:07And who is Gilbert?
18:11Well, I think you're now.
18:15Of course you're now.
18:20Only Delico.
18:25Did you pay him?
18:27Yes.
18:31Everyone has their price, don't they?
18:40Here, at last, is Vera's definitive proof that Henri Derricor is the double agent.
18:48Don't worry, Derricor.
18:50We'll clear this whole sorry business up.
18:54Despite Buckmaster and Boddington's investigation clearing him.
19:04There is no doubt in Vera's mind that with all the resistance evidence coming in, all of
19:09the information that Kieffer knows about Derricor, obviously now, for Vera, she knows Derricor
19:17is the mole, he is a double agent. He's the reason that all of her agents, or a lot of
19:23them, ended up in concentration camps. He's the reason that they were murdered. And the
19:28anger that must have pulsed through her at that point. This isn't a sinking feeling anymore.
19:33This is something that she needs justice for.
19:38Now, Vera has a star witness who can testify against, and hopefully convict, Henri Derricor.
19:56June 1948.
20:02Henri Derricor is brought to trial in Paris.
20:10Here is Vera's chance for justice.
20:15Vera had spent the last few years building up her case against Henri Derricor. I mean,
20:20she had everything. Now she's a civilian, obviously, she wasn't leading the prosecution, so she
20:25couldn't determine what evidence they were going to use in court against him. But she
20:30had so much. She had, like, affidavits from actual Nazi war criminals who named him. She
20:36had all of the evidence that she'd gathered from her own agents. She had all the evidence
20:41from the French resistance. Henri Derricor was at the centre of this web of lies, and she
20:48could prove it. It was all right there. She must have felt so confident when they entered
20:53the courtroom. But it is soon clear it may not be as easy as Vera hopes.
21:02It's now been over a year since Vera interrogated Hans Kieffer. She is told that in June 1947,
21:11Kieffer was convicted of the murder of five SAS men and executed before he can give evidence
21:20at the Derricor trial.
21:24Hans Kieffer would have known more than anybody else about every single agent who was arrested,
21:29when, and how, and the radio game, and also what informers he was using. So one might think
21:36that his evidence would have been, or a statement at least, would have been crucial to the eventual
21:42trial of Henri Derricor as a traitor.
21:47I mean, there's a potential conspiracy theory around the fact that he was deliberately executed
21:53so that he couldn't reveal the full extent of the SOE failings and disastrous infiltrations.
22:02Next, Vera discovers the statement which she extracted from Kieffer is not going to be put before the court.
22:10Finally, no former SOE officers will appear in court to give evidence.
22:20But on the final day, one former officer does make the trip to Paris.
22:28None other than Nicholas Boddington.
22:38Could Boddington be the man to help get Derricor convicted?
22:50Boddington gives evidence, but instead of giving evidence against Derricor,
22:55Boddington testifies that Derricor's contact with the Nazis was fully authorized for counter-espionage purposes.
23:09Henri Derricor is found not to be a traitor. Instead, partially thanks to Boddington's testimony,
23:18he is acquitted. Derricor is a free man.
23:24Vera has to face the possibility that her women agents were compromised so that Derricor could supply
23:31intelligence to London about the Nazis.
23:35Put yourself in Vera's boots. She's been trying to prosecute Henri Derricor for years.
23:40And here, it's almost like a farcical trial. And not only does the prosecution not really
23:45try and pin him down and brings virtually no witnesses, but the defence, they bring Boddington.
23:52Like, this is a man that Vera's worked with. And he knows what she's been doing. He knows that
23:57she's desperately been trying to bring justice to all the women who, some of them were tortured to
24:03death. And she feels responsible for that because she's the person who sent them out there.
24:09How could you, Nick?
24:10Vera.
24:11How could you support that traitor?
24:15Testify for him after everything he did to my agents, our agents.
24:20Vera.
24:20You're a liar.
24:22Everything I said was true.
24:24You're a liar.
24:26Vera, Derricor's contact with the SD was authorised.
24:30I sent my girls to war with no protection under the Geneva Convention.
24:35If they were made as spies, they faced certain death.
24:40You sent them to their deaths.
24:43You sent a widow with a young daughter to France.
24:46That child is now an orphan.
24:49You pulled Nora out of training early because you needed a wireless operator.
24:54You volunteered for this job.
24:56Begged Buckmaster to play with the big boys.
24:59Don't forget that.
25:02I don't know you, Nick.
25:04You never did.
25:08It appears that the men at the top of the British establishment
25:12want the true story of the women spies to be lost permanently.
25:20But others are now interested in what happened to Vera's spies.
25:27In the early 1950s, writer Jean Overton Fuller begins researching a series of books about the SOE.
25:37Jean wants to find out what happened to her friend Noor Inayat Khan,
25:41who disappeared during the war after telling Jean she was going away.
25:49Despite being warned off by establishment figures,
25:53Fuller interviews former members of the SOE.
26:12Her work results in three books about the SOE,
26:17with the last called Double Webs, published in 1958.
26:23The book makes the controversial claim that Noor and other agents are sent by the SOE
26:30into the hands of Henri Derricourt, with the full knowledge that Derricourt is a double agent,
26:39working with the Nazis.
26:44The book makes headlines.
26:48Several MPs receive letters from the families of lost women spies,
26:53wanting to know the whole truth about their daughters.
27:02One MP is Conservative member for Tyneside, Irene Ward.
27:11Irene, through the Home Office, requests an interview with someone who knows what happened.
27:18The Home Office sends Vera.
27:32Overton Fuller writes, and I quote,
27:35I have read the book, Mrs. Ward.
27:43It's a shame, really, that accuracy appears to be secondary concern.
27:50I find these things of such importance.
27:59You're disputing that Henri Derricourt was a double agent?
28:03Perhaps you could ask him yourself.
28:06I'm sure Miss Overton Fuller could direct you to him.
28:13Miss Atkins.
28:16What concerns me is that the SOE, that your superiors,
28:22that you, were sending women to fight in the full knowledge they had no chance to survive.
28:28Mrs. Ward, what did you do during the war?
28:34I served my constituents.
28:44Miss Atkins.
28:47Your mother's name, I believe.
28:51Your father's name, Rose.
28:55Rosenberg, if I'm not mistaken.
28:59And you're from Romania, originally.
29:04How did a young Romanian girl like yourself and...
29:07I'm so sorry, Mrs. Ward, but I have another meeting.
29:15Good day, Miss Atkins.
29:16Good day, Miss Atkins.
29:18Good day, Miss Atkins.
29:19See yourself out, please.
29:24After the meeting, Irene Ward digs into Vera's personal history,
29:29who she is, where she comes from, and what she really did at SOE.
29:40Irene Ward's digging threatens to reveal the story of the lost women spies.
29:47The security establishment goes into damage control.
29:52An academic called MRD Foote at the University of Oxford
29:57is engaged to produce an official history of the SOE.
30:04MRD Foote is ex-SAS.
30:06He also was captured in the war, and he was put in a prisoner of war camp in France.
30:12So he has all of this direct experience within the war, but he's also a historian.
30:16So he's got that authority as well.
30:18He understands how to write about history, and he understands that there are still some secrets
30:24that must stay secret.
30:27His exhaustive work concludes that...
30:30To the question of why people with so little training were sent to do such important work,
30:36the only reply is the work had to be done, and there was nobody else to send.
30:51Professor Foote?
30:53Before the book is published, Vera speaks to Foote and persuades him to omit her Romanian background
31:00from his history of SOE.
31:06So why does Vera hide who she really is?
31:10Because Vera is forced to cover up not just her public story and the lost women's spies,
31:16but also the private story of her family's life.
31:34It was a closely guarded secret at SOE that Vera was born in Romania rather than the UK.
31:46But that wasn't Vera's only secret.
31:59Vera was not born Vera Atkins, but Vera Rosenberg.
32:07Vera is one of three children of Max and Hilda Rosenberg, who are both German Jews.
32:16Just before the First World War, Max purchases an estate and wood mill in Bukovina,
32:22a region that will become part of Romania.
32:28But after Vera's father dies in 1932, and with anti-Semitism in Europe on the rise,
32:36Vera and her two brothers move to the United Kingdom,
32:41where they take their English mother's surname of Atkins.
32:48Vera leaves behind in Romania an extended family.
32:53As the Nazis take hold of Europe, the family who stay are in mortal danger.
33:01The terror that people live with cannot be underestimated,
33:05even if they weren't actually at direct risk of being moved to concentration camps.
33:10This isn't just my family. This isn't just my aunt and my dad and my direct family.
33:15This is everybody with Jewish family who were living in the UK and England at the time
33:20were terrified about what was going to happen to their relatives.
33:23And I think everybody wanted to do whatever they could to help.
33:30According to a family story, Vera's family in the UK
33:34raise a large amount of money to help their European relatives.
33:40My dad, my uncle and Vera were very keen to provide any help they could. So they obviously
33:46found money and they found resources. But it was very clear that by this point, to get money,
33:51to get resources, to get a logistical plan, you probably needed to go. You needed to leave England,
33:56you needed to get on a boat, and you needed to go and practically help.
34:02Vera travels to Antwerp, Belgium, in 1940, just as the Nazis are about to invade.
34:17During the war, people would often store their wealth in something that could be more easily hidden
34:23and transported. Diamonds.
34:42For hundreds of years, Antwerp has been the centre of the diamond trade in Europe.
34:50Vera is believed to have converted the money from the UK into diamonds for the family in Romania.
35:01But who are the relatives facing Nazi persecution that Vera wants to save?
35:16Fritz Rosenberg is Vera's cousin.
35:20Vera's relatives in the 1940s faced disaster.
35:30The region has been occupied by Hungary, an ally of Nazi Germany.
35:39Under new anti-Jewish laws, Fritz and his wife Karen lose their passports.
35:47They may even be deported to concentration camps.
35:53But without a passport, they are unable to escape to another country.
36:00This rise in anti-Semitism in the law is reflected in the population.
36:05They wouldn't be able to trust their neighbours.
36:08They wouldn't be able to trust that at any point they might be snatched away in the middle of the
36:12night.
36:13They could be put on a train and taken to God knows where.
36:16I mean, it must have been absolutely terrifying for them.
36:20I mean, it must have been taken away in the middle of the night.
36:20Karen Rosenberg contacts a German family friend.
36:26Someone who has good contacts with the Abwehr, German military intelligence.
36:36Karen is able to obtain Aryan passports issued by the Nazi government for her and Fritz.
36:45The Rosenbergs pay the Abwehr a large sum, about £150,000 in today's money, to get the prized passports.
36:57Money that could be the diamonds that Vera sources in Antwerp.
37:02Karen and Fritz are able to leave Romania.
37:07They are free, but it's a freedom that comes at a personal cost.
37:20Fritz and Karen relocate to the safety of Istanbul,
37:26where Vera's brother, Ralph Rosenberg, lives.
37:32The reason they go to Istanbul is because of a condition set by the Abwehr.
37:42Vera's brother is not only working for an oil company in Istanbul,
37:46but also supplying MI6 with local intelligence.
37:56The Abwehr want Karen to give them valuable information about Ralph and MI6.
38:10Vera had almost certainly gone to Antwerp to raise the money for Fritz and Karen's passports.
38:18The very passports that allow the Abwehr to get close to an MI6 agent.
38:25Vera has paid the bribe.
38:27She's possibly met German intelligence officers face to face.
38:33Karen herself has had contact with a German intelligence officer who's asked her to work for the Germans.
38:41It's beginning to look really suspicious.
38:44Anyone looking at this situation is going to start throwing suspicion on Vera and on the Rosenbergs.
38:52Are they loyal?
38:53What's going on here?
38:55It's opening a Pandora's box.
38:59What's going on here?
39:00Had it been known by the SOE that Vera had handed over money to get Aryan passports from the Abwehr,
39:07it would have put Vera under serious suspicion of being a double agent.
39:15Instead, Vera keeps her family story a closely guarded secret.
39:21And when the British security services publish MRD Foote's history of the SOE, Vera has all mention of her Romanian
39:31family roots erased.
39:34But despite the security services' best attempts to cover up the story of the lost women spies,
39:42it's a story that just won't go away.
39:49After creating controversy with her book Double Webs, Jean Overton Fuller starts researching a new book.
39:57This time about Henri Derricor's relationship, not with the Nazis, but with MI6.
40:04The book is called The Checkered Spy, and it claims Derricor wasn't just a double agent,
40:13but that he was spying on the SOE, on the orders of MI6.
40:20Derricor was MI6's mole at the heart of the SOE, monitoring everything they were doing,
40:28as MI6 believed that the SOE were incompetent.
40:35The suggestion is that members of the British security services knew that the women Vera trained,
40:42like Noor Inayat Khan,
40:48like Violet Sabo,
40:51Odette Sansom, were being sent into the hands of a known double agent.
41:00But Henri Derricor never sees the day that the book is published.
41:31Sub-editor's desk.
41:34Boddington?
41:36Yes?
41:38It's Buckmaster.
41:40Good grief.
41:43Been a while. How are you?
41:47Good. Thanks, Bucks. You?
41:51Seen the news.
41:55Derricor's disappeared in the Far East.
41:57A plane he was flying carrying a cargo load of gold.
42:01I think the cause of the crash was, uh, fuel starvation.
42:07No. No, I haven't seen it.
42:10What does that mean?
42:15Any survivors?
42:17No.
42:18And they can't find Derricor's body.
42:24Wasn't Vera close to that man from the SAS?
42:28Sort of thing they're good at.
42:30Giving people a helping hand into the grave.
42:35I, uh, I wouldn't know.
42:38Vera and I don't speak.
42:42I think she works for the UN now.
42:45Well, if you hear anything.
42:50All that Derricor business was very unfortunate for everyone.
43:04It's best that he's gone.
43:07Dead men don't talk.
43:14Vera Atkins retires to the south coast of Britain, moving to Winchelsea.
43:21She has a steady, but discreet, stream of visitors, including Tania Sabo, the daughter of agent Violette Sabo.
43:42I received the George Cross for Mother.
43:50Odette Samson was the first ever woman to receive that.
43:58The French also gave Mother the Croix de Guerre.
44:03That was good of them.
44:09And Noor received both medals too.
44:15There's a memorial now at Dachau.
44:24And now you received your CBE, finally.
44:29They took their time, didn't they?
44:33Are you looking forward to the ceremony?
44:39We'll see, won't we?
44:47I'll leave this here.
44:56I always drove them down to the aerodromes.
45:01It always seemed to be a summer's day.
45:04I saw them off.
45:08When the war ended and when they didn't come back, I went looking for them all.
45:16Missing, presumed dead.
45:21It's such a terrible epitaph for anyone.
45:29Can't believe my time has finally come.
45:32Been such a whirlwind.
45:36And yet the adventure's just about to start.
45:40Remember what they've taught you, Noor.
45:44Yes, Miss Atkins.
45:50There.
45:51You're clean.
45:56You're so smart, Miss Atkins.
45:59You always wear the nicest things.
46:04Here.
46:06It's yours.
46:10May it bring you luck.
46:18Thank you, Miss Atkins.
46:20Are you ready?
46:25Yes, Miss Atkins.
46:28Very good.
46:31Yes.
46:32Very good.
46:34Yes.
46:34Yes.
46:35Yes.
46:36Yes.
46:43Yes.
46:51Yes.
46:51Yes.
47:07Yes.
47:10Yes.
47:11Yes.
47:12Yes.
47:16Yes.
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