Krystyna Skarbek: The Spy Who Fooled The Gestapo

Meet Krystyna Skarbek (alias Christine Granville), Britain’s first and longest-serving female secret agent of World War II. Long before the world knew of Ian Fleming's James Bond or Vesper Lynd, this Polish-born countess was pulling off the most daring covert operations in espionage history.

​In this episode of Honourable Mentions: Hilarious History, we tell the remarkable true story of a woman who repeatedly stared down the Gestapo and won. From skiing across the perilous Tatra Mountains to smuggle intelligence, to single-handedly engineering a prison break to save her fellow Special Operations Executive (SOE) agents just hours before their scheduled execution, Krystyna’s life reads like a Hollywood thriller.

​We unmask the reality of WWII espionage, exploring how she survived under deep cover, her complex relationships, and why the British government abandoned its most decorated female spy after the war ended.

​Key Topics Covered in This Episode:
​The Making of a Spy: Krystyna’s early life in Poland and her recruitment into Britain's secret SOE.
​Behind Enemy Lines: Daring missions across Nazi-occupied Europe and occupied France.
​The Great Escape: How she used raw bluffing and psychological manipulation to free captured British agents.
​The Tragedy of Peace: Her mysterious, tragic post-war life and untimely death in London.

​If you love military history, untold stories of badass women in history, and gripping espionage tales, hit that Follow button and leave us a 5-star review!

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Transcript

Speaker 1 0:10

It's the height of World War II, and a young woman is preparing to drop behind enemy lines into occupied France. She isn't carrying a gun. She doesn't have a backup team. What she does have is a razor-sharp mind, quick wit, a multitude of languages, and a cyanide capsule tucked neatly into her dress. Her name is Krystyna Skarbek, but to the British Special Operations, she's Christine Granville. And to Winston Churchill, she's simply his favourite spy. Long before the world ever heard of James Bond, Krystyna was busy rewriting the walls of espionage. She crossed frozen borders on skates, faked a deadly disease to escape capture, smuggled vital intelligence to occupy territories, and face down the Gestapo to free comrades from execution. She was a Polish countess and phantom, a woman who thrived in the shadows where one long breath would mean facing a firing squad. Yet the extraordinary thing about Krystyna Skarbek wasn't how she lived, but how she was forgotten. Stick with us as we unravel the breathless, deleteful, and heartbreaking true story of Britain's longest serving female secret agent of the Second World War. I'm Steve, he's Neil, and this is. Honourable mentions. Hello, listener. How are you? Hope you're doing jolly well, because we're gonna plunge you into the world of Second World War espionage. But before we can do any of this, we need to welcome him into our troops. Let's all give one great big honourable mention salute and say Hello, Neil Hello, Steve, all president and correct, sir. How are you, please, Neil? Thank you very much, sir. If you're okay, I'd like to do a quick memory test with you, please. If you don't mind at all, please, thank you. Maybe the listener, if you're still with us, listener, would like to play along as well. It's quite easy, don't we even had time to revise. What do you recall about a previous episode of Honourable Mentions, Hilarious History, episode seven, in fact, in which you were a contributing character. Now, it was about the life of one Dusko Popov.

Speaker 4 2:59

Oh, he was he was the one that became James Bond.

Speaker 1 3:02

He didn't become James Bond, did he? But he was the one of the.

Speaker 4 3:05

He was modelled on it. He was uh reported to have been modelled on James Bond.

Speaker 1 3:09

He was a major influence on the James Bond character.

Speaker 4 3:12

He was a spy. He was a spy. And another question. Shoot from the hip, Steve, it's always been your style.

Speaker 1 3:19

An addendum, if you like, to that question. An appendix. Could you tell the listener whether they can go back and listen to the episode, please?

Speaker 4 3:29

Yes, they can. And you can get it on all your platforms, as in all your platforms you download any of your podcasts or soundy things from, please.

Speaker 1 3:40

Wherever you download your podcasts or soundy things.

Speaker 4 3:44

Yep.

unknown 3:44

Okay.

Speaker 1 3:45

That's the one. You might be wondering why I found it necessary to pump you so thoroughly at the beginning of this week's episode.

Speaker 4 3:52

Filthy Pig.

Speaker 1 3:53

It's because we're plunging back into the world of spies and the old espionage and undercover daring doo.

Speaker 4 4:00

Ooh. That's one of those ones you do it with the door open, isn't it?

Speaker 1 4:03

We've said this before. That's a daring poo.

unknown 4:05

Oh.

Speaker 1 4:06

This is daring do, which means action and adventure.

Speaker 5 4:10

Okay.

Speaker 1 4:11

Now it's August of 1944, and we're in Digne les Bains, southeastern France. A town, of course, famous for its thermal paths and hot spars.

Speaker 4 4:25

Yes, I was about to say that.

Speaker 1 4:27

Hot spars, which are like regular spar shops, but everyone who works there is really good looking and naked from the waist up.

Speaker 4 4:34

Yeah, and they've got no air conditioning.

Speaker 1 4:36

Yeah, so they're a little bit moist.

Speaker 4 4:38

Yeah.

Speaker 1 4:40

By now, this is August 1944, the war is turning.

Speaker 4 4:45

Ooh. Which way?

Speaker 1 4:47

Allied chaps had landed in Normandy back in June, and those bally German forces are retreating.

Speaker 2 4:54

Yes.

Speaker 1 4:55

But in the chaos of a collapsing occupation, the Gestapo are more vicious than ever. Now in a prison in Digne, three Allied agents are being held awaiting the execution. There, Lieutenant Colonel Francis Cammaerts Camat, codename Roger.

Speaker 4 5:13

The code name.

Speaker 1 5:15

That's not really, is it? It's not that airplane.

Speaker 4 5:17

No. The other one's gonna be over and out.

Speaker 1 5:19

Yeah, trying to get him on the radio. Hello, Roger, Roger. Roger, or Francis Camat, was one of the leading men for the special operations executive acting behind enemy lines in France. Cammaerts was being held with two of his colleagues, Alexander Fielding, known as Zan, another SOE Special Operations man, and a French officer called Christian Sorensen. Very French sounding name sounds a bit Scandinavian, doesn't it?

Speaker 4 5:50

Yeah, it does. It sounds like a footballer.

Speaker 1 5:53

By the 17th of August, the Gestapo had confirmed their identities. This is of the prisoners, not of themselves.

Speaker 5 6:00

Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 6:02

Confirmed their collaboration with the French resistance and had their execution ready to go first thing the following morning. The Allies and the resistance had no time to organise a break into a Gestapo prison. I'm afraid they may have been jolly good types, but the trio were done for and bound to cop a packet. cop a packet? Yes, that's World War II speak for be killed or die. Yes. cop a packet. Yes, that's it.

Speaker 4 6:33

Yeah.

Speaker 1 6:35

I'm afraid Squiffy copped a packet over the channel, chaps. Then word of their plight reached a thirty-six-year-old woman by the name of Krystyna Skarbek.

Speaker 4 6:45

And they were.

Speaker 1 6:46

Krystyna had been operating in the region under a British cover name of Christine Granville, since she had parachuted into France some months earlier to coordinate resistance operations. She was smart, she was brave, and had five years of experience in frontline intelligence, working across occupied Europe. And she wasn't about to leave fellow SOE Tommies in the lurch.

Speaker 4 7:12

No, she wasn't.

Speaker 1 7:13

So here's what went down, Neil. Hello, Neil. Here's what I told you.

Speaker 4 7:16

Tell me, please, I'm very, very excited.

Speaker 1 7:19

Krystyna walked into the Gestapo headquarters in Digne, alone and unarmed. Other than with an air of supreme confidence and fluency in German and French.

Speaker 4 7:31

Well, I can I can relate to that.

Speaker 1 7:34

For a short while, acting entirely like she belonged there, she went about whistling a particular American tune until she heard her friend Cammaerts pick it up.

Speaker 4 7:43

Oh. What was the tune, please?

Speaker 1 7:45

An American one.

Speaker 4 7:46

I like big butts, and I cannot lie, that sort of thing.

Speaker 1 7:49

Yeah, that sort of thing. With his presence confirmed, she then approached the Gestapo commanders and demanded to see Captain Albert Schenk.

Speaker 4 7:58

Albert Schenck.

Speaker 1 7:59

Schenck.

Speaker 4 8:00

Schenk.

Speaker 1 8:01

That's him. Schenck was a Frenchman and a Nazi collaborator and the officer in charge. Ooh.

Speaker 4 8:09

Yeah, don't like him. He's evil in his pantomime.

Speaker 1 8:12

And here began one of the most brilliant bluffs in all the war and the history of espionage.

Speaker 5 8:20

Really?

Speaker 1 8:20

Krystyna said she was the niece of Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery. No. And told Schenk what he already knew in his heart of hearts that the war was lost. At that very moment, she said, Allied forces were closing in, and within days, perhaps even hours, Digne Les Bains would be liberated, and he knew as well as she did that when that happened, anyone who had executed Allied agents would be hunting down and prosecuted as a war criminal if they were one of the lucky ones.

Speaker 4 8:55

Yes, if they weren't just shot on the spot.

Speaker 1 8:57

That's right. For three hours she argued and bargained with the Frenchman, watching him become increasingly alarmed at the thought of what might happen when the Allies and the resistance decided to avenge the many horrors he had committed.

Speaker 4 9:10

Yeah, they slap him a bit a bit.

Speaker 1 9:12

Eventually, Captain Schenk called in a fellow Gestapo officer, a Nazi collaborator called Max Waem. Max Waem? Who was a Belgian and had the authority to order the release of the SOE agents. Waem struck his butt on the table.

Speaker 4 9:31

How?

Speaker 1 9:32

The butt of his revolver Neil, grow up.

Speaker 4 9:35

Oh. Oh, I thought you mean he walked past and smacked his. I thought you'd go to all America on me then.

Speaker 1 9:45

Oh no, because I'm dexterous and light on my feet and don't do such clumsy things. Anyway, we're talking about the butt of his revolver.

Speaker 4 9:53

Okay.

Speaker 1 9:53

And he said, If I do get them out of prison, what will you do to protect me?

Speaker 4 9:58

Oh, I've seen this in Inglorious Bastards. How similar sort of thing.

Speaker 1 10:02

Was it? Probably they've got the idea from here. For the listener, for the listener if they're still with us, hello, listener.

Speaker 4 10:07

Hello, listener.

Speaker 1 10:08

If they're still there. Neil.

Speaker 4 10:10

Hello listener. Yes, please.

Speaker 1 10:12

Can you do Waem saying if I do get them out of prison, what would you do to protect me? But in his Belgian? That's part of the old Flemish, please.

Speaker 4 10:20

In the old Flemish? If I get these prisoners out of Z what are you going to do to a part of me? That's really well done, thank you. And that that means Exactly what you said. If I get these prisoners out of here, what are you going to do to protect me, please?

Speaker 1 10:38

Well, there you go, listener. You learn something new every time you tune in too.

Speaker 4 10:43

Honourable the Marchons. That's honourable mentions.

Speaker 1 10:46

Once you had their agreement, Krystyna said she would have two million francs parachuted in.

Speaker 4 10:52

How did I get all them people together?

Speaker 1 10:54

I don't know. She didn't clarify whether that was French currency or there was two million people called Frank. I don't know.

Speaker 4 10:59

Exactly. Because there's a lot of Franks, you have to go around and say Frank? No. Perhaps they go into the town square and go, Frank! And loads of blokes go, Yeah? Oh.

Speaker 1 11:09

Of course, though Neil, of course. Her entire story was a stinking great pile of soft brown horses doo-doo. She was no relation of Montgomery. She had no authority to offer deals. She had no backup. She had no leverage. She had nothing but a bloody great big pair of balls to front it out. I thought you said she was a woman. Metaphorical.

Speaker 4 11:33

A metaphorical woman?

Speaker 1 11:34

No. Metaphorical balls.

Speaker 4 11:37

Right.

Speaker 1 11:39

And so, just a few hours before that scheduled execution, Lieutenant Colonel Francis Cammaerts and his two chums were released. They walked out of Gestapo custody alive because Krystyna Skarbek had talked her way into a prison and convinced the Gestapo that showing some mercy was self-preservation. It was one of the most daring intelligence operations of the whole Second World War. No weapons, no violence, just psychology timing, and being able to hold her nerve, while all the time being a head's breadth from her own certain death.

Speaker 4 12:15

She got some minerals, isn't she? Tell you what, she'd be a match for Face from the A Team.

Speaker 1 12:20

No. She was good. She was very good. Uh yeah, you're getting a bit silly there. But Neil.

Speaker 4 12:26

Yes, please.

Speaker 1 12:27

But Neil But Neil. Yes. Yes. Yes. But Neil. But what? This wasn't Krystyna Scarbet's first impossible mission of the war. It was just her most famous one.

Speaker 4 12:44

It wasn't her first rodeo baby.

Speaker 1 12:47

Maria Krystyna Janina Scarbet, or Janina even, that could be, was born on May the 1st, 1908, in Warsaw, Poland.

Speaker 4 12:58

1908. So she would have been Yeah, I can't do that. That's fine. Yes, good 26.

Speaker 1 13:03

Not to be confused with Warsaw. Just outside Birmingham. This is Warsaw, Poland. Her father was Countsey or Jerzy Skarbeck, more famously known as the Count on Sesame Street.

Speaker 5 13:22

Wow.

Speaker 1 13:23

That's probably how they knew the Franks. 1,999,999 francs. Ah, ah, ah, ah, ah. Her mother was Stefania Goldfeder, who came from a wealthy Jewish banking family. Krystyna's parents lived the high life in Jazz Age Warsaw, and their daughter had the best of everything.

Speaker 4 13:46

Jazz aged Warsaw.

Speaker 1 13:49

Not Warsaw, just outside Berbia where Slade come from. Warsaw in Poland.

Speaker 4 13:54

It was jazz aged, was it? Lots of jazz.

Speaker 1 13:57

Lots of jazz. Nice. She learnt to ride horses and ski really rather very well. She became fluent in French and displayed a natural aptitude for languages. She became more than competent piano player. So you can do all that apart from the piano.

Speaker 4 14:14

I could do that apart from horses that ski.

Speaker 1 14:16

Encouraged by her father, she learnt to count things by naming them out loud.

Speaker 5 14:20

I am the Count, they call me the Count because I love to count things.

Speaker 4 14:25

Ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah. Yeah, that's the best way to do it, isn't it?

Speaker 1 14:32

And she was a tomboy, but a glamorous one, of average height, with naturally wavy dark brown hair and high cheekbones. She had dark eyes and extraordinarily athletic physique. In 1930, she was runner-up in the Polish National Beauty Contest. Runner up, please. Well she run ner up. In 1930, she was runner-up in the Polish National Beauty Contest.

Speaker 4 14:59

1930, so she lives She was born 1908, so she was twelve.

Speaker 1 15:05

No.

Speaker 4 15:07

No, twenty-two.

Speaker 1 15:09

She was born in nineteen oh eight, so that's two years worth.

Speaker 4 15:13

She was twenty-two. So it was twenty-two. Twenty-two, she was twenty-two.

Speaker 1 15:19

However, apart from rudimentary mathematics, her greatest passion was risk taking, including driving fast cars and taking dangerous off-feast ski trails.

Speaker 4 15:33

Oh no, that is dangerous, because you can cause an avalanche.

Speaker 1 15:36

Now, when we think back to Dusko Popov in episode seven, is that you can go back and listen to it now if you wait and we'll wait for that.

Speaker 4 15:44

And many of your any of your soundy things.

Speaker 1 15:46

Yes. Do you remember he was into his danger, wasn't he? And his fast living, his fast cars, fast women. So there's something in the psyche of these people, I think, that is drawn to the danger of it all.

Speaker 4 16:00

It's got to be in there. You can't just get your normal bloke someone from Greg's going down there and saying, right, can you crack on and go and do this? I'm not too sure because some of them are a bit unsure about how many sausage rolls to put in the oven. You need someone who's confident to put a full train and just slam it in and go, Yeah, I'm gonna put an extra one on there. They're the people you want.

Speaker 1 16:17

But Yeah.

Speaker 4 16:20

But I'm here.

Speaker 1 16:26

But it all came to an end, this lifestyle, when the Great Depression hit.

Speaker 4 16:36

Oh, they're upset.

Speaker 1 16:37

Her Playboy father had largely burned through his wife's fortune, and suddenly there was no avalanche of new funds on the way. Krystyna was forced to take a job as a secretary at a fiat car dealership in Warsaw, again in Poland. She hadn't moved just outside Birmingham, and soon married a young businessman called Gustav Gettlich.

Speaker 4 17:01

Sorry.

Speaker 1 17:02

Although it didn't last long, Krystyna did come out of it with an income steady enough to enjoy life on her own terms.

Speaker 4 17:10

That's good. She got rid of the surname as well, did she?

Speaker 1 17:13

But she then met her second husband, a globetrotter, lifelong adventurer, traveller, and diplomat, called Jerzy Polish name with Y's and Z and C's or whatever. Scattered throughout, not someone's a drop scrabble. He was twenty years her senior. Twenty years her senior. Daddy complex, anybody? Soon after they married in November 1938, Jerzy or Jerzy was offered the position of Polish consul in Kenya. Kenya. Or as it was still called then, Kenya.

Speaker 4 17:42

That's what they say every day, isn't it? Kenya. Lovely. That's what they say in World War II.

Speaker 1 17:47

Exactly.

Speaker 4 17:48

Darling, so go to Kenya.

Speaker 1 17:50

In those days it took weeks to reach Africa, and having shot right by Kenya, they had to start it out when they arrived in Johannesburg in late August 1939. By making out they meant to do that and were planning to take the rest of the journey on land.

Speaker 4 18:04

Yeah. Joe Berg, what are you doing here, the diplomatic community?

Speaker 1 18:10

Uh oh no nil. Oh no. Oh no nil. What? Before they even set off for Kenya, Kenya, Mr. and Mrs. Polish surname received news of the German invasion of her homeland and the outbreak of World War II.

Speaker 4 18:28

Did I know it was going to be World War II right from the start?

Speaker 1 18:31

Uh as soon as they knew it was going to be a world war, I suppose, but not right from the start. Because it was just us when it was saying to Hitler, come on then, you do that, Mr. Hitler, and we're going to come over there and kick you right in the nuts. And then we're going to steal on one of them and take it back to the other hole.

Speaker 5 18:47

Yeah.

Speaker 1 18:48

Now, being such an adventurous and patriotic couple, they turned right around and boarded the first ship back to Europe, which turned out to be a very slow cargo steamer heading to Southampton.

Speaker 5 19:00

Right.

Speaker 1 19:00

Actually, till the night, that was the second available ship. The first was a speedboat heading to Northampton, but you know how it is.

Speaker 4 19:09

Yeah, yeah, I'll think I'll go the slow boat, Southampton.

Speaker 1 19:13

Yeah. We could get there quicker, darling.

Speaker 4 19:15

Float on a plank. Yeah. You can either float on a plank with no food or water in the boiling heat, or you can get a speedboat to Northampton. Give us that bit of wood.

Speaker 1 19:23

In the time they reached Britain, there was no longer a Poland or even a Polish government. And what was left of the Polish army was at the very beginning of gathering and regrouping outside of the country.

Speaker 5 19:36

Yeah.

Speaker 1 19:37

With no possibility of getting involved in the war on the Polish side, Krystyna and Jerzy decided to join with Britain. And they both went to London.

Speaker 4 19:47

Did they?

Speaker 1 19:47

Yerzy Jerzy had no problem signing up for action, but Krystyna, being of the wrong gender and nationality, didn't find it quite so easy.

Speaker 4 19:56

No, I wouldn't have thought she would have done back then. Sorry, but you're a lady. Sort of thing they'll say, isn't it? You can't do this, you're a lady.

Speaker 1 20:05

In the end, she strolled into the not so secret station of the British Secret Service that suggested her services as a spy.

Speaker 4 20:12

Just like that.

Speaker 1 20:13

What you didn't realise, there Lister, is that I said all that was drinking a pint of vodka. Quite a talent, I think.

Speaker 4 20:20

It's only on intervener's drip, so you're doing alright to drink it this time.

Speaker 1 20:23

It goes without saying, Neil. Hello, Neil!

Speaker 4 20:26

Hello, Stephen.

Speaker 1 20:27

It goes without saying that this was most unusual, as women were only ever recruited from other branches of the services. And even then, only when they were told they had a valuable skill that had been identified by a man.

Speaker 4 20:40

There you go, you see.

Speaker 3 20:41

Perhaps you went in all slinky and sort of, hey, hi, man, I'm here to do a job, that sort of thing.

Speaker 4 20:47

And they were like, as you say, carry-on style.

Speaker 1 20:52

Clarinet music playing in the background.

Speaker 3 21:01

Hey, hi, man. I'm here to do a job.

Speaker 1 21:05

But it simply wasn't good form to walk in the front door and ask for employment like that, and she wasn't even a leg spinner for the Oxford first eleven, for heaven's sake.

Speaker 4 21:15

Well, there you go then.

Speaker 1 21:17

Nevertheless, Krystyna persuaded the brill creamed men in smart suits of her multilingual credentials.

Speaker 4 21:23

She went, hello, hola, uh bonjour. Things like that. And they're like, she could say hello in three different languages.

Speaker 1 21:29

They decided to give the old gal a spin.

Speaker 4 21:31

I bet they did, the filthy old men.

Speaker 1 21:33

Especially as they had little to no intelligence in Poland or Eastern Europe, and she just demanded to ski across the Carpathian Mountains into Poland and spy on the Nazi occupation.

Speaker 4 21:45

That's fair play.

Speaker 1 21:46

First of all, thought, hello. Should be not job here.

Speaker 4 21:50

Or wrested back into their Chesterfields with their cigars, and what do you say, chaps? Should we give the old girl a go?

Speaker 1 21:57

Yes. She was the first woman to join M I6.

Speaker 4 22:01

I6.

Speaker 1 22:02

M I six.

unknown 22:04

Hmm.

Speaker 4 22:04

What's up to M I M I one, two, three, four, and five, then please. What happened to M I one? What are they?

Speaker 1 22:10

The I fell off the sign, so they just opened the motorway that runs the country.

Speaker 4 22:16

Oh, so that's where they come from.

Speaker 1 22:18

Yeah. You repurposed it. Okay. So that's now the end.

Speaker 4 22:21

Fair enough. So MI2 would be the M twelve.

Speaker 1 22:25

Um could be, yeah. It's interesting, isn't it, when you dig into these things, what you can find out?

Speaker 4 22:30

Yeah, it's interesting. Thank you, Stephen.

Speaker 1 22:32

That's right, no problem. During the freezing winter of early 1940, Krystyna undertook her first major mission for the British. Her objective was to trek from Hungary over the snow covered Tatra Mountain range between Poland and modern day Slovakia and slip into a Nazi occupied homeland to deliver money, propaganda, and establish intelligent routes or routes, if you're an American listener. She was partnered with a Polish Olympic skier called Jan Marusas. And together they waded through waste deep snow and faced temperatures dipping below minus thirty degrees Celsius. Or minus twenty two Fahrenheit again for our American listener.

Speaker 4 23:24

It's not that cold, is it?

Speaker 1 23:25

Minus thirty. Yeah. You'd be alright, would you?

Speaker 4 23:29

Yeah, I do that in my shorts.

Speaker 1 23:31

You keep it minus thirty in your shorts.

Speaker 4 23:33

Of course I do.

Speaker 1 23:34

Shrivel. The conditions were so fierce that they often found the frozen bodies of refugees and on the mountain passes.

Speaker 4 23:43

Yeah, because they suck they stopped.

Speaker 1 23:48

So they just cannot continue anymore.

Speaker 4 23:50

They perhaps didn't have tennis rackets on their feet.

Speaker 1 23:52

Oh, that's a good point. But then, Neil. Oh no.

Speaker 4 23:57

Oh no, no. What now? What now? Oh no.

Speaker 1 24:00

No. As the pair navigated the high ridges near the Slovakia-Poland border, they were spotted by a border patrol who didn't bother shouting and just opened fire immediately.

Speaker 4 24:13

No, they didn't. Really? They jolly well did. How it could have been their mum coming to visit or something, and they just started shooting her.

Speaker 1 24:21

You absolute bounders. Yeah. Bullets began ripping through the thick snow around Christine Marignan, crouching low to minimise their profiles as a target, the pair launched themselves down a steep, treacherous slope at breakneck speed.

Speaker 4 24:36

To get rid of those treacherous kidneys.

Speaker 1 24:40

Yes. Using the blinding glare of the snow, the dense mounting tree line and pure speed, they successfully outmaneuvered the patrol. The snow patrol. They should have been out chasing cars, shouldn't they?

Speaker 4 24:55

Yeah, they should have been. That's press what they were doing.

Speaker 5 25:08

You're up there.

Speaker 1 25:12

Or just giving Listener a a rather beautiful rendition of snow patrol chasing cats.

Speaker 4 25:23

Yeah, laughing.

Speaker 1 25:24

Yeah, maybe because the cat has just jumped on their face and clawed at the ski. Bear in mind here, Neil. Bear in mind that Jan Marusas was an Olympic standard skier, and Krystyna, who wasn't, had matched him all the way.

Speaker 4 25:42

Really?

Speaker 1 25:44

Now, was that because she was also a very, very good skier? No doubt that she was. But did she suddenly reach Olympic standard because there was a team of border patrol guards shooting bullets at her?

Speaker 4 25:57

Perhaps she just jumped on that guy's back or in his front.

Speaker 1 26:00

By 1941, Krystyna was working with a Polish army officer named Andrzej Kowerski, who also became her lover.

Speaker 4 26:12

Oh, there you go, you see, getting some tight situations.

Speaker 1 26:16

Show some bally decorum, old boy. What what?

Speaker 4 26:18

Yeah, he's probably saying to her, Look, come on, love, we're in a bit of a dangerous situation here. Probably gonna be our only chance. Is that your line, is it? What's the chances of being rumpy pumpy? That's what he said.

Speaker 1 26:30

Oh girl. In January, the couple were operating as British intelligence agents in Budapest, Hungary. Now, I've avoided it so far, but we've mentioned France, we've mentioned Poland, we've mentioned Slovakia.

Speaker 5 26:45

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 1 26:47

You ready for it?

Speaker 5 26:48

Go on.

Speaker 1 26:49

I've been there, all of those.

Speaker 4 26:51

Come on. There it is.

Speaker 1 26:55

We're in Budapest, Hungary, and guess what?

Speaker 4 26:58

Guess what, you've been there as well.

Speaker 1 26:59

I've been there as well. But Neil. Oh no. Oh no, Neil.

Speaker 4 27:08

Go on what, please?

Speaker 1 27:09

Oh no. What? When they're in Hungary in Budapest.

Speaker 4 27:13

Yeah.

Speaker 1 27:13

They were arrested by the Gestapo and banged to rights. After two grueling days of being punched about both physically and mentally.

unknown 27:27

Yeah.

Speaker 1 27:27

Krystyna taken enough. And she came up with a plan to walk out of the interrogation rooms a free woman.

Speaker 4 27:36

Yeah. So she's there, I'll tell you everything.

Speaker 1 27:40

No. Do you remember casting your mind back here when she worked at a Fiat car dealership in Warsaw in Poland, not Warsaw outside Birmingham?

Speaker 4 27:50

Yes, I do remember that, yes. Does she offer them a cheap deal?

Speaker 1 27:53

While she no.

unknown 27:55

No.

Speaker 1 27:56

See, that's what she would have done. That's a good idea as well, actually. 25% off a panda. If you let me go now. Well, while she was there, the this is in the Fiat Garage, the Fiat dealership. While she was there, the exposure to toxic exhaust fumes had damaged her lungs there.

Speaker 5 28:14

No, it hadn't.

Speaker 1 28:15

It had, leaving permanent shadows and scarring. At the time, doctors thought it might be tuberculosis or TB. But it wasn't. Now during her investigation with these frightful Gestapo cads.

Speaker 4 28:31

Yeah, these outrageous kidneys.

Speaker 1 28:33

In Budapest, she was genuinely suffering from a bit of a cough and a slight figure due to the stress and poor prison conditions.

Speaker 5 28:43

Yeah.

Speaker 1 28:43

Now if she put everything together, there was a cunning plan.

Speaker 4 28:49

She said she was poorly. Yes. A couple of Lem sips, please.

Speaker 1 28:53

Krystyna bit down hard on her tongue over and over, harder and harder, until it bled profusely.

Speaker 4 29:00

She wanted to get out, didn't she? Wow.

Speaker 1 29:03

And then and there, in front of the Gestapo interrogator, she wrapped up her coffin and began gobbing up mouthfuls of fresh real blood and tells them that she was dying of terminal advanced pulmonary tuberculosis.

Speaker 4 29:18

What was that catching?

Speaker 1 29:19

The Gestapo officers were absolutely terrified of catching TB, which was a highly infectious dance your question.

Speaker 4 29:26

Thank you.

Speaker 1 29:27

Cruel and deadly disease at the time, especially in the ghettos of occupied cities such as Budapest.

Speaker 4 29:35

I bet they were thinking, I've just been punching the shite out of you the last few days.

Speaker 1 29:41

So they immediately called for the prison doctor. And here's the really clever bit, because when the doctor took a chest x-ray, there, for all to see, was the old scarring on Krystyna's lungs and the shadows.

Speaker 4 29:58

Hank Marvin was down there.

Speaker 1 29:59

He was there doing that little stop dance.

Speaker 4 30:02

There was Steve, there was in Hungary. Hank Marvin starving in Hungary. Brilliant. That was quality.

Speaker 30:14

That was a real stinker, huh?

Speaker 1 30:16

Take that with the very real blood she was coughing up buckets of. The doctor confidently diagnosed her with terminal tuberculosis, at which point everybody lost their shizz. Now the Gestapo couldn't kick her out quick enough, and because Andrzej Kowerski was her partner, they threw him out as well to die in the streets, coughing himself inside out with TV.

Speaker 4 30:39

Yeah. Get out.

Speaker 1 30:41

Though the police followed them from a distance, social distancing, obviously, the pair expertly lost them and safely reached the British ambassador in Hungary, a chap called Owen O' Malley, and disappearing up his own anus.

Speaker 4 30:57

Was he a wrestler towards the end then? He must have come in to be a wrestler, WWE.

Speaker 1 31:01

Oh no, I'll see that. Yes, not that edge. No, he was the edge friend of Bono.

Speaker 4 31:09

Oh, from U2.

Speaker 1 31:11

Yes. Oh, he became a guitarist. Hence the disappearing up his own anus line. Immediately, after escaping the Gestapo, they were given the mission to enter Poland and helped evacuate downed allied pilots who were being hidden in a hospital.

Speaker 4 31:28

Well, hmm. It's not really hiding them in a hospital, is it? If someone's injured, you think to yourself, first thing you think of was, hmm, where shall I go? I should go to the hospital. I'd h I'd have hid them in the post office or something like that, because then that would be hiding. Because you wouldn't look for the post office for injured people, would you? There you go. That's how clever I can be.

Speaker 1 31:44

Well done now.

unknown 31:46

Thank you.

Speaker 1 31:47

Immediately after escaping the Gestapo, it's not very sympathetic, is it? So what happened to you, chaps? Where have you been? Well, we were held on the Gestapo, beaten up for 48 hours. I nearly bit my tongue off to fake tuberculosis. We fled to the British Embassy, they've given us false names, and now here we are. Oh jolly good show. Now then turn us straight around and go back to Poland. We have a mission for you. Take a brief holiday. Do you enjoy it? Right, good. Turn around, go back to Poland, and off we go. They also had to collect and smuggle out highly classified intelligence gathered by an independent Polish resistance group. The intelligence was a series of photographs of a massive covert German military buildup along the Nazi Soviet border.

Speaker 4 32:39

Oh. Now listener. How can't they get all these pictures in, please?

Speaker 1 32:43

Now, listener. If you would like to go back and listen to our episode about the good Maharaja, you'll learn all about the Molotov Ribbentrop Pact, which Neil will summarise now. Go.

Speaker 4 32:57

It's a bomb made with um petrol and a rag.

Speaker 1 33:01

No. That's a Molotov cocktail.

Speaker 4 33:05

Oh, okay. Then then I've got no idea.

Speaker 1 33:08

You've got no idea.

Speaker 4 33:09

Can't remember.

Speaker 1 33:10

Even though you participated in that episode fully.

Speaker 4 33:13

Yeah, I can't remember what I had for breakfast this morning.

Speaker 1 33:17

What did you have for breakfast this morning, please mate?

Speaker 4 33:19

I can't remember. No idea.

Speaker 1 33:20

Oh, you can't either. It's only the truth, listener. Now the Molotov Ribbentrop Pact, as the listener will tell you, was a treaty of non-aggression between the Third Reich being Hitler's lot and the Soviet Union being Stalin's lot.

Speaker 4 33:36

Ah, yes, I do remember that now. And then eventually the Germans went back on it.

Speaker 1 33:41

But they were being handed rolls of microfilm containing irrefutable proof that Adolf Hitler, if ever there was such a thing as a bounder and a scoundrel, was about to break the pact and was preparing a massive surprise invasion of the Soviet Union called Operation Barbarossa.

Speaker 4 34:00

He's an inscrupulous kidney.

Speaker 1 34:02

To hide the microfilms, And Jay and Krystyna rolled them tight and hid them inside the lining of her gloves. Not his gloves.

Speaker 4 34:14

Yeah, her gloves. Why her gloves?

Speaker 1 34:16

For obvious reasons, like shut up, that's why. After the microfilms are successfully placed in the hands of Sir Winston Churchill. Heard of him?

Speaker 4 34:28

Yes, I have, yes. He's an advert at insurance.

Speaker 1 34:32

That's a dog. That's a small dog called called Churchill. Ha, yes. That one.

unknown 34:38

Ha.

Speaker 5 34:39

Yes, yeah.

Speaker 1 34:40

Yeah, no, it's not Winston Churchill.

Speaker 5 34:42

No.

Speaker 1 34:43

Winston Churchill was the chap who was the Prime Minister during the Second World War.

Speaker 4 34:48

Well fight him on the beaches. That was him. Navar. Yeah.

Speaker 1 34:53

Yeah. That was him.

Speaker 4 34:55

He used to suck on a large Cuban.

Speaker 1 34:58

Only when the last Cuban had a wash. He wasn't filthy. After the microfilms were successfully placed in the hands of Sir Winston Churchill, Churchill's daughter claimed that he had said Christine Granville was his favourite spy.

Speaker 4 35:19

That's an endorsement.

Speaker 1 35:20

Towards the end of the war at a strategic pass in the Alps. Heard of that.

Speaker 4 35:28

Yeah, that's a mountain range.

Speaker 1 35:30

It is a mountain range. Well, it's a range of mountains. Christine Granville climbed up into a Nazi garrison where there were sixty-three Polish officers who had been conscripted into the German army. All alone and without any weapons, she confronted the men, convinced them to sabotage their garrison and join her in dessert. Hi guys. She was, by all accounts, a bit of a looker.

Speaker 4 36:13

They said.

Speaker 1 36:16

Ding dong. So she convinced them to sabotage their garrison and join her in dessert. Well, what are they gonna have? Spotted dick and custard.

Speaker 4 36:27

How about they did have a few spotted dicks?

Speaker 1 36:29

After that Negless time wasting, she had a better idea. How about the men desert their posts and swap sides and force their German commander to surrender?

Speaker 4 36:42

Yeah. Do it. Do it.

Speaker 1 36:45

And she did.

Speaker 4 36:47

Yeah, see. Well done. Good girl. Hmm? But what's in what, please?

Speaker 1 36:53

But what's going on now? Everything must come to an end, although it feels like this podcast never will. And the Second World War ended in 1945, and despite global celebrations, for Krystyna Scarbeck Christine Granville at least, that was far from good news.

Speaker 4 37:15

Well, because she hadn't despite, I suppose.

Speaker 1 37:17

She had joined the British secret operations executive, bypassing the Polish authorities, largely because there wasn't any at the time. But it meant her homeland didn't recognise her efforts. And more than that, after the war not during the during the war. After the war. The Soviets imposed a new communist regime on the country. Krystyna was born a countess. Ah, oh, oh, oh. And now the communists actively persecuted and erased the old nobility of Poland.

Speaker 5 37:53

Oh.

Speaker 1 37:54

Her mother belonged to a wealthy Jewish banking family which didn't sit well under the communists' anti-Semitic purges. And because of how she'd spent the war during the war, the Soviets and the Poles had her pegged as a Western spy. Did they? So for some reason, Krystyna got the impression that if she'd been caught in Poland or trying to enter Poland, she would have been executed on the spot by the secret police.

Speaker 4 38:24

Yeah.

Speaker 1 38:25

I think I might agree with her there. Don't think she would have been a police. I think the term secret police meant that people didn't necessarily know who was in the secret police. That could have been your wife or your husband or your brother.

Speaker 4 38:44

Oh, this is bang. And then someone saw the person who shoot it and think they're in the secret police. They're not secret anymore.

Speaker 1 38:51

Yeah. But then would you have said anything because you'd have been dragged away, kicking and screaming, and shot yourself.

Speaker 4 39:00

Yeah, but then someone would have seen that. See, it's a pyramid, Steve. It's a pyramid. And then someone would have seen that. Eventually someone. Yeah, someone would have caught him out eventually, like after his hundredth person shooting, they'd have to just shoot everybody, but for God's sake, run out of ammunition here, because he's just seen me pop. Do you mean? Remember that a Polish people. Oh comes back and bites you, Steve. All the even in every film, everything like that, there's never a baddy that wins. There's not one, is there?

Speaker 1 39:23

What about the usual suspects when Kaiser Sosei walks away?

Speaker 4 39:28

Yeah, I suppose. But then again, Toy Story, the the the boy next door, he survives, didn't he? And he was evil to all those toys.

Speaker 1 39:34

No country for old men. When the hitman and Tom evades the law.

Speaker 4 39:40

Hmm.

Speaker 1 39:41

Chinatown, that's a really good film. You ever seen that?

Speaker 4 39:43

No, I can relate to Toy Story more because that's more sort of my genre.

Speaker 1 39:47

You ever seen the film Funny Games? Nope. Two sadistic young men completely terrorise and kill her family ending the movie without any compupence.

Speaker 4 39:57

No, didn't watch any of them, please.

Speaker 1 39:58

Well that's a really good film as well. So yes, your little um assertion that the good guys always went isn't true. So would you like to take that back for the listeners?

Speaker 4 40:09

In real life, Steve, like in Toy Story, not in your made-up films.

Speaker 1 40:14

So you're saying in real life the bad guys always get caught. In which case I present to you Jack the Ripper.

Speaker 5 40:24

Yeah.

Speaker 1 40:24

The zodiacular. So, yes, Nigga, once again, you've been made to look rather foolish by his ear intelligence. I. Anyways, where were we, please? Oh yeah, you're arguing about the secret, please. Right, so that meant all of what we were talking about before we got sidetracked. That meant that although Captain Christine Ranville OBE recipient of the George Medal and the Quad de Garde.

Speaker 4 40:58

Nice.

Speaker 1 40:59

Is that correct? From France.

Speaker 4 41:01

Well deserved. Well deserved.

Speaker 1 41:02

She was one of Britain's most successful and decorated female agents, but she was stateless. She didn't belong to any country. The SOE was disbanded in 1946.

Speaker 4 41:14

Yeah, it didn't need any wars anymore, was there?

Speaker 1 41:16

And the agents released from their employment with minimal support. The government gave Christine a small settlement of £100, or £5,600 today, and simply cut her free to figure it all out for herself.

Speaker 4 41:34

Well, she's done it for five years, to be fair, beyond enemy lines.

Speaker 1 41:37

Well, that's a very good point. She'd survived the Gestapo, five years of dangerous operations, countless near-death experiences, and now here she was struggling to pay rent in London. The aristocratic Polish countess who risked everything to fight the Nazis wound up working as a shop assistant and then as a stewardess on ocean liners. At some point she crossed paths with a gentleman called Ian Fleming, the British naval intelligence officer who would later create James Bond. While working as a stewardess on the New Zealand cruise ship Ruahina, which apparently is Maori, and I don't speak Maori. Do you speak Maori? Is that in there with yours?

Speaker 4 42:30

Um no, I could do a little bit probably.

Speaker 1 42:33

So is Ruahina correct?

Speaker 4 42:37

Yes, it means cruise ship.

Speaker 1 42:40

Oh that's that's an easy straightforward translation. Christine's crewmates laughed in her face when she told them of her background, her war exploits, and her medals. Why would they laugh in her face? Well, because they said if any of it was true, why was she mucking out the toilets on a passenger liner?

Speaker 4 42:59

What she should have said is, I could tell you, but I'll have to kill you afterwards.

Speaker 1 43:03

Only one man stood up for her, a bathroom steward by the name of Dennis Muldowney.

Speaker 4 43:08

But he smelled nice.

Speaker 1 43:10

Who became obsessed with her before she left to return to England.

Speaker 4 43:13

He had loads of aftershaves, didn't he? All different varieties.

Speaker 1 43:16

Obsession with one of them.

Speaker 4 43:18

I see we did.

Speaker 1 43:20

It was good, wasn't it?

Speaker 4 43:21

So it was good. It was, yeah.

Speaker 1 43:22

In London, back in Blight, in London, Christine stayed at the Shelbourne Hotel, number one Lexham Gardens, near Earl's Court. Sunday, the fifteenth of june nineteen fifty two, was a very warm, sunny and dry summer's day. Christine had been out and returned till around ten past ten at night. This was her want to do. It's a free country. Yeah. Much to her surprise, there, waiting in the foyer, was Dennis Mulldowney. He leapt towards her with a broad smile as if to embrace her, 'cause he hadn't seen her for a long while.

Speaker 4 43:59

I suppose yeah.

Speaker 1 44:00

But instead Neil He drove a knife deep into her heart and within minutes she was dead.

Speaker 4 44:10

No. Seriously.

Speaker 1 44:12

Muldowney did not attempt to flee the scene. Driven by an obsessive delusional mindset, he stayed beside her body until the police arrived, immediately admitting to the murder. He said that to kill is the final possession, believing that they would now be permanently linked in the afterlife. He cooperated fully with the law and has to be executed as quickly as possible so they could be reunited in death.

Speaker 4 44:39

Now you see, I know people say, Oh, I've got them being stalked or someone's obsessed with me with that, but you do have to be careful, don't you? You really do have to be careful because there are some fruit loops out there.

Speaker 1 44:49

Krystyna Scarbeck, Christine Granville, was buried at St. Mary's Roman Catholic Cemetery in Kensal Green, northwest London, on June 21st, 1952. The service was attended by a handful of former SOE colleagues, no government officials, no military honours, and no recognition.

Speaker 4 45:15

That's sad.

Speaker 1 45:16

It's very sad, isn't it? What sad end for such a brilliant life?

Speaker 4 45:20

Yeah, that's sad, and that's not fair.

Speaker 1 45:23

Oh, and using your excellent mathematics, she was born in 1908, Neil, and she died in 1952, she'd have been Erty Four. There you go. So what do you think, Lister? What do you think to that high octane adventure story that ended in such a tragic circumstance? The life and times of Christine Scarbeck, the longest serving female spy of the Second World War, who had more courage, you'd almost say more spunk, than whole regiments put together.

Speaker 4 46:02

Metaphorical spunk.

Speaker 1 46:04

Metaphorical, of course, Nil, like a metaphorical balls. But there we go, listen up. Thank you very much for tuning in for another episode of Honourable Mentions. And Neil, would you like to inform the listener where they can? Email us and find us on your socials.

Speaker 4 46:22

You can follow us on all of your social media sites in Instagram, YouTube, uh we're on TikTok, we're also on Discord and on Spotify. You can also message us directly on Spotify, and you can email us at honorable mentionspod at gmail.com. That's honourable mentionspod at gmail.com.

Speaker 3 46:42

You miss Facebook.

Speaker 4 46:43

Oh and Facebook.

Speaker 1 46:46

Thank you. Hopefully the listener didn't notice that. Right. Thank you, listener. We'll see you again next week for another Thrills and Spells. Honourable Mentions. Bye.

Speaker 4 47:01

Bye. And have a lovely, lovely day.

Speaker 47:05

Hello listener. It is I, Krystyna Skarbeck or Christine Granville or whatever we decided it was. Now, listen carefully, I shall say this only once. Thank you for listening to honorable mentions, hilarious history, and an episode all about me. Sad in the end, wasn't it? On behalf of the nation, I would like to invite you to subscribe so you don't miss future tales of histories forgotten underdogs. And while you're about it, tell all your friends and leave a five-star review. It's not exactly smuggling microfilm from under the nose of the Nazis. All you need to do is find the main page for honorable mentions. Hilarious History, wherever you stream your podcasts, click the three vertical dots and select Rachel. Easy peasy, don't you think? Honorable Mentions is researched by Stephen Webb and is an Uncover Brothers production. But if it is a truly good looking rock god you are after, go and listen to Pepe and the Bandits wherever you stream your music. They wrote the theme to this nonsense. See you again next week, listener. Thank you and goodbye for now.