Female agent Vera Schalburg

Discussion in 'The Women of WW2' started by hoggene, Oct 29, 2008.

  1. hoggene

    hoggene Member

    Here is a remarkable and delicate story about an strange and sorrowful female (double) agent.


    Brief bio from the case files of MI5 BIOGRAPHY
    More details and pics by Jane Barclay, an art student from Huntly http://geocities.com/sadinfo/VeraSchalburg.pdf


    [​IMG]



    Does anyone know something about her final fate?
     
  2. Bo Christiansen

    Bo Christiansen New Member

    She died in feb. 1946 in Hamburg of pneumonia and heartfailure.
    Rumors have been said that she died in 1993 or that she imigrated to south America, its not the case.
    New evidence about her faith , Danish historican has done a remarkable research and recently published a new book about Vera Von Schalburg .



    QUOTE="hoggene, post: 128557, member: 7248"]Here is a remarkable and delicate story about an strange and sorrowful female (double) agent.


    Brief bio from the case files of MI5 BIOGRAPHY
    More details and pics by Jane Barclay, an art student from Huntly http://geocities.com/sadinfo/VeraSchalburg.pdf


    [​IMG]



    Does anyone know something about her final fate?[/QUOTE]
    S
     
  3. Jedburgh22

    Jedburgh22 Very Senior Member

    She is better known in UK as Vera Von Schalburg - she died in UK in 1993
    Wiki Entry at Vera von Schalburg - Wikipedia

    There is quite a bit about her in Peter Day's book Klop (about Klop Ustinov her MI5 interrogator)
    Her MI5 Files under the name of Vera Eriksen can be found at TNA Kew at KV2/14, KV2/15 & KV2/16
     
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  4. Bo Christiansen

    Bo Christiansen New Member

    Its simply not true, its a common misbelif that she died in 1993 in England (dont always thrust wikipedia , remember evetybody do can write “facts” there) , another rumour says Argentina (due to a lady from Argentine who posted a youtube video with Vera, the Danish historican kirstine kloster Andersen even contacted the lady, she never met Vera, Kristine Kloster Andersen has done a brilliant research for her book - spurven , den dramatiske historie om Spionen Vera Schalburg (the sparrow - the dramaticsl story about the spy , Vera Schalburg ) she even found her tombstone in Hamburg at Friedhof Ohlsdorf (graveyard Ohlsdorf ) where she was burried at the 8 of February 1946 from heartfailure and pneumonia.
    Very interesting is that many people had doubt about the violence Vera was exposed to mainly from Russian intelligence, mainly because she had severe psychological issues (people thought it was selfharming ) Kristine had access to the national hospital of Denmark (rigshospitalet ) journals . There is no chance that she could had made the terrible knive wounds/stabbings herself , also Vera’s story about how the Russians “exposed Vera to torture, by pressing her in a magazine press” to make her their spy. Is confirmed , by investigating journals about Vera from the national hospital of Denmark, its shown that Vera had previously fractured ribs by xray examination. Here is the MI5 mugshot of Vera
    Excuse me my bad english
     

    Attached Files:

  5. Tricky Dicky

    Tricky Dicky Don'tre member

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  6. Tricky Dicky

    Tricky Dicky Don'tre member

    Vera Erikson - Port Gordon

    Vera was born in 1907, although many accounts give a date in December 1912 as the daughter of August Theodor Schalburg (a Dane) and his wife, Jelena Startiskaja (or Staritska) von Siemanovska, who was of the Polish-Ukrainian gentry and whose family had large estates in the Ukraine. However, an alternative account of Vera suggests that that she was born in Kiev as late as 1914 of Jewish extraction and was adopted by a White Russian family.

    Some discrepancies !!

    TD

    From the link
    A number of websites indicate that she may have lived under the name Vera de Witte and that she died, in England, in 1993 but none provide clear unambiguous evidence to support this.
     
    Last edited: Jul 28, 2019
  7. Tricky Dicky

    Tricky Dicky Don'tre member

  8. Bo Christiansen

    Bo Christiansen New Member

    Why i became interested in the story about Vera von Schalburg (real name) was that i made a lot of research about her brother Christian Von Schalburg who was in command of Frikorps Danmark (Danish voluntary SS corps ) my friend who is also very interested in WW2 history is even in contact with the Schalburg family (relatives who live in Denmark) they also confirm that she is burried in Hamburg. He has a picture of her tombstone, i will ask him for that.
    Here is her bigger brother Christian Von Schalburg that tried to help Vera the best as he could, even sorted out with the German intelligence that had an arrest order on Vera, so she could return to Germany safely during the war .
     

    Attached Files:

  9. Harry Ree

    Harry Ree Very Senior Member

    Cannot understand that Vera Eriksen as she was known by British intelligence is defined as a double agent.

    Her case is comprehensively revealed in the Harry H Hinsley and CAG Simkins publication British Intelligence in the Second World War Volume 4 and is described as a tragic expedition.(von Schalburg is referred to as von Schalbourg by British Intelligence)

    As Vera Eriksen, she was arrested on 30 September 1940 along with Karl Drucke whom it is recorded that she was in love with, and Werner Walti after landing by rubber dinghy near Port Gordon in the Moray Firth having being flown from Norway in a seaplane. Eriksen was held in detention for the duration of the war and the mission accomplished nothing but the deaths of the two men.

    Both men resisted interrogation stubbornly and Vera lied continually to protect Drucke. It was only after 18 months from the arrival of the party in Scotland and 6 months after both men had been executed by hanging under the Treachery Act on 6 August 1941 that Vera gave her interrogators anything like a coherent account of her adventurous history and the preparation and task of their disastrous mission.

    From the breakthrough,it was ascertained that Vera was born in Kiev in December 1912 (probably partly Jewish) named Staritzky. Vera was adopted by a German family called von Schalbourg which left Russia for Denmark at the time of the Russian Revolution and assumed Danish nationality.(From another source, Christian Frederik von Schalburg,the second commander of the Danish Freikorps and Vera's stepbrother, was claimed to be the son of a Russian mother and a Danish father.....source Danish Volunteers of the Waffen SS.Freikorps Danmark (1941-1943) Jens Pank,B Jerregaard and Lars Larsen)

    (Schalburg assumed command of the Danish Freikorps on 22 February 1942.On 2 June 1942 he was killed during an attack on the Russian bridgehead at Biakowo,Russia where he was buried.The first commander of the Danish Freikorps,appointed on its formation on 29 June 1941 was Christian Peder Kryssing but he was sacked for not being a convincing Nazi on 22 February 1942 when Schalburg took command........ but lost two sons while in Russia and his wife, as a nurse in Russia was severely wounded which left her disabled for life)

    In 1927 Vera went to Paris where she joined the ballet,and three years later married a man named Ignatieeff who combined the careers of being a Soviet agent and drug pedlar.For some while she acted as his courier but the association ended when he tried to murder her.She tried to return to Denmark and enlisted the help of her stepbrother von Schalbourg,a Danish Nazi Party member,who brought her to the attention of the Abwehr's Dr Ritter. In October 1937,according to her story,she married,perhaps bigamously,a member of the Abwehr called variously von Wedel,zum Stuhrec or Oberleutnant Dierks. Ritter had hopes of using her as a penetration agent against the Soviet Intelligence Service but when this failed,despatched her to London in the early part of 1939.Here she acted as a companion to an elderly lady who had originally been introduced to Ritter by a Swedish national,a Mrs My Eriksson (known member of the Abwehr Hamburg station who MI 5 had penetrated and left at liberty until December 1939 when she was arrested for giving false particulars for an exit permit.) and erroneously believed by him to have valuable social contacts from whom Vera could obtain information.In fact no such opportunity existed and she returned empty handed to Germany.There she met Drucke,who was acting as "an occasional agent",and fell in love with him.

    The scheme of sending the pair of them to England on an espionage mission was conceived by Ritter in August 1940.It was looked on as a hopeless enterprise by everyone involved ,including Vera's putative husband von Wedel,who decided to appeal personally to Admiral Carnaris to have the trip cancelled,but was killed in a car crash. Various plans for landing the mission,now joined by Walti (a Swiss national who according to Vera was involved purely motivated by money...... drew a revolver when arrested) were tried out before the seaplane/rubber dinghy was finally put into effect.

    Interesting point regarding My Eriksson is that being a member of the Abwehr Hamburg station,her status was known by MI 5 who had penetrated the Hamburg station as soon as the war broke out from the basis of small beginning prewar intelligence.There were 6 in the group,4 were arrested immediately and the other 2,one of which was My Eriksson was suspected by MI 5 as being the courier and banker for the group from 1938.The other was "Snow" as coded by the British authorities,a Welsh electrical engineer who had been in touch with the SIS and Special Branch since 1936.He was denounced by his wife and son as a German spy when he travelled to Germany from 11 August to 23 August 1939.He was missed at the port of entry but on 4 September 1939 he telephoned his Special Branch contact and offered his services to the British government.This was accepted and MI 5 took control of his wireless contact with the Germans and worked it in the Double Cross system.MI 5 allowed him to travel to Holland and Belgium to meet Germans and this became instrumental in enabling MI 5 to uncover other German agents.
     

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