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Audible subscribers can listen to all episodes of the Spy who ad free right now. Join Audible today by downloading the Audible app.
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I'm James Bond novelist Charlie Higson, and this is the Spy who, an Audible original. Thank you for joining us for our final episode of the Spy who inspired the first Bond Girl. She was one of Britain's most daring spies of the Second World War, a woman who crossed borders, outwitted the Gestapo, and helped change the course of the war. And yet, within a decade, she would be dead. Not on the battlefield, but in a London hotel. Polish Countess Krystyna Skarbek had to force her way into Britain's intelligence services, becoming one of its most unconventional agents and Churchill's favorite spy. She operated at the center of one of the most dangerous conflicts in history and then found herself fighting for a place in the world she helped to save, dependent on the approval of the men who once sent her into the field and later shut her out. A woman who within years would be pushed to the margins and in danger of drifting into obscurity. In this episode, we explore the life and the afterlife of Christina Skaabeck, a story shaped not just by what she did, but by the people who controlled where she could go, what she could become, and ultimately how she would be remembered. I'm joined by historian Claire Mulley, whose work has been instrumental in reshaping how we understand Christina, challenging the myths, and uncovering a far more complete and human story. So welcome to the Spy who. Clare, thank you for joining me here in the studio in London.
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It's wonderful to be here. Thanks so much.
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B
Now, before we talk about Christina Skaabek, you have your own connection to Poland, don't you? Tell me about your experience teaching in the newly democratic country. Post Soviet collapse, Poland only regained its
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freedom, sort of 89 to 91. And I was very fortunate to be able to go out as a volunteer and teach English as a foreign language. And I became very interested in the history Poland has centuries of being invaded and annexed and occupied, but also have defeated defiance and resistance and liberation. And it's such a fascinating history. We should know more about it.
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B
And how much did the kids that you were teaching know about this history and the history of the war?
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A
Nothing, really. Very little. Every country, they have their different narrative, right? But Russia don't talk about the Second World War. They talk about the Great Patriotic War, which starts in 1941, because before 1941, they were allies of the Nazi Germans. It's only then that Stalin changed sides in the war and Joined the Allies. And the story that was told to Polish people was story of liberation because of the. The Russian forces coming in. In fact, Poland first country invaded in the war, first of September 1939, invaded by Nazi Germany from the west. But just 17 days later they were invaded from the east by the Red Army. But that part of the story that betrayal is never told.
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B
And so was it back then in the early 90s, that you first heard about Christina Scarbeck?
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A
No, I didn't hear her name then. I just became interested in the history and I knew I wanted to write about some of the women in history because I feel their stories, if they're told, tend to be quite romanticized. And I thought that the Polish Fulcrum was very interest. I did a bit of research and of course, like so many people, fell completely in love with her story and realized that she really deserved a better telling of it. What astounded me is that she'd never really got the recognition that she deserved. I mean, she was the first woman to serve Britain as a special agent in the Second World War. She was also the longest serving agent, female or male, during the war and one of the most high achieving. And yet her story was reduced so much, it was virtually invisible.
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B
Do you think there was something innately in her before she became a spy that made her perfect for that role?
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Yeah, there are many reason. I mean, she was 10 years old when Poland regained its freedom at the end of the First World War. She had actually been born in part of the Russian Empire in Poland, and it was in her DNA. You know, Polish people were taught through the generations that one day they might have to fight for their nation's freedom. So she was very keen to put herself on the line for that. My book is called the Spy who Loved because she loved adventure and adrenaline. She wanted to live a rich, full life. She loved men. She had two husbands, many lovers. But above all, she loved freedom and independence, both for her country, but also for herself. And also her mother was Jewish. I mean, she'd converted to Catholicism to marry her father who was part of the aristocracy. So in one way, she grew up with a lot of freedom and advantage and privilege. She was riding horses and shooting guns as a teenager. All very useful for her later. But on the other hand, she was marginalized in Polish society because unfortunately, of the anti Semitism that was prevalent across Europe at the time. So she was also fighting for all of these reasons as well.
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B
I mean, she must have had a strong streak of bravery as well. Or would you describe it more as recklessness.
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I would describe it as courage.
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B
Right.
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I mean, she was an independent thinker, she was a rule breaker, but I don't think that's reckless. This was the sort of qualities that was needed. I mean, it's often her quick wit that talks her out of trouble, that talks her out of execution on a number of occasions. I mean, she's deeply courageous, deeply patriotic. She is also vulnerable, which I like. She's not a machine. So I think it's not that she was fearless, it's that she was scared, but she did it anyhow. Sometimes that's real courage, right?
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B
Mm, totally. So, I mean, so within. Within weeks of Germany's invasion of Poland, Christina is in London demanding to join the British intelligence service as a field agent. I mean, how ambitious was that demand? I mean, you mentioned before she was the first foreign agent to be taken on, or your first female agent.
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First female agent, yeah. I mean, she is incredibly audacious and that moment says it all, really. So she comes to Britain and within days, she's not so much volunteering, as you said, demanding to be taken on. And I can only imagine the look on the faces of the young men in the office. Of course, they were all young men in the special intelligence services there. First of all, she is not British. You do have to be British to join the British secret special services, you know. And then she's so highly motivated, partly, she says, because of her mother is born Jewish. And they think, well, clearly what she's suggesting is suicidal, then to go into occupied German territory. But above all, of course, she's a woman and there were no other women working in this role at that point. I mean, this is more than a year before the Special Operations Executive is even set up. The first memo describes her as these young men. They say she's an expert skier and a great adventuress and absolutely fearless. And in the margin, you can see in pencil, one of them's written, but she terrifies me. And I think that gives you a flavour of her character. But she's got everything she needs. She's very well connected, she's a countess, she speaks the right languages and she knows the routes in and out of occupied territory, skiing over the high Tatra Mountains. She knows the smuggling routes because she used to smuggle cigarettes across the border, just for kicks, really. She didn't even smoke, so she's got everything they need, so none of that matters. Demands of war trump everything and they
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B
take her on, just very briefly. Did that lead to them changing the idea of who they would recruit.
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Yes. You see in the archives that some of the ruses that she deployed, like on one occasion she's been caught by the Germans and she's being interrogated quite brutally. And she's got a bit of a hacking cough and a fever. And what she does is she bites her own tongue hard and repeatedly until her mouth fills with blood. And then when she coughs, it looks as if she's coughing up blood. It's the symptoms of tb. And the Germans are rightly terrified of this disease. So they throw her out. And later on, you see in the training manuals given to potentially, this is one of the ruses they suggest if you're interrogated. So you can see that they are learning from her experiences and that is feeding back into the mix. And yes, it's partly, I think, because she was so successful early on in the war, they realize how useful women are. Because, of course, women have a special power that the men don't. It's not to be a glamorous honey trap. It's that women tend to be underestimated
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B
and can use that and go under the radar.
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Absolutely.
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And get into all those areas where they're considered not important, but they're actually at the heart of things.
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Exactly. If you are looking for intelligence agents and you can recruit a woman who is translator or a secretary, or a woman who works in a bakery and look at changing garrison orders across a big region, you can see where troops are gonna be moved. That can be really valuable information.
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B
Now, we talked about this. Work is dangerous. And, you know, sometimes that can sound a bit abstract. I mean, what was the sort of life expectancy of a spy?
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A
Well, they didn't know because everything they're doing is very pioneering. But women, for example, who were trained and sent out to be wireless operators, they were given a six week life expectancy, so they could expect to have their signal traced, to be caught, interrog and executed within six weeks.
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B
I mean, presumably they didn't tell them this when they recruited them. They did and they gave them.
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Because all of the women are volunteers, they don't have to serve and they wanted them to know the risks. You know, 39 women were sent into France alone, Christine was one of those. And 13 of them did not return. So these are very real risks and she would have been very aware of them.
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B
Yes, because the first time Christina went into France, she was replacing a female spy who'd been captured, wasn't she?
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Yev courier who'd been sent out the Cecily Lefort. She was serving in the Resistance circuit in southern France run by a man called Francis Kommerz, and she had been caught by the Germans. But eventually she was executed alongside other female members of the Resistance. And then Christina was sent out to replace Cecily. So she knew exactly the risks that
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she was facing, but still prepared to take them.
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Still prepared to take them. By the time she went to France, Christina had already served in two different theaters of the war. So she was just deeply determined to serve right the way through.
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B
I mean, do you think that there's something in the personality of whether you call them a spy, a special agent or whatever, this idea that it's not going to happen to me, I can do this, I will survive. I mean, you must have a certain amount of that in you, mustn't you?
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Yeah, I mean, I do think she had a deep sense of self confidence. I mean, she was incredibly able. We have heard training reports. The course that she excelled in was apparently the silent killing course, which is killing with just a knife, a rope or your bare hands. It said on that end of the course report that she, she was as fierce as a lion. So she has a lot of skills. She's also got her language skills, her contacts and so on. But she, like all of the agents, knew that however skilled you were, however experienced you were, every agent to survive also needed luck.
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B
And do you think Christina was a great spy because she was a woman or despite it?
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Both. Women. I mean, they're trading on the sexism and the misogyny, particularly of Nazi Germany, of course, which is a very matriistic society. Early on in the war, particularly the Germans didn't think that women had the courage, but also the nous, the intelligence to do anything really significant. But that sexism, of course applies to the Poles and the Brits as well.
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B
So she's in a position where, as a woman, men would underestimate her. But you've also slightly touched on, you know, sort of using her femininity to get what she wanted to. I gather there was an incident on a train with a Gestapo officer.
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Yes, I mean, I don't want to emphasize too much. I think often people assume that women were used to be sort of honey traps and flirty and this was one of many skills. And of course the women would use that. They would use anything that they could in the moment. And there is one occasion where she's trying and she's got some papers to deliver to Resistance headquarters and she realizes that the Germans are going very systematically carriage to carriage and checking not just people's travel documents but their bags and pockets. And she knows she'll be caught with this material. And then a German officer gets onto the train and sits down pretty much opposite her. And she's been thinking, what are her options? And she thinks, well, there's another option. So she flirts with him. She says, I'm so sorry, I've got this package of black market tea to give to my mother and they're bound to take it off me. Would you take it for me? And he's very gallant. He says, of course, my dear, and puts it in his attache case. Perfectly safe, no one's gonna check his papers. And she's very canny because when they arrive, she doesn't ask for it back and he has to call her and she's, oh, thank you so much. Off she goes, delivers it straight to the Resistance. I mean, she is very good at her job and so she will use any skill, any attribute she has, but most of the time it's more a question of seeming insignificant.
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B
But I mean, she did have a history of men becoming obsessed with her, didn't she? I mean, what sort of complications did that create for as an agent?
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Yes, there are a number of reports. There was one gentleman who was her lover for a while and then she moved on and he threw himself from a bridge in Budapest where she was serving for a while. Unfortunately, the river was frozen. He just broke one of his legs. So, yeah, I mean, yes, this is occasionally problematic, but I would say that's an issue for the men to get their heads around rather than an issue for her to bother with. But I think the key thing to remember is that the male and female experience is very different. The men are under orders, they are in the military, the women are not. Women couldn't bear arms legally and they don't have protections under the Geneva Convention. If a man is caught, they have some degree of protection. Prisoner of war camps, all of that relates to official legal soldiers. So women didn't have those protections either.
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B
Scarbeck was treated with suspicion throughout the war and dogged by rumours of being a double agent. Why were they so reluctant to accept her?
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A
There were a number of reasons. Partly she was a woman that automatically meant something suspect about her, partly because her mother was Jewish. But there are other reasons as well. She served in three theaters, firstly in Poland and Hungary. At the end of that, her name is known and she's a wanted person up on posters in the station. So she has to get out. She makes her way across various international borders, sometimes weeks. On one occasion, just two days before these countries fell to the Axis. And eventually she gets to the security of Egypt, which issue put on ice while they investigated these reports. She's a double agent. There are a number of reasons. The one I like best, someone wrote in those reports, it seems to be the only possible explanation for why she's still alive.
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B
So this is the British investigating.
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That was the British investigating her. But the Poles have got further reason because she makes the first contact between the Brits and the Polish resistance and she takes in information. And part of the information she brings back has been gathered by an independent resistance group called the Musketeers. And the Poles are very suspicious of this group because they talk to the Russians early on in the war, when they're still the enemies, to try and play them off against the Germans. And this is against all protocol, but I must say there's another very famous Polish hero called Kazimierz Lewski, who also worked directly for the Musketeers and no suspicion fell on him. So you can see that there is a gender slant on this as well.
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B
And then towards the end of the war, British Intelligence actually passed information about Kristina to the NKVD in Russia. Why did they do this to one of their agents?
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A
I know I was astounded to discover this in the files. I applied under the Freedom of Information act and I got out various files and some of them were still slightly redacted. And one of the new files that came out showed that the British had exchanged her name and her partner, Andrew Kawarski, for the names of a couple of NKVD agents. So that's the precursor to the kgb. So I mean, there is absolutely no question that had Kristina returned to Communist Poland after the war, almost certainly she would have been executed because anyone who had worked so closely with the Brits, the capitalists in the west, you know, were slated for execution.
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B
So of everything that Kristina did in the war, what do you think reveals the most about who she really was?
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Blimey. I mean, I think it's really important to focus on her achievements. So, I mean, Christina made the first contact between the Brits and the Polish resistance. She also established the first contact between the French resistance and the Italian partisans on opposite sides of the Alps. She secured the microfilm that showed preparations for Operation Barbarossa, Hitler's betrayal of Stalin in the war, which forced Russia to change sides. Hugely important. She secured the defection of an entire Nazi German garrison on a strategic pass in the Alps, single handedly she saved the lives of many of the men that she served alongside and she kept fighting. One of the last memos we have is actually written in her hand from the spring of 1945. And she is begging for a final mission, to be sent behind the last remaining enemy lines inside Germany itself, because they knew at that point that the Germans were from the concentration camps, putting the last survivors on forced marches back towards Berlin. Christine begs for a final mission to go in. And in fact, no women were sent on that mission, though a number of the men she served alongside with were. But it shows that even in the last months of the war, that's her determination, her resilience. She is desperate to go back in.
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B
As the war draws to a close, Christina leaves the battlefield. But the fight isn't over this time. It's not against the enemy, but for a place in the world she helped to save.
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A
You know that moment when you order food and suddenly everyone around you gets very interested in your dinner?
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B
Yeah.
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A
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B
Christina's peacetime life has little peace in it. Within a decade, she will be dead. The years in between are marked by struggle, instability and a slow drift to the margins. So, Clare, how stark is the contrast between her wartime and post war life?
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A
Oh, it's extraordinary. I mean, you can tell that she is still the same character, a woman who's fighting for every opportunity. But her life is so limited by the misogyny of post war society. She's not given either of the things she wanted, which was ongoing work worthy of her service and her experience. All the men she served alongside were given roles in the occupying authorities, the British occupied zone of Germany. But she is not. She's offered a couple of sectarial roles and that is not where her skill set lies. And she's not given British citizenship, she's taken temporary British citizenship papers during the war. So she takes the name Christine Granville. That's the other name she's known under. Probably better known in Britain, which is one of her nom de guerre in the war. And these are sort of six monthly renewable documents. And at the end of the war, of course they're no longer needed. And she knows she cannot go back to Poland because of the Soviet imposed communist regime, which at that point is rounding up resistance leaders. And she can't go to Britain because she's no longer a British citizen. So she's really left high and dry. And then the British government says, oh, you've done fantastic work, and they propose her for the OBE and the George Medal. And she actually says, I'm sorry, I refuse to accept honours from a country I put my life on the line for, for six years. You want to give me honours but you won't give me security. So she shames the British government and at that point they say, of course they give her British citizenship and she accepts the honours. But while the men are given military honours, the women are given their civilian equivalents, even though they may have served in exactly the same roles with gun in hand, facing the same dangers and achieve as much or better results. I really don't think that's a battle she should have had to fight at the end of her service.
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B
Oh, I mean, is her problem in getting any sort of meaningful work? How much is that because she's a woman and how much is it because there's this sort of lingering suspicion that she can't be trusted?
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It is largely because she's female. She's not the only woman who faces these issues. The men, there are various roles for a while. Eventually they do dry up as well. So you get, you know, senior Polish generals living in London who end up being house decorators and so on. So it's not entirely about gender, but the women, the only roles they were offered were secretarial. And you look in the files for Christina post war and you see these young men who are now working as clerks in MI6, who, some of them don't actually have wartime military experience. And they say in the files, you know, this little girl is very difficult to place. And another one said, I don't really believe she did all this. How would they know? The last memo that relates to Christine says she is no longer wanted. I mean, this is one of the great ironies of all the women who served, that it's specifically for their skills, you know, partly being underestimated because of the sexism of the days that meant that it could operate below the radar, that after the war that same sexism exists and they're not Given the recognition
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B
and I mean it probably didn't help Christina that at times she told contradictory or embellished stories.
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A
Yeah, I mean this is one of the things I do love about her actually. There's all sorts of wonderful stories. There's one where she's parachuting behind enemy lines into Nazi German occupied France and later she said that there was a terrible storm that day and she was blown off course. So I checked and it turns out that there was a storm in her region that night and she said I was blown off course but I managed to steer my parachute background and when I came through the cloud line I saw the spire of the church rearing up towards me and I thought it might pierce me through the heart. But in the first report at the time that she radioed back, she said landed in cornfield, as expected, that was it. You know, she likes to tell a good story but actually that was a skill that was useful to her as well because during the war she has to have various different identities, she has to remember them, be able to pitch them correctly for different audiences. But again, didn't help post war.
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B
So stripped of role, country and recognition, who is she?
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After the war, it's an incredibly difficult time for Christine. She has to seek employment, she has to support herself, she takes a number of short term jobs. So she works as a hatchet girl at Harrods for a while, she works as a waitress in various cafes and eventually she gets a job on a passenger ship doing long distance journeys. I think she was still looking for that element of freedom. At least she could travel with that. But I think this says it all. You know, when she first comes to Britain at the start of the war to offer her service, she is traveling first class on a ship, South Africa to Britain after the war, she is serving as a bathroom stewardess, she's cleaning the loos. So that shows you the change in rank and status. I mean, that's the result of her serving Britain, putting her life on the line for six years.
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B
But I mean, even as institutions reject her, wartime friends and old flames did continue to fight for Scarbeck. And what does that tell us about the kind of person she was?
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A
Yeah, and a number of the men who served alongside her, like Francis Kamertz, Andrej Kowirsky, both argued the case that she should be given more significant and better recognition. Others, like for example, Colin Gubbins, who was the last head of the soe, they had been friends, you know, he'd recognized the value of her service during the war. She met him afterwards, obviously looking for a reference or a recommendation, and she said, oh, you just invited me out to dinner. And she said, basically, you wanted to bend me. And that was the last time she spoke to him. So it's a mixed response throughout.
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B
And these rumors persist that she still might have been gathering intelligence. I mean, even when she's working as a stewardess on the cruise ship.
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A
Yes, there's lots of rumors about her for which I have found 0 EV. I think people like a conspiracy theory then and still do now. And unfortunately, that belittles her very real achievements that were so effective for the Allies during the war. For example, when she's working on the cruise ships, on one occasion, the captain of the ship says that any one of the crew who served, you know, there's going to be a formal dinner, could they wear their service medals? So Christina turns up with the OBE and the Georges Medal and the French Croix de Guerre with one star and this array of ribbons that any general would have been proud of, which denote the different theaters of the war in which she served. And people just can't believe, you know, a, she's a woman, B, she's got a foreign accent, possibly a bit Jewish. You know, obviously she's a fantasist and a liar and couldn't possibly have achieved this, and they harass her. So actually, even when she does produce the evidence of her service, she's disbelieved and belittled for it.
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B
So what is it about her that makes people believe that she was never really out of the game?
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A
The British did have a genuine hope that she is a potential interface between the Poles and the Brits, and should the Cold War heat up, that she would be someone with the right contacts who would be a trusted interlocutor who might be able to exchange information behind the Iron Curtain. She certainly didn't herself volunteer for such a service. And it's quite ironic, really, that they were perhaps nurturing these hopes, given the fact that they had not used her in more valid roles immediately after the war.
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B
Yeah, it seems insane that they didn't take her on as a useful asset earlier on. Asset. And you know, so much information about that part of the world.
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A
Absolutely right.
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B
And how much had she changed by that point from the woman she was going into the war.
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A
She obviously was affected by her experiences. I mean, Francis Comertz said after the war that several, he said of his friends actually committed suicide. Zan Fielding, another man whose life she saved during the war, who wrote his memoirs, talked about the Horrors of the peace. Because for a lot of people trying to sustain the kind of life, the adrenaline that you got used to, but also the sense of purpose, the sense of value in your life was very difficult. But she was a fighter, she had further plans. She wasn't going to give up on life herself.
- [25:02]
B
So it was while she was working on these cruise that she met the man who later became her murderer. I mean, what do we know about their relationship?
- [25:11]
A
Dennis George Muldoni was also serving as a bathroom steward on the cruise ships. And they met actually when they were all asked to wear their medals. He himself hadn't served overseas, he had served as a fireman during the war. And he was the one man who defended her when she was being slated for wearing these honours. And they became close, they were lovers. But when she came back to London, he was immediately very tedious. He was very needy and pathetic around her. She didn't have that time for him anymore. She had other people to associate with. I mean, this is a woman who is friends with some very senior Polish generals, senior British officers, real war heroes. And so she ditched him and he couldn't take that. So unfortunately, he became her stalker. And eventually he demanded the return of some of the love letters he had written her. So she agreed to meet him in the South London hotel where she was. And unfortunately he had come with, well, various weapons. He had a cloche, he had a commando knife, much like the one she had been trained to use during the war. And as soon as she came down the stairs to meet him, he pounced on her, he stabbed her through the heart. She would have died within seconds. It was this appalling betrayal of her trust, betrayal of her as a woman, betrayal of her as an agent, as a human being. And he didn't try to leave, he was arrested there and then, and he was actually executed for her. 1952, just seven years after the end of the war. A terribly unfitting end for this war hero.
- [26:38]
B
And such a shame that she was murdered because the truth would have come out eventually. So after her death, there are rumours that she was assassinated by the nkvd. I mean, how seriously should we take any of those claims?
- [26:53]
A
I mean, I think it's always important to be open minded. But I have trawled the archives, not just in Britain, but in Poland, in some of the German archives as well, and there is not a shred that I have found that supports this. But of course she did come to a very untimely end. I mean, I think if the NKVD were gonna do it, they wouldn't have used such a blunt tool as Dennis George Muldoni. I think he struck quite lucky. So I don't think there is any evidence to support that at all. Nor is there reason why they should have wanted to do that. I mean, she's in the west, she hasn't got any kompromat on them. There is no real motivation. Had she have gone back to Poland, I think highly likely that they would have executed her. I mean, this is one of many rumors that circulate around her and I think that fills a vacuum when the actual story is kept for so long.
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B
Yeah, I mean, it's a classic crime of passion, which is a horrible way of actually romanticizing, in this case, male violence against women.
- [27:43]
A
That's right.
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B
But a few years later, Teresa Lubienska, another former musketeer in Skarbeck Circle, was murdered in London. I mean, how did that feed into the sense that Kristina's death might not have been what it seemed?
- [27:55]
A
Theresa Lublienska, I mean, she was an extraordinary, fantastic woman and she was stabbed on an underground plan and we don't really know who the perpetrators were in that case. It could have been a robbery that went wrong, could have been something else. So you can see how that would fuel these rumours. I have to say there were a lot of Polish service women as well as the men in London, and the majority of them weren't murdered. So statistically it doesn't mean something. But it is an interesting coincidence.
- [28:22]
B
I mean, given the kind of life she led, do you think Christina was particularly vulnerable to a kind of violence that women often face?
- [28:29]
A
Do you know, Charlie, if you look at the crime stats after the war in general, you'll see there is a massive spike in violent crime in the post war period. Because what you get is a load of returning servicemen who are traumatized, who are acclimatised to violence, and a lot of them are armed. Then they come back and they find society's massively changed. They're not given the recognition that they would have liked to have had. There is mass unemployment, perhaps they don't have the same relationships with their families and there is this big spike in violent crime. So she's vulnerable in that sense that women were more vulnerable in the post war period in Britain. But that isn't specifically because of the role she played.
- [29:06]
B
The injustice of Christina's death is quickly overtaken by the stories that grow around her. What begins as an effort to protect her reputation soon turns into a struggle over who controls her story. After her death. Christina's story is shaped as much by what's withheld as by what's told. So Claire Ange Kowrski goes to great lengths to protect Skaabek's reputation, even helping to form a group to control how she's written about. What was he trying to protect?
- [29:56]
A
After the war, he actually convened a committee, called it the Panel to Protect the Reputation of Countess Christina Scarbeck. And this was a group of men, all of whom she had served alongside in France and elsewhere during the war. Andrew felt very strongly that the world wasn't really ready for the real Christina in 1952. This hot blooded woman, whose love life in particular was a very important part of her character and yet wasn't seen as the sort of appropriate for a countess in the 1950s. And so they agreed not to talk to journalists to give these men some credit. I think they were doing it from respect for her. They thought they were doing the right thing and trying to protect her reputation.
- [30:34]
B
They weren't trying to protect the reputation of the men who'd slept with her.
- [30:37]
A
Well, I completely agree. I mean, a number of these men had been a lover at different times in the war and several of them were married. So I think there was a bit of self interest there and they were trying to protect their vaynerations as well to some degree. And of course what happened is that her story was effectively hidden.
- [30:52]
B
So in trying to control her story, how did they actually contribute to her fading into obscurity?
- [30:57]
A
One of the ironies is that after her death, one of the other people, another man whose life she'd helped to save. Bill Stanley Moss, he's probably best known for writing Ill Met by Moonlight about the capture on Crete of General Crete. He had known her. His wife, Sophia Tarnowska, was one of Christina's best friends in the war and post war and he wrote a film script to talk about her. And Sarah Oliver, Winston Churchill's daughter, the actress, had actually signed up to play Christina in the title role. And it's such a shame that didn't come to fruition, partly we believe, because of course none of the files were open then you couldn't go to the National Archives and get the details. And if the men weren't going to talk about her experience in the war, what they knew about her achievements, then there wouldn't have been enough material for them to go ahead. I mean, it's quite ironic, you never get a panel to protect the reputation of a male war hero, but suddenly her reputation just to Preserve it is dismissed entirely.
- [31:49]
B
I mean, you talk about Churchill's daughter there, and there's this claim that Churchill himself described Christina as his favorite spy. Where does that come from?
- [31:57]
A
In 1941, Christine smuggled a very important microfilm which reached his desk. This was the first visual evidence of plans for Operation Barbarossa. And so when Churchill received this, he reportedly told his daughter, Sarah Oliver, that this was his favorite spy. And she later mentioned this when she was asked by journalists, why do you want to play Christina Scarbeck or Christine Granville in the film of her life? And she said, because she was my father's favorite spy.
- [32:23]
B
And Ian Fleming is also linked to Christina. What do we actually know about their connection and how much of it is speculation?
- [32:31]
A
After Christina was murdered, she was all over the papers. Now, this coincides with the moment when Fleming is writing his first James Bond novel, Casino Royale. And I obviously looked into the rumor that still circulates that Christine and Ian Fleming were lovers. Fascinating, if true. No evidence for it at all. But we do know that he knew about her. They were just two people removed in several ways. So Colin Gubbins, the head of the soe, obviously knew Fleming very well and knew Christina well. Same with Bill Stanley Moss.
- [33:01]
B
And Fleming obviously worked in intelligence during the war.
- [33:04]
A
Absolutely right. So these gentlemen all knew each other. And we know that Fleming knew about Christine because when he's promoting Casino Royale while he was out in America, he gave some interviews for, let's call them gentlemen's magazines, and they asked him, where do you get the inspiration for James Bond? And he mentions a few names. Obviously, it's a sort of conglomerate of experiences and stories and people that he knew. And then, without being asked any further, he actually says, and there was this extraordinary woman called Christine Granville, you know, and he describes her, and it's highly likely, therefore, that she was one of the inspirations for Vespa Lynne, the first Bond girl. In fact, one of her childhood nickname was Vespa. But clearly Fleming knew about Christina, but there's no evidence that they ever met. And actually, I get slightly annoyed when this question is raised because it seems to say, you know, what a tribute to her, she's the inspiration for the first Bond girl. Well, she's much more than the Bond girl, you know, she is James Bond, only she's better than that as well, because she's real. She's not some man's bit of fiction and fantasy. She was really out there doing, let's just have recognition for Christina and the other women alongside her who served and really did the job.
- [34:08]
B
And as you say, I mean, the truth of it, of what she actually did, which was extraordinary, is, you know, is so much more interesting than reducing her to being prototype Bond girl.
- [34:16]
A
Oh, it's more complex. It's more inspiring. It's a fascinating story that we still haven't got to Grips with in 2026. Why not?
- [34:24]
B
And why do you think it is that Christina, more than many others, has attracted so many myths?
- [34:29]
A
I think one of the fascinating things about Christina, one of the things that helped make her so effective, is she doesn't fit into any neat category. You know, she was a woman serving in a predominantly male world. She was considered too feminine by some people, but too masculine to be a real woman. She was too Polish to be given British citizenship after the war, but the Poles considered her to have served for Britain. And so she's never received a Polish honor. That very mercurial nature of her made her incredibly valuable, very useful during the war, but very hard to pin down into the classic stories that we tell afterwards. This is partly what makes her so interesting, but I think it also leads to all sorts of rumors and prejudices and conspiracy theories as well. She doesn't fit into any neat category, and that's partly why I love her.
- [35:15]
B
Well, and it's because of you that we know so much more about her. I mean, you did a huge amount of research for your book, didn't you? You went to Christina's childhood home, met with Kawirsky's niece. You were in touch with Lederhowski's son, Kammet's daughter, and Skarbek's cousins. I mean, after all that research, how close do you feel you've come to understand?
- [35:33]
A
You know, one of the things that the man who murdered her said is that finally he possessed her. Well, he didn't. He didn't possess her. And I don't think anyone can possess her. This is a woman who essentially is a freedom fighter fighting for independence for herself as well as the country of her birth and her adopted country, Britain. This is history that we can all look at and bring our different perspectives upon. But I do feel I got to understand her motivations, her achievements, and tell a story that hadn't been told about her. As we go through time and we learn more and we have different perspectives, it's always important to re evaluate what we know about people. Yeah. I don't claim to own her story or to have the final perspective, but I do know I managed to find partly by those interviews you mentioned. By following in her steps in France, in Poland and elsewhere, and by using the Freedom of Information act to get out new official documents about her that we now have a much rounder picture of this extraordinary woman.
- [36:27]
B
So, Clare, what do you think her legacy should be?
- [36:29]
A
We are beginning to recognise her service more, but I actually think that her real legacy is the legacy of all of those who served. It's the fact that she enabled democratic freedom in Britain, but also eventually contributed towards that in Poland, although It took another 40 years. It's that her story, I think, reminds us so much of the diversity of the resources that it took ultimately to bring that freedom.
- [36:53]
B
Well, thank you so much for your time, Clare, and thank you for speaking to us. And I remind listeners, your book is called the Spy who Loved. And I mean, it is an amazing story.
- [37:02]
A
Thank you so much. Thank you for sharing My privilege.
- [37:11]
B
Christina's story is both remarkable and actually quite depressing. What happened to her after the war where one of the most successful agents had no place in peacetime Britain? But I think one thing that Claire said that's really stuck with me. Christina was not a Bond girl, she was Bond. But I think it's really important that we don't see everything through the lens of James Bond. The reality of what Christina went through is in many ways so much more interesting than framing it as a sort of fantastical escapist yarn. And now, thanks to historians like Claire Mully, these stories are coming out and they can act as an inspiration to us all. Thank you for listening and do join us for our next episode of the Spy who hosted by Raza Jaffri. Next time we open the file on
- [38:13]
A
Dr. A Q Khan.
- [38:15]
B
The spy who sold nukes to Iran. He stole nuclear secrets to Gifts. Then he began selling the same secrets to Iran, North Korea and more, leaving MI6 and the CIA in a race against time to stop him. Follow the Spy who Now Wherever you listen to podcasts, you can also listen to the full season of the Spy who Sold Nukes to Iran early and ad free on Audible.
- [38:48]
A
Follow the Spy who on the Audible app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to all episodes of the Spy who ad free by joining Audible
- [39:00]
B
from Audible Originals. This is the final episode in our series the Spy who inspired the first Bond Girl. This episode of the Spy who was hosted by me, Charlie Higson. Our our show was produced by Vespucci with story consultancy by Yellowant for Audible. The senior producer was Holly Aquilina. Our sound designer was Alex Port. Felix, the supervising producer was Natalia Rodriguez. Music supervisor is Scott Velasquez for Frisson Sync Executive producers for Vespucci were Johnny Galvin and Daniel Turkan. The executive executive producer for Yellow Ant was Tristan Donovan. Executive producers for Audible were Estelle Doyle and Theodora Leludis.