Personside - 258

Erik Haaest fortæller:

Mysteriet om Schalburgfamiliens Mata Hari eller Mysteriet om "Smukke Vera"

Frikorpsets legendariske chef, Obersturmbannführer C. F. von Schalburg var ikke den eneste fra den familie, der gik i tysk tjeneste.

Bælgravendebuldermørk nat over det nordlige Skotland. Midnatten mellem 29. og 30. september 1940. Anden Verdenskrig er knap 13 måneder gammel. "Slaget om England" raser på sit højeste. Engelske og tyske fly nedskyder hinanden i hobetal og tusinder af entusiastiske unge mænd vender aldrig tilbage. Hovedaktørerne er Englands Royal Air Force, som håbløst underbemandet med mænd og materiel, er på vingerne dag og nat for med deres små spitfirejagere at hindre Hitlers Luftwaffes tunglastede bombefly og deres ledsagende Messerschmidttjagere i at nå deres mål i England: Engelske fabriksanlæg og endnu værre: terrorbombning af civile mål. RAF's hovedopgave er lige så enkel som svær: At hindre de gale mænd i Berlin at sætte over Kanalen fra de tyskerobrede lande som Frankrig, Holland, Belgien, Norge og Danmark, gå i land og tage magten i det martrede, men stadig frie Storbritannien.

Hele det tyskbesatte Europa sætter sin lid til de stålsatte briter. Mest fordi der ikke er ret meget andet at håbe på. USA's støtte tør ingen håbe på. Det store land afventer formentlig krigsudfaldet og går vel når det hele er slut bare i økonomisk samarbejde med vinderne.

Verdens fem krigsgale diktatorer er gået i samarbejde om at dele verden mellem sig: Nazitysklands Hitler, Sovjetruslands Stalin, Fascistitaliens Mussolini, Falangistspaniens Franco og i Stillehavet Japans som guddom dyrkede kejser Hirohito.

Hitlers Luftfartsminister, flyvehelten fra Første Verdenskrig, feltgeneralmarskal Herman Göring, har storskrydende meddelt, at England reelt er "ausradiert". Tyske bomber regner ned over det fordums imperiums storbyer og installationer.

Fra tyske kolonier i Afrika er kampen for at befri folkene dér for det brutale, britiske koloniherredømme, og i Stillehavet på klodens bagside har japanerne stort set opnået herredømmet.

Pas på! Fjenden lytter med!

Begge parter opfordrer enhver til årvågenhed mod fremmede landes spioner bag fjendens linier.

For viden om fjendens manøvremuligheder og mekaniske fremskridt er vigtige for kampens resultat: Der er ikke meget ved at rette et dyrt og farligt bombeangreb mod en tom hølade, som fra luften kan minde om en hangar, men ikke er det. Begge krigsmagter må have lurende øjne og øren ind bag fjendens linier og melde tilbage med det nyudviklede radioudstyr. Og begge landes befolkninger er årvågne overfor enhver, der bare vækker mistanke om at være agent for fjenden. Der er jo også engelske nazister og i de tyskbesatte lande er der mange, som gerne vil hjælpe englænderne. Det er kort sagt spionernes tid.

Ved midnat den 29.-30. september 1940 vader en kvinde og to mænd i ly af bælgmørket i land fra en gummibåd oppe i det nordøstlige Skotland. De er fløjet dertil af en vandflyver fra Stavanger i det tyskbesatte Norge. 12 km fra kysten gik de i en gummibåd lastet med særlig udrustning, heraf 3 cykler til den videre transport gennem fjendelandet. I det urolige vejr med høj bølgegang og regn bliver de alle tre gennemblødte, men det værste:

Cyklerne forsvinder i havet under forsøg på at få dem ud fra vandflyveren over i gummibåden.

Uheldene fortsætter: På vej mod land løber gummibåden på en skarp klippe, luften fuser. De må vade i vand til livet, mens de på deres hoveder bærer deres kostbare bagage. På sikker grund kaster de sig på jorden for at hvile ud og tjekke, at det vigtige udstyr er uskadt. Vandflyveren er for længst på vej tilbage til Stavanger, uopdaget af de britiske kystvagter, som ikke er nervøse for landgang så højt mod nord. Alle operationer af den art ventes langt længere mod syd.

Tre spioner landsat

Tre højt ansete tyske spioner er således med nogenlunde held sat i land bag fjendes linier:

Werner Waltio og Karl Drucke samt den mystiske kvinde, som min historie handler om. Hendes falske pas lyder på "Vera Erikson", men hendes rigtige navn er Vera Dierks, født Schalburg.

Tidligt næste morgen går kvinden og den ene af mændene til nærmeste jernbanestation. Dem var der mange af på den tid. Alle Europas lande var gennemkrydsede af små og store jernbaner. Lastbilerne var endnu ikke blevet hovedtransportmidlet. I øvrigt brugte bilerne dyr og næsten uopdrivelig benzin, men lokomotiverne kørte på kul, som var en af de få ting, England havde nok af. Da billetsalget åbnede kl. halv otte, spurgte kvinden stationsforstanderen, hvad stationen hed og købte derpå billetter til en anden mindre station på strækningen. Stationsforstanderen fattede mistanke til den velklædte dame og hendes tavse ledsager. Alle - selv i de fjerneste afkroge - havde antennerne ude efter mulige "agenter". Jernbanemanden ringede til landbetjent Robert Grieve. Meddelte ham om det underlige par. Han havde bl.a. heftet sig ved, at kvindens silkestrømper og sko var dyngvåde. Landbetjenten kom før toget og arresterede parret på stedet.

Efter en første summarisk afhøring ved politiinspektør John Simpson i nabobyen, blev de to arresterede ført til London til nærmere undersøgelser. Allerede da var mistanken klar: Det måtte være landsatte tyske spioner. I sin håndtaske havde kvinden make-up, forskellige piller, et par ekstra strømper og et par handsker. I sig selv ikke mistænkeligt. Derimod medbragte manden en revolver, en transportabel radiosender /-modtager, kort over militære flyvestationer i England, falske britiske identitetspapirer, og nogle engelske pengesedler. Den tredje agent havde haft held til at nå til Edinburg, men her blev han arresteret. Også han havde en radiosender/-modtager, en revolver, britiske penge og et falsk ID-bevis.

Efter endt afhøring blev Werner Waltio og Karl Drucke 6. august 1941 hængt i Wandsworth-fængslet. Den kvindelige agent - i øvrigt den eneste tyske kvindelige agent, som briterne fik fat i under krigen - undgik denne skæbne.

Kvinden var en mørkhåret og mørkøjet skønhed. Hun opgav sit navn som Vera Erikson, 27 år, enke uden arbejde. Hun hævdede at være dansk statsborger, men født i Sibirien. Navnet Vera Erikson stod også i hendes britiske identitetspapir, som inspektør Simpson dog straks kunne afsløre som forfalskede. Dels var håndskriften og tallene 'kontinentale', ikke britiske, dels var der ikke noget stempel fra immigrationsmyndighederne, selv om både hun og hendes ledsager hævdede at være flygtninge. Kvinden påstod. at de var ankommet til Skotland i en lille norsk båd fra Bergen.

Kaptajnen hed vist Andersen. Da inspektør Simpson bad hende om at skrive sit navn på et stykke papir, skrev "Vera Erikson" navnet 'Vera de Cottani de Chalbur' - et navn der ikke minder meget hverken om hverken Danmark eller Sibirien.

Mysteriet

Den smukke kvindelige agent har siden mystificeret britiske forfattere og journalister, der gennem årene bragt en mængde indbyrdes modstridende oplysninger om denne "Femme fatale, der ankom i en gummibåd", som en avisoverskrift lød.

Det er blevet hævdet, at hun blev født i Serbien i 1912, men at hun i virkeligheden var jødinde. Andre har oplyst, at hun blev født i Kiev i Ukraine af delvis jødiske forældre. Det er også blevet påstået, at hun stammede fra Sibirien og muligvis var halvjøde. At hun skulle være blevet adopteret af en russisk familie, som i 1917 flygtede fra det revolutionære Rusland. Eller også blev hun adopteret af en tysk familie, von Schalburg, der rejste til Danmark, da bolsjevikkerne tog magten i Rusland.

Eller at hun i virkeligheden hed 'Vera de Witte' og var datter af en kendt, tysk-baltisk aristokrat og officer i den kejserlige, russiske flåde, som faldt i kampe 1919 i 'De Hvide's borgerkrig mod 'De Røde' i Lenin-Bolsjevikkernes russiske borgerkrig, som 1917-20 fulgte i kølvandet på 'Oktoberrevolutionen.'

Moderen skulle derpå være flygtet via Letland til Danmark med Vera og hendes bror. Efter et udsvævende liv i det russiske emigrantmiljø i Paris, hvor hun bl.a. sagdes at have været balletdanserinde og kurér for en russisk greve, der var både sovjetisk agent og narkotikahandler, flygtede hun til Antwerpen i Belgien for at redde sit liv. Her blev hun samlet op af en tysk efterretningsagent, Hans Dierks, der også gik under navnet 'Hans Friedrich von Wedel'. Via ham blev hun tilknyttet den tyske militære kontraspionage 'Abwehr'.

Denne sidste version var baggrunden for avisen 'The Scotsmans' overskrift mange år senere: "Tragisk fortid gjorde russisk ballerina til modvillig spion".

Mange har givet udtryk for, at hun kunne være blevet hængt af briterne for sin agentvirksomhed, men at hun på mystisk vis undslap sin skæbne.

Spekulationerne om hvorfor har været talrige. Hvad der blev af hende, efter at de britiske efterretningsmyndigheder løslod hende i 1945, er ligeledes uklart. Når magasinet 'BBC History' i septembernummeret 2000 hævdede, at "hendes historie blev afsløret i pressen sidste år", var det en usandhed.

Hvad blev der af Vera?

Afsløringen - den delvise - fremkom i 2002, og blev herhjemme fortalt i en artikel i Jyllandsposten af professor Bent Jensen, som dog indrømmede, at mysteriet efter hans mening aldrig er blevet løst.

Professor Bent Jensen fortæller i artiklen, at Vera Schalburg var søster til garderkaptajnen, der som en af de første danske meldte sig til som frivillig til Heinrich Himmlers nye elitekorps Waffen.SS, endnu før Hitler havde ladet sig mærke med, at han trods ikke-angrebspagt med Sovjetunionen - havde besluttet at fortsætte kampen mod Bolchevismen.

Bent Jensen fortæller, at Vera hun havde en broget fortid bag sig, da hun blev sat i land på den skotske østkyst i efteråret 1940. Han skriver: - Ifølge broderens [den danske SS-Obersturmführer C.F. von Schalburg] senere beretninger til sine danske soldater under hans kommando i Frikorps Danmark blev hans 6 år yngre søster - dengang en pige på 6 år - massevoldtaget af bolsjevikker i deres hjem, mens han selv bundet til en stol var tvunget til at se på. Denne oplevelse var den egentlige grund til, at Christian Frederik Schalburg svor på at ville hævne sin søster ved at gå i krig mod bolsjevikkerne.

Schalburgfamilien flygtede efter Oktoberrevolutionen i Rusland i 1918 til København, men boede ikke fast her, men snart i Paris, snart i Bruxelles.

Vera hævdede, at hun i Paris dansede sammen med den berømte russiske ballerina, Anna Pavlova. Måske var det dog i parisiske danseensembler af den lettere garde, hun arbejdede. I Paris skal hun være blevet gift med den russiske greve, Sergej Ignatjev, der var sovjetisk dobbeltagent, og som skal have gjort hende til sin kurer. Hun flygtede fra ham under dramatiske omstændigheder og blev derpå ved sin brors mellemkomst i Belgien introduceret til Hans Dierks, officer i den tyske militære efterretningstjeneste, Abwehr, med hvem hun vist giftede sig. Abwehr havde først planer om at bruge den russisktalende kvinde til at infiltrere den sovjetiske tjeneste, men i stedet blev Vera sendt til England i begyndelsen af 1939 for via en hertuginde i tysk tjeneste at samle oplysninger og sladder fra de højere engelske kredse. Vera blev dog kaldt tilbage til Tyskland ved krigens udbrud 3. september 1939. Her var hun, da hendes mand Hans Dierks omkom ved en bilulykke.

En tredje version vil vide, at Vera allerede under sit første ophold i England havde været i kontakt med de britiske tjenester - et forhold hun øjeblikkeligt skal have gjort opmærksom på, da hun blev arresteret i september 1940. Hvis det er rigtigt, kan det forklare den lempelige behandling hun fik af de britiske myndigheder. Hun skal i øvrigt have forsøgt at overbevise briterne om, at hendes arresterede elsker, Karl Drucke, hverken var i stand til at morse eller at tale engelsk, og at han derfor aldrig ville have kunnet arbejde som agent i England. Hans opgave var angiveligt blot at bringe radioudstyret til London, hvor en anden så skulle overtage det. Om den tredje i gruppen, der vandrede i land fra gummibåden, den schweiziske statsborger Werner Walti, sagde Vera derimod, at han talte engelsk og skulle operere selvstændigt i Skotland, hvilket hans udstyr og kort med placering af flyvebaser i Skotland i øvrigt også kunne tyde på.

De to mænd blev dog begge hængt, og Vera Schalburg havde således på kort tid mistet både ægtemand og elsker.

Schalburgfamiliens Mata Hari

Flere af de engelske aviser, der har beskæftiget sig med sagen, svælger i "Beautiful Vera's" erotiske udstråling og hendes evne til også at gøre indtryk på mændene i den britiske efterretningstjeneste, som hun spillede ud mod hinanden, og som derfor skal være blevet stærkt skinsyge på hinanden.

Man kan ikke udelukke, at den smukke kvinde har forsøgt at benytte sit køn og tiltrækningskraft til at opnå fordele under fængslingen. Det hævdes, at den britiske efterretningstjeneste Ml 5 anskaffede hende en større garderobe af smart tøj på skatteydernes regning.

I 1942 besluttede den britiske militære efterretnings-tjeneste, at forsøge at finde ud af, hvor pålidelig Vera Schalburg var for at kunne afgøre, hvad hun kunne bruges til. Til dette formål fik hun lov at komme ud af fængslet, ekvipere sig og tilbringe nogen tid på landet sammen med en britisk efterretningsmand af russisk-tysk oprindelse, Klop Ustinov (for øvrigt far til den kendte skuespiller Peter Ustinov).

Klop Ustinov havde i 1930erne arbejdet som presseattache ved den tyske ambassade i London, men var gået over til briterne. Han boede nu på et landsted sammen med sin hustru, den russiske malerinde Nadja Benois. Det lykkedes tilsyneladende Klop Ustinov at 'omvende' Vera Schalburg. Hun betroede ham, at hun foragtede både den sovjetiske og den tyske hemmelige tjeneste, og at hun ikke godvilligt var blevet involveret i dette arbejde.

Ustinov lod hende forstå, at hun nu ville få en chance for at vise sig værdig til den tillid, briterne havde vist hende. Ifølge Ustinov blev Veras ængstelige ansigtsudtryk udglattet af 'uforstilt lykke'. Han har videre fortalt, at hun var fuldstændig oprigtig, da hun sagde:

-Livet er ikke værd at leve for mig, hvis det igen begynder med mistillid.

Ustinov var åbenbart alligevel ikke helt sikker og bad, derfor en skriftekspert se på Veras håndskrift.

Ekspertens konklusion var klar og nådesløs: "Den pågældende er kold og kalkulerende, selvisk og hård. Hun har fortalt en mængde sociale løgne og lider under stor erotisk skuffelse."

Briterne synes i hvert fald ikke at have fæstet fuldstændig lid til hende. Eller måske mente de blot ikke, at hun egnede sig til mere komplicerede efterretningsopgaver. Hun blev løsladt fra fængslet i London og sendt til øen Isle of Wight, hvor hun skulle virke som britisk agent blandt mistænkte, tyske statsborgere, der blev holdt interneret på øen.

Efter krigen, den 29. oktober 1945, blev hun løsladt ag angiveligt deporteret til Tyskland, hvor hun forsvandt sporløst.

En sidste version siger, at Vera Schalburg levede resten af sine dage et ubemærket liv og døde i Sydengland i 1993, slutter Bent Jensens sin 2002-beretning.

Fra landsbyens Port Gordons hjemmeside:

The outbreak of the Second World War in September 1939, resulted in drastic changes to the village. Unlike 1914 there was a very real threat to the civilian population through air raids. Wardens were appointed in every community, even ones as small as Port Gordon. The black-out had to be enforced rigorously. The Luftwaffe never quite made it to Port Gordon but bombs were dropped at Enzie Crossroads and also in Portknockie where a number of civilians were killed. In order to counter the threat from German planes, various airbases were constructed along the Moray Firth. The construction of the base at Dallachy led to an influx of Irish labourers and then of Royal Air Force personnel once Dallachy was in operation. The coastal communities had also witnessed the arrival of a steady stream of exiled Norwegians, some of whom made use to Port Gordon's public houses. Those in reserved occupations or who were unsuitable for military service formed themselves in the Home Guard. By far the most exciting event to happen in Port Gordon during it's two-hundred year plus history is the capture of two German spies at the railway station during the Autumn of 1940.

On the night of September 29th - 30th 1940, a flying boat took off from Nazi-occupied Stavanger in Norway. Its mission was to drop three German agents. This operation was part of a larger German plan - code-named Operation Hummer Nord I - to send spies to Britain. The scheme was masterminded by Lieutenant-General Erwin von Lahousen. Originally four agents were to be sent.  However, on 2nd September, the day before the original departure date, the leader of the expedition was apparently killed in a car accident. Consequently, the operation was delayed.

The flying boat landed successfully at Gollachy, between Buckie and Port Gordon, where the three agents, Robert Petter, Karl Drucke and Vera Erikson (also known as Vera von Schalburg, Vera von Stein or Vera de Cottani de Chalbur) were placed into a dinghy. The trio rowed ashore at the mouth of the Burn of Gollachy with their luggage containing radio transmitters. From here the trio had been instructed (ludicrously) to cycle to London but due to the choppy seas the bicycles accompanying them had been swept overboard. Perhaps because of this the three decided to split up. Vera Erikson, who was supposed to be a Danish exile living at 18 Sussex Place, London, W11, and Karl Drucke playing the part of a French refugee from Belgium, named Francois de Deeker, living at 15 Sussex Gardens, headed towards Port Gordon. The third agent, Robert Petter who used the name Werner Heinrich Walti, a Swiss national, living at 23 Sussex Gardens, went to Buckie.
Please note: there are many interpretations of Vera's story and many different versions of her life as a cursory search on Google will testify.
Portgordon.org is simply concerned with providing the definitive account of what happened in the village on 30 September 1940. 

An outline of some of theories about Vera is given afterwards but this site does offers no comment on the validity or otherwise of these.
 
Vera Erikson appeared to be the leader of the operation and was apparently to assume the role of the long-lost niece of an elderly Italian Countess living in Kensington. The Germans thought this would be excellent cover for her to meet prominent people because the Countess had a reputation for lavish entertaining. This would explain the Mediterranean name, Vera de Cottani de Chalbur, she gave when asked by Inspector John Simpson to write it down after her arrest. It is unclear whether there actually was an Italian Countess and if so, whether she was also a foreign agent.   It has been speculated that this was the "Duchesse de Chateau-Thierry".

Drucke and Erikson arrived at Port Gordon railway station at about 7.30am intending to catch the train. It is known that they went along Lennox Place on the way there because someone remembers hearing their 'guttural accents'. The porter John Geddes and the stationmaster John Donald observed the two strangers, arriving at the station. It was Vera who spoke first to ask the name of the station, which aroused the suspicion of the staff. Drucke then pointed to Forres on the timetable and asked for tickets to "Forrest". As Drucke opened his wallet, crammed full of banknotes and laid far too much money on the counter, the stationmaster noticed that the bottom of the stranger's trousers were soaking wet as were Erikson's stockings and shoes. The stationmaster told John Geddes to keep the pair talking while he telephoned the local policeman Constable Grieve.

Within ten minutes Robert Grieve had made his way up from Stewart Street to the Railway Station. He immediately asked to see the stranger's identity cards and noticed that although both claimed to be refugees, neither had an immigration stamp on their cards and indeed the style of writing on both was decidedly Continental.

His suspicions confirmed Constable Grieve (on the left in the picture, taken in the 1970s) asked both of them to accompany him to the Police Station in Stewart Street. Once there Bob Grieve telephoned Inspector John Simpson in Buckie (on the right in the picture). They were not put in the cells. Indeed, Mrs Grieve made Vera a cup of tea that she drank while seated in the sitting room. Shortly, afterwards Inspector Simpson arrived on the scene. He asked the man who he was, but before he could reply Vera Erikson said, "He cannot speak English". Inspector Simpson then carried out a search of them discovering a box containing nineteen rounds of revolver ammunition. The Inspector checked their identity cards and observed that the numbers were written in the European style. Vera told the inspector that she was twenty-seven years old, a widow and a Danish subject, adding that they had spent the night in a hotel in Banff and taken a taxi to within a mile of Port Gordon before walking to the station. With their credibility disappearing with every utterance they were formally arrested and charged. Inspector Simpson then had them taken to the more secure facilities at Buckie Police Station.
 
In Buckie, Inspector Simpson carried out a more thorough search discovering the luggage to contain a Mauser pistol and flick-knife (pictured right), wireless equipment, a list of RAF bases, batteries and a torch clearly marked 'Made in Bohemia'. In addition Vera's purse contained £72 in Bank of England notes and Drucke's wallet contained £327 also in Bank of England notes. However, some say that it was the discovery of a half-eaten German sausage - a delicacy unheard of in wartime Britain - that sealed their fate.  At 11.45am the Buckie coastguard spotted an object floating in the sea about a quarter of a mile out. Coastguard Addison and the harbourmaster went out and recovered the object, a pair of bellows and, slightly further away, a rolled-up rubber dinghy.

The third agent, Werner Walti, alias Petter had been more successful and had managed to get onto the train from Buckie to Aberdeen. The Aberdeen police were alerted and they confirmed that a man matching Walti's description had boarded the 1.00pm train to Edinburgh Waverley.  Having reached Edinburgh, Walti deposited a suitcase, containing a wireless set (pictured below), in left luggage.
He was overcome by police as he went for a revolver when, returning for his case, he was confronted. The man who arrested Walti was Willie Merrilees, head of the special branch in Scotland, who had disguised himself as a railway porter. Merrilees later became the chief constable of Edinburgh and Peebles constabulary.  The agents were interrogated by Lieutenant-Colonel Hinchley-Cooke at Scotland Yard and eventually signed statements in March 1941. On June 12th-13th 1941, Drucke and Walti came up for trial at the Old Bailey. Mr Justice Asquith presided, while the Solicitor General, Sir William Jowitt KC, led the prosecution. The various officers from Scotland were called to give evidence with Bob Grieve the first witness. Amazingly, however, the court was simply told that Vera Erikson would not be present in court. The jury retired for only a few minutes before returning a verdict of guilty. The Court of Criminal Appeal dismissed an appeal made in secret on July 21st 1941. Both men were executed at Wandsworth Prison on August 6th 1941.
 
So who was Vera and what became of her? 

Vera's fate was never disclosed at the time and was the subject of much speculation and discussion ever since. The declassification, in January 1999, by the National Archives, of papers relating to the case provided new information about the life and times of Vera Erikson.  Although investigators have found her story to be contradictory in many places and there are a number of 'problems' with the story.
It appears that she was born in December 1912 (dates vary between 10th and 14th according to different sources) as the daughter of August Theodor Schalburg (a Dane) and his wife, Jelena Startiskaja von Siemandvska, 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.

The most credible account of her origins comes from an interview between Erik Haaest, the Danish author and journalist and Helle von Bülow, the widow of Christian Frederik von Schalburg, Obersturmbannführer of Frikorpset Danmark, in 1975.   The level of corroboration in this interview would seem to indicate that Vera was Christian's younger sister and that she was indeed born in December 1912 as the daughter of August Schalburg.

Vera's early life is similarly shrouded in mystery.  It appears she trained as a ballet dancer and eventually ended up dancing at the Folies Bergeres.  It has been suggested that, in 1930, aged 18, she married Count Sergei Ignatieff, a member of an important aristocratic Russian family that had fallen on hard times since their exile after the Russian Revolution.   It is said that he was an unscrupulous double agent who was involved in drug trafficking and appears to have been the driving force behind her involvement in spying.  A report prepared by MI5 said that he had a hold over her "He was a cocaine addict, a pervert and actively engaged in espionage for the White Russians".  Vera became his courier, carrying parcels around Europe.  Vera and Ignatieff lived together as man and wife for only a year but their association is said to have lasted for several years.  In 1935, whilst the lived in Brussels, Ignatieff tried to stab her to death when she threatened to stop spying on Communists.  However, some accounts of Vera's life fail to make any reference to Ignatieff.

At this point it appears that the Germans stepped in and that she was recruited to the Abwehr.  Some accounts suggest that she "remarried" around 1937.  The name suggested for this "second husband" Hans Friedrich von Wedel.  However, others have posited the idea that this was a code name for Hilmar Dierks whose mistress she was believed to be. 

Some investigators suggest that in 1938 the couple were sent to Britain where they were to form relationships with German agents, German sympathisers and other influential people. A "Major Mackenzie" has been mentioned by some.  During this time it has even been suggested that Erikson had a child, a son, but the evidence here is limited.  Von Wedel is said to have died in a car crash in 1940 (perhaps the same one as killed the leader of the expedition in September 1940?).

Her time in jail following her capture was not happy and it is known that she induced a miscarriage; the father is believed to be Karl Drucke. Perhaps the child she may have had previous played some role in her never standing trial.  Perhaps she passed on information which was helpful to the allied cause. The latter would appear to be the most likely explanation.  She is said to have spent time with an MI5 agent and his wife, widely believed to be Klop Ustinov (the father of Peter).  Here it was observed she was suffering from serious depression.  Although the agent warmed to her and said that he did not consider her "wanton and found her extremely modest in person".  All files have been released by the National Archives and the only extractions protect the names of British Personnel.

After the end of the war, it is said that was deported back to Germany.  Here she ought to have been monitored by the military authorities but, because of an administrative blunder, she vanished and was never hear of again. 

This may not, however, entirely represent the truth.  There seems to be a body of evidence that points to Vera being given a new identity and living the rest of her life in the South of England.  In the interview in 1975, Helle von Bülow, the widow of Christian Frederik von Schalburg, sometime Commander of Frikorps Danmark, she spoke of being in regular letter contact with Christian's sister Vera who lives in England and that she had been interned for spying during the War but afterwards married and lived quietly as a mother and grandmother.  Given that this interview appears to be one of the more credible accounts of who Vera was, this may well be help explain what became of her.

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.

Phil Coldham fortæller:

In her career with the German Intelligence Service - the Abwehr - between 1937 and 1940 Vera Schalburg used, among others, the following aliases: Chalbur, Chalburg, Shalberg, De Cottani, Erikson (also spelled Eriksen, and Erichsen), von Wedel, and Starizky.

We shall, I think, call her Vera.

The more I find out about Vera the more tantalising the mystery becomes. And there is a great mystery here. A mystery that deepens with every passing year.

Born in Siberia in 1912, she spied for the White Russians against the Soviets, for the Soviets against the White Russians, for the German Abwehr against the Soviets and later the British, and possibly for either or both of MI6 and, or MI5 against the Germans.
     
Femme fatale, caberet dancer, drug addict, hunted at one time or another by the NKVD and the Gestapo, her life reads like a spy novel - a cross between Ian Fleming and John le Carre.

Sixty-six years after her capture in September 1940, MI5 still refuse to realease all their files on ‘the Beautiful Spy’.
     
MI5 claim Vera was a minor player whom they ‘turned’ in 1942. According to MI5 she was deported to Germany after WWII and thereafter, disappeared without trace.

Both her male accomplices on her last mission to England were executed for treason - Vera never even stood trial. One rumour holds that she was a double agent all along, recruited by MI6 in Paris in the thirties, another that she was the lover of a prominent member of the British establishment, by whom she had a child before the war. In any event, she survived. But then surviving was what Vera did best.

So, was she another Mata Hari or a hapless victim of the spying game? Did she really vanish into the ruins of post-war Germany? Or did MI5 find her a new name, a new life in England? Did she live to a grand old age on the Isle of Wight, or die young and anonymous? Sp many questions, so many lies, so many false trails.

This is a brief biography/chronology of ‘The Beautiful Spy’s’ life and career drawn from her MI5 case files (available in the Public Record Office, Kew).

10 December 1912

Vera is born in Barnaul, Siberia - the daughter of an ex-patriot Dane father and a Polish-Ukrainian mother.

1918
     
The Schalburg family flees the Russian Revolution and settles in Denmark. Members of Vera’s mothers family were ‘massacred’ by the Bolsheviks. The family buys a farm in Jutland.

1923-24
     
Vera’s elder brother, Christian Frederick joins the Danish Royal Guard. Vera and her parents move to Paris where Vera attends Trefilova’s ballet school.

1927
     
Vera tours England with Trefilova’s ballet company.

1929-30
     
Vera is now a caberet dancer. She meets Sergei Ignatieff, a White Russian double agent and drug trafficker. She becomes his mistress and courier, and eventually a drug addict.

1929-1932
     
Vera dances at the Folies Bergere & with the Russian Ballet at the Champs Elysee. All the while working for Ignatieff.

1930s
     
Vera’s brother Christian combines his military duties with a growing involvement in right-wing, nationalist politics. After 1933 he works for the Danish Nazi movement, later as a National Youth Leader.

1936-37
     
Vera (probably) comes to the attention of MI6 in Paris as a possible Soviet agent. Around this time she attempts to break from Ignatieff who attempts to kill her.

1937
     
Vera discovers she is on the Gestapo’s black list because of her White Russian/Soviet contacts. She turns to her brother for help. Vera is recruited by the Abwehr a few months later - presumably because they want to use her to penetrate Soviet intelligence operations in France and Belgium.

1938
     
Vera works for the Abwehr without any notable success.

1939
     
Vera is sent to England to play femme fatale in a London ‘spy salon’. The ‘salon’ is a joke, existing mostly only in the mind of her Hamburg minders. Her mission is further compromised by the fact she has a heroin habit. She meets and has an affair with a Major MacKenzie, who may or may not have links with Maxwell Knight (one of the men Ian Fleming based ‘M’ of James Bond fame upon). At the outbreak of war Vera flees England without orders, and returns to her furious Hamburg controllers.

1939
     
Among miscellaneous affairs, Vera claimed to have married her Abwehr handler (Hilmar Dierks), around this time.

1940
     
Vera has fallen in love with Theo Drucke, one of Dierks’s agents. There is talk of sending her to Spain. Then, as part of Operation Sealion, the Invasion of the UK, she becomes a ‘Lena Agent’ - to be sent to England to collect intelligence ahead of the invasion. The mission is a shambles, thrown together by the Abwehr who had made virtually no preparations for it.

September 1940
     
Partying before their departure on the mission to England Hilmar Dierks is killed in a car crash. The mission is delayed for three weeks. Eventually Vera, Drucke and another agent, Werner Walti depart for Norway.

30 September 1940
     
The agents are flown to Scotland. Vera is at this time pregnant, and has to be given a morphine injection to get her on the plane. The spies are put ashore near Portgordon, where Vera and Drucke are quickly arrested. Walti is arrested in Edinburgh.

October-December 1940
     
Vera and her accomplices are interrogated at Camp 020, MI5’s interrogation facility on Ham Common, Richmond. Early in her captivity Vera miscarries.

June-July 1941
     
Drucke and Walti and tried and executed for treason. it is unclear why Vera didn’t join them on the scaffold.

February 1942
     
Vera is released from Holloway Prison for several days - she is debrief by MI5 agent U15 (Klop Ustinov - father of the actor, Peter) at his family home in Gloucestershire. Afterwards Vera is sent to the Isle of Mann in the role of an MI5 mole to spy on fellow internees.

October 1945
     
Vera is allegedly sent back to Germany where, due to an administrative oversight she is allowed to disappear for ever. Well, according to MI5, anyway...

Fra “An International Spymaster and Mystery Man” af F.A.C. Kluiters and E. Verhoeyen

http://www.nisa-intelligence.nl/PDF-bestanden/Dierks.pdf

A case apart : Vera Schalburg

Too much and above all too much nonsense has been published on this ‘mystery woman’, who after all might well be less mysterious than some authors make her appear. She is included here not only because she acted at one time during the Thirties as an agent to HD but also because it would seem that she married him in 1937. Most of the mystery clouds that surround her are due to the theory launched by Farago about her supposed role as a double

agent who was double crossing her German running officer (in 1939 this was Ritter). Farago enlarges his theory to two other female agents of Ast Hamburg living in Britain, one ‘Duchess de Château-Thierry’ and ‘My Eriksson’, whose real name was Josephine Karpp. This ‘double cross’ theory has been followed by other authors and even Ritter himself and Nigel West, well known author of several books on espionage, adopted it.

We are not going to insist on the Duchess and Karpp, but we must deal with the theory according to which the three women double crossed Ritter and worked in reality for the British secret service. First, it should be said that none of the authors who embrace this theory had the opportunity to consult the MI5 files concerning Schalburg, Karpp and Château- Thierry which are now available at the National Archives in Kew. Had they been able to do so, it seems likely that their theory might have melted as snow under the sun. Indeed, it is clear from these files that none of the three women ever worked for MI5. If they had, it would be extremely difficult if not impossible to explain why MI5 first of all arrested them (Vera on 30 September 1940, the Duchess on 8 October and Karpp on 9 October) and then took the painstaking trouble of interrogating them thoroughly with the expressed wish to prove that all three were, in fact, German agents, and nothing more. These three women, instead of informing the British about the Abwehr, tried to hide evidence about their role in the German secret service, and careful reading of the interrogation reports of Vera leads to the inevitable conclusion that she was lying, hiding the truth and fabulating, even about her family, her real name and her date and place of birth. Nowhere in these interrogation reports is there a trace of a ‘Mr. Knight’ for whom, according to certain writers, she worked in 1939 during a mission in London.

What follows is an outline of Vera’s probable story as it can be reconstructed on the basis of documents which are now available. Although she frequently said that her name was Vera von Schalburg, records of the Belgian Office des Etrangers show clearly that it was Vera Schalburg, born in Siberia in 1909 (not in 1912 as she told the British) and that she was the daughter of a Danish industrialist and a Russian mother. According to the stories she told the British, she was of Jewish extraction, born out of wedlock and later adopted by the Schalburg family. Neither of these allegations comes close to the truth. She also said that her family fled Russia in 1917 to Denmark. The Schalburgs (parents, two sons and a daughter) came to Paris in 1924. According to Vera, she became a professional dancer and married a mysterious Russian called Sergei Ignatieff, who, she said, worked for Soviet intelligence and for whom she claims to have done some spying in France. All this is far from being certain. What is certain is that the Schalburgs moved to Belgium in 1933. They lived at different addresses in
Brussels (193 avenue Deschanel, Schaerbeek; 252 avenue Rogier). According to Vera, HD used the former address occasionally as a relay station for incoming reports from France.

Vera told the British she got in touch with German intelligence in 1936 or 1937. She claims that an official of Belgian counterintelligence told her that her name was on a ‘black list’ in Germany because of her previous espionage for the Soviets. This is highly doubtful, since it is difficult to imagine how a Belgian official could have got wind of a vague German ‘black list’. Anyway, to protect herself from what she called German retaliation, she contacted her stepbrother Constantin, one of the leaders of the Danish Nazi party. He introduced Vera to Holgar Winding Christensen, an Abwehr contact on the staff of Siemens and Halske, who subsequently introduced her to ‘Hans Luders’ (in reality Hans Lips of IH Ast Hamburg). Lips made her acquainted with Ritter (whom she only knew as ‘Dr. Rantzau’) who on his turn

passed her on to HD. In 1937, Vera first worked for Gruppe III (von Engelmann), who had asked her to spy on Soviet intelligence in Belgium.
It is possible that Vera and HD married on 2 October 1937 ; this would at least appear from the Hamburg Registry Office. When interrogated on 30 October 1940 by MI5 she stated that the real name of her husband was ‘zum Sturig’. But the interrogator continues his report as follows : “She could give no particulars of her marriage to him. She had no idea where the Registry Office was where the ceremony had been held, and finally agreed that she was probably never properly married to him”. It is a good example of the ways in which Vera tried to set up smoke screens.

In 1939, HD must have ‘lent’ Vera to his colleague Nikolaus Ritter of I Luft. Ritter sent her to London, where she would stay with a female agent of Ritter’s known as the Duchess de Château-Thierry. Ritter believed, almost certainly wrongly, that the Duchess had a lot of relations among RAF officers, and suggested her during a meeting in Germany to open a tearoom, where Vera would engage in small talk with officers. In that way, Ritter hoped she would obtain information about what these officers thought of the possibility of war. She should also try to obtain documents from these officers. The original plan was that she would photograph these documents (she had been trained in photography, maybe microphotography, while residing in German) and send them to the cover address of Sophia Kruse in Amsterdam. Vera arrived in Britain on 19 June and left again on 9 September 1939. She went to live with the Duchess, 102 Dorset House. Little is known about what exactly she did in London, but it seems unlikely that she obtained any useful information for the Abwehr. Though her presence in London was registered by the Security Service, her behaviour did not arouse suspicion. She first came to notice of the police on 16 December 1939. On that date, a Mrs. Josephine Eriksson attempted to leave Gravesend for Rotterdam, but was detained because in the Central Security Suspect Book she was described as a German spy. The woman was in possession of a diary containing a certain number of names and addresses, and she said that Vera had asked her to obtain the addresses so that she could write to the people who lived there. Josephine Eriksson, born in Germany as Josephine Karpp, was a friend of the Duchess’ whom she had introduced to Ritter at the end of 1937. She herself had been recruited by Ritter on a trip to Germany as a relay station and paymaster. In September 1937, a letter signed ‘Sanders’ posted in Scarborough was sent to her by post, and she was asked to forward it to a newly recruited agent, Sidney P. Gray. Karpp was known to the police since the arrest of another agent of Ritter’s, Walter Simon.

We already mentioned that Vera returned to Germany via Holland and stayed with Hanne Fiehne. It is probable that she did not come back to Belgium until May 1940. When she was in Germany, she stayed at the Reichshof Hotel in Hamburg, which was frequently used by the Abwehr to lodge and even to train agents. At the end of 1939, she was in Copenhagen with HD (who now travelled under the name ‘von Wedel’). There they met with H. W. Christensen, an agent of Ast Hamburg working for Siemens & Halske who had introduced Vera to the Abwehr. His firm had given him the instruction, doubtlessly inspired by the Abwehr, to arrange a microphone tap on the French military attaché’s apartment.

…

Probably in September 1939, Vera Schalburg, who had just returned from the UK on a spying mission, met Drücke at Hanne Fiehne’s boarding house in The Hague. According to Vera herself, she left the UK without money, and was told by the ‘Duchess de Château Thierry’ to go to Hanne who would provide her with the money she would need to return to Germany. When Vera arrived in the boarding house, Drücke was also staying there, and it was he who arranged Vera’s border passage at Bentheim.


…

On 28 August 1940, HD and Vera, who were about to leave for Hamburg, met Ritter and one of his agents in a well known Brussels restaurant, the ‘Rôtisserie Ardennaise. In Hamburg, they met Karl Theodor Drücke, one of HD’s prewar agents in France and Belgium. The party consisting of HD, Vera, Walti and Drücke celebrated the launching of the operation on 2 September 1940 in a reputed Hamburg wine bar. The end of the story was that the car with which they went home, crashed and that HD lost his life in this accident. The mission was eventually launched from Norway at the end of September 1940, comprising Drücke as the team’s chief, Walti as a radio-operator, and Vera Schalburg. They were all three arrested a few hours after their arrival in Scotland. Both Drücke and Walti told practically nothing to their British interrogators. They were executed on 6 August 1941. Drücke had taken a list of airfields in Britain on which he was supposed to obtain information. This indicates that the mission had been planned by I Luft and Ritter, and makes it seem somewhat unlikely that HD of I Marine would act as chief of the party.