WOMAN OF MYSTERY.

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 134, 8 June 1929, Page 3 (Supplement)

WOMAN OF MYSTERY.

SUPER SPY AS DRUG ADDICT.

ADMITTED TO ASYLUM.

After ten years tlie Tell Hμ been lifted on the mysterious blonde woman who trained German spies during the war and wielded enormous power. She lurked in the background of the German military machine, a terrible, uncanny figure—even her name was known only to three people, the Kaiser, the chief of the German espionage service, and the supreme commander of the German General Staff. Now tragedy has stripped her of the glamour of power l*» she has been admitted to a Berlin Hflum—a poor, witless woman.. The chief of the French counter espionage service was able to piece together the blonde woman's amazing activities by the statements wrung from her spies who were caught in France, and it is now possible to give details, not ■published hitherto, of her methods. Immediately the war broke out she turned up at the headquarters of the German espionage department and was accepted for service. At first she occupied a humble post, but her intelligence was speedily remarked and she rose rapidly. Not once did she act as an agent, and she never saw the firing line. The "Nachtrichtendienst," as the German intelligence department was called, soon realised the use to which she could be put. She was given the position of spyikstructress, and as she had a free hand it was not long before she had organised a formidable service and had thousands of spies in France, England and Russia. Many of these never returned. They were caught and shot.

The blonde woman organised three spy centres—at Geneva, Barcelona and Antwerp. The principal spies, men of education and position, were sent from Geneva. The most important centre was Antwerp, and here she was in supreme command and took a big part in instructing those destined- for the most important work. The course of spy-training was a stiff one. The instructress kept her hard eyes fixed on the pupils. She inspired them with something like awe as she explained to them the work that they were expected to perform. Their training completed, the spies were given money and orders, and sent to France and England.

The mutinies of French soldiers at the Chemin des Dames in 1917 were attributed to this woman, as were all the campaigns of "defeatism" in France. Her work wat not over when, the Armistice proclaimed, she had to leave the villa of mystery at Antwerp. The espionage service continued after the proclamation of the German Republic, and she controlled the spies still remaining in France and England. But the day came when her will was no longer inflexible. She became addicted to cocaine. The drug ravaged her health and robbed her of her reason, and now she who worked for the full realisation of the national hymn of her country "Deutschland über Alles," is confined in a madhouse.