Germaine Schneider
{{short description|Belgian courier for the Red Orchestra}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=February 2022}}
{{Use British English|date=February 2022}}
{{Infobox person
| honorific_prefix =
| name = Germaine Schneider
| image =
| image_size = 200px
| caption =
| birth_date = {{Birth date|1903|3|17||df=y}}
| birth_place = Anderlecht, Belgium
| death_date = {{Death date and age|1945|11|12|1903|3|17||df=y}}
| death_place = Zürich, Switzerland
| nationality = Belgian
| other_names =
| occupation = Courier
| organization =
| years_active = 1936-1942
| known_for = Courier of Red Orchestra ("Rote Kapelle")
}}
Germaine Schneider (17 March 1903 - 12 November 1945) was a Belgian communist and Communist International (Comintern) agent.{{sfn|Kesaris|1979|pp=351-352}}{{sfn|Perrault|1969|p=143}} During the latter half of the 1920s, Schneider worked predominantly for the
Communist Party of Belgium.{{sfn|Kesaris|1979|p=352}} During the interwar period and early World War II, Schneider was a core member of a Soviet espionage group. She worked as a principal courier for the groups that were associated with the Comintern agent, Henry Robinson in the late 1930s in France and later the Soviet GRU officer, Konstantin Jeffremov in Belgium and the Low Countries, in the early 1940s.{{sfn|Kesaris|1979|p=352}}{{sfn|Coppi_Jr.|1996|p=454}} These groups were later identified by the Abwehr under the moniker the Red Orchestra. Schneider used the aliases Clais, Pauline, Odette, Papillon and Butterfly (Schmetterling) to disguise her identity.{{sfn|Kesaris|1979|p=351}}
Life
File:The Jeffremov Group September 1939-May 1942.png, although she had no direct involvement with the group, working directly for Wenzel]]
Schneider had been living and working in Brussels since 1920.{{sfn|Perrault|1969|p=143}} In January 1925, Germaine Schneider ({{nee}} Clais) married Swiss national Franz Schneider. The couple had a long honeymoon in Switzerland before returning in Brussels{{sfn|Kesaris|1979|pp=350-51}} two months later. That same year, Schneider was recruited into the Communist International (Comintern) organisation. Between 1925 and 1929, Schneider provided safehouse accommodation for travellers who were members of the Comintern. At the same time she worked for the Communist Party of Belgium. {{sfn|Kesaris|1979|p=352}} Schneider's apartment saw many communists come and go including Maurice Thorez and Jacques Duclos. In 1929, she was deported from Belgium as a communist agitator but made a clandestine return to the country after a short period.{{sfn|Perrault|1969|p=143}} From 1929 to 1936, the Schneiders were politically inactive and lived a relatively quiet life in Brussels.{{sfn|Kesaris|1979|p=352}} In 1936, while the couple were living in Brussels, they were recruited as Soviet agents of the Red Army Intelligence (GRU) to work as couriers. The couple had an apartment at 47 Rue de la comtesse de Flandre in Brussels.{{cite web |title=Germaine SCHNEIDER |url=https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C11190818 |website=The National Archives, Kew |page=32 |access-date=14 April 2022}}
Couriering
=Robinson network=
In the autumn of 1935, Harry II, an unidentified Soviet agent of the Red Army Intelligence took over control of Ernest Weiss, a Soviet agent resident in London, who was recruited in 1932{{sfn|Kesaris|1979|p=381}} to run an espionage network in the United Kingdom.{{sfn|West|2007|p=369}} The German- born{{sfn|Kesaris|1979|p=73}} Weiss resided in London and applied to become a naturalised British citizen to disguise his activities.{{cite web|title=Weiss, Ernest David |url=https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C11270975|website=The National Archives |location=Kew, London |date=1947 |publisher=MI5 |id=KV 2/2228-1 |volume=1 |page=38}} In November 1936, Harry II introduced Schneider to Ernest David Weiss in South Kensington, London.{{cite web |title=Ernst David WEISS, alias Walter LOCK |url=https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C11270978 |website=The National Archives, Kew |page=42 |access-date=12 March 2022|volume=3}} During that period from 1936 to 1939, Schneider visited Weiss at his home in South Kensington several more times{{cite web |title=Ernst David WEISS, alias Walter LOCK |url=https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C11270978 |website=The National Archives, Kew |pages=42–43 |access-date=12 March 2022|volume=3}}{{cite web |title=Ernst David WEISS, alias Walter LOCK |url=https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C11270978 |website=The National Archives, Kew |page=45 |access-date=12 March 2022|volume=3}} as well as working as a courier in France, Netherlands, Switzerland, Germany.{{sfn|Kesaris|1979|p=352}} From 1939 to 1942, Germaine Schneider and her husband worked as a couriers for a Soviet espionage network that operated in the Low Countries that became known as the Red Orchestra.{{sfn|Kesaris|1979|p=352}} In early 1938, Johann Wenzel returned illegally to Belgium and it is likely that he resided with the couple.{{sfn|Kesaris|1979|p=66}} At the time, Wenzel trained Schneider as a wireless radio operator.{{sfn|Kesaris|1979|p=352}}
=Jeffremov network=
File:The Jeffremov Group in Belgium May 1942 – August 1942.png
It is unknown who recruited Schneider into the Jeffremov network, but by September 1939, Schneider and her husband were working for Konstantin Jeffremov in Belgium as couriers. As well as working as an assistant to Léon Grossvogel,{{sfn|Kesaris|1979|p=284}} Schneider was the principal courier between the Belgium and French networks.
Schneider recruited a significant number of people into the Jeffremov network and managed those people as a sub-network within the Jeffremov network.{{sfn|Kesaris|1979|p=352}} These included her sisters Renee Blumsack, who was a courier between Paris and Brussels and Josephine Verhimst also a courier, as well as Renee's husband, Joseph Blumsack who was also a courier between Brussels and Paris{{sfn|Kesaris|1979|p=263}} Josephine's lover, Jean Janssens,{{sfn|Kesaris|1979|p=351}} was also a courier on the same route{{sfn|Kesaris|1979|p=295}} and Yvonne Poelmans, a gymnast and masseuse who was recruited for a minor role.{{sfn|Kesaris|1979|p=327}}
In May 1942,{{sfn|Perrault|1969|pp=100–102}} Leopold Trepper, who was technical director of Soviet Red Army Intelligence in western Europe,{{cite web |last1=Bauer |first1=Arthur O. |title=Leopold TREPPER, aliases Leopold DOMB, Jean GILBERT (French), Adam MIKLER (Canadian)|url=https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C11249267 |website=The National Archives, Kew |page=14 |accessdate=15 April 2022}} and Soviet agent Konstantin Jeffremov{{sfn|Kesaris|1979|p=351}} met in the couple's house in Brussels.{{sfn|Kesaris|1979|p=297}} At the meeting, Trepper placed Jeffremov in charge of running the espionage network in Belgium and the Low Countries that had been rebuilt.{{sfn|Kesaris|1979|p=351}} Schneider was to became a courier between Jeffremov in Brussels and Trepper in Paris.{{sfn|Kesaris|1979|p=352}}
Arrest
In November 1942, Schneider was arrested while she was working for the Springer group in Lyon.{{sfn|Kesaris|1979|p=6}} She was betrayed by Jeffremov.{{sfn|Tarrant|1999|p=153}}{{sfn|Perrault|1969|p=153}} On the 30 November 1942, her husband Franz Schneider was arrested and taken to Fort Breendonk prison, where he was tortured.{{sfn|Bourgeois|2015|p=214}}Schneider was sent to a concentration camp and was liberated by the Red Army advance in May 1945.{{sfn|Kesaris|1979|p=352}} She was gravely ill when she left Ravensbrück concentration camp and was sent to a Swiss sanitarium in Zürich in October 1945.{{sfn|Dallin|1955|p=165}} In April 1943, he husband was transferred to Germany and kept isolated in several prisons before being sent to Brandenburg-Görden Prison and kept in the same cell as Maurice Èmile Aenishanslin,{{sfn|Bourgeois|2015|p=214}} a Swiss communist and commercial director who was an agent of the network run by Henry Robinson.{{sfn|Kesaris|1979|pp=258}} He remained there until the end of war, when he was liberated by the advancing Soviet front in May 1945.{{sfn|Bourgeois|2015|p=214}} He suffered lung disease in prison and recovered sufficiently well to join Germaine in Zurich in October 1945.{{sfn|Kesaris|1979|p=351}}
Death
She died on 12 November 1945 of cancer. Her funeral was attended by Maurice Aenis-Hanslin.{{sfn|Kesaris|1979|pp=258, 352}}
Bibliography
- {{cite book |last1=Dallin |first1=David |title=Soviet espionage |date=1955 |publisher=Yale University Press|oclc=989342115|ref=none}}
- {{cite book |last1=Kochik |first1=V. I︠A︡. |title=Razvedchiki i rezidenty GRU : za predelami otchizny |date=2004 |publisher=I︠A︡uza |location=Moscow |isbn=9785878491662 |language=Russian|oclc=1171802295|ref=none}}
Notes
{{notelist}}
References
{{Reflist}}
Bibliography
{{refbegin}}
- {{cite book |last=Bourgeois |first=Guillaume |title=La Véritable Histoire de l'Orchestre rouge |publisher=Nouveau Monde |series=Le Grand Jeu |date=2015|isbn=9782369420675|oclc=922305775}}
- {{cite journal |last1=Coppi Jr. |first1=Hans |editor1-last=Dietrich Bracher |editor1-first=Karl |editor2-last=Schwarz |editor2-first=Hans-Peter |editor3-last=Möller |editor3-first=Horst |title=Die Rote Kapelle |journal=Quarterly Books for Contemporary History |trans-title=The Red Orchestra in the field of conflict and intelligence activity, The Trepper Report June 1943 |date=July 1996 |volume=44 |issue=3 |url=http://www.ifz-muenchen.de/heftarchiv/1996_3.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150518143900/http://www.ifz-muenchen.de/heftarchiv/1996_3.pdf|archive-date=2015-05-18 |access-date=9 December 2018 |publisher=Institute of Contemporary History |location=Munich |language=de |issn=0042-5702}}
- {{cite book |last1=Dallin |first1=David J |title=Soviet Espionage |date=1955 |publisher=Yale University Press |location=New Haven|url=https://archive.org/details/sovietespionage00dall}}
- {{cite book |editor1-last=Kesaris |editor1-first=Paul. L |title=The Rote Kapelle: the CIA's history of Soviet intelligence and espionage networks in Western Europe, 1936-1945. |date=1979 |publisher=University Publications of America |location=Washington, D.C.|isbn=978-0-89093-203-2 |url=http://archive.org/details/rotekapelleciOOunit |format=pdf}}
- {{cite book |last1=Perrault |first1=Gilles |title=The Red Orchestra |date=1969 |publisher=Schocken Books |location=New York |isbn=0805209522|url=https://archive.org/details/redorchestra00perr_0}}
- {{cite book |last1=Tarrant |first1=V. E |title=The Red Orchestra |date=1999 |publisher=Cassell |location=London |page=42 |url=https://archive.org/details/redorchestra0000tarr_f2o8|oclc=670121406}}
- {{cite book |last1=West |first1=Nigel |title=Historical dictionary of cold war counterintelligence |date=2007 |publisher=Scarecrow Press |location=Lanham, Md. |isbn=9780810864634 |page=369|series=Historical dictionaries of intelligence and counterintelligence| volume=6 |oclc=263614927}}
{{refend}}
External links
- [https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C11190818 British intelligence file on Germaine and Franz Schneider at the National Archives]
{{People of the Soviet Rote Kapelle resistance group}}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Schneider, Germaine}}
Category:People from Anderlecht
Category:Red Orchestra (espionage)