David Tremain - Agent Provocateur for Hitler or Churchill?: The Mysterious Life of Stella Lonsdale

David Tremain

First published in Great Britain in 2021 by

Pen & Sword History

An imprint of

Pen & Sword Books Ltd

Yorkshire Philadelphia

Copyright David Tremain 2021

ISBN 978 1 52677 962 5

ePUB ISBN 978 1 52677 963 2

Mobi ISBN 978 1 52677 964 9

The right of David Tremain to be identified as Author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

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U nless otherwise specified in the notes, all quotes and extracts have been taken from files at the National Archives at Kew (TNA). When quoting from these files some minor formatting changes have occasionally been made to ensure the text flows better, and accents added to French and German words where they were missed out in the original text because the typewriters of the time lacked those keys; otherwise, no changes have been made to the original punctuation or spelling. In these files many MI5 documents use the term German S.S. In this context it is generally meant as a generic name for the German Secret Service rather than Schutzstaffel, the Nazi Partys paramilitary organization, or the Sicherheitsdienst (SD), the Nazi Partys intelligence service. Likewise, the terms MI6 and SIS are frequently used interchangeably to mean the British Secret Intelligence Service. Unless MI6 is specifically used in a quote or a bibliographic reference, the term SIS will be used in this book. Codenames or aliases are prefixed using the symbol @. Stellas codename was MICHAEL.

A ll files in the National Archives are Crown Copyright and are reproduced with permission under the terms of the Open Government Licence. Quotes from Hansard contain Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0. Every attempt has been made to seek and obtain permission for copyright material used in this book. In certain cases, this has not been possible. However, if we have inadvertently used copyright material without permission/acknowledgements, we apologise and we will make the necessary correction at the first opportunity. The author and publisher would like to gratefully acknowledge the following for permission to reproduce copyright material: Mark Beynon, The History Press, for material quoted from Cloak of Enemies ; Bloomsbury Publishing, Adam Sisman, 2015, John le Carr: The Biography , Bloomsbury Publishing Plc; Suzi Feay, The Independent on Sunday ; Dr Peter Geiger, for material quoted from Kriegzeit: Liechtenstein 1939 bis 1945 ; Bradley W. Hart, for material quoted from George Pitt-Rivers and the Nazis ; Keith Janes, to quote from his website, Conscript Heroes ; Natalie Jones, Express Syndication & Licencing, Reach plc, Daily Express/Express Syndication for a Daily Express article on Stella Lonsdale, 20 April 1947; Simon Kitson, for material quoted from The Hunt for Nazi Spies: Fighting Espionage in Vichy France ; Emma & Neill Lochery, for material quoted from Lisbon: War in the Shadows of the City of Light, 19391945 ; Mark McCormick, University Press of Kentucky, for material quoted from Silent Heroes: Downed Airmen and the French Underground ; F. Landis MacKellar, for material quoted from Captain George Henry Lane-Fox Pitt-Rivers and the origins of the IUSSP; Richard and William Neave, and the Hon. Mrs William Webb ( ne Marigold Neave) for permission to quote from Saturday at MI9 by their father, the late Airey Neave; Liisa Qureshi, Vapaa Sana Press Limited, to quote from an article in Vapaa Sana ; Royal Aero Club Trust for photograph of Cyril Mills; Stacey Thidrickson for articles in the Winnipeg Free Press ; Nigel West, for material quoted from The Guy Liddell Diaries Vol.1, 19391942 , and MI6: British Secret Intelligence Service Operations 190945; Wesley Wilson, Coordinator of Archives & Special Collections, DePauw University, Indiana; Wiley-Blackwell, for permission to quote from Anthony Masters The Man Who Was M , Anthony Masters, 1984: All rights reserved.

The author would also like to thank the House of Commons Enquiries; the National Archives, Kew; and the Security Service (MI5) Enquiries Team. In addition, the following individuals for their assistance: David Armstrong; Tracy Barber, Registrar, University of Colorado; Pierre Casque; Marie-Nol Challan-Belval, for information on her father; Judith Curthoys, Archivist, Christ Church College, Oxford; Andrew Dawrant, Trustee, Royal Aero Club for information on George Hicks; Jane Down; Madelin Evans, Churchill Archives Centre, Churchill College, Cambridge; Helen Fisher, University of Birmingham Archives; Dr Helen Fry; Margaret Barnard Hankey; Amanda Ingram, Archivist, Pembroke College, Oxford; Joyce Hutton and Alan Fred Judge, Military Intelligence Museum, Chicksands; Dr Giselle K. Jakobs for her translation of Dr Geigers material; Christopher Long; Richard Kemball-Cook; Steven Kippax; Robin Libert, Councillor general, Academic Outreach & Partnerships of the Belgian Veiligheid van de Staat/Sret de lEtat. President RUSRA-KUIAD (Royal Union of the Intelligence and Action Services); Andrew and Angela Lownie; Charles Lyttleton, the Viscount Cobham; Bernard OConnor; Professor Eunan OHalpin; Edward Paine; Linda Pietronigro, Wellington Shields & Co., LLC; Jeffrey Pilkington, Christies; Anthony Pitt-Rivers; Charles Platiau; Very Rev. Fr. Richard Reid, CSsR, The Redemptorist Community, St. Marys Monastery, Clapham; Dr Donald P. Steury; Francis Suttill Jr.; Phil Tomaselli; Chantal Trubert; Peter Verstraeten; Nigel West; Elisabeth Alsop Winthrop; Wesley Wilson and Taylor Zartman, Archives & Special Collections, DePauw University. Finally, I would like to thank Claire Hopkins, Laura Hirst, Chris Cox and all the team at Pen & Sword for making this book possible.