Vera von Schalburg

Biography

Vera von Schalburg was born in Siberia, Russia as the second of three children to August Theodor Schalburg and wife Helene Schalburg. Her father was born 1879 in Nyborg and her mother was born 1882 in Ukraine (possibly Poltava). She lived in Russia until the October Revolution of 1917 when she fled with her family to Denmark.

In 1920 the young von Schalburg moved with her family from Hellerup to Vibevej 14, Copenhagen, and in 1922 the family moved to Borups Allé 4, where in 1925 she still lived with her parents and youngest brother August. In Denmark she was known to the authorities as Vera Schalburg.

Later she lived in Paris where she made a living as a dancer and was a Soviet agent. There she was recruited by Abwehr and sent to England in 1938. Her older brother C. F. Von Schalburg was not pleased and believed that it would hurt his reputation and that of his party DNSAP if it became known that she had been both in German and Soviet service. In May 1939 he therefore brought up the issue with Renthe-Fink, who arranged for Vera's recall from London. She continued as an agent for Abwehr in Copenhagen until the night of 30 September 1940, where she was sent from Stavanger by first seaplane and then rubber raft to the Scottish coast near Buckie. She was joined by the two fellow agents Karl Theodor Drücke and Werner Waelti. Vera was to return to London as hostess in a fashionable tea salon in Mayfair where key politicians went. However, the three agents were quickly arrested and Drücke and Waelti were convicted of espionage and hanged in the Wandsworth prison. Vera von Schalburg saved her neck by becoming an agent for the British. She was first taught by Klop Ustinov of MI 5 and then sent to Isle of Wight to spy on prisoners taken by Britain, while herself pretending to be a prisoner. After the war she travelled to Germany, but returned to England where she spent the rest of her life.

Portrayal in the media