Vera Schalburg

Vera Schalburg was born in Siberia, Russia as the second of three children to August Theodor Schalburg and wife Helene Schalburg.[1][2][3] Her father was born 1879 in Nyborg[1][2][3] and her mother was born 1882 in Ukraine[2] (possibly Poltava).[1] She lived in Russia until the October Revolution of 1917 when she fled with her family to Denmark.

In 1920 the young 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.[1][2][3]

Later Schalburg lived in Paris, where she made a living as a dancer and was a Soviet agent. There she was recruited by the 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, the 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, a German dipolmat in Denmark, who arranged for Vera's recall from London.[4] She continued as an agent for the Abwehr in Copenhagen until the night of 30 September 1940, where she was sent from Stavanger by seaplane and rubber raft to the Scottish coast near Buckie. She was joined by 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.[4][5] Vera Schalburg survived by becoming an agent for the British. She was first taught by Klop Ustinov of MI5 and then sent to Isle of Wight to spy on prisoners taken by Britain, while herself pretending to be a prisoner.

Returning to Germany after the war, Schalburg died, under the name of Vera Von Wedel, from pneumonia 8 February 1946 at the hospital Marienkrankenhaus in Hamburg. She was buried in the Ohlsdorf Cemetery. The grave, paid for by Ernst Bodo Von Zitzewitz, existed until 1971.

• In the 2013 German TV production The Beautiful Spy, Vera von [sic] Schalburg is portrayed by Valerie Niehaus.[6]

• Main source: Andersen, Kirstine Kloster (2018). Spurven, den dramatiske historie om spionen Vera Schalburg [The Sparrow, the dramatic history of the spy Vera Schalburg.]. Lindhardt og Ringhof, Egmont Group. Copenhagen. ISBN 8711912596. OCLC 1098170790.