"The riveting story of a beautiful German spy in World War II who used her beauty and intelligence to aid the Nazis. "
Gisela Klien was charming, clever and beautiful. She was also a spy.
A Model Spy by John Rory Maclean tells her fascinating story, which spans British high society, the fashion world, Oxford, World War II and many glamorous locations, including London, Paris, Cairo and the South of France.
This being a spy story, there is no shortage of intrigue and drama, including close calls with authorities, questions about her heritage, and even poems used to break encryption codes.
Gisela’s many romantic entanglements aided in her espionage, chief among her long love affair with the MP John Profumo, he of the infamous Profumo affair, as well as a romance with Joseph Kennedy Jr., the older brother of the future U.S. president. Maclean comprehensively documents these affairs that spanned both decades and Europe. “Gisela’s espionage work was both partly obscured and partly defined by the men she knew,” Maclean writes.
Maclean, the former home affairs correspondent for the BBC, has clearly done his research, with no detail too small escaping notice and citations from the British National Archives, the Bodleian Library Collection at Oxford, among others.
Beautiful (blond hair and green eyes), clever (admitted to Oxford and had a talent for languages), Gisela’s story reads like a Hollywood film, but is in fact her life. It was a compelling read.
| Primary Genre | Biographies & Autobiographies |
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“Her activities for the last 10 years are certainly consistent with a high degree of espionage, although it has hitherto been impossible to say definitely that she is more than a widely travelled and remarkably well befriended adventuress.” - MI5 1944
Espionage and couture are both about concealment.
A Model Spy is the never before told story of Gisela Klein, Germany’s secret weapon. A woman of brains, beauty and charm, who befriended everyone from members of the British Royal household to the man who should have been the President of the United States of America.
A self-professed “anti-Nazi” and a networker of genius, she was the first steady girlfriend of the serial philanderer and British member of Parliament Jack Profumo. She was an intelligence asset for Germany in the 1930s who camouflaged her own link to Adolf Hitler’s second in command, Herman Goering.
She wasn’t a full time spy, the tall green-eyed, blond-haired Gisela had a glittering career as an international model and was at the core of Nazi attempts to use fashion as a weapon of culture and a source of hard currency for the armaments Hitler needed.
In 1935 the MP Nancy Astor told people her beautiful guest at Cliveden was a spy.
In 1938 MI5 tried but failed to arrest her. Only in 1944, as the allies fought their way towards Germany, would the Bletchley Park codebreakers provide clear evidence of her shrouded role for German military intelligence, the Abwehr.
Gisela Klein weaves her way through the turbulent history of the 1930s and 1940s via London, Paris, Cairo, St Moritz, Cannes, New York, Berlin and Vienna as she combines intelligence gathering with couture.
A Model Spy features in the following genres: Biographies & Autobiographies, History, Biography: historical, political and military, Biographies & Autobiographies, Biography, Literature and Literary studies, Biography: general, Biography: social media
A Model Spy is available in Paperback
A Model Spy was written by John Rory Maclean and published by Mirror Books
A Model Spy has 288 pages
£9.89
