{UAH} Mata Hari and Noor-un-Nissa Inayat Khan: The World’s Most Famous Spies

Mata Hari and Noor-un-Nissa Inayat Khan: The World's Most Famous Spies

Mata Hari appeared in World War I and Noor-un-Nissa as a famous female spy in World War II.

Noor-un-Nissa

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The most famous World War II spy was Heroine Noor-un-Nissa, whose father Inayat Khan was Indian and whose mother was American.

She served as a British spy during World War II. She was posthumously awarded the George Cross Award, Britain's highest civilian award, for espionage. The British government recently unveiled a statue of her in London in recognition of her accomplishments.

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During World War II, Noor-un-Nissa was the first female spy to serve as a wireless operator and was honored to be the first war, spy heroine. She helped the French against the Germans in the resistance movement in France.

France was then under German occupation. She went there to help the French insurgents, but her secret was revealed when she was informed by a colleague who was working as a double agent.

On October 13, 1943, Noor-un-Nissa was arrested by the German secret service Gestapo. Twice her attempts to escape were in vain. During her interrogation, the Germans did not find any information about her that would prove that she was a spy because she did not provide them with any material other than her personal information. During the investigation, investigators found a diary, detailing the transmission of some classified information.

Noor-un-Nissa escaped on October 25, 1943, but she was not far behind when she was arrested along with two others. Here she was asked to sign an affidavit, but when she refused, she was taken to Germany for further interrogation, where she was sentenced to 10 months in solitary confinement.

From here, Noor-un-Nissa was transferred to a concentration camp. On September 13, 1943, Noor-Un-Nissa was executed in the camp along with her other comrades who had been charged with espionage.

Mata Hari

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In addition to Noor-un-Nissa, another famous 20th-Century spy is Mata Hari, who was sentenced to death for this crime.

She was from Holland and her real name was Margaret but when she entered the world of fashion she changed her name to Mata Hari which was very romantic for people. She lived in England, France, Germany, and other countries and was very popular because of her beauty, especially among high ranking army officers.

When she was in France, she had contacts with German diplomats and military officers. Due to this, she was suspected of being a spy during the First World War.

When she came to Britain from France, she was interrogated by Scotland, but no evidence of espionage was found. The reason for her suspicion was that she lived a life of great luxury, so it was suspected that she took money through espionage.

When she returned to France in 1915, she was arrested on suspicion of German espionage and was executed by a firing squad on October 15, 1917, following a trial. She bravely faced death. She also refused to be blindfolded and gave a "flying kiss" to the firing squad.

After her death, Mata Hari's personality became a mystery. After the war, the German government denied that she was their spy. When the lawyers checked her case record, it did not prove that she was a spy. Many books and films have been written on this tragedy of Mata Hari. Death made her a romantic figure.

Mata Hari was not the only woman of her kind. The intelligence agency is very old. The rulers appointed spies to provide information directly to their subjects and to keep abreast of developments in the country.

These spies may include women for whom we have no evidence. But as Barani, the author of the Firuz Shah's History, writes, Aladdin Khilji used to get information in the morning about what used to happen at night parties in the houses of princes.

In India, the East India Company had also appointed spies in the native states. It is likely that there were women among them because when the British laid siege to Delhi in 1857, their spies continued to provide them with domestic information about the city. In European countries, every country was aware of the situation through diplomacy and espionage.

Women were recruited into the spy agency because they quickly became close to high-ranking officials because of their beauty and charming talents. Sometimes she would get secrets by assuring her love and sometimes by scaring them with scandal. Our information about these spy women is not because their names were kept secret and all documents were later destroyed.

In World Wars I and II, each country set up well-organized intelligence agencies and recruited men as well as women because the work was risky and women received regular training. She knew two or three European languages and had to endure the hardships and tortures of captivity if captured.

If the death penalty was passed, one had to be prepared for it. The activities of female spies recorded during the First and Second World Wars are noteworthy in Ann Kramer's book Women Wartime Spies. In this book, the author describes in detail the activities of women spies in England and Germany.

During World War I, Britain began monitoring women from Austria and Germany who lived in Britain after marriage. During the investigation, British intelligence agencies arrested some of the women on espionage charges. They were sentenced to imprisonment and some to death.

Germany also condemned the execution of women for espionage, but the German government argued that the crime of espionage applies equally to men and women and that the law applies to women. And cannot be changed between men.

In World War I, German spies played the role of women who fulfilled men's sexual desires and obtained information from them, and transported them to Germany.

Britain also gathered information about the secret transport of German troops through female spies. This was done by women detectives who traveled to Belgium to gather information about German forces and their plans. They also assisted in the escape of Belgian military officers held captive by the Germans.

In World War II, Britain set up a well-organized intelligence service with highly educated men and women. They were trained and included women who had been spies and veterans in World War I.

These women had to keep quiet about their work and not talk to anyone about it. The women specifically discovered the German secret code and read their messages, which provided the coalition forces with extremely useful information about German plans.

Prime Minister Winston S. Churchill praised the feats of the women, likening them to ducks that laid golden eggs. These women held positions such as typist, computer operator, telegraph operator, wireless operator, but they were completely unaware of each other's work.

After the war, all the information gathered by the female agents was burned. This spy agency was shut down. Machines purchased for this purpose were scrapped in vain so that there would be no trace of any kind of intelligence.

These spying activities continued after World War II. Especially during the Cold War, the United States and Russia used spies to gather information about each other's weapons.

The spies included women. Even in the present era, there are intelligence agencies of every country, which gather internal and external information and help in formulating state policies.

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