i'm the director of the conferences symposia and today we are bringing this program to you with the hurricane a couple hours away so i want to let the audience members no we are going to bring the program to you, heck or high water, hopefully just hack. i will now pass it on to the museums senior historian and executive director of the institute for the war and democracy who wil will be leadig today's conversation. >> welcome, to everyone, from beautiful new orleans louisiana quite literally in the eye of the hurricane. we hope everything goes smooth and i like what he just said,

come heck or high water but hopefully we don't get any today. having said that, we are excited about today's program. every now and then in my line of work you feel like you read every word in the case of this particular author that might be difficult, but for the times, the uk, best-selling author of numerous books, a spy among friends, the great betrayal, what a great book that is, doublecross operation that i know many of the audience members have already read. he has presented bbc documentaries of his work and he is a star in the field i guess i would say of espionage history and welcome to the national world war ii museum webinar. >> thank you for inviting me.

thank you very much for having me. you are a master on this topic. you really dig it up in a style. left me begilet me begin by aske standard question why is this book is there something about the moment that we are living in that suggests she is better known in her professional life as agent sonta. >> i was researching a completely different story of an oss operation to the cia at the tail end of the war when they

began to parachute anti-nazi german into the collapsing right for the sabotage operations just as everything was falling apart. but at the back of the story was a woman that was providing the names of the likely candidates. what they didn't know is they were diehard communists and being recruited by sonya, but that was my starting point. and i began to go back in time and found this remarkable character that goes back. why now? because i've never written through this perspective before, and i've never written about

somebody that was a completely communist. most comes from the other end of the telescope. and it was time. the story is quite extraordinary because as many of you know, it is a very male-dominated world, there are many women but the intelligence officer who was trained to the point she was a colonel in the red army, i couldn't find a single woman that had written this much let alone so it was time to turn her story in in a way that was both her most found disguise and it

was time to tell her story and i wouldn't have been able to do so had i not had the incredibly good fortune of being able to interview her surviving children, two of her sons who were very generous and allowed me access to all of the diaries and letters and so even though there were i always felt she was kind of with me in some way kind of guiding me through the story. that was a great comfort. >> by the age of 17 how had she gotten to this point, german

jewish intellectual, she had a circle around her of the left of the leftism. >> it's to understand the kind of person she became and the chaos of the republican germany. .. >> and then the party with the

degradation and the families (-left-parenthesis leaning joining the party as a conviction despite the objection and she never wavered but she did there was a moment in her life when the whole project comes apart in her hand and in a way that equivocation because when the revolution take place and when the berlin wall came down for communism and with that extraordinary movement and world history in the 20th century were good and evil on

the extent to which he knew about that we can discuss but and certainly there were doubts and there is a wonderful way to explore that story but in the 19 twenties a perfect respectable condition the only people standing up it is a migration to the left. >> so course it would've been a typical thing to say at the time the soviet union is the future we live in the era when that is. >> exactly of course you never been to the soviet union and had not seen what it was what could even imagine that many

people across the world but germany one is considered the next revolution and then to take place in germany and that was quite a widespread belief and all that ideology that went with it. >> but she was a bookish character. and bookstores more than one occasion so it sounds to me yearning for something. >> i want to give it away but

with the action oriented. >> and she is to start off as a gentle bookish she goes were very early two short stories and she lives in a house in berlin. and you can get more bookish than that. and that is the way that she was. >> and as you say she ended up espousing a violent revolution and she got it done. she was raised from a very young age and then from the

far right and for the first half and in the war the soviet union and britain and america to defeat nazi germany but then to be around her in some way but the start of the cold war. she has no change from our perspective she's on the other side and then with shanghai

and a brief period in america she lived in new york with the bookshop in upper manhattan so she had experience and had a love-hate relationship and what she deeply admired and others that she despised. and then to work for the british council in shanghai and she was 24 when she got to shanghai and it was a intoxicating place with a huge melting pot and the mercantile center and massive chinese property on the other side. and then there was a fascinating woman and was people in the story have the most extraordinary names.

>> that's related to this topic. [laughter] and then at that point left-wing and then already is a communist spy and recruited and then to belong to do something and then shanghai was the birthplace of the chinese communist party but it was undergoing depression at the hand under qinghai check. and that was a little regime and those that were killed.

and ursula was recruited. and then to be described with the affordable spy with a key soviet agent in shanghai and with a communist underground. >> i'm try to think of a way to put it when you say that domesticity was one of the greatest assets all spies have to lead the double life and pregnant and has a child and was told to leave him so she can pretend to be the wife of another man and they pretend to be a family. think of london who said there

is no private life to do whatever the party tells you. >> one of the things that i find so fascinating the constant from that duty to the court and her responsibility as a wife and mother and homemaker. and throughout her life the two sides of her life were in constant attention and even in old age she continue to wonder if she had been a good spies better than a mother but as the reality was a calls was to put it second and she did it the show is put them second so there was no doubt but only

from the gestapo but the family would've been wiped out as well so she's putting everybody at risk. and she said i'll never give up my family again. unless the revolution requires. and we find that in the 21st century anyone that would put the cause before their family and that's terrifying but there is a possible double standard is not the question we would ask ever. >> never asked the question of males and say he's a bad father but a great spy. but it was so central to her core and then to interrogates

her self on the subject did i do enough? to look after them well enough? and when they found out what they are doing and so they themselves were middle age they had no idea their mother was a spy and then to have this double life to be completely differen different, that has very long term affects. >> you met the children as you began your discussion for did you talk to them on this very sensitive point? >> two sons and three children at three different times in her life all three were the current agents and with that

domesticity to be completely in the story. >> in the first great love there was a double standard of the spies that lived life with james bond. but actually a woman way ahead of her time in that respect the other one died in his nineties remember conversation i had a charming and lovely man and what a way to discover that your mother had all the secrets but he said work i've

been married and divorced three times and perhaps because of where i came from i never really knew how to trust anybody. found that very poignant to all men to the end of his life but he said reading the book is that now i know a little better. >> secrets are toxic and addictive so in the secret world it's very easy to give it up so i'm fascinated by that world and people are

damaged by these kinds of stories and children are no exceptions. >> but it rarely comes to a happy ending in a sense you are here and write off in the sunset so i wonder if it's difficult to remember at the current time. >> that's exactly right and then to remember the lie that you told before and i have no doubt it's such a strange profession really because given how much i have written about it but it doesn't make much difference and knows that the other side is doing a very

occasionally and history it makes a huge difference with those deceptions and that was another one but who really did affect the course of history but her intelligence materially affected world history to makes her quite exceptional i think. >> so the codenames agent sonja. with the upper middle-class background to be cultured and educated and actually helping them to build bombs were asked to sabotage against the japanes japanese. there is a great story about the ammonium nitrate purchase

one of the crucial ingredients. can you relate that for the audience? >> so she went back to spy school and she was trained in technician work but is also sabotaging bomb making she was a bomb maker and one of the things she had to do to occupy nigeria and those that were running providing money and going back and forth. you can just go into one shop and buy what you needed because the japanese intelligence service will pick you up in a second.

and really proud to a hardware store to amazing nitrate. one - - ammonium nitrate and the chinese and then to have 10 pounds of ammonium nitrate he misheard her and gave her a hundredweight sack which she put into that pram and put the baby on top again and anita for a while but it kept the bomb makers going who has they were used for. the chinese on the underground did enormous damage. so that cause an impact on history. >>. >> and then with the sabotage to build the bomb and that you

are buying this at the same time. >> and to estimate. and the secret police and is highly efficient and with a communist underground. and then to see the two and then to see how she got away with that how the japanese failed to spot that. >> now i would like to turn to

the second world war. so sonja is were time spying which do you think were most significant? and it is the most interesting portrayals. >> and just before a war breaks out running agents into the light and she ended up and set herself up in a little chalet in the swiss mountains. and then is the most important

communication network with moscow. there were lots of spies is should be around the world is a huge importance. and then the story that is astonishing and then to come very close to assassinate hitler she recruited to british communist and then mrs. before the outbreak of war and one of them had discovered and with the austria and bavaria and then immediately set that's an

opportunity. and she reported back to moscow the plan was to have a bomb and then to blow and to smithereens smithereens along with every other assassination problem that i read about. and when nazi germany and then and then cease for the offensive operations to who

knows what have been the future of the world that they could carry that. and then to have a bite of ravioli and vegetable on the side and this is one that i had missed that seems to be the closest to fruition. and they were very keen to kill hitler at that point but it is the alliance between the soviets and the nazis. and after the first moments began to realize and that line and suddenly it was the

alliance of fascism it was terrible crisis of conscience. >> and then with the exact opposite suddenly have to get on board and then to nail that moment. >> and then with the invasion of the soviet union by hitler's troops. now suddenly it turns around again actually found herself a little lopsided on history. and then let out to pasture it was really an event.

>> i want to know more about operation hammer and then to design a parachute for the and march 1945. >> every single one of these agents is a communist. and the ideological all like-minded individuals selected americans have any idea or suspect them as a communist? >> they had less contact with ursula. there is a middleman they used and then to believe they were their own spies and then with

the high technology for the time. but then every single one and working for moscow and then to say i'm just hoping the cause and with the general allies but there one or two voices on the american side mostly e-lowercase-letter going on to run the cia and to say at one point have investigated the background of these people and then with the former trade unionist to be prosecuted by the nazi regime and to go into exile into britain to know that they were left-wing and unionized what they didn't

know there are the signed off for starvation but was one of those extraordinary moments in a managed to provide the soviet union with the key piece of technology the americans have developed what would become the walkie-talkie and it was a way that spies on the ground communicated in real time and that was the spying technology and in that respect as they would later do with the atomic weapon that is thanks to ursula.

>> moving into that area the most espionage contact with the famous nuclear spy, tell us about their collaboration how important was ursula to the soviet development? >> we paint a picture of where we are to read jolene her family and with the soviet military intelligence agency. very peaceful very quiet and that you would have met and the refugee in which they were

sending the atomic secret. but to run a whole network of spies. so with the countryside and with that atomic weapon and it was a very simple and naïve philosophy. and then to hand over something like 570 pages of documents related to how to

build and atomic weapon it was so complicated should take them and actually put them at the airdrop site and there they would be picked up by the soviet handler who was a diplomat working undercover in london. and when he did so ursula handed him over to another controller in new york and then to the astonishment of the west and the consternation of washingto washington, it's one of the most extraordinary aspects. >> and then being and over to

a handler and eventually in the rosenberg case that was a crucial figure in that decision as well. >> absolutely that ratification continues still in the running of the spies it was a disaster for the west for the triumphal soviet espionage where the soviets had developed their own atomic weapon? >> i guess they would have they were quite advanced i'm absolutely convinced and we can debate forever the long-term implications. ursula herself argued that in a way secrets from one side to

the other it makes it safer to create this balance between east and west to use the atomic weapon so there were voices within the american administration to argue the atomic weapon was developed. measure what the world would have been like if that happened. but america first with the only atomic power in the world i'm not sure how comfortable world that would've been to live in is not a support for communism but that mutual destruction to make the world safer.

>> so before we get over to questions she does it all and sometimes you root for her with the japanese are the germans and then you find yourself turned around as she spies on the british and the americans. and at one point she seriously considers murdering her lifelong nanny. the woman who asserted them lately because she found out too much about her activities. so did ursula change in the course of her life? where did the world around her change? >> she remained committed to the cause although she has serious doubts in later life. but yet she herself changed

and to ask consistently and and with that emotional life and her political and a secret life and then knowing exactly what ursula was up to she tried to betray her she was the only person that ever tried to betray and in this agonizing moment and she was a tough cookie. so they discussed whether or not they would have to liquidate the nanny. that is terrible. she had a gun and knew how to use it she would not have been

at the forefront but we often look at history that somehow it is a black and white with the values and that somehow give us a lesson in physics and that espionage is not like that it is made up the fascinating shades of gray and is not one-dimensional of female james bond, she is complicated but a product of history i didn't want to write a book to defend or condemn her but about that tried to explain what communism was like to experience of a single

woman who lived in communism right to the end. >> that's fantastic i recommend the book to every person and listening and out there is a wonderful book. let's go to some q&a i may take the opportunity to ask some questions. >> has russia acknowledged done anything to deny her activity? tell us about that. >> so she left east germany she reinvent herself as someone else but she did write a memoir and presented it to the stasi and they took one

look and said you cannot pompous on - - possibly publish this is far too much honest about your love life and trade so they took out all of the most interesting stuff and she was going to publish what remained in the rest was a propaganda exercise. so she kept the original manuscript which is in the archives which i have access to. so it was able for me to write about what they didn't want you to know about. and that was a huge shock to her family they had absolutely no idea one version was published in the seventies when he was in a circle but

they did not know that for her to emerge to say she was a heroine of the soviet union. so they have begun to acknowledge her and celebrate her. that book will be published in russian. that is a surprise to me that it is a complicated story is not as simple heroine of the soviet union she's much more complicated and then to have free and unfettered access to the archives. >> richard ramsey has another look and what was ursula's

life like after the war? i found those portions of the book to be fascinating. >> the astonishing thing is once she got to east germany she does get out so she arrives in east germany and gives out the slave trade and is very tough to get into but even harder to get out of she just washes her hands of it and then to come under deep suspicion at one point in the

show children's fiction and was highly successful selling hundreds of thousands of copies and she was described as the east german author who sold so many copies was more famous as a children's novelist than she ever became as a spy and throughout her life to invent and reinvent herself. but has to be ideologically the scales and then it was even more reflective so that's one of the terrible moments on the discovery to find out the sheer scale of the economy with stalin and the people that she needed but then to

say i didn't as for stalin but i did this for a cause. even in the nineties she said i still believe in the cause. like many old communist and better than she could come up with. >>'s at the time of the purchase ideologically committed communist would say things like you can't make an omelette without breaking up the eggs talking about the lives of two or 3 million

victims sonja was able to come to that realization later in life. >> i think she was and she felt deeply troubled. but i think she had a certain survivor's guilt and often asked herself that how she has been spare but others hadn't but as a foreigner and a jew and was a spy, she was suspect. that was the target but then she never denounced anyone else. that is interesting for that survival.

and then you survive by someone else but she never did and with that extraordinary loyalty among her friends and colleagues. >> a good question for you. and what is the most clever and what is your favorite? >> which is my favorite? eddie chapman he was an agent and proper the clerk and the conman and highly trained and immediately swap sides and really went to the british but

who was the cleverest? and then the affinity to remember those compound lies and to remember that to coin a phrase. and the took a rare courage but for a dozen years deep

inside the kgb to know that at any moment you can would be arrested and tortured and killed that is sheer bravery. >> we have a question that how much did intelligence collected contribute to the red army victory? but you said ursula's intel was valuable but it's also at the level of the operation in the field. or do these spies impact on the battleground? >> it's a good question to the extent to which the system inside germany also soviet

policy impact on - - faculty and that she wasn't actually at the hotel. and then with the career the only radio operator i don't think she did and see that at that point to be the role. and then to have a material impact but that is just the opposite with this portion that was incredibly useful but

he really didn't trust spies. technically he didn't believe with the extraordinary person to believe and that was really and with that example of that if that extraordinary amount of material in britain before and during and after. and that we're not the untruth. >> so one of the greatest in the wastepaper basket and that it was interesting battle.

>>. >> if you choose those are still alive and then i found them in the telephone book. and i approach them with some trepidation. but at that point in the twenties they came a little later they were very proud of their mother and landed on the left but i wonder how committed they would be to a british writer turned up to say