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And, of course, of a Polish woman, just like Krystyna Skarbek, who knew she could help her country and her countrymen and risked her life by going behind enemy lines.
The Germans released them, but the couple was followed by the police afterwards and they decided to flee Hungary, a German ally.Nolan claimed that Ian Fleming, in his first James Bond novel, Casino Royale (1953), modelled Vesper Lynd on Christine Granville. Somehow, the ruse worked – with the help of a 2 million franc bribe and Granville’s charm – and the agents walked free. Soon after, he accepted a diplomatic posting to Ethiopia, where he served as Poland's consul general until September 1939, when Germany invaded Poland. Krystyna Skarbek, better known in England as Christine Granville, was a Polish secret agent who worked for British Special Operations Executive (SOE) during the Second World War. Her charisma and charm seemed to captivate all who encountered her, earning her the admiration of countless men.
With the two invasions in Normandy and southern France in summer 1944, these distinctions became irrelevant, and almost all the SOE Sections in France were united with the Maquis into the Forces Francaises de l'Interieur ( FFI). She moved to Algeria in preparation for a mission to France, but she was not immediately dispatched because SOE believed she was "too flamboyant to work undercover effectively".She also tried without success to persuade French resistance leaders to storm the prison in Digne and rescue Cammaerts and the others.
She was the first female agent of the British to serve in the field and the longest-serving of all Britain's wartime women agents.An incident that probably dates to Skarbek's first visit back to Poland in February 1940 illustrates the hazards she faced while working in her occupied homeland. In late February, Skarbek and Kowerski continued their journey in the Opel, first to Sofia, Bulgaria. It became necessary for Christine to apply for Naturalisation as a British Citizen, as it would have been deadly dangerous for her as an ex-agent of the British Special Operations Executive to attempt to live in then Russian-dominated Poland. In Digne on 15 August, Skarbek circled the walls of the prison humming " Frankie and Johnny", a favourite tune of hers and Cammaerts. Last year […] a Polish citizen named Kowerski was working with our officials in Budapest on Polish affairs.
Amongst her many adventures she took the surrender of a German garrison persuading the polish conscripts there to join her; she tamed a man-hunting German soldier’s Alsatian dog which also switched sides under her spell and wouldn’t leave her side; perhaps most famously she marched into the Gestapo headquarters alone, despite the enormous bounty on her head and demanded the release of Francis Cammaerts and Xan Fielding who had been captured and were due to be executed that afternoon. Countess Krystyna Skarbek (aka Christine Granville) arguably influenced the Second World War in Britain’s favour more than any other woman – as such she was later regarded as Churchill’s Favourite Spy. The Spy Who Loved', (Macmillan, 2012) looks at the secretss and lives of Krystyna Skarbek, aka Christine Granville, the first woman to work for Britain as a special agent the war. Christopher Kasparek, "Krystyna Skarbek: Re-viewing Britain's Legendary Polish Agent", The Polish Review, vol. Upon their release they were given British passports and new identities: she became known as Christine Granville whilst Andrzej adopted the name Andrew Kennedy.Krystyna Skarbek foresaw this as they were mild damage after an illness which she came down with during her work in a Warsaw factory of Fiat. Skarbek managed to meet with Captain Albert Schenck, an Alsatian who acted as liaison officer between the local French prefecture and the Gestapo. In late December 1899, in a bid to save his finances, her father, Count Jerzy Skarbek, married Stefania Maria Goldfeder, a rich Jewish woman whose father was a Warsaw banker.
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