Speaker 1: Welcome to Spycraft, a podcast that tells gripping life and
death spy stories and the amazing devices and operations that
made them possible. Now let's get started.
Speaker 2: Our story heads over to France today as we talk
about a spy from doing World War Two. Her name
is Lashat or the she Cat, depends on how you
interpret it. The French spy and triple agent known as
Laschott marked Matilda Carrey. She was born in Chateaureau, France,
in nineteen oh eight. She joined the Army Army Nurse
Corps at start of World War Two, became leading member
of the Interay spy network, interrogated by the Germans in
nineteen forty one and turned against her former comrades and
began working for the Gestapo. We're going to learn the
rest of this story in a minute, so let's start off.
She's known as the Cat, despised by her former comrades
in the French resistant moved because of her treachery. Matilda
Carey lived in pre war existence that was almost dull
in its conventional contours. As many of the spies that
we have read about, she earned a law degree at Sarbonne.
After graduation she married Maurice Carey, a school teacher, and
moved with him to Olron, Algeria. They divorced after just
six years and she returned to France on the evil
World War Two. During the brief struggle to hold back
the German onslaught, resulting in a catastrophic defeat for the French,
Mattilda Carey served as a member of the French Army's
nurse Corps. After the defeat, she was evacuated to the
southern southern city of Tulau, where she met a Polish
military intelligence officer by the name of Captain Roman Sisnarski
cze rna w Ski. He remained who remained in France
as part of a network to spy on the Germans
and transmit the data to the Polish embassy in Madrid.
Garbie Csnarski had been recruited by the overall chief of
Polish intelligence in France, Colonel Zarevensky, the man responsible for
brilliantly improvising the creation of an anti German spy operation
using the papers of a Frenchman killed in the fighting.
Sarzinsky went under the code name Valentine, who was a
bold operative who quickly organized an effective network of agents
that called itself it There. It was a combination of
French and Polish intelligence. From his headquarters in Parisy, masterminded
a rapidly growing organization, and by the time wireless contact
was established, the ring consisted of agents operating in almost
all of the German occupied zone in France. He and
until the Karree had become lovers, and she quickly emerges
one of their most valuable members, cool headed and capable
of inspiring confidence in her fellow spy. That's how she
earned her the code name the Cat. By late summer
nineteen forty one, the Interrey network was operating at a
maximum effectiveness. When it had operative operatives working in fourteen
districts of German controlled France. It had over one hundred
agents strategically located. Unfortunately, the luck ran out in November
nineteen forty one. This was part due to the arrival
in Paris of Sergeant Hugo Bleicher or Bliker Blicchr, a
former Geschappo agent who had been assigned to work for
the ABO ABWHR that's the German or the Nazi intelligence service.
Back thencialists especially chosen to wipe out interirea Bliker possessed
talents as an intelligence agent, the guaranteed doom for the
Allies by network. The fatal blow came after a major
lapse of security in Cherbou in early November nineteen forty one,
which provided the Germans with crucial information about the ring
and enabled them to round up most of the members.
Harsh interrogation methods, including physical torture, provided Blacker's men with
major pieces of information, and a few hours later Blaker
arrested and unsuspecting Matilda Carey. When Valentine codenamed Valentine refused
to reveal any useful information to his German interrogators. Despite
many hours of torture, Blacker decided to concentrate on Carey.
The strategy, which was very different in her case, emphasized
a psychological offensive against the prisoner rather than the affliction
of pain. First, he initiated a dramatic change in surroundings,
having he moved from a blaque prison cell to a
place of startling contrast, the five star hotel. The hotel
also happened to be abbwere headquarters in Paris. Over a
wonderful meal, Blaker was able to convince Cary that by
working for him, she would only save herself from torture
and probable death, but also save the lives of her comrades,
with whom he would protect from execution all that was required.
As a Care now began working for the abwear become
a double agent, helping them to deceive the British by
feeding them false information. And her memoirs written at the
end of her life, Care would later admit that within
hours of being interrogated by Bliker she would commit the
greatest act of cowardice in her life. Within days of turning,
Care was working to assist Bliker and rounding up the
remaining members of Interorey who still remained at large. Now
operating as a double agent, the cat led Bliker to
the homes and meeting places of a number of women
and men who only days before have been her trusted comrades.
She identified one of them, Claude Joufrey, by greeting him
with a kiss at the cafe at Little Fourteenth. Blaker's
agencies the four radio transmitters of the Interra network moving
to a Paris suburbs so as to continue sending messages
to London as if nothing had happened. Since care provided
the Auboy with all necessary codes, transmission schedules, and pre
arranged security checks, that was little that might arouse the
suspicion of British intelligence. However, one of the few members
of Ventorey who still remained free, Pierre Devo moncau vome Coort,
began to suspect that care was in some way acting suspiciously.
To test her loyalty, in January nineteen forty two, he
asked her to procure some forged identity documents. She showed
up the next day, bringing with her a perfect set
of papers, complete with authentic German stamps. On top of this,
she produced a photograph with an air of studied conage.
Casualness asked Devo moccoy if he recognized the man in
the photo, who was an agent of British Special Operations
Executive SOE, British's former intelligence service, especially created for the
Nazis in World War Two. His suspicious confirmed, Devo mokayheedually
accused Carey of treachery and working for the Nazis. Confronted
by the facts, she broke down in tears and confessed.
Within the rules governing the precarious world of espionage, it
would not have been unreasonable for Devomcco to kill Correy,
warned the remaining members and flee himself off. But his
plans were much more complex. You see, he persuaded care
to once more work for the Allies, making her now
a triple agent. Soon after this dramatic change in her loyalty,
she informed Bliker that Drumbar David Morcaux was planned to
go to England for an important meeting with British intelligence,
and that she was being considered for inclusion. Though she
convinced Bliker, he in turn had considerable difficulty convincing his
superiors of the value to the abware of allowing kra
to make a secret trip to Britain. Eventually, though Blaker
received permission for care and Devamrcaux to leave France. After
two failed attempts by British intelligence agents to locate the
two key agents on an isolated beach, they were finally
picked up and taken to London. Safely aggrived across the
Channel at Dartmouth, Carey was debriefed by British intelligence. She
broke down almost immediately, admitting her capitulation under Bliker's interrogations
and her work for the Abware. She also explained her
return to the entirea fold under Deva Morcau's leadership several
months previously. Her January nineteen forty nine trial. The lasted
four days and resulted in a death sentence, but upon
appeal it was reduced to a life imprisonment. Her defense
attorney did not dispute her treasonous behavior, but argue that
the judge should consider that this woman was faced with
a choice of life or death. Do not forget that
from the beginning of the resistance she was a heroine.
Would you put to death those who at the beginning
sowed the seed of faith and later overestimated their own strength?
To the defense attorney. Caray was eventually released in nineteen
fifty four and attempted to resume her life with a
new identity. By the early sixties, she published her memoirs.
Her health had begun to fail and she was rapidly
losing her eyesight. Caray died in total obscurity in the
early nineteen seventies. So there is the story of the
cat