Christine Granville Spy

In Madeleine Masson’s book Christine SOE Agent & Churchill’s Favorite Spy, Masson sheds light and further helps to show who Christine Granville was and how she impacted World War II for Britain. Christine Granville was a beauty queen who turned into the spy who loved otherwise known as the Britain's Special Operations Executive and Churchill’s favorite spy. Born in Warsaw in 1915 to an aristocratic family, whom later was known to fall to the hard times, Christine Granville was born as Krystyna Scarbek. Christine Granville was a G.M., O.B.E. and Croix de Guerre, who was undeniably one of the most successful agents of World War II until she was murdered at thirty-seven years old in the London Hotel in 1952. She worked as a British secret agent

throughout Poland, Hungary, and France and became a legend as she on countless occasions risked her life in doing dangerous missions for the good of the British people.
Christine Granville began as a British agent at when the fall of Poland to Germany happened in September of 1939.

After Poland fell to Germany’s control in September of 1939, Christine came back from East Africa where she had been with her husband Jerzy Giżycki when the war had started and came to London to be a fighter pilot against the Germans eventually volunteering to be a spy along with her husband. When entering as a spy her name was changed from Krystyna Giżycki to Christine Granville by the British Special Operations Executive (SOE) as a way of protecting her identity as a British agent and spy, although after the war she would continue to keep the name. Before she even became a spy she had already prepared a plan. Christine planned to go to Budapest, Hungary, whom at the time was allied with Nazi Germany. She would then print propaganda flyers and dispute them within Poland for the people of Poland to revolt against the Nazis and escaping as refugees. She planned to ski into Poland via the Tatra mountain range. She also planned to take intelligence missions and help those in the polish resistance and British prisoners of war escape from the country. Although initially being skeptical of her plan, eventually the British Special Operations Executive (SOE) approved of the idea and sent her off to Budapest to follow though. Along with her husband, Christine had useful contacts in Germany which led her to Hungary before the end of the year. In Hungary, she helped with

the intelligence section of the war efforts in which she helped to plan clandestine forays into Poland, which was occupied by Germany at the time, to gather more intelligence to combat the German war efforts as well as assisted in helping prisoners of war and polish people escape from the Nazis to fight against the Nazis for their freedom.
While she reported on German army movement and made countless escape routes for prisoners of war and Poland refugees, Christine met Andrzej Kowerski (real name being Andrew Kennedy) whom she fell deeply in love with thus ending her marriage to Jerzy Giżycki although her and Kowerski never married in the end. The two remained in Hungary together as the war efforts increased in Germany’s favor in the early 1940s. Suddenly being captured by Gestapo, led to her drastic escape from Budapest in the boot of a car following to her travels. After the great amount of effort done by Christine and Andrew after getting captured by Gestapo they were able to get to Turkey through Syria and eventually Cairo to fight the German War efforts. Suddenly though they were put under suspicion by German spies who suspected them of being in cahoots with Britain. Luckily for them, they were exonerated and Christine could continue to work for the Resistance as a British spy in the German war territory doing some invaluable work in the Vercours region of France as a Special Operations Executive (SOE) for Britain in the summer of 1944.
As the war ended though Christine was promptly demobilized, given a small salary for her war efforts and soon forgotten about by the country of Great Britain although she had served so fearlessly and regardless of the number of honors in which she had received.

After the war, Christine Granville faced some difficult times. She was unable to fully blend into the world of peace in which was upon the world now and could not trust those around her based on her experiences during the war efforts.

As a work of history, I do believe that in Madeleine Masson’s book Christine SOE Agent & Churchill’s Favorite Spy is not only an interesting read on a powerful woman, but also an accurate representation of the historical person as well. Madeleine Masson studied history and philosophy at the university of Sorbonne in Paris. She later gained a Ph. D. in philosophy before she went on to study art and humanities in Munich. Her degrees did have an effect on how this book is as a work of history because her credentials give her more creditably to write on historical events and people such as Christine

Granville.
Masson used many real life sources to not only fact check her book, but also as a way to gain insight into Christine Granville’s life. She worked with Christine’s lover and best friend Andrew Kennedy in Bosham dictating the tapes Christine and him had made which helped to from the book in the factual basis. She was even able to get in touch with other British Special Operations Executive (SOE) agents and obtain letters written by Christine herself, as seen in the author’s afterword in the book, and Masson also continued to fact check her book even after it was published especially when it was being considered to be turned into a movie. I do believe that this book is, in fact, a good book in terms of a being a book in a historical context. It is well written as a book of historical nonfiction of a woman prepared to die for her freedom.