Did you know these famous people were WWII spies?

Question

Actor Cary Grant, baseball great Moe Berg, ganster Lucky Luciano, TV chef Julia Child, Roald Dahl, author of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and jazz icon Josephine Baker are a few of the surprises we turned up in the World War II project. They were all spies!

Take a look and see what all has been added to WikiTree under this new project. We have space pages for each country, a memorials page and an entire research page along with this really interesting page on spies!

http://www.wikitree.com/index.php?title=Space:World_War_II_Spies&public=1

Answer 1

If I recall correctly, you may be able to add Ian Fleming and Christopher Lee to that list as well.

Comments

Yes you are right!! I will add them! We have been working hard on getting this project up but there is so much mide to add. Jump right in and join us!

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Hmmmm, that was in this month's Reader's Digest LOL!

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I don't know but it's everywhere since the records wete declassified last year! I think people are fascinated that no one found out. With celebrities you would expect it to come out by now with all of the interviews and public attention.

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​Ian Fleming is well known for his work with British Special Services.

 

​I joined this group today for one reason. My project is about the Norwegian volunteers in Waffen-SS 1941.1945.

As all of you might know the Waffen-SS included about 20 nationalities and was in strenght 500 000 volunteers.

Been working with this for the last decade or so, very interesting stuff, but at the same time very difficult to complete several persons, who dissappeared, changed name etc.

In the last months I have found many of them as immigrants to the States before ww-2, they returned to sign for Germany.

At this time I got a list of nearly 5000 Norwegians who served.

This is totally non politic, just historical research.

Is there anybody who have the same interest and would join me in this research, maybe create a group???

There was one name from Norway which I have been seeking for a long time that brought me here, but it was just the surname, nothing more.

Feel free to contact me if you have the genuine interest.

Regards. Karl Eriksen.

Btw. There was some famous Norwegians who was German agents from 1933.

 

 

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That is very interesting, Karl. The best way to gather a group (in addition to posting on g2g) is to start a subproject. You can do that with a space page. You can also post in our Google group to see if any current members would like to work on this with you. Let me know if you need help!

Answer 2

I beleieve that Leslie Howard was too ( he was an actor....He played the Scarlet Pimpernel......and Ashley Wilkes in Gone with the Wind)  He fought first in WW1 but suffered "Shell Shock"......resigned commisson and went into acting.  With the out break of ww2 he wanted to do something to help out espcially the Jews ( he was Jewish).   He began doing propaganda movies and was regarded as a chief propagandist.  he was sent to several countries to try to convince them not to join the Nazi's (  he went to spain for one).  the Nazi's knew he was spying for Britain .....Goebbles thought him a major threat.  He had the plane that Lesilie Howard was flying on shot down.  All on board were killed.

Comments

That is a fascinating story! I'll make sure we add it!  Thanks so much!

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I love these  stories I had no idea all these people were spies its a great page really interesting it's amazing the things you find out on Wikitree :)

Answer 3

According to Wikipedia, Arthur Schlesinger Jr was also involved in WWII spy activities (served as a member of the OSS)

http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Schlesinger-109

Comments

Thanks! We will have to add that!