History Study Group (HSG)

  • BLOG
  • SUGGESTED READING

Madame Fourcade's Secret War The Daring Young Woman Who Led France's Largest Spy Network Against Hitler" by Lynn Olsen

5/25/2020

0 Comments

 

Discussion led by Stacy Wallach

July 16, 2020

In 1941 a thirty-one-year-old Frenchwoman, a young mother born to privilege and known for her beauty and glamour, became the leader of a vast intelligence organization—the only woman to serve as a chef de résistance during the war. Strong-willed, independent, and a lifelong rebel against her country’s conservative, patriarchal society, Marie-Madeleine Fourcade was temperamentally made for the job. Her group’s name was Alliance, but the Gestapo dubbed it Noah’s Ark because its agents used the names of animals as their aliases. The name Marie-Madeleine chose for herself was Hedgehog: a tough little animal, un-threatening in appearance, that, as a colleague of hers put it, “even a lion would hesitate to bite.”

No other French spy network lasted as long or supplied as much crucial intelligence—including providing American and British military commanders with a 55-foot-long map of the beaches and roads on which the Allies would land on D-Day—as Alliance. The Gestapo pursued them relentlessly, capturing, torturing, and executing hundreds of its three thousand agents, including Fourcade’s own lover and many of her key spies. Although Fourcade, the mother of two young children, moved her headquarters every few weeks, constantly changing her hair color, clothing, and identity, she was captured twice by the Nazis. Both times she managed to escape—once by slipping naked through the bars of her jail cell—and continued to hold her network together even as it repeatedly threatened to crumble around her.

Now, in this dramatic account of the war that split France in two and forced its people to live side by side with their hated German occupiers, Lynne Olson tells the fascinating story of a woman who stood up for her nation, her fellow citizens, and herself.


https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/12/books/review/lynne-olson-madame-fourcades-secret-war.html

https://www.historynet.com/madame-fourcade-was-one-of-world-war-iis-most-daring-female-spies.htm
0 Comments

    Group Leader: Alan Rubin

    Archives

    March 2023
    February 2023
    January 2023
    October 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    April 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    May 2021
    March 2021
    January 2021
    November 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    March 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    September 2019
    July 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    December 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    October 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2013
    July 2013

    Categories

    All
    1491: Americas Before Columbus
    1493 America After Columbus
    1919 Boston Molasses Tank Failure
    A Biography
    A Distant Mirror
    Albert Einstein
    American Creration
    A Woman Of No Importance
    Bible Myths
    Blood
    Candy Bombers
    Carnegie
    Caste
    China's Grand Strategy
    China Today
    Cia
    Citizens Of London
    Cotton Kingdom
    Cuba
    Devil In The Grove
    Do Morals Matter?
    Energy: A Human History
    Everything In Its Path
    Facing The Mountain
    Fear City
    Fields Of Blood
    Forgotten 500
    Forgotten-Trump Voters In PA
    God's Shadow
    Greek Revolution
    Heart Of Atlanta
    Henrietta Lacks
    History Shock
    Hitler
    Hitler: A Biography
    How Democracies Die
    How To Hide An Empire
    HSG Blog
    Indian World Of George Washington
    Jane Crow
    Korean War
    Madame Forcade
    Map That Changed The World
    Marshall Plan
    McNamara's Folly
    Mexican War
    Middle East
    Money Changes Everything
    One Hot Summer
    On Her Own Ground
    Polly Adler
    Powder And Residue
    Presidents Of War
    River Of The Gods
    Rough Crossings
    Samuel Adams
    Sapiens
    Second Coming Of The KKK
    Shattered Sword
    Stalin: Waiting For Hitler
    Strangers In Their Own Land
    Thank You For Being Late
    The Back Channel
    The Code
    The French Blue
    The Great Flu Influenza
    The Half Has Never Been Told
    The Howe Dynasty
    The Kerner Report
    The Lives Of The Constitution
    The Moralist
    Theodore Roosevelt For The Defense
    The President Is Dead
    There Is Nothing For You Here
    The Revolutionary: Samuel Adams
    The Rothchild's
    The Sediments Of Time
    The Seventies
    The Woman Who Smashed The Codes
    The Women's Hour
    The Wright Brothers
    Walking With Destiny
    War Is A Racket
    Warriors Dont Cry
    What Has God Wrought?

    RSS Feed

Proudly powered by Weebly