26 August 2010 Last updated at 06:58 ET


Blonde Nazi ballerina 'caused war setback'

British forces land in Narvik in 1940 The files suggest that Germany had been close to pulling out of Norway

A glamorous Nazi spy may have been behind one of the biggest setbacks suffered by Allied forces during World War II, newly released files suggest.

The secret government papers suggest that Marina Lee, a blonde ballerina, stole battle plans which led to the fall of Norway to Germany in 1940.

According to the files, Germany was close to pulling out of Norway before Lee passed on details of the plan.

The documents were part of an archive released by British spy agency MI5.

Lee is said to have infiltrated the headquarters of the British Expeditionary Forces in Norway and obtained information about the plan drawn up by British commander Gen Auchinleck.

German commander, Gen Eduard Dietl, who was holding the Norwegian port of Narvik, was reportedly considering a withdrawal, but the disclosure of these details meant his forces could block the Auchinleck plan.

British, French and Norwegian troops were later forced to withdraw from German-controlled Norway.
'Experienced agent'
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“Start Quote

With these details in hand Dietl was able to rearrange his defence and to defeat Auchinleck”

End Quote Gerth Van Wijk Archived document

The information about Lee was disclosed after Gerth Van Wijk, a German agent who had changed sides to work for the British, recounted the story he had heard from von Finckenstein, a German intelligence officer.

It was an account backed by another agent, KC Hansen.

Van Wijk said that "with these details in hand Dietl was able to rearrange his defence and to defeat Auchinleck".

Born in St Petersburg, Russia, Lee was married to a Norwegian communist and had trained as a ballerina before becoming "a highly valued and experienced German agent", according to the files.

She is described as "blonde, tall, with a beautiful figure, refined and languid in manner" and reportedly spoke five languages.

One account says she personally knew Stalin - leading to conjectures she was working for both Berlin and Moscow who, at that time, were on the same side, our reporter says.

The BBC's Rick Fountain says the British force went to Norway to stop strategic material falling into German hands, hoping to bolster anti-Nazi resistance, and even maybe build an Allied force to threaten Germany from the North.

But the plan turned into a fiasco which brought down Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain and brought Winston Churchill back to power, our reporter says.


National Archives: Ballerina turned spy 'cost Britain' humiliation in Norway

Published Date: 26 August 2010
By Frank Urquhart

IT WAS regarded as one of the most humiliating defeats for Allied forces in the early months of the Second World War - the failure of the British and French expeditionary force sent to drive the Nazis invaders out of Norway in the Spring of 1940.


• General Sir Claude Auchinleck headed the defeated taskforce Picture: Getty Images

A devastating setback for the Allied cause in Europe, the fiasco surrounding the abortive campaign led directly to the collapse of Neville Chamberlain's Conservative-led government and his replacement as Britain's wartime leader by Winston Churchill.

Until now, the incompetence of allied military planners has been blamed for the forced withdrawal of the defeated taskforce, headed by General Sir Claude Auchinleck.

But classified MI5 files, made public for the first time today, suggest that a beautiful ballerina turned Nazi spy - a Second World War Mata Hari - may have been responsible for the military disaster in Norway.

The documents claim that the former ballerina, known as Marina Lee, was able to infiltrate the headquarters of the Allied taskforce and steal their battle plans for the Germans.

However the papers, released to the National Archives in Kew, also reveal that while MI5 continued to pursue the trail of the elusive Lee for more than three years after the war was over, they were never able to establish the truth of the allegations.

According to the now unclassified documents, the suggestions of Lee's involvement first surfaced two years after the withdrawal of the Allied forces from Norway.

In January 1942, Gerth Van Wijk a captured German agent now working for the British, recounted what he admitted was an "astonishing story" told to him by another captured agent called Von Finckenstein.

The German Secret Service had sent a "beautiful" woman to Auchinleck's headquarters at Tromso where she had successfully secured the Allied campaign plan. The details had then been handed to General Eduard Dietl, the commander of the German forces, who was able to rearrange his defence and to defeat Auchinleck.

Von Finckenstein told his fellow agent that the spy was Marina Lee, a married woman who was born in Russia with the maiden name Marina Alexievna.

"Her parents were killed by the Bolsheviks and she herself fled to Scandinavia where she married a Norwegian national," Van Wijk told MI5.

"She was trained in Russia as a ballerina and in Oslo was for some time the head of a school of ballet.