­Krystyna worked for his majesty’s secret service

The extraordinary life of a Polish secret agent, said to have inspired the creation of at least two of Ian Fleming’s Bond girls, ended tragically on June 15, 1952, writes Claudia Lee.

Known as Winston Churchill’s “favourite” spy, Krystyna Skarbek was murdered in a hotel in Kensington with a commando knife much like the one she herself carried during the war.

A tribute to Ms Skarbek was unveiled on September 16, 2020 at 1 Lexham Gardens Hotel in Lexham Gardens, South Kensington, where she had been murdered.

In the 1940s, it was known as the Shelbourne Hotel and was Ms Skarbek’s London base after the Second World War.

Described as physically stunning from the very start, Ms Skarbek’s life and death was governed by men’s attraction to her.

Born in Poland on May 1, 1908, she was the daughter of a Polish aristocrat and Jewish banking heiress, not an obvious prospect for the British Secret Intelligence Services.

Nevertheless in late 1939, she demanded – rather than volunteered – to be taken on and her skills and knowledge made her impossible to turn down.

She became a British agent just months before the Special Operations Executive (SOE) was founded, in July 1940.

In 1941 she began using the alias, Christine Granville, a name she legally adopted upon naturalisation as a British subject in December 1946.

Later that year, Skarbek undertook a number of perilous missions.

She brought information, propaganda, and money to the fledgling Polish Resistance, undertook fact-finding missions, and smuggled back out information, radio codes, coding books, and sometimes microfilm.

Then, in 1944 she was dropped behind enemy lines in France.

It was here that she secured the release of SOE agents Francis Cammaerts and Xan Fielding from a German prison hours before they were to be executed and became legendary in the Special Forces.

The story goes that she met (at great personal risk) with the Gestapo commander in Digne-les-Bains, France, telling him she was a British agent, and persuading him with threats, lies, and a two million franc bribe to release the SOE agents.

The journalist, Alistair Horne, who described himself in 2012 as one of the few people still alive who had known Skarbek, called her the “bravest of the brave.”

Her extraordinary contribution to the Allied effort during the war led to her being presented with the George Medal and OBE in Britain, the Croix de Guerre with one star from France, and a wide range of ribbons.

However, she was not eligible for military honours because she was a woman.

After the war she was unceremoniously dropped from the special forces and paid off with £100.

She ended her working life as a waitress in London and then a cleaner on cruise ships, staying in a cheap hotel, The Shelbourne Hotel, in Kensington between cruises.

It was on one of her cruises that she met an Irish ship steward, Dennis Muldowney.

Like many men before him, he became obsessed with Ms Skarbek who represented a desirable sophistication and glamour.

However, when the relationship ended, Muldowney was unable to accept the rejection and began stalking her.

On June 15, 1952 on their return to London, Muldowney stabbed Ms Skarbek to death in the Shelbourne Hotel, before hanging himself. An end reflected in the brutal death of the character Vesper Lynd in Casino Royale.

Despite all the glamour and drama, Ms Skarbek was remembered more simply by her friend, Iza Muszkowska, 94, in 2013.

She said she was: “Great energy and very quick thinking and very helpful and very kind, a true, real person.”

 

 

Pictures: Krystyna Skarbek in a First Aid Nursing Yeomanry uniform, an all-female charity active in intelligence work during the world wars Picture: Wikipedia; Krystyna Skarbek on a deckchair Picture: Salon 24, Wikipedia