Lydia Stahl: a secret life, 1885-?

ABSTRACT

Lydia Stahl was a spy for the Soviet Union’s military intelligence service known as the GRU. A polyglot who spoke at least five languages, Stahl was active in Helsinki, New York, and Paris from the early l920s until December 1933. At this time, French security agents of the legendary Deuxieme Bureau arrested her in Paris as part of a large spy network that included a married American couple. Despite her denials the French Court of Corrections sentenced Stahl to five years in prison, subsequently reduced to four on appeal, and then, after serving her sentence she disappeared from the historical record. On the eve of World War II her disappearance coincided with Stalin’s wholesale purge of Soviet institutions and organizations, including officers of the Red Army and its GRU. This article reconstructs Stahl’s life mainly based on extensive files of the FBI that reveal details of her espionage activities in New York and Paris. Additionally, the article corrects many errors and myths that unfortunately have been taken at face value and perpetuated in espionage literature.

KEYWORDS:

• Lydia Stahl
• espionage
• international relations

Notes

¹ William J. Makin, Brigade of Spies (London: Dutton, 1938), 47.

² David J. Dallin, Soviet Espionage (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1955), 25.

³ Lydia Stahl’s Registration Card dated 14 November 1932, Facultés des Lettres, National Archives of France.

⁴ Many writers believed that Lydia Stahl was an American citizen. See, for example, Pierre de Villement with Clifford Kiracoff, GRU: le Plus Secret Des Services Sovietiques, 1918–1988 (Paris: Stock, 1988), 130–131. See also John Earl Haynes and Harvey Klehr, Decoding Soviet Espionage in America (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000), 164.

⁵ Makin, Brigade of Spies, 84. See also, Nigel West, The Illegals: The Double Lives of the Cold War’s Most Secret Agents (London:Hodder & Staughton, 1993), 4–5. Typical errors are: Stahl’s family immigrated to the United States; her son died in 1918; Stahl ‘liazed’ with the Switzes in Paris; and, she returned to the United States after serving four years in prison. These are all unfortunate errors.

⁶ le Populaire, 29 December 1933.

⁷ Claim of marriage made by Makin, Brigade of Spies, p. 84, and by Walter Krivitsky his In Stalin’s Secret Service (New York: Enigma Books, 2000), 112.

⁸ See note 6 above.

⁹ Lydia Stahl’s Sorbonne Registration Card, updated 27 November 1932, for a second term or semester. Dallin wrote, erroneously, that she studied medicine in the New York and law in Paris. Dallin, Soviet Espionage, 60.

¹⁰ Unfortunately, none of their correspondence could be located among the John Reed Papers Collection in the custody of Harvard University.

¹¹ Kritvitsky, who met with Stahl in person, wrote that the GRU recruited her in Finland in 1921. Krivitsky, p.112.

¹² Victor Suvorov, Inside Soviet Intelligence (London: Halton, 1984), 10; and West, The Illegals, 4–5.

¹³ Suvorov, Inside Soviet Intelligence, 17.

¹⁴ Stahl was known in Paris as a spy since 1923 if not earlier. Boris Volardarsky, Stalin’s Agent: the Life and Death of Alexandr Olav (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), 51.

¹⁵ Roger Faligot and Rémi Kauffer, Les Maitres Espions: Histoire Mundiale Du Renseignement, 1870–1939 (Paris: Laffont, 1994), 164 and 194–196.

¹⁶ Roger Faligot and Pascal Krop, DST: Police Secrete (Paris: Flammarion, 1999). See chapter, ‘Lydia la Russe Manipule Fantomas.’

¹⁷ Dallin, Soviet Espionage, 32 and 39–40.

¹⁸ Moscow closed the Cremet network in l927–28. DeVillement wrote that Stahl ‘returned’ to the United States when actually it was only the first of her two trips. DeVillement, 132.

¹⁹ Passenger List, SS Tuscania, 22 June 1928. (libertyellisdoundation.org, accessed July14, 2017).

²⁰ 62-25315, July 14, 1931. In 1935 the Federal Bureau of Investigation became an independent agency within the Department of Justice. Prior to l935 it was known as the Bureau of Investigation. However, the acronym FBI is used throughout this discussion for the sake of brevity. Most documents originated from the bureau’s New York Field Office. The bureau assigned ‘62–25,315’ as the main case file control number for ‘Stern, Stahl, et al’, and sequentially added field reports, correspondence, memorandums and other items assigning a unique numerical extension to each document, for example, ‘62–25,315-1.’

²¹ Passenger List, SS Deutchland, 24 December 1930. (accessed 14 July 2017).

²² Passenger List, SS Adriatic, September 30. 1921.(ibid.)

²³ David Dallin, ‘The Shameful Years: Thirty Years of Soviet Espionage in the United States,’ Washington: House Un-American Activities Committee’, 30 December 1951, 1–24. Dallin, Soviet Espionage, 392–393. Krivitsky wrote that Tilton came to Paris specifically to facilitate Stahl’s re-assignment to New York to work with him. Krvitsky, 112. See also Volardarsky, Stalin’s Agent, 52.

²⁴ 62–25,315-24, 9 December 1931.

²⁵ 62–25,315-225, 7 October 1940.

²⁶ Dallin uses the name Mark Zilbert and writes that he was recalled in April 1937 and executed in 1938. Dallin, 74 and 397. See also Volodarsky, 256–257.

²⁷ Dallin, Soviet Espionage, 397.

²⁸ 62–25,315-15, 22 August 1931.

²⁹ 62–25,315-13, 27 July 1931: and 62–25,315-107, undated memorandum to file.

³⁰ Passenger List, SS Canada, 23 July 1923 (accessed 14 July 2017).

³¹ Dallin, ‘The Shameful Years’, 10.

³² 62–25,315-23, 9 December 1931.

³³ 62–25,315-(file extension, none), New York Field Office to Boston Field Office, July14, 1931. The anonymous letter was re-typed and incorporated in this memorandum.

³⁴ 62-25,315-10, 20 July 1931.

³⁵ 62–25,315-24, 9 December 1931.

³⁶ 62–25,315-27, 26 January 1932,.

³⁷ 62–25,213-34, 11 February 1931; and, 62–25,213-35, 11 March 1931.

³⁸ Douglas Porch, The French Secret Service, (New York: Farrar, Strauss, and Giroux, 1995), 124. Moscow tasked Nicholas Dozenberg, Alfred Tilton’s replacement as chief ‘rezident,’ with the distribution of counterfeit American currency. The plot’s exposure in Chicago in early l931 never implicated Dozenberg, the key perpetrator, much less Stahl. Some accounts blame the counterfeit scheme as the reason she went to New York. Haynes and Klehr, Decoding Soviet Espionage, 166.

³⁹ Dallin, Soviet Espionage, 52.

⁴⁰ DeVillement, 132–133.

⁴¹ le Figaro, 22 December 1933. Nigel West wrote that 200 were implicated. But only 34 were prosecuted, including ten who fled from France. (West, 19).

⁴² le Figaro, 27 December 1933.

⁴³ New York Times, 22 December 1933.

⁴⁴ Andrew Meir, The Lost Spy: An American in Stalin’s Secret Service (New York: Norton: New York, 2008), 163. Meir indicates that Stahl ran nine spies. But her group did not include the Switzes.

⁴⁵ Janet Flanner, ‘Paris Letter,’ New Yorker, 20 January 1934; and her book, Paris Was Yesterday, 1928–1939 (New York: Popular Library, 1972), 121–123. Newspapers erroneously reported that Stahl was the most important member. le Figaro, 23 February 1934.

⁴⁶ L’Oest-Éclair: Journal Quotidien. 28 December 1933.

⁴⁷ le Figaro, 29 December 1933; and le Populaire, 29 December 1933.

⁴⁸ Leopold Trepper, The Great Game: Memoir of the Spy Hitler Could Not Silence (New York: McGraw Hill, 1983), 41.

⁴⁹ New York Times, 20 March 1934.

⁵⁰ le Figaro, 23 February 1934.

⁵¹ Dallin, Soviet Espionage, 64.

⁵² DeVillement recounts the story of the Bostrom’s postcard written with Lydia Stahl’s address. DeVillement, 131.

⁵³ Helka Markinen, Elli Tompuri (Helsinki: Helsinki University Press, 2001), pp.195–199. My thanks to Timo Muinonen for drawing my attention to this book, for his translation, and for sharing his impressive knowledge of this era in Finland.

⁵⁴ See the website for the Waino Aaltonen Museum. (accessed 14 July 2017).

⁵⁵ 62–25,315-146, 10 September 1935.

⁵⁶ New York Times, 29 April 1934.

⁵⁷ New York Times, 29 March 1934, and 25 April 1934.

⁵⁸ 62–25,315-139, 3 August 1935.

⁵⁹ FBI deposition of John Pirohonnen sent to Herbert Goold, American Consul General, Helsingford, 21 May 1935.

⁶⁰ Makin, Brigade of Spies, 76.

⁶¹ New York Times, 27 March 1935.

⁶² New York Times, 17 April 1935.

⁶³ New York Times, 25 April 1935.

⁶⁴ Makin, Brigade of Spies, 86.

⁶⁵ ‘Judgement of 17 April 1935,’ Court of Corrections, Department of the Seine.

⁶⁶ New York Times, 12 July 1935. Stahl’s paramour, Louis Martin, was later acquitted. New York Times, 14 May 1935. Porch, Cookridge and others indicated a ten-year sentence, which is incorrect. They also indicated that she was in contact with the Germans before her arrest but do not cite a source for this intriguing suggestion. Porch, 124; E.H. Cookridge, Sisters of Delilah (London: Olbourne, 1959), 54.

⁶⁷ New York Times, 7 April 1935.

⁶⁸ L’Humanité, 18 April 1935.

⁶⁹ le Figaro, 3 August 1937; le Figaro and L’Humanité, 31 August 1937.

⁷⁰ le Figaro, 15 August 1937, and 31 August 1937.

⁷¹ Ottmar Trasca and Dennis Deletant, ‘The German Secret Services in Romania,’ in Daniel Dumitran and Valer Moga, eds., Economy and Society in Eastern Europe (Munster: LITVerlag, 2013). Professor Trasca, an eminent specialist in German-Romanian relations during the war, could not locate evidence to support this story or anything that proved Stahl was in Romania.

⁷² 62–25,315-360, 18 September 1959.

⁷³ 100–69,364 (New York Field Office), 19 September 1949; 62–2513 – ‘not recorded.’

⁷⁴ The Gestapo, Frankfurt, created a card index for Stahl on 10 January 1935, when she was imprisoned in France awaiting trial. Thanks to Yad Vashem for locating this rare German record, which indicates that Stahl was known to the Germans as a Russian operative. However, no additional data were ever entered.

⁷⁵ Cookridge, 39–56.

⁷⁶ Faligot, Kauffer, Porch, and De Villement, among others, essentially follow the same narrative.

⁷⁷ ‘Carded Information Identifying Agents Employed by German Intelligence,’ Captured German Records, Record Group 242, U.S. National Archives, Catalog Identifier 6,981,950.

⁷⁸ Oscar Reile, L’Abwehr, le Contre-Espionage Allemand en France (Paris: France-Empire: 1970); and his, Frauen im Geheimdienst, (Illertissen: Veralag Edwin Federmann, 1979). Although Reile was in charge of the search for German agents he does not mention Stahl. Erich Borchers, Abwehr Contre Resistance (Paris: J’ai Lu, 1968). Borchers begins his history (over 300 pages) starting in September l941 when he was first assigned to Abwehr. Although his name has been mentioned as the officer who found Stahl in a French prison, the claim is patently false.

⁷⁹ Intelligence and Counter-Intelligence (Moscow: Mockba, 2002), 465–466. The entry for Stahl concludes with a reference to infiltrating NATO. See also, V.M. Lurie, V. Ya Kochick, GRU: Deeds and People (Moscow: Olma Press, 2003), 525.

⁸⁰ M. A. Alekseev, et al., Encyclopedia of Military Intelligence, 1918–1945 (Moscow: Mockba, 2012). My gratitude to Vadim Birstein for informing me that the 2012 book is the latest edition of the other two but that it omits mention of Lydia Stahl altogether.

⁸¹ Kurt D. Singer, The World’s Greatest 30 Women Spies (New York: Funk, 1951), 81.

⁸² Roy A. Medvedev, Let History Judge: The Origins and Consequences of Stalinism (Lawrence: Kansas University Press, 2004), 209–216. See also Haynes and Klehr, Decoding Soviet Espionage, 165.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

William T. Murphy

Retired from the US National Archives, William T. Murphy is the author of books on documentary film and archives. He has collaborated on numerous television documentaries, most notably the French Apocalypse series, and he received the International Documentary Association’s Preservation and Scholarship Award.