View source for Finance:Countesses of the Gestapo

{{Short description|Parisian female Gestapo agents}}
The '''countesses of the Gestapo''' ({{lang-fr|Les comtesses de la Gestapo}}) were elite adventuresses of the Paris demimonde protected by the [[Finance:Carlingue|French Gestapo]] and [[Finance:Black market in wartime France|large-scale black marketeers]] during the German occupation of France. The Gestapo countesses led extravagant lives despite the misery prevalent in [[Religion:Vichy France|Vichy France]] at the time. They were French or foreign former actresses or runway models, sometimes in fact truly aristocratic, who engaged in a variety of lucrative practices such as the confiscation of Jewish assets, espionage or black market operations.

== Countess Mara Tchernycheff ==
An actress known by her stage name, [[Biography:Illa Meery|Illa Meery]], Tchernycheff in 1934 was one of several pretty girls with improbable names, displaying her tanned curves and platinum blondness as an extra in a soft-porn pot-boiler filmed on the Cote d'Azur, ''Les aventure du roi Pausole'', based on the novel by Pierre Louys. She later appeared topless in ''Zouzou'' as a foil to ''[[History:Années folles|années folles]]'' sensation Josephine Baker.<ref name=king /> {{excerpt|Zouzou (film)|hat=no}}

A Russian countess, Tchernycheff ran a black market network specializing in cognac and fine wine, and moved shared an apartment with a homosexual socialite from Odessa named {{ILL|Vladimir Barjansky|fr}}, intimate friend of Philippe de Rothschild. Barjanski, an illustrator known for his movie posters, fled to Hollywood after French police wrongly accused him of being a spy.

She married a gambler named Garat and spent some time with him on the beaches of Brazil. But she had an affair and he left her. When she returned to France her former allies had all left for safer places. But other Russian emigres whispered of fortunes to be made selling to the Germans, who were on a monumental buying spree with the "occupation costs" extracted from the Vichy government. Paul Metchersky, Andre Galitzine and Yvan Shapochnikoff were rich now, the whispers said, Soumarakoff, Lazare Mailoff and Michel Szkolnikoff. She joined a salon on avenue Iena and then at the George V hotel made up of entrepreneurs who had no objection to supplying the German war effort, since these former aristocrats were in favor of the Germans taking care of the Soviets for them and perhaps making it possible for them to return to past glories. The Germans did business at what were known as {{lang|fr|bureaux d'achat}}, known as Amt Otto, Pimetex, ZKW or SS-Essex, where she ran across old friends and former accomplices such as Stephan Djanoumoff, Serge Landchewsky, Boris Ivanowski and the Baron of Osten-Sacken. 

She became the mistress of [[Biography:Henri Lafont|Henri Lafont]], who ran the Paris underworld with the help of the French police. <ref name="eder2"/><ref name=king
>{{cite book
| chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bS_wDwAAQBAJ&dq=Hans+Leimer%2C+an+SS+officer&pg=PT93 
|chapter=Tout va très Bien Madame la Marquise
|title=The King of Nazi Paris: Henri Lafont and the Gangsters of the French Gestapo
|author= Christopher Othen
|publisher=Biteback Publishing
|year= 2020
|isbn=978-1785905926
|via=Google Books
}}
Google Books version has no page numbers but multiple pages at the beginning of that chapter are devoted to her</ref>
{{excerpt|Illa Meery|Mobsters and Nazis|only=paragraphs|paragraphs=2|hat=no}}

==Princess Euphrosine Mourousi==
Princess Euphrosine Mourousi, a Greek addict who trafficked in cigarettes and informed on Jewish and Russian émigré families,<ref name="point">{{cite web
|title=Sang bleu et nazisme
|trans-title=Blue Blood and Nazism 
|publisher=Le Point |url=http://www.lepoint.fr/actualites-litterature/2007-01-25/sang-bleu-et-nazisme/1038/0/107421
|access-date=3 June 2013}}</ref>
was sentenced in 1950 to three years in prison<ref>[https://www.lemonde.fr/archives/article/1950/01/13/la-princesse-mourousi-condamnee-a-trois-ans-de-prison_2048121_1819218.html La princesse Mourousi condamnée à trois ans de prison], ''Le Monde'',
January 13, 1950 (paywall)</ref> and 20 years of banishment from France for informing to both the French police and the Gestapo about several Russian Jews.<ref>{{cite web
|url=https://www.lemonde.fr/archives/article/1950/01/13/la-princesse-mourousi-condamnee-a-trois-ans-de-prison_2048121_1819218.html?xtmc=cour_de_justice&xtcr=14058 
|publisher=Le Monde
|date=13 January 1950
|author= Laurent Delahousse
|series= Yves Mourousi: les mystères d'un prince (Yves Mourousi: The Mysteries of a Prince) 
|title=Un jour, un destin (A Day, a Destiny)
}}timestamp 10:20</ref> Her son Yves became a well-known French journalist.

==Others==
* Marquise de San Carlos de Pedroso (née María Angustias Núñez del Prado),<ref name="eder2"/> an early Spanish supporter of Franco
* Countess Seckendorff, an authentic German aristocrat who spied on Parisian high society<ref>[https://www.bibliothequesonore.ch/livre/33689 Les comtesses de la Gestapo], Eder, Cyril (audiobook)</ref>{{page needed|time=yes|date=August 2023}}{{better source||date=August 2023}}
* Countess Marie Olinska (pseudonym of Frenchwoman Sonia Irène Blache), heroin addict and minor film actress who appeared in The Wolf of the Malveneurs<ref name="eder2"/><ref>{{cite web
|title=Les comtesses de la Gestapo
|url=http://www.livresdeguerre.net/forum/contribution.php?index=50593
|date=8 September 2010
|access-date=27 October 2017
}}</ref><ref>
{{cite web
|language=fr
|author=Hédy Sellami
|website=eclairages.eu
|title=Marie Olinska
|url=http://www.eclairages.eu/Marie-Olinska_a1712.html |access-date=27 October 2017
}}</ref><!-- eclairages source supports the role but not the heroin habit -->
* Marquise d'Abrantès (née Sylviane Quimfe, but an authentic marquise after her marriage to the marquis {{Interlanguage link|Maurice Le Ray d'Abrantès|fr}}, whom she met at the brothel where she worked).<ref name="bonny"> 
{{cite book
|author= Guy Penaud 
|title=L'inspecteur Pierre Bonny: Le policier déchu de la "gestapo française" du 93 rue Lauriston 
|trans-title=Inspector Pierre Bonny, Fallen Policeman of the "French Gestapo" of 93 rue Lauriston
|publisher= Éditions L'Harmattan
|year= 2011 
|isbn=9782296551084 
|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2UXzt_g6ZBoC&dq=Sylviane+Quimfe&pg=PA203
|access-date= 3 April 2013
}}</ref> Frenchwoman and courtesan, she was introduced to rue Lauriston by {{ILL|Lionel de Wiet|fr|Wiet#Autres_membres_de_la_famille_Wiet}}. She needed a pass to return to the zone libre and her title, her furs and her jewels made an impression on the members of the [[Finance:Carlingue|Carlingue]] at dinner that night. Lafont's driver Pagnon was there as well as Edmond Delehaye, Louis Estebesteguy, and Pierre Bonny, in addition to Lafont. She claimed a she'd had liaison with the prince of Monaco, but Pagnon recognized her and let Lafont know about the lady's past.
*Baroness de Beaufort (pseudonym of Olla Lemesle)<ref name="eder2">
{{cite book
|author=Cyril Eder 
|title = Les Comtesses de la Gestapo 
|trans-title= Countesses of the Gestapo 
|publisher=Éditions Grasset |year=2007 
|via=Google Books 
|isbn=978-2-2466-7401-6 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=SOen6KKw9akC&dq=%22Olla+lemesle%22&pg=PT106}} Translated to Spanish by Éditions El Ateneo, 2007] {{ISBN|978-950-02-5328-4}}</ref>
* Countess de Thucé (Madame Hubert)<ref name="eder2"/>

Most of these women were not prosecuted after the Liberation of France.

==See also==
*Horizontal collaboration
*Joseph Joanovici
*[[Biography:Henri Lafont|Henri Lafont]]
*Pierre Bonny
*Cocotte
*Police collaboration in Vichy France
*Marga d’Andurain - smuggler involved with black market artworks in World War II

==References==
{{reflist}}

== Bibliography ==
* {{cite book |language=fr
|author=Grégory Auda
|title=Les belles années du "milieu", 1940-1944: le grand banditisme dans la machine répressive allemande en France
|publisher=Éditions Michalon
|location=Paris
|year=2002
|pages =254
|isbn=2-84186-164-3
|oclc=50493997}} Reissued: 
**{{cite book
|language=fr
|author=Grégory Auda
|title=Les belles années du "milieu', 1940-1944: le grand banditisme dans la machine répressive allemande en France
|publisher=Éditions Michalon
|location=Paris
|year=2013
|pages=253
|isbn=978-2-84186-678-6}}
*{{cite book
|author=Philippe Aziz
|title=Au service de l'ennemi: la Gestapo française en province 1940-1944
|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=GXCJDwAAQBAJ
|publisher=Fayard
|location=Paris
|year=1972
|pages=186
|isbn=
|oclc=4173712}}
* {{cite book
|author=Philippe Aziz
|title=Tu trahiras sans vergogne: histoire de deux collabos, Bonny et Lafont
|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=H7XhoAEACAAJ
|publisher=Livre de poche
|location=Paris
|number=3457
|pages=379
|isbn=
|oclc=1206738}}
* {{cite book
|language=fr
|author=Jean-Marc Berlière
|title=Polices des temps noirs: France, 1939-194
|publisher=Perrin
|location=Paris
|year=2018
|pages=1357
|isbn=978-2-262-03561-7
|url=https://clio-cr.clionautes.org/polices-des-temps-noirs-france-1939-1945.html}}
*{{cite book
|language=fr
|author=Luc Briand
|title=Alexandre Villaplane, capitaine des Bleus et officier nazi
|publisher=Plein Jour
|location=Paris
|year=2022
|pages =271
|isbn=978-2-370-67074-8
|oclc=723952731}}
*{{cite book
|author=Jacques Delarue |title=Trafics et crimes sous l'Occupation: collection Grands documents contemporains
|publisher=Fayard 
|location=Paris 
|year=1993 
|pages=496 
|isbn=978-2-21303-154-5 |oclc=722598561 <!--http://www.fayard.fr/trafics-et-crimes-sous-loccupation-9782213031545-->}}
*{{cite book
|language=fr
|author=Cyril Eder
|title=Les Comtesses de la Gestapo
|publisher=Grasset
|location=Paris
|year=2006
|pages=257
|isbn=978-2-246-67401-6
|oclc=723952731}}
*{{Cite book
|author=Serge Jacquemard
|title=La bande Bonny-Lafont
|publisher=Fleuve noir
|location=Paris
|number=10
|year=1992
|pages=217
|isbn=978-2-265-04673-3
|oclc=40382542}}
*{{Cite book
|author=Jean-François Miniac
|title=Les Grandes Affaires criminelles du Doubs
|publisher=De Borée
|location=Romagnat
|year=2009
|pages=362
|isbn=978-2-84494-959-2
|oclc=690431283}} (about Roger Griveau)
* Patrice Rolli, La Phalange nord-africaine (ou Brigade nord-africaine, ou Légion nord-africaine) en Dordogne: Histoire d'une alliance entre la Pègre et la Gestapo; 15 March-19 August 1944, Éditions l'Histoire en Partage, 2013, 189 pages (mostly about Alexandre Villaplane and Raymond Monange)
*{{cite book|author=Alex Kershaw|title=Avenue of Spies: A True Story of Terror, Espionage, and One American Family's Heroic Resistance in Nazi-Occupied Paris|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=IjtEBQAAQBAJ|date=2015|publisher=Crown/Archetype|isbn=978-0-8041-4004-1}}
[[Category:Black markets]]



{{Sourceattribution|Countesses of the Gestapo}}