Nancy Wake, Ladylike Nazi-Killer
Tony Rennell writes at The Daily Mail of the extraordinary Nancy Wake, who just died. The headline:
Blisteringly sexy, she killed Nazis with her bare hands and had a 5 million-franc bounty on her head. As she dies at 98, the extraordinary story of the real Charlotte Gray
An excerpt from the piece:
She stares into the camera with a coquettish half-smile and an unflinching come-hither look. The eyebrows are plucked, the lips full, the long auburn hair a classic 1940s style, falling onto the shoulders of her khaki uniform.She could easily have been one of the sassy songbirds who brightened up World War II. But this was the face of Nancy Wake, one of that conflict's bravest underground fighters against the Germans in France -- and certainly the most stylish.
A male comrade-in-arms in the French Resistance summed her up as: 'The most feminine woman I know, until the fighting starts. And then she is like five men.' She lived up to both parts of that compliment.
...In one mini-battle, her car was strafed by German fighter planes but she crawled out of the wreck, hanging onto her prized possessions -- a jar of face cream, a packet of tea and a satin cushion. When the roads were too dangerous to travel by car, she cycled more than 300 miles in three days to find a working radio set to contact London.
via Kate Coe
Quite a few female agents worked for Special Operations Executive, the organization by which Nancy Wake was employed. I've written about three of them: Violette Szabo, Noor Inayat Khan, and Krystyna Skarbek.
Here's the post about Skarbek, with links to the others.
david foster at August 10, 2011 8:36 AM
Sheepdog.
Dave B at August 10, 2011 9:08 AM
Will someone please make this movie? But no one will because on teenagers go to the movies. Maybe a TV mini-series on premium cable, please!
Tyler at August 10, 2011 9:18 AM
Amy Alkon
http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2011/08/10/nancy_wake_lady.html#comment-2413686">comment from TylerUm, they did (see pictures of Cate Blanchett in story). I asked Gregg to rent it for our date tonight. I think he said it was $2.99 on Netflix. He downloads it onto his iPad and plugs his iPad into my TV.
Amy Alkon at August 10, 2011 9:27 AM
There's a 1958 British movie about Violette Szabo, with Virginia McKenna in the title role--"Carve Her Name With Pride," now available from Netflix.
I didn't think the Cate Blanchett movie was that great.
There are rumors about a movie being made about Krystyna Skarbek, and there is an Indian movie in development about Noor Inayat Khan...see above link for more info on these three SOE agents.
david foster at August 10, 2011 9:35 AM
"I killed a lot of Germans, and I'm only sorry I didn't kill more"
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/more-news/nancy-wake-the-feisty-warrior-who-became-a-hero-of-the-resistance/story-fn7x8me2-1226111229133
Martin at August 10, 2011 10:30 AM
"He downloads it onto his iPad and plugs his iPad into my TV"
Is there an easy way to do this?
snakeman99 at August 10, 2011 12:50 PM
Amy Alkon
http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2011/08/10/nancy_wake_lady.html#comment-2413849">comment from snakeman99There is a special cable thingie for this. I think you can get it at the Apple store. It looks like it's an Apple product. It has...I think they're little RF cables to plug into the TV and an iPad pluggie thing on the other end.
Amy Alkon at August 10, 2011 1:05 PM
"I killed a lot of Germans, and I'm only sorry I didn't kill more"
Charming. I'm so glad she didn't kill me.
Rainer at August 10, 2011 2:43 PM
Amy Alkon
http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2011/08/10/nancy_wake_lady.html#comment-2413973">comment from RainerRainer, please don't take that personally. She's talking about Nazis during wartime. We killed a lot of Japanese, too, because we dropped the bomb, and vets probably talk the same way, but without thinking the guy at the sushi bar in the strip mall should be taken out.
Amy Alkon at August 10, 2011 3:11 PM
Speaking of Germans: there are two excellent movies about the White Rose, a small anti-Nazi resistance group centered the brother/sister team of Hans and Sophie Scholl.
--The White Rose, 1982
--Sophie Scholl, The Final Days, 2005
Both very good, but the first one is IMO a little better.
david foster at August 10, 2011 8:12 PM
@Amy: Thanks for the response. Maybe I got it wrong. I wrote this comment after reading the full quote from that Australian paper:
At the launch of her 2002 biography, by Peter FitzSimons, she stamped her cane. "I killed a lot of Germans, and I am only sorry I didn't kill more," she said.
As she said it in 2002, I was under the impression that she doesn't make a difference between Germans of today and Nazi Germans of the 1940s. Again: Sorry if this "went down the wrong way". Of course she has every right to say that about Nazi Germany.
Rainer at August 11, 2011 2:11 AM
@David: I saw these movies shortly after they came out, and I liked them both. I had been familiar with the fate of the Scholl siblings before, as their story is part of the history lessons in German schools. I wonder whether their sad story is widely known outside of Germany.
Did you know that there are still survivors of the White Rose as of today? The Nazis didn't kill all of them. More than 20 years ago, I went to a lecture of one of these few survivors, Franz J. Müller. According to the German Wikipedia, he is still alive today.
Rainer at August 11, 2011 2:38 AM
Rainer...thanks. Another surviving member is Traute Larfrenz, who lives in South Carolina. I see there is a new book out about her.
david foster at August 11, 2011 6:37 AM
As she said it in 2002, I was under the impression that she doesn't make a difference between Germans of today and Nazi Germans of the 1940s.
Even if she did, you have to cut her some slack; in order to kill people on a regular basis you have to seriously dehumanize them, unless your a sociopath, and that sort of programing, whether indoctrinated or self induced is not easy to break.
Most soilders have a hard time with that particular aspect of peace - and while on some mental level they kow it to be wrong an an instictual level such people always remain "the enemy", which is why they try to avoid them as best they can
lujlp at August 11, 2011 7:22 AM
@David: Thanks for the information. I hadn't heard of this new book about Traute Lafrenz yet; I only had read about her in the writings of Inge Aicher-Scholl.
@lujlp: I guess you're right about soldiers. If you think the "enemy" is a human being as you are, you might not be fast enough to kill him before he kills you. But there certainly is a difference in how people deal with this after the fight is over.
Rainer at August 13, 2011 3:17 AM
Yes, but some people cant let themselves get over it and admit that they had to kill other people.
Its easier to maintain the fiction that 'they' all 'deserved' it, which translates it to them still deserving it.
Like I said, thats why those who cant get over it but still realize the way they feel is wrong try to avoid people who evoke such feelings.
lujlp at August 13, 2011 5:21 AM
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