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THE SUN DAY STAR, SHINGTON, D. C., DECEMBER 29, 1929 druth ar Last About Germany’s I amous “Mademoiselle Doctedir,” the Fearless and Mysterious ““Dame Blonde” Who Often Outzvitted the Allies, Revealed in Berlin Book Just Off the Press as Star of Kaiser’s Secret Service. BY.R. S. FENDRICK.. REE me from this prison im- mediately or I shall have you all court-martialed! “I must go to Paris at once! The Emperor and the great general staff want me to find out when the French are going to launch their next offensive and whether those cursed Americans are still coming.” A wreck of a young woman—only 35, but looking 65—is continually raving like this in a private insane asylum near Zurich, Switzer- land, alternately cursing and entreating to be released. She is the famous German spy, “Mademoiselle Docteur,” once the terror of the French, Eng- lish and American counterespionage services, and now a pitiful human wreck owing to the use of narcotics. He mind is entirely gone. She believes that she is still the star performer of the formidable German spy service; that the war is still going on; that the “All Highest” is impatiently awaiting her latest reports from France, as he once did; that hundreds of thou- sands of Teutons are waiting to plunge into battle for the fatherland when she gives the signal. . Was there a single allied espionage chief who - did not sense the presence of the mysterious . “Dame Blonde” around him day and night, hovering behind his shoulder like an ironic phantom, watching his slightest movement, countering his every move? - “Who is she? a French or British spy chief - would ask some miserable Greek, Swede, Span- . lard or Dutchman who had been caught in their net. “Simply tell me her name, tell me what she looks like, tell me where her head- quarters is and I shall see that your life is spared,” but the wretch would only burst out . Sobbing, &s he pictured a gray dawn before a - ecertain post in the Vincennes barracks, and stutter incredible tales of being taken to a . mysterious villa near Antwerp, where a beauti- ful, masterful, blond young woman, with a re- volver in one hand and a hunting crop in the other, got such a domination over him that he lived under that spell of terror and fascination until the crack of 12 rifles ended his life. : NOW, more than 10 years after the armistice, " a German author, Hans Rudolf BerndorfY, has published at Berlin a book called “Espion- age,” in which he clears up the mystery sure rounding this remarkable woman spy. The book has been reprinted and read with avid interest in France. It is a typically true spy story—a girl plunging into this dangerous work to forget an unhappy love affair, utterly in- different whether she #ived or died. Anne Marie Lesser was the daughter of a rich Berlin antiquary. When 16 she fell vio= . lently in love with Karl von Winanki, a hand- Some young Hussar officer of one of the Kaiser’'s own guard regiments. One night, after weeping out a confession to her father, he kicked her from his home and never par- doned her. This caused a scandal and Lieut. von Winanki was forced to resign from the army. Von Winanki, besieged by creditors, finally got a post with some irregular troops serving on the Russian frontier, where he de- veloped brilliant talent as a railway specialist. His creditors still pursued him and his colonel, who was forced to make him resign, confiden~ tially recommended Von Winanki to the Ger- man army spy service, which was always on the lookout for officers whose careers had been broken. “I shall give you 10,000 marks to pay your debts and 1,200 marks monthly salary,” Mat= tessus, the German spy chief, told him. “Your Jjob is to study the French and Belgian strategic railways.” \on Winanki accepted and, taking Fraulein Lesser with him, went to France in 1912. Dis- guised as tourists, they spent several months in a village near Verdun, drawing plans of the defenses there, and then went north along the frontier. One night Anne Marie woke sud- denly and declared that she knew they were being watched. Von Winanki had so much confidence in her intuition that the two of them dressed, walked a -long distance in the darkness to Charlesville and bought tickets there for Cologne. While waiting for the train they noticed police suddenly appear at both ends of the platform and realized what that meant. The girl never lost her wits. “Hurry over to the other platform,” she said, walking up to the police at one end of the station. “We are trying to catch two German sples over there. I am from the French Surete. Be careful; the spies are well armed.” As the French police hurried to the other side, the two German sples jumped into a motor car and dashed across the frontier before they could be caught. It was a great success for Von Winanki, but the next day he was struck down by an attack of acute appendicitis at Cologne and died under the knife. Anne Marie, who was 18 then, was left alone in the world. Von Winanki's family even forbade her to attend the funeral, and she was just getting ready to commit suicide when an espionage officer arrived from Berlin and asked if she could help decipher the notes written by her companion. She had a pistol when the officer stepped into her hotel room. 4 scene of the German army in action during the late war, when many of its important offensives were planned on informa- tion received from the clever “Mademoi . selle Docteur.” “Mademoiselle - Docteur,” reproduced from an alleged photo of ker, which appeared recently in a Paris newspaper. After the crisis of sobbing the girl agreed to go to Berlin, and there she read her lover’s notes with such ease and precision that Mat- tessus, the spy chief, asked her what she im- tended to do. “I have nothing to live for; I shall die,” she replied calmly. “And if I offered you work that was in- tensely absorbing and that exposed you to great danger?” he asked. Anne Marie burst into tears, thinking of her lover, but she eventually agreed to be a spy and became 1-14, A-G. THE French army was holalng its maneuvers near the Alsatian frontier that yecar. and the young spy, who was actually a painier, went there ostensibly as a young Swiss artist and made many interesting sketches of French guns and other material on her bristo!, covering them up with harmless little pastoral scenes. In the Spring of 1914 she went to study the new Bele gian forts at Liege. A young Belgian liege tenant, who had fallen in love with Anne Marle, took her everywhere she wanted to go and was simply fascinated by the pretty little paintings she made of windmills, but one day a scrap of paper with figures on it dropped out of her pocket. She had to tell her chauffeur to dash for the Dutch frontier. The lieutenant and gendarmes pursued, but she beat them by two minutes. It is said that the report she made about the Belgian fortifications proved of great value to the German army’ In the beginning of July, 1914, Fraulein Lesser arrived in Paris from Milan, traveling on a German passport. As the clouds ot war were gathering already, Pissar, German spy chief in the French capital, faked a Belgian passport for her, and as a Belgian army nurse she traveled all over Northern France for sev- eral weeks, She was in Brussels the day war broke out, reported to Berlin about the Belgian mobiliza- tion, and on the night of August 2-3 she was arrested by a patrol of the advancing German armies. “You are a spy and will be court-martiaied,™ a colonel of the division staff told her severely, “Idiot!” Anne Marie replied. “Obviously I am a spy, and you don't have to be clever to discover that. But it happens that I am a German agent.” The colonel did not want to believe her as she was still dressed as a Belgian nurse “Telegraph immediately to the great general headquarters that you have arrested 1-14- A-G, and that she has very vital information,” she Continued on Elevenik Page