Code Name: Lise

by Larry Loftis

WHEN I FINISHED WRITING Into the Lion’s Mouth in 2015, I was a bit saddened because I was certain I’d never find a more thrilling story than Dusko Popov’s.

Indeed, they were spies, but the role of Baker Street was not one of spymaster—that was MI6’s field—but to be masters of mayhem.

William Fairbairn, the Arisaig combat instructor better known as the Shanghai Buster. Widely considered the father of hand-to-hand combat, Fairbairn had spent twenty years with the International Police Force in Shanghai—a lawless city in those days—and his arms, hands, and body bore testimony of his knife fights with thugs, gangs, drug dealers, and criminals. At fifty-five, he was one of the most dangerous men in the world.

When he finished, he opened Goethe and read the first verse of the first poem: He who has not eaten his bread in tears, He who has not sat up weeping upon his bed throughout the night of despair, He knows you not, Oh Heavenly Father.

Bombs began exploding around the prison, tearing loose stone and plaster. The guards pretended not to notice—stiff upper lip and all that—but prayed as they paced.

SCHUTZHAFTLAGER PROTECTIVE CUSTODY CAMP. Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp. O. ANG, BUNDESARCHIV

Created in 1936 to provide forced labor33 for factories, Sachsenhausen would, with its sister camps Dachau and Buchenwald (created in 1933 and 1937, respectively), serve as Heinrich Himmler’s model for concentration camps. Pitching the purpose of camps as “education” institutes, Himmler stated in a 1939 radio address: “The slogan that stands above these camps is: There is a path to freedom. Its milestones are: obedience, diligence, honesty, orderliness, cleanliness, sobriety, truthfulness, readiness to make sacrifices, and love of the fatherland.”

Though not designated a death camp, Sachsenhausen became one. Through starvation, hard labor, and a myriad of tortures, some forty thousand would die here, including Stalin’s son.

Ravensbrück. Created by Heinrich Himmler himself, the notorious labor camp for women had been opened in May 1939 to house up to 4,000 political prisoners. Now it held more than 36,000, including criminals, prostitutes, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and Resistance agents. Roughly 25 percent of the inmates were Poles, 20 percent were Germans, 15 percent Jews, and 15 percent Russians, with the remainder composed of French, Ukrainians, Belgians, Czechs, Yugoslavs, Dutch, Italians, Spanish, English, Norwegians, and others. By the end of the war, some 133,000 women would pass through its gates, as many as 40,000 of whom would perish. Odette’s train arrived at the Fürstenberg Station the following day, July 27, and a group of SS guards—men and women35—supervised the disembarking.

Still naked, the women then stood in line—often for hours—to receive a medical exam. The examination each group received, however, varied greatly. For some, a doctor simply inspected their throat and a dentist peered at their teeth; others received a gynecologic exam, the same instrument being used on every woman without disinfection.

provide inmates to Dr. Karl Gebhardt38 for gruesome medical experiments

The shot came out of nowhere and the young girl dropped. Odette flinched and jerked her head but saw no reason why the German had shot her. Before she could catch her breath, she watched in horror as the other women started in. It was sickening. They were starving, yes. Mad, perhaps. They went at the girl like dogs, biting and ripping and devouring her flesh. Odette was nauseous. The poor child was still warm.

LARRY LOFTIS is the international bestselling author of the nonfiction spy thriller Into the Lion’s Mouth: The True Story of Dusko Popov: World War II Spy, Patriot, and the Real-Life Inspiration for James Bond,