Halina Szymańska Halina Szymańska was the wife of Colonel Antoni Szymański , the last prewar Polish military attaché in Berlin . Life . After being recruited by the Allied secret intelligence services ( via Polish officers in Bern , Switzerland , who made contact with the British ) , Szymańska provided a conduit of information between the Allies and Admiral Wilhelm Canaris , chief of the German Abwehr . In autumn 1939 he helped her and her children move from occupied Poland to Switzerland in compensation for a contact with the British Secret Intelligence Service . Szymańska , as a British agent , met several times with Canaris in Switzerland and Italy . Then she met with his courier , Hans Bernd Gisevius . Szymańska played an important role , as an intermediary , in secret contacts between the Allies and German anti - Nazi conspirators ( e . g . , the " Schwarze Kapelle " ) . In April 1940 she received information about the coming German attack on France and the Benelux countries . In mid - June 1941 Szymańska received information about the coming German attack on the Soviet Union . During World War II she became one of the most effective MI6 agents . After the war Szymańska moved to England . Szymańska had three daughters with Col . Antoni Szymański — Hanka , Ewa and Marysia . All four spent the war in Switzerland , where Halina began her work for MI6 and later the French " Deuxieme Reseau " , conducting courier work into occupied France , for which she was decorated by the French . Among others , she developed a working relationship with the American Allen Dulles , who then headed the American OSS intelligence office in Bern . Dulles became the first civilian and the longest - serving ( 1953 – 61 ) Director of Central Intelligence ( de facto head of the U . S . Central Intelligence Agency . By all accounts he was very supportive of Szymańska , particularly when her daughter Hanka became ill and died in Switzerland . The daughter Ewa now lives in North Carolina , happily married to Andrew Milewski , who also had a highly honorable war record of fighting with the Allies . Marysia remained in England with her father Col . Antoni Szymański , with whom she was very close , and with Szymańska . She went to boarding school in England , coincidently called Poles , married Mirek Malewski ( another Polish officer who acquitted himself with distinction ) and had two children , Anouchka and Michael . Michael Fabian , many years later , assisted the English spy expert / writer ( and MP ) Nigel West - real name Rupert Allason - with the section of his book , " MI6 : British Secret Intelligence Service Operations , 1909 - 45 " , which dealt with his grandmother Szymańska . Among other documents , the book shows Halina ' s French identity card , which was forged by the MI6 ' s printing expert , Mr Adams in Potters Bar , in order to enable her to travel to occupied France to meet Admiral Canaris , collect information and report back to the Allies in Switzerland . It also shows Mme Szymanska ' s diplomatic passport . Stamped with numerous entry and exit visas , it includes two relating to her rendezvous with Admiral Canaris in Italy , April 1941 , at which he disclosed details of Hitler ' s imminent attack on the Soviet Union . After World War II , Halina Szymańska married General Kazimierz Wiśniowski , who had been Chief of Staff to General Władysław Anders , commander of the Second Polish Corps at the Battle of Cassino in 1944 . She settled in Ealing , a suburb of London . She lies buried with her second husband in South Ealing Cemetery .