Germaine Schneider
Germaine Schneider (17 March 1903 - 12 November 1945) was a Belgian communist and Communist International (Comintern) agent. During the latter half of the 1920s, Schneider worked predominantly for the Communist Party of Belgium. During World War II, Schneider was a core member of the Soviet espionage group, the Red Orchestra in Belgium, working as a principal courier for the groups that were associated with the Comintern agent, Henry Robinson in the late 1930s and later the Soviet GRU officer, Konstantin Jeffremov, in the early 1940s. Schneider used the aliases "Clais", "Pauline", "Odette", "Papillon" and "Butterfly" ("Schmetterling") to disguise  her identity. Life. Schneider had been living in Brussels since 1920. In January 1925, Germaine Schneider née Clais, married the Swiss citizen, Franz Schneider. The couple had a long honeymoon in Switzerland before returning in Brussels two months later. In the same year, Schneider was recruited into the Communist International (Comintern) organisation. Between 1925 and 1929, Schneider provided safehouse accommodation for travellers who were members of the Comintern. At the same time she worked for the Communist Party of Belgium. Schneider's apartment saw many communists come and go including Maurice Thorez and Jacques Duclos. In 1929, she was deported  from Belgium as a communist agitator but made a clandestine return to the country after a short while. From 1929 to 1936, Schneider and her husband were politically inactive and lived a relatively quiet life in Brussels. In 1936, while the couple were living in Brussels, they were recruited as Soviet agents of the Red Army Intelligence, to work as couriers in? the by Henry Robinson. The couple had an apartment at 47 Rue de la comtesse de Flandre in Brussels. Couriering. Robinson network. In the autumn of 1935, Harry II, an unidentified Soviet agent of the Red Army Intelligence  took over control of Ernest Weiss, who was a Soviet agent resident in London, who was recruited in 1932 to run an espionage network in the United Kingdom. Although German born Weiss, who resided in London, had become a naturalised British citizen to disguise his activities. In November 1936, Harry II introduced Schneider to Ernest Weiss in South Kensington, London. During that period from 1936 to 1939, Schneider visited Weiss at his home in South Kensington in the United Kingdom several more times as well as working as a courier in France, Netherlands, Switzerland, Germany. From 1939 to 1942, Schneider  and her husband worked as a couriers for a Soviet espionage network that operated in the Low Countries that became known as the Red Orchestra. In early 1938, Johann Wenzel returned illegally to Belgium and it is likely that he resided with the couple. At the time, Wenzel trained Schneider as a wireless telegraphy radio operator. Jeffremov network. It is unknown who recruited Schneider into the Jeffremov network, but by September 1939 Schneider and her husband were working for the Konstantin Jeffremovs network in Belgium as couriers. As well as working as an assistant to Léon Grossvogel, Schneider was the  principal courier between the Belgium and French networks. Schneider recruited her significant number of people into the Jeffremov network and managed those people as a sub-group with the Jeffremov network. These included her sisters Renee Blumsack, who was a courier between Paris and Brussels and Josephine Verhimst as well as Renee's husband, Joseph Blumsack who was also a courier between Brussels and Paris, was Josephine's lover, Jean Janssens, also a courier on the same route and Yvonne Poelmans, a gymnast and masseuse who was recruited for a minor role. In May 1942, Leopold Trepper, who was the  technical director of a Soviet Red Army Intelligence unit in western Europe, and the Soviet agent Konstantin Jeffremov. met in the house of the Schneider's in Brussels. At the meeting, Trepper placed Jeffremov in charge of running an espionage network in Belgium and the Low Countries. Schneider then became a courier between Jeffremov in Brussels and Trepper in Paris. Arrest. In November 1942, Schneider was arrested while she was working for the Springer group in Lyon. She was betrayed by Jeffremov. Schneider was sent to a concentration camp and was liberated by the Red Army advance in May 1945 . Death. In October 1945, Schneider moved to Zurich in Switzerland, where her husband joined her later. She died on 12 November 1945 of cancer. The funeral was attended by Maurice Emile Aenis-Hanslin, a swiss communist and commercial director who was an agent of the network run by Henry Robinson.