Margery Booth

Margery Booth born in Wigan in 1905, died 1952 ^[1] was a World War II spy who met Adolf Hitler and sang at a British prisoner of war camp.^[2]

Biography

Booth began her career in Covent Garden London in 1936, but marriage took her to Germany, and fame with the Berlin State Opera before the outbreak of World War II.^[2] The Germans mistakenly trusted her and sent her to Freigegeben Stalag IIID, a camp for potential recruits to the British Free Corps where she worked with British agent and prisoner John Brown to obtain details of traitors.^[2]
On one occasion she sang before Hitler just after a British officer had hidden secret documents in her dress.^[1] Hitler sent her red roses wrapped in a swastika.^[1] After the war, information she provided was used to convict both Lord Haw Haw and John Amery, both of whom were hanged for treason.^[2]

Margery was born in Hodges Street, Wigan, Lancs, in 1905, daughter of Levi and Ada Booth. The family moved to Southport later, but she kept her links to Wigan, making her professional debut there at the Queen's Hall, on October 4, 1935. She trained in Bolton with R. Evans, Knightsbride with Eileen D'Orme and then he Guildhall School of Music, winning the Merscer'Scholarship in 1925, then the Opera Scholorship and Liza Lehmann Prize.

Marriage to Dr. Egon Strohm, from a brewing family in the Black Forest region, Margery's career in Germany blossomed in Germany at Bayreuth and Berlin, also making appearances at Covent Garden in the Ring Cycle and Mastersingers. There are small sections on disc. ( As Madalene in 1936 from Covent Garden, as Flosshilde in Götterdämmerung from Bayreuth in 1942. She is also to be heard as the Shepherd boy in a complete broadcast of Tosca with Hildegard Ranczak, Helge Rosevaenge and George Hann from Berlin in October 1944. She was particularly famous as Carmen.

After returning to England she was rejected as people thought she had been a Nazi, and she was offered no work, and eventually went to New York, but was already ill with cancer.

References

1. ^ ^{a b c} "Revealed: British opera singer turned spy who performed for Hitler with secret documents hidden in her underwear". Daily Mail. 10 September 2010. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1310484/Margery-Booth-British-opera-singer-turned-spy-performed-Hitler.html#ixzz0zA6012B3. Retrieved 10 September 2010. 
2. ^ ^{a b c d} "WWII knicker spy Margery Booth photos to be auctioned". BBC news. 10 September 2010. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11258623. Retrieved 10 September 2010. 

Persondata
Name	Booth, Margery
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	1905
Place of birth
Date of death	1952
Place of death