Dagmar Mohne Hansen Lahlum was born in Eidsvoll, Norway back in 1922, the family moved to Oslo when she was 17, she worked as a receptionist in the city center hotel later taking modeling classes.
She met British double agent Eddie Chapman who was drinking with German officers in the Ritz Bar. This bar was also a popular plat for member of the Norwegian national socialist party. She was dressed in a décolletage with high heels smoking a cigarette with an ivory mouthpiece. Anyway he approached her thinking she was a prostitute of another good time girl. Shortly afterwards they lived together later becoming his fiancée. Once while on a boating trip with the help from a bottle of cognac over lunch he told her he was a British double agent and that the German’s would soon send him to England on a mission.
Dagmar was relieved to hear that and she told him she worked for the Norwegian resistance movement. Chapman was indeed sent to England and at his insistence Dagmar was paid a monthly allowance. Chapman also unofficially recruited her into MI5, together they surveyed the German defenses in and around Oslo.
After the war chapman abandoned Dagmar who never got over their relationship. She never married or had any other serious relationship that I could find. She kept her distinctive looks until her death in 1999. She promised chapman that she would never reveal his secret. It was this honor that lead to her pledging guilty during the treason trails held in 1947. She was fined by the Norwegians, who remained ignorant of the true situation.
After her death her niece found papers and a box of unsent airmail letters addressed to Chapman. This discovery and the release of secret British papers were the first time her wartime past had been revealed. Her story is partly recounted in the book Agent Zigzag. She kept her promise even on her deathbed. A true patriot in any country.
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