Laure Diebold
The Secretary Who Fooled the Nazis and Her War Against the Third Reich
November 1943, Paris. The Gestapo officer stared at the young woman across the interrogation table. Outside, Nazi boots marched through occupied streets. Inside this cold room, Laure Diebold sat with perfect composure, her hands folded calmly in her lap.
The officer demanded answers about the French Resistance network she belonged to. About Jean Moulin, the legendary resistance leader whose secretary she had been. About the coded messages she had sent to London. About the escaped prisoners she had hidden in her home.
Laure looked him straight in the eye and lied.
“I’m just a secretary,” she said. “I type letters. I file papers. Nothing more.”
The Nazi bought it.
This moment would save her from torture. But it wouldn’t save her from Auschwitz. What the Gestapo didn’t know was that this “simple secretary” was actually Lieutenant Laure Diebold, one of the most important intelligence operatives in the French Resistance. She had fooled them completely. And she would survive to tell the tale.
