At just 4 feet 11 inches tall, with blonde hair and blue eyes, Marthe Cohn was the perfect disguise for one of World War II’s most unlikely spies. For months in 1944 and 1945, she walked alone into Nazi Germany, posing as a German nurse searching for her missing fiancé, gathering intelligence that would help Allied forces achieve crucial victories.
Born Marthe Hoffnung on April 13, 1920, in Metz, France, into an Orthodox Jewish family as one of seven children, her early years were shaped by the rising tide of antisemitism. “We are living history,” she wrote in her 2002 memoir “Behind Enemy Lines,” recounting telling her mother breathlessly one night after the radio had been turned off. “I could do with a little less history, thank you,” her mother replied crisply, returning to mending some socks.
The history her mother wanted less of would soon consume their family. She had already lost her fiancé, a member of the French resistance who had been tortured and shot by the Germans outside Paris. One of her younger sisters, Stéphanie, had also been killed after being arrested and deported to Auschwitz while trying to help people escape to unoccupied France.
Personal tragedy drove Cohn to volunteer for French Army Intelligence in November 1944.
“I was a 4-foot-11 female with blonde hair and blue eyes,” she told Colorado State University audiences during her speaking engagements. “I was an unlikely spy; no one would believe me.”
After 14 unsuccessful attempts to cross the front in Alsace, she crossed the border into Germany near Schaffhausen in Switzerland. Operating under the assumed identity of Martha Ulrich, she would spend weeks at a time behind enemy lines, staying in German homes and befriending soldiers.
“I told them that if they help me and give me information, they will be released earlier, and if they give me the address of their family, we will protect them,” she told ABC7 Los Angeles in a 2022 interview.
Her intelligence gathering proved crucial to Allied operations. She was able to report to her service two major pieces of information: that northwest of Freiburg, the Siegfried Line had been evacuated and where the remnant of the German Army lay in ambush in the Black Forest. As her courier was not available for several days, Marthe decided to cross into Switzerland and hand her message to a Swiss Custom Guard which ultimately proved instrumental in French military victories.
“I was absolutely determined to do as good a job as I could now that I’d actually made it behind enemy lines. If I was going to risk my life, I wanted it to be for something really worthwhile,” she wrote in her memoir.
For her wartime service, Cohn received numerous honors, including the Croix de Guerre in 1945 with two citations and the Médaille militaire in 1999, France’s highest military honor, typically reserved for figures like Winston Churchill.
Yet Cohn kept her wartime experiences largely secret for decades. After the war, she moved to the United States in 1959, where she met and married Major L. Cohn, an American medical student. They worked together for years as medical professionals in California. She didn’t talk publicly about her wartime experiences, not even to her children, until being interviewed by a Holocaust researcher in 1996.
Once she began sharing her story, Cohn became a sought-after speaker, traveling the world to educate audiences about the Holocaust and the importance of standing up to hatred.
“War taught me many things, among them that, like anyone, I could be a coward one minute and brave the next, depending entirely on circumstance. They say that war brings out the best and the worst in people, and I certainly saw both sides,” she reflected in her memoir.
“When I think of the dozens of people who risked their lives for us, it almost helps compensate for all the sad and bitter memories of those who were so cruel. War also made me accept the inevitable and savor the important gains, like my two wonderful sons and the granddaughter I might so easily have never lived to see,” she wrote.
Even in her final years, Cohn remained sharp and engaged with world events. In her 2022 interview, reflecting on the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the then-102-year-old said: “War never solves any problem. It creates more problems. To destroy cities and people, it doesn’t make sense. Peace is sweet, and war is terrible.”
When asked about her longevity, she credited staying mentally active: “You keep your brain very active all your life and that I think is one of the reasons why I am still alive. I never expected to live so long, but I am in no hurry to die. When it comes, it comes.”
Her final message remained one of unity: “It’s time that we all get along and not worry about our religion, or our sex, or our looks, or our origins. That we all go along as human beings.”
In speaking engagements, she said there are three things she wanted people to remember: First, one must take an active role in fighting for freedom and treating all people with dignity and respect. Second, we must never forget about the tragedy that happened almost 70 years ago, known as the Holocaust. And third, those that died must not have died in vain, and we must always remember them and fight in their names for the betterment of humanity.
In 2019, Cohn’s life was featured in the documentary “Chichinette: The Accidental Spy.” Her memoir, “Behind Enemy Lines: The True Story of a French Jewish Spy in Nazi Germany,” remains a powerful testament to courage in the face of unimaginable circumstances.
“I am proud of the job I did,” she said in her Colorado State University speech. “But I don’t think of myself as exceptional. I played lucky.”
This week, the world lost a hero after she passed away on Tuesday at her home in Palos Verdes, California.
Cohnis survived by her two sons and extended family.
May her memory forever be a blessing.
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