Germany wartime movie star 'was a Russian spy'

One of Germany’s most popular film stars of the Nazi and postwar eras was a suspected Soviet spy, according to newly declassified records.

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Telegraph - One of Germany’s most popular film stars of the Nazi and postwar eras was a suspected Soviet spy, according to newly declassified records.

Marika Rökk shot to fame in the 1930s when Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi propaganda minister, decided Germany needed a movie icon to rival Hollywood leading ladies such as Rita Hayworth and Ginger Rogers.

But the star of the Third Reich’s film industry may in fact have been working for the KGB as part of a spy ring passing secrets to Moscow, according to declassified intelligence reports.

The Hungarian-born Rökk was banned from acting for two years after the Second World War for her association with the Nazi regime.

She was later rehabilitated and went on to be one of the most popular stars of the postwar period, appearing in almost 40 films until her death at the age of 90 in 2004.

But it has now emerged that for more than 50 years she was considered a suspected spy by German intelligence.

She was first identified as a possible KGB agent in 1051 by West Germany’s Gehlen Organisation, or Org — the forerunner of Germany’s BND intelligence service.

The Gehlen Organisation was itself run by Reinhard Gehlen, the rehabilitated former Nazi head of military intelligence for the eastern front.

According to newly declassified documents, the Gehlen Organisation was concerned by Rökk’s "connections with Soviet authorities” which it believed "suggested intelligence work”.

Counter-intelligence analysts believed Rökk had recruited to the KGB by her manager, Heinz Hoffmeister.

Her husband, the film director Georg Jacoby, was also suspected of spying for the Soviets.

In 1951, Rökk announced she was giving up acting to start a knitwear shop in Düsseldorf.

The intelligence report concludes that this was a "clever camouflage manoeuvre” in order to enable her to continue spying.

However, the declassified documents do not contain any evidence to back up the suspicion that Rökk was a spy or any detail on the nature of her work for the KGB, and the claims have been met with some scepticism in Germany.