MI5 files reveal the mysterious case of John Profumo and the glamorous Nazi spy
John Profumo, the Tory minister forced out following a notorious 1960s sex scandal, was for years in correspondence with a glamorous German spy, sending her endearing notes on Commons notepaper, according to newly declassified MI5 records.
The politician met the model Gisela Winegard at Oxford in the 1930s before she went on to work for German intelligence in wartime Paris, and kept in touch until at least the 1950s.
Her file released at the National Archives in Kew also includes claims made by her husband that the couple had separated because he found compromising letters to her from Mr Profumo.
At the height of the Profumo Affair in 1963, MI6 sent a letter and files to MI5 investigations head Arthur Martin about Profumo’s contacts with Winegard, maiden name Klein, and outlining her exploits.
The MI6 officer, Cyril Mackay, wrote: "Although it is not particularly relevant to the current notorious case, Geoffrey thought you might like to have for your files the attached copy of a report from our representative [redacted], dated 2nd October 1950, which makes mention of an association between Gisela Klein and Profumo which began ca 1933 and had apparently not ceased at the time of this report."
The letter goes on to discuss a rejected application by Mrs Winegard for a UK visa.
At the time of the application, the later MI6 letter reveals, authorities believed the Winegards had "recently engaged in blackmail activities and now think it possible their intended visit to the UK may be connected with this".
No mention of the blackmail target is made, but the visa application for a six-week “pleasure visit” lists “Jack Profumo MP” as a reference.
The declassified files show Mrs Winegard was born in Dusseldorf and first came to Britain in 1935 ostensibly to study English. Early reports described her “striking appearance”, saying she was well connected and used "invitations and help from male friends" to make ends meet.
She was forced to leave after breaking her visa conditions by getting a job as a model and the Home Office in 1938 recommended she not be allowed back in after a tip off she was then "on intimate terms with the German Military Attache in Paris".
Later reports outlined her colourful wartime career when she travelled widely in occupied Europe and the Middle East, was the mistress of a high-ranking German officer and ran a “secret information service” under cover of a commercial information bureau.
When the Allies liberated Paris, she was imprisoned for espionage. An American Army officer she had met on a pre-War visit to the US was put in charge of her jail and married her after getting her released.
After the war, she and her husband attracted the attention of the US intelligence service and were accused of harbouring the fugitive chief of a German spy ring.
While living in Tangier in early 1950, she was sacked from the Voice of America radio station when it was discovered she had worked for the Germans during the war and was “100 per cent pro-German”.
That same year Mr Winegard said his wife had left him “because he had discovered that she had been receiving endearing letters from John Dennis Profumo. These letters were written on House of Commons notepaper.” The pair later appeared to get back together.
The file shows that Mr Profumo himself had told officials about his German friend in 1941.
A memo reveals he admitted he had “got to know her well” after meeting her in 1936. He reported: "She was always hard up. Later she went on to become a mannequin and made a large number of useful contacts.
"Lady Astor is alleged to have expressed the opinion that she was a spy."
Mr Profumo’s political downfall came in 1963 when was forced to resign amid lurid disclosures of high-society sex parties and claims he had shared a mistress, Christine Keeler, with a Soviet defence attache.
He quit politics and devoted himself to charity work, going on to receive the CBE before dying aged 91 in 2006.
