A Reluctant Spy

Hilda Campbell was born in the north of Scotland in 1889. She married a German national, Dr. Willy Buntner Richter in 1912. They honeymooned in Scotland and lived in Hamburg. Dr. Richter died in 1938. Later that year she decided to visit her ailing parents in Scotland. 1938. After visiting her ailing parents, she returned to Germany just before the Second World War began. She became a double agent, controlled by Gerhard Eicke in Germany and Lawrence Thornton in Britain. How could she cope under the strain, with her son Otto in the German Army?

Hilda went on to give evidence against her German handler at the Nuremburg trials. Soon after, she married a British Ambassador in Helsinki and joined her husband abroad. Hilda died in 1956.

This is an extraordinary story based on the life of the author’s great aunt, Hilda, including several authentic accounts.