Ursula Kuczynski, aka Agent Sonya. | Images from the collection of the Hamburger family. / via Penguin Publishers
Ben MacIntyre, a British writer for
The London Times, is known to spy thriller fans as the author of meticulously researched biographies of famous 20th-century spies. The latest in his series is a comprehensive biography of Jewish German-born Ursula Kuczynski, later also known as Ursula Hamburger, Ursula Beurton, and Ruth Werner.
Born in 1907, Ursula came from a distinguished family of academics. By her teenage years especially after being beaten by a policeman’s truncheon in a demonstration she was already a convinced Marxist and youth leader, a position strengthened in commitment during the Weimar Republic years that led up to Hitler’s Third Reich.