Antony Beevor. The Mystery of Olga Chekhova: Was Hitler's Favorite Actress a Russian Spy?. London: Penguin Books, 2004. xvi + 300 pp. $15.00, paper, ISBN 978-0-14-303596-1. Reviewed by Christelle Le Faucheur Published on H-German (January, 2007) Although he attempts to solve the mystery of sal of White Russians throughout Europe and the the enigmatic Olga Chekhova, award-winning United States and the confusing and conflicting British author Antony Beevor has produced an in‐ relations between the Soviet Union and National teresting book that is less about the successful ac‐ Socialist Germany. While Beevor fails to solve the tress than the tumultuous times in which she mystery satisfactorily, his captivating stories serve lived. Here the compelling, easily accessible style as an engaging introduction to European history, of Beevor's military histories, such as Stalingrad: albeit a superficial one for academic historians. The Fateful Siege (1998), The Fall of Berlin 1945 Born in Russia in 1897 to an ethnically Ger‐ (2002) and The Spanish Civil War (1982) is on dis‐ man but Russianized middle-class family, Olga play. Despite the deceptive tease of its cover, a Kipner joined playwright Anton Chekhov's family photograph of Olga sitting next to Adolf Hitler at a through her wedding with Mischa Chekhov, the reception, the book teaches the reader more writer's nephew, who later took Stanislavsky's about pre- and post-revolutionary Russia from the theory of method acting to America. The birth of a engaging stories of her close family than about daughter in 1915 failed to mitigate Mischa's self- Olga Chekhova's role and function as an agent of destructive streak and heavy alcoholism and Olga the SMERSH, the Soviet intelligence agency. The divorced him in 1917. Chekhova escaped the tur‐ volume contains a wealth of circumstantial evi‐ moil of revolutionary Russia in 1920 and fed to dence, but remains maddeningly inconclusive as Berlin. Exploiting her illustrious name, she be‐ to what spying Olga actually did for the NKVD. De‐ came a well-known flm and theater actress, with spite the publication hype, the volume is not a spy an impressive career that included nearly 150 thriller, but instead a family drama.[1] The tribu‐ films between 1917 and 1974. While Josef lations of Olga's brother Lev Knipper and her Goebbels called her "eine charmante Frau" (p. Aunt Olga Knipper-Chekhova guide the reader 149) in his dairies, Hitler, who allegedly "adored through the convoluted period of the Russian Rev‐ her" (p. 5), honored her in 1936 with the title of olution and the subsequent civil war, the disper‐ H-Net Reviews State Actress of the Third Reich and sent her Schloß Vogelöd (1921); Erich Pommer, the leading Christmas presents with handwritten notes. These figure of UFA. We get a glimpse of Soviet state se‐ attentions led to the false impression that she had curity agencies such as the OGPU, the forerunner strong connections to the Nazi hierarchy and to the NKVD and later the KGB. More informative prompted SMERSH to use her as a "sleeper," a is the path of her brother Lev, an avant-garde Russian secret agent, "to be activated when her composer and avid mountaineer who struggled contacts in high places might be useful" (p. 105). with his identity as a Russian of German ancestry. According to Beevor, Olga Chekhova "was neither Initially a White Guard fghting the Bolsheviks a Nazi nor a Communist" and "accepted invita‐ during the civil war, he later became an active tions to Nazi receptions partly to safeguard her NKVD agent for the Soviet state and was involved career and partly out of curiosity" (p.201). In his in several abortive plots to assassinate Hitler dur‐ opinion, she was foremost a survivor, almost an ing the war. opportunist, with great powers of self-preserva‐ The trials of Olga's illustrious aunt Olya Knip‐ tion. Her importance was overrated by the Rus‐ per-Checkhova, widow of Anton Chekhov and sians and she used her contact with the Soviet founding member and actress of the legendary agency to arrange for her daughter, mother and Moscow Art Theater, illustrate the fate of Russians niece to follow her to Berlin. artists and intellectuals during the period. Beevor While researching The Fall of Berlin 1945, excels in marrying family and national histories Beevor stumbled across her story, which had been through the story of this grande dame of the Mos‐ hidden in the KGB archives; one can imagine the cow theater. The members of the troop were excitement at the discovery of such a character. forced to fee across the Black Sea into the Cauca‐ But despite his intense research, including a close sus and went into involuntary exile, frst in Con‐ reading of SMERSH fles passed in 1990 to Olga stantinople, before moving on to the Balkans. Chekhova's frst cousin, Vladimir Knipper; inter‐ While suspect in the eyes of the new Bolshevik views with former intelligence officials and rela‐ regime, they were allowed to return to Moscow tives; and an examination of personal correspon‐ and would later be sent to the United States as dence between the different family members, the representatives of Russian cultural life. As Beevor material concerning Olga's activities as a spy re‐ points out, in an insight that he does not suffi‐ mains sparse and inconclusive. Beevor seems ciently develop, "a curious part of the relationship more interested in and is more successful at pro‐ between politics and culture is the way that artists viding vivid descriptions of the maddening com‐ and writers generally achieve a far greater signifi‐ plexity of life in Russia and Germany immediately cance in a dictatorship than in a democracy" (p. before, during and after World War II. As he once 133). stated in an interview: "The most interesting part Although Beevor uses convincing evidence to of writing this book was its quality of a minor show her ties to SMERSH, Olga's exact role as a epic."[2] A gifted storyteller, he introduces us to a Russian spy is still inconclusive, due to the fact gallery of fascinating characters such as Kon‐ that "a considerable quantity of documents on the stantin Stanislavsky, the co-founder of the Mos‐ subject ... have not seen, and probably never will cow Art Theater and the man who revolutionized see, the light of day" (pp. 231-232). Her benign, drama at the turn of the century; Lavrenty Beria, even favorable, treatment under the Russians af‐ the notorious chef of the NKVD, who might have ter the war confirms her ties with the NKVD. After had a sexual relationship with Olga; the German being uncovered and denounced in 1945 by Eng‐ film director Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau, who di‐ lish tabloids as "the spy who vamped Hitler," she rected her in her frst German silent movie Der 2 H-Net Reviews nevertheless remained in Germany and founded a torical work and mainstream literature. It com‐ cosmetic frm in Munich, allegedly fnanced with bines, but underutilizes, thorough historical re‐ money from Moscow. In 1952 she published her search with a (forced?) attempt at providing a first memoirs, entitled Ich verschweige nichts, John Le Carré-style historical spy story. The au‐ which Antony Beevor dismisses as spurious and thor, or his publisher, abstained from footnotes, uses to expose her as a mythomaniac, pathologi‐ confining references to a scarce thirty pages of cal liar and self-dramatizer, giving numerous ex‐ "source notes" and a select bibliography of about amples of her "compulsive mythologizing" (p. 27) fifty books. While the maps, genealogy and index and "embroidery" (p. 77). are extremely useful, the flmography is too slop‐ The lay reader will appreciate Beevor's clear py to be of use to researchers. Although the book and engaging depiction of complex events, while jacket's promises are not fulfilled, the reader is of‐ historians will bemoan the reduction of these fered a compelling portrait of a remarkably tal‐ very same events to simplified factors. One exam‐ ented and idiosyncratic Russo-German family ple of this tendency is his explanation and analy‐ during a period of extraordinary historical up‐ sis of the causes of the February Revolution (p. heaval. It is a pleasant casual read, but will be of 39). The author's account of rumors and anec‐ no particular use for academic historians. dotes, often of the titillating kind, such as tales of Notes alcoholism, suicide and impotency, might satisfy [1]. Interesting are the differences between the popular audience's interest in such topics; the British and Australian editions, which use a however, more annoying for historians are photograph of Olga Chekhova among Wehrmacht Beevor's numerous speculations. For example, soldiers with the subtitle "Was Hitler's favorite ac‐ Beevor writes that Hitler "would almost certainly tress a Russian spy?" and the U.S. and French edi‐ have seen [an early movie of Olga Chekhova]" (p. tions, which use a photograph taken during 116), and Goebbels, we are reminded, was known Joachim von Ribbentrop's reception that depicts as the goat of Babelsberg, due to his numerous af‐ Olga Chekhova sitting between Hitler and Her‐ fairs with starlets. He "probably did not really mann Göring and appears without the subtitle. love women. He just needed to conquer them be‐ Both deceptively imply a strong conenction with cause he had a severe inferiority complex due to Hitler and are another example of exploitation of his physical limitations" (p. 131). Especially frus‐ Hitlermania to attract readers. trating is Beevor's wont to dwell on stories that [2]. Radio interview with Jill Kitson at the were really rumors, up to the very last page of the Cheltenham Festival of literature November 11, book, when he then dismisses them as such.