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Lydia Stahl (1885-?) was a Russian-born secret agent who worked forSoviet Military Intelligence in New York and Paris in the 1920s and 1930s.[1]
Lydia Stahl was bornLydia Chkalova inRostov-on-Don,Russian Empire, in 1885.[2]
Lydia Stahl obtained her last name when she married Boris Stahl, aRussian nobleman (baron). He later divorced her and emigrated to theUnited States with his new wife.
In 1921, while a refugee inFinland she joined the Soviet secret service. Lydia Stahl had befriended the Finnish writerHella Wuolijoki and was a regular visitor to her manor house Marlebäck inIitti, Finland, which was a meeting place for leftist intellectuals and politicians. Through her relationship with Finnish communist politicianOtto Kuusinen, she had also met the American radical, journalistJohn Reed, and maintained correspondence with him until Reed's death in 1920.
During the 1920s, Lydia established a photography studio in Paris where she copied secret documents forSoviet Military Intelligence. In June 1928 she was transferred to New York City to help the Soviet Union'sMain Intelligence Directorate (GRU)rezidentAlfred Tilton. Her second trip to New York took place in December 1931. Then she returned to Paris to work for the network which includedRobert Gordon Switz who led his own group. Lydia'sami was the French professor Louis Pierre Martin, codebreaker and translator for theNaval Ministry and member of theLegion of Honor.
In 1933, counterintelligence agencies uncovered an espionage network in Finland which included Tilton's wife Maria, Lydia's friend Ingrid Boström, andFinnish-AmericanArvid Jacobson. Boström provided information which led the French counterintelligence to Lydia. She was arrested in Paris in December 1933; other members of the network, including Switz and his wife, were arrested shortly afterward. Lydia Stahl was convicted of espionage in April 1935 and served a four-year sentence.
She disappeared after her release from French prison. According to some unverified reports, she continued working for the Soviet intelligence and lived in Argentina after World War II.[3]