Throughout history governments have felt the need to use spies, it may be to establish the strength of an opposing army or just to find out the plans of a military dictator, in any case the need for spies has always been of importance.
When we think of spies we tend think of the cold war era when Berlin was the spy capital of the world and almost everyone in the city was either directly or indirectly effected by spies and spying, but espionage has been around as long as there has been conflict, even if it just meant peeping over a hill to see how the next village grew there crops, it is all spying, all espionage.
The use of spies has always been a somewhat of unspoken of subject, everyone knows that governments have and use them, the organisations even have corporate style head quarters now, but just over a hundred years ago things were a little different, during the French revolution there were spies a plenty, both in France to check out the revolution and in turn the French sending over spies to find the aristocrats who had escaped the swift justice of the guillotine, from the business of spying had become essential to any government.
The two world wars really brought the spy business right out of the seedy woodwork and into the conversation of all leaders, the spies became an essential tool in the war effort, digging up information on industry, military build up and military plans. Spies were the eyes and ears for the military planners.
But glamour this was not, if a spy was caught a date with torture and certain death awaited, and during the second world war, many young women volunteered to join the Special Operations Executive, they were trained, fitted out in authentic clothing and dropped behind enemy lines in France where they were at the mercy of collaborators and traitors who would not hesitate to tell the Germans of a spy in their area. For a young girl who up until now had not seen much life being captured by the Germans would mean torture and certain death.
After the war the climate went definitely cold, Berlin become the heart of the spying industry and all sorts of activities went on, kidnapping, blackmail and assassination and not necessarily in that order, it is the cold war where spying really came into its own, with big budgets, slush funds and safe houses in every city.
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