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AGENT SONYA
(Ben Macintyre)

Author:
Ben MacIntyre is a journalist for the Times, a BBC presenter, and the best-selling author
of several true spy stories, including The Spy and the Traitor, A Spy Among
Friends, Double Cross, and Operation Mincemeat. He is renowned as an expert on
spycraft during World War II and the Cold War.

Synopsis:
Agent Sonya (2020) is the biography of a respectable housewife, who also just happened
to be one of Soviet intelligence’s most intrepid and high-ranking spies. The book traces
the life of Ursula Kuczynski, code-name Sonya, from her birth in Berlin, through her
radicalization as a communist and her career as a spy who both foiled the Nazis and
arguably kicked off the Cold War.

Uncover a thrilling true story

To friends and neighbors in Oxfords hire, England, she was known as Mrs. Burton, a wife
and mother who made excellent scones. Throughout World War II she, like so many
others, contributed to the war effort, shopped with her ration book, and planted vegetables
in her backyard.

She also happened to be one of history’s greatest and most infamous spies. Mrs. Burton’s
real name was Ursula Kuczynski and her Soviet code name was Sonya. From the 1930s
until the early 1950s, she worked as a Soviet agent. Ursula rose through the ranks of
Soviet intelligence, eventually passing nuclear secrets to Moscow and running a
sophisticated spy ring in Berlin that helped bring the Nazis down. you’ll learn

• how Ursula was recruited as a Soviet spy in 1930s Shanghai;

• who was involved in her plot to assassinate Hitler; and
• why she might have been the woman who began the Cold War.
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BEFORE SHE WAS A SPY, URSULA KUCZYNSKI WAS

A COMMITTED COMMUNIST.

1. Ursula Kuczynski was born in 1907, into a Berlin family that was wealthy, intellectual,
and Jewish. The Kuczynskis’ social circle included great thinkers like the Marxist Karl
Liebknecht. The Kuczynskis themselves were left-leaning. In theory, they deplored
fascism, while they supported socialism and workers’ rights.
2. But Ursula was interested in more than socialist theory. She had a passion for political
activism. At just 17 years old, she was a card-carrying member of the communist party.

3. The key message here is: Before she was a spy, Ursula Kuczynski was a
committed communist.
4. As a young woman, Ursula distributed communist literature out of a cart and organized
protests. She even learned to use weapons for the revolution she and her comrades
were sure was coming. But her life wasn’t just activism. She also met and fell in love
with architect Rudi Hamburger who, while left-leaning, was no communist.
5. In 1930, Rudi accepted a job in Shanghai. Ursula decided to go with him. At the time,
China was governed by Chiang Kai-shek’s nationalist Kuomintang party, but Chinese
communism was a growing force and Ursula was eager to take part in the communist
struggle in the country.
6. This was easier said than done. Expatriate society in Shanghai was stifling. As an
upper-class woman, Ursula was expected to rub shoulders with the other ladies at

garden parties, not connect with political revolutionaries.

7. But she did connect with one. Agnes Smedley was a journalist, a socialist, and, as
Ursula would later learn, a spy. The pair met over drinks at Shanghai’s ritzy Cathay
Hotel, and Agnes saw something in Ursula. She told the young woman to expect a
visitor soon.
8. Three weeks after she first met Agnes, a man who called himself Richard Johnson
visited Ursula at home. His real name was Richard Sorge and he was the highest-
ranking Soviet spy in China. Sorge knew Ursula was a communist, and he asked her
outright if she was prepared to support her Chinese comrades in their revolution.
Without hesitation, Ursula replied that she was. Sorge then asked to use her
apartment as a safe house. When Rudi was at work, Ursula stood guard while Sorge
conducted meetings with revolutionaries.
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9. Shortly after her first meeting with Sorge, Ursula gave birth to a son, named Michael.
Ursula and Rudi were thrilled. Richard Sorge, when he came to visit the new parents,
was pleased, too. Michael would be the perfect cover for Ursula’s revolutionary
activities. Who would suspect that this elegant, feminine, upper-class mother was
aiding and abetting the Soviets?
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SLOWLY, URSULA THE WIFE AND MOTHER

TRANSFORMED INTO SONYA, THE SECRET AGENT

1. Richard Sorge was dashing, charismatic, and a renowned ladies man. Perhaps it was
inevitable that Richard and Ursula soon turned from colleagues into lovers.
2. With increased intimacy came increased trust. Richard introduced Ursula to his circle,
and soon she was ferrying messages between agents, typing up intelligence he had
gathered, and mining her own upper-class expatriate social connections for useful
intel Richard could pass to Moscow. In his reports, he gave Ursula a code name:
Sonya.
3. The key message: Slowly, Ursula the wife and mother transformed into Sonya,
the secret agent.
4. A few months after they met, Richard asked Ursula to hide a Chinese comrade on the
run from the authorities. It was a hard test – to hide a fugitive in her house, Ursula
would have to come clean to Rudi. Rudi wasn’t pleased to learn his wife was mixed
up in a Soviet spy ring, but as a communist himself, he was sympathetic to the mission.
He grudgingly agreed, but the marriage was never the same again.
5. What’s more, Ursula’s relationship with her lover, Richard, soon came to an abrupt
end. In December 1932, Ursula received a phone call from Richard. He’d been called
back to Moscow, he said. The two never saw each other again.
6. But Richard continued to impact Ursula’s life. Shortly after his abrupt departure, she
was invited to Moscow for six months, as Richard had recommended her for further
training. This great opportunity also had a great cost, as Ursula was forced to leave
her young son Michael in the care of his grandparents, while Rudi stayed in Shanghai.
Nevertheless, she leaped at the chance to train as a Soviet spy.
7. She was sent to a training center in the village of Vorobyevo, outside Moscow. Here,
she was known only by her code name: Sonya.
8. At the center, Ursula learned about morse code, combat, short-wave radio,
explosives, and other elements of spycraft. She also promised, on pain of death, to
be loyal to the Soviet republic.
9. Her training complete, she was assigned first mission to the city of Mukden in
Manchuria, a Chinese province that had been invaded by Japan. Sonya was tasked
with connecting with the Chinese resistance and providing them with Soviet literature
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and resources to aid their struggle. She would travel undercover with another agent,
Johann Patra – code name Ernst.
10. Would she accept? Yes, on one condition. She was bringing Michael with her.
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URSULA WAS A CRITICAL CONNECTION BETWEEN

MANCHURIAN RESISTANCE AND THE SOVIETS

1. In March 1943, Ursula and Johann sailed from Prague to Shanghai on the SS Conte
Verde. On the voyage, they acted out falling in love. By the time they docked, the pair
were known to be an item. Johann posed as a businessman whose work brought him
to the city of Mukden. For her cover, Ursula persuaded a bookseller in Shanghai to
allow her to act as its saleswoman in Mukden. Under this pretext, she sent crates of
books north by freight – along with an armchair containing the transmitter that Mukden
would use to communicate with Vladivostok.
2. Mukden, like all of Manchuria, was dangerous. The Japanese invasion of the region
had caused famine and unrest, and communist cells engaged in guerilla warfare
against the invaders. The Japanese were certain these cells were supported by the
Soviets. And they were right.
3. The key message is: Ursula was a critical connection between Manchurian
resistance and the Soviets.
4. An important mission awaited Ursula and Johann. Soviet intelligence was counting on
them to provide a link with Manchuria and establish connections with local
communists. Johann was older and more experienced, and therefore of more value
to the Soviets. Ursula, who was inexperienced, was expendable. This meant that she
was exposed to more danger more often.
5. While both Johann and Ursula reported to the Soviets and liaised with the resistance,
it was Ursula who crossed the border into China to get parts for their transmitter, which
she smuggled back in Michael’s teddy bear. Ursula made contact with an influential
communist rebel named Chu, then shopped for ingredients for the explosives that Chu
deployed in a railway attack.
6. Overall, Ursula and Johann were successful in their mission. In fact, they gathered

so much information they needed help transmitting it to Moscow. To this end, Chu

connected them with two communist rebels, Wu and Shushin; the two posed as
household help while they were being trained in transmitting intelligence.
7. Shushin and Ursula became close. Both mothers, they often spoke of children and, in
darker moments, wondered what would happen to their children if they were captured.
8. These fears weren’t unfounded. The Soviets’ success, in particular the increased
firepower of the resistance movement, didn’t go unnoticed by the Japanese. Ursula
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was briefly interrogated but released. In April 1935, however, there was a knock at the
door. A breathless boy shoved a note into Ursula’s hand then disappeared. Shushin
had been captured.
9. Ursula informed Vladivostok. Her instructions were simple: she and Johann were to
leave immediately, without telling anyone. Their projects were abandoned.
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URSULA’S CAREER AS A SPY ENTAILED DIFFICULT

PERSONAL SACRIFICES.
1. Ursula and Johann spent 15 months in Mukden, laying the groundwork and
establishing connections for a Chinese revolution. Having to leave suddenly taught
Ursula a lesson about being a spy: sometimes you had to cut your losses, painful as
it might be.
2. She and Johann were reassigned to Peking, where orders awaited them. Ursula was
to leave for Shanghai, while Johann stayed in Peking to wait for a new partner. The
prospect of separation was painful; after operating under the guise of lovers for so
long, Johann and Ursula had truly fallen in love. And Ursula was pregnant with
Johann’s child.
3. The key message is: Ursula’s career as a spy entailed difficult personal
sacrifices.
4. In Shanghai, Ursula reconnected with Rudi. Radicalized by the rise of fascism, he was
now prepared to work for Soviet intelligence. The couple were sent to Warsaw, but
Ursula found her work here tedious. She was pleased to be called back to Russia.
Once again, this meant leaving her family.
5. Her return was bittersweet. Ursula was reunited with communist comrades from
Shanghai and Berlin. But many more had been murdered in Stalin’s Great Purge. The
paranoid Soviet leader had ordered those he believed were “dissenters” or “counter-
revolutionaries” killed. Ursula herself, a foreigner, wasn’t considered beyond
suspicion. Yet she escaped the purges unscathed, and her faith in communism didn’t
waver.
6. In 1938, the Nazi threat loomed large over Europe. Ursula was sent to the neutral
country of Switzerland, which was a hotbed of spies. Her mission there was to gather
intelligence and then pass it to Moscow on a radio she built herself. Soon, a recruit
was sent from England. His instructions were to wait outside the post office in Geneva,
wearing a white scarf. Ursula would meet him there. The recruit was Alexander Foote,
who would go on to be a celebrated spy.
7. Ursula sent Foote over the Swiss border to Munich on a one-year tourist visa. He
found an apartment there, forwarding his new address to Ursula by writing it on the
pages of a novel in invisible ink. By chance one evening, he stopped to dine at Osteria
Bavaria, Hitler’s favorite restaurant. He soon became a regular there, establishing
connections to the SS. Shortly after, another recruit, Len Beurton, joined him in
Munich.
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8. Under Ursula’s management, Beurton and Foote’s simple reconnaissance soon

developed into a more daring plan: to assassinate the Führer over lunch.
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URSULA DID IMPORTANT WORK IN SWITZERLAND,

UNTIL HER COVER WAS BLOWN.

1. Ursula’s audacious plan to assassinate Hitler was underway. Foote and Beurton were
planted in Munich, waiting for a chance to plant a suitcase bomb under the Führer’s
favored table at Osteria Bavaria. But the plan was brought to an abrupt halt. On August
23, 1939, Soviet and Nazi officials signed the Molotov-Ribbentrop non-aggression
pact.
2. Ursula canceled the mission and recalled her agents, but she was devastated. She
had joined the communists, after all, to fight nazism. But she was also preoccupied
with practical matters. She realized, for instance, that a British passport would be very
useful. So she asked Len Beurton to marry her, then arranged a divorce from Rudi.
Ursula and Beurton’s marriage of convenience even became a lasting, loving
relationship. Life wasn’t all domestic bliss, though. Soviet intelligence still had work for
her to do.
3. The key message: Ursula did important work in Switzerland, until her cover was
blown.
4. In June 1940, Ursula was sent to meet Alexander Rado, the Soviets’ chief spy in
Switzerland. Rado had been smuggling microfiche reports hidden in books over the
French border, and he needed a skilled radio transmitter to wire the contents of these
reports to Moscow. Ursula dug up her radio, which was buried in a Swiss forest, and
was soon busy sending vital information to Soviet intelligence.
5. Then, disastrously, her cover was almost blown. Not by a counter-agent or one of the
spies in her own network, but by her nanny, Olga Muth. Olga had begun to suspect
that Ursula was a spy, and she worried that Ursula’s profession placed her children in
danger. She pleaded with Ursula to join the rest of her family in London – the
Kuczynskis had escaped Berlin in the nick of time. Ursula refused.
6. Olga, hoping that the children would be sent to safety, decided to denounce Ursula to
the authorities. But when she turned up at the British consulate, her English was too
poor for the staff to understand her. Next, Olga confided in Ursula’s neighbor. The
neighbor was shocked to learn Ursula’s true identity but realized the danger Ursula
would be in if she was found out. The neighbor revealed Olga’s plan to Ursula.
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7. With a heavy heart, Ursula informed Moscow. The reply was swift. Ursula, once an
asset, was now a threat. Too many people knew her true identity. She and Len were
ordered to depart Switzerland for England immediately.
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URSULA LED A DOUBLE LIFE AS A RESPECTABLE

HOUSEWIFE TRADING IN STATE SECRETS.
1. On June 22, 1941, the Molotov-Ribbentrop non-aggression pact was shattered, as
Nazi troops invaded the Soviet Union. Suddenly, Britain and the Soviet Union were on
the same side. Of course, that didn’t mean Ursula or any of the many other Soviet
agents in Britain were about to stop their surveillance work.
2. One such agent was Karl Fuchs. Like Ursula, Fuchs was German and a committed
communist. He was also a world-class nuclear physicist. After war broke out, Fuchs
was granted asylum in Britain and quickly recruited to work on developing an atomic
bomb in concert with the American military. British intelligence believed the bomb
could put an end to the war, but they refused to let the Soviets in on the plan. Fuchs
felt this was unfair, so he decided to keep the Soviets abreast himself by becoming an
informer. Ursula was assigned to help him.
3. The key message: Ursula led a double life as a respectable housewife trading in
state secrets.
4. Every few weeks in 1942 and 1943, Ursula took a morning train from Summertown,
the genteel Oxford suburb where she lived, to the sleepy village of Banbury. She would
walk through the countryside until she found the dead letter box, the site where
clandestine messages were exchanged, and leave a note informing Fuchs of the time
and coordinates of their meeting. Fuchs took the afternoon train, and after a detour to
the dead letter box, met Ursula as arranged. In this way, Fuchs passed 750 pages of
scientific secrets to Ursula: one of the largest transfers of information in espionage
history.
5. Ursula didn’t just transmit Fuchs’s findings over radio. She also created
microphotographs of materials that were too bulky or technical to be conveyed in a
radio message, and even smuggled out replica keys that Fuchs had created to his
colleague’s safes.
6. This mission was critically important for Soviet intelligence, and this was reflected in
its codename: Project Enormo. At one point, Stalin personally sent Ursula a list of
questions about the atomic project. She, in turn, supplied the answers.
7. While she was arranging one of the most notorious transfers of state secrets in history,
Ursula maintained her cover impeccably. She resided with her family in Oxfordshire.
She spoke with no trace of a German accent. She was known as Mrs. Burton, a
respectable housewife.
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8. Her neighbors didn’t suspect a thing. Neither did any of the men in counter-intelligence
at MI5, Britain’s domestic intelligence service. But there was a lone woman working
for MI5 counterintelligence, and Ursula piqued her curiosity.
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URSULA NARROWLY MANAGED TO STAY ONE STEP

AHEAD OF BRITISH INTELLIGENCE.
1. Milicent Bagot had the outward appearance of an eccentric spinster, but she was
one of Britain’s most indomitable intelligence agents. In 1941, MI5 assigned Milicent
to its F Division, which was specifically designed to hunt down communists and
subversives. Milicent was widely acknowledged to be one of the division’s most
ruthless operatives. And she’d been keeping tabs on Ursula since Ursula first
applied for a British passport.
2. In 1943, Britain, the USA, and Canada signed the Quebec Agreement, which
stipulated that all three countries would work together on the huge project of building
an atomic bomb – and that they wouldn’t inform their Soviet allies. Sixteen days after
the agreement was signed, it was leaked to Moscow. Historians pinpoint this leak as
an early cause of the Cold War, but a question remains: Who was responsible for it?
Milicent suspected Ursula.
3. The key message is: Ursula narrowly managed to stay one step ahead of British
intelligence.
4. No sooner had the Quebec Agreement been signed, than Karl Fuchs was
transferred to Washington. Ursula’s new assignment was Project Hammer. In 1944,
one of Ursula’s contacts was approached by the American military. The US wanted
to gather a group of German resisters willing to parachute into Germany and gather
intelligence for the US army. Ursula had an opportunity to gather a network of
recruits who would not only gather information for American intelligence but also,
secretly, pass the information on to the Soviets. And that was exactly what she did.
5. Milicent watched Ursula and her network, but her attempts to find out more about
their operation were stymied by Soviet plants inside British intelligence, like Kim
Philby, one of Moscow’s longest-serving British double agents.
6. Project Hammer went off without a hitch. Ursula’s agents passed intelligence to
Moscow, which was in turn passed onto the Red Army, who were closing in on
Berlin and on victory. For Ursula, this was a kind of vindication – after her abortive
attempt to assassinate Hitler, her efforts were finally helping to bring down Nazi
Germany.
7. While passing state secrets and coordinating a spy ring, Ursula also had to maintain
her cover as an innocent housewife. She kept her cottage spic and span, raised her
children, and socialized in Summertown, cramming her transmissions to Moscow
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into the early hours of the morning. Her neighbors in Summertown never suspected
a thing.
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URSULA’S IDEALISM NEVER WAVERED.

1. In 1945, Ursula and her family moved to the charming village of Great Rollright in
Oxfordshire. Ursula integrated seamlessly into village life. She was known for baking
excellent scones and she regularly had the church bellringers over for tea after
Sunday mass. But while her domestic life was running smoothly, her espionage work
was not.
2. The key message is: Ursula’s idealism never wavered.
3. By 1947, Alexander Foote, one-third of Ursula’s plot to assassinate Hitler, was tired
of the deception that came with being both British citizen and Soviet spy. Foote
defected, and told British authorities everything about his career as a Soviet spy,
outing Ursula in the process. He was careful to tell one lie, though: he insisted Ursula
had retired. When this news reached Milicent Bagot at MI5, she returned to Ursula’s
case with renewed interest.
4. In 1947, Jim Skardon, MI5’s chief interrogator, called on Ursula in Great Rollright. But
he made a crucial error, letting it slip that he believed she’d retired after her Swiss
mission. He had no evidence she had committed espionage on British soil, but Ursula
was rattled. She wrote to Moscow, applying to leave Britain for communist East
Germany. She heard nothing back.
5. British intelligence continued to monitor Ursula. Meanwhile, in 1949, the Soviet military
successfully tested their own nuclear weapons in Kazakhstan, thanks to secrets
passed on by Ursula and Fuchs. The Cold War kicked into high gear.
6. In January 1950, Ursula cycled to the dead letter box out of habit: in it was a letter
granting permission for her to leave for East Germany. In February, Klaus Fuchs was
arrested. Ursula knew it would only be a matter of time before he implicated her, and
in March, she and her family left for Germany. She wouldn't return for 40 years.
7. In East Germany, Ursula took a job in the state press department, editing the “Bulletin
Against American Imperialism.” In 1956, she retired, and began writing best-selling
children’s books under the pseudonym Ruth Werner. In 1977, she published an

autobiography, Sonya’s Report, revealing her life as a Soviet spy. It too became
an instant best seller.
8. But although she found safety and success in East Germany, Ursula was disillusioned
with its government. The state-sanctioned surveillance and oppression she observed
was a far cry from what she believed communism should be. In 1989, at 82 years of
age, she lent her voice to East Germany’s growing protest movement, addressing
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crowds of young protesters and voicing her support for them: yet one more act of
defiance.
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FINAL SUMMARY

Appearances can be deceiving. Despite posing as a housewife, Ursula Kuczynski led a

remarkable life. From her youth as a communist activist and her remarkable
achievements as a Soviet spy to her old age as an author and dissenter, Ursula never
conformed to society’s expectations for her.

Don’t overlook women

How did Ursula manage to pass so long without detection? She used her femininity to her
advantage. Like Richard Sorge, the handler who recruited her, she knew that in the 1930s
and 40s women were underestimated, and therefore less likely to raise suspicion. In fact,
Ursula wasn’t the only Soviet intelligence agent to use her gender as an effective cover.
Her peer, Melita Norwood, was a KGB agent who went undetected in Britain for nearly 60
years.