Marthe Cohn

Marthe Cohn (née Hoffnung) was born on April 13, 1920, in Metz, France, into an observant Jewish family. Her grandfather was a rabbi, and the family upheld strict religious traditions. Marthe was one of seven siblings raised in a loving and community-oriented home. Her early education combined public schooling with religious instruction, and she grew up bilingual in French and German—a skill that would later prove critical in her wartime service.

As Nazi Germany expanded its reach across Europe, Cohn’s family fled from the northeastern French city of Metz to Poitiers in the unoccupied southern zone. The Nazi occupation devastated her family: one of her sisters, Stéphanie, was deported to Auschwitz and killed, and her fiancé, a member of the French Resistance, was captured, tortured, and executed by the Germans.

Despite the personal losses and escalating danger, Cohn chose to resist. After completing nursing school, she joined the French army and was recruited by the intelligence service due to her fluency in German and Aryan appearance—blonde hair and blue eyes. Beginning in late 1944, at age 24, she made multiple attempts to cross into Nazi Germany. On her 15th attempt, she succeeded, posing as a German nurse searching for a missing (fictional) fiancé who was supposedly a soldier captured by the Allies.

Under this cover, Cohn traveled throughout Germany, making contact with sympathetic German soldiers and civilians and collecting vital intelligence. In one case, her interaction with a grateful SS officer she had aided led her close to the front lines, where she learned the positions of German forces and shared that information with Allied commanders. Her reports are credited with saving hundreds of Allied lives during the final months of World War II.

After the war, she served as a nurse in French Indochina (Vietnam) before settling in Geneva for further studies. There, she met her husband, Major L. Cohn, an American anesthesiologist. The couple later immigrated to the United States, where they raised two sons in California.

Cohn remained silent about her espionage work for decades. Even her husband and children were unaware of her wartime exploits until she published her memoir, Behind Enemy Lines: The True Story of a French Jewish Spy in Nazi Germany, in 2002. That same year, she began speaking publicly about her experiences, traveling internationally to share her story.

In recognition of her service, Cohn received France’s Croix de Guerre shortly after the war. In 2000, she was awarded the Médaille Militaire, and in 2002, she was made a knight in the French Legion of Honor, one of the country’s highest decorations.

Marthe Cohn passed away in May 2025 at the age of 105 in Rancho Palos Verdes, California. She is remembered as a courageous and unlikely hero who risked her life to resist tyranny and help liberate Europe from Nazi rule.

Sources: “About Marthe Cohn,” ChabadSP.
“COHN, Marthe 1920-,” encyclopedia.com.
Randy M. Goldman, “Oral history interview with Marthe Hoffnung Cohn,” USHMM, (July 29, 1996).
Josh Haskell, “102-year-old Holocaust survivor who kept spy identity secret for years reflects on Russian invasion,” ABC7, (May 27, 2022).
Marthe Cohn, a Jewish spy in Nazi Germany, dies at 105, Washington Post, (May 22, 2025).
“Marthe Cohn,” Los Angeles Times, (May 23, 2025).
“French Jewish WWII spy Marthe Cohn dies at 105,” Jerusalem Post, (May 24, 2025).

Photo: Rancho Palos Verdes TV, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.