A self-professed “anti-Nazi” and a networker of genius, she was the first steady girlfriend of the serial philanderer and British member of Parliament Jack Profumo. She was an intelligence asset for Germany in the 1930s who camouflaged her own link to Adolf Hitler’s second in command, Herman Goering. She wasn’t a full time spy, the tall green-eyed, blond-haired Gisela had a glittering career as an international model and was at the core of Nazi attempts to use fashion as a weapon of culture and a source of hard currency for the armaments Hitler needed. In 1935 the MP Nancy Astor told people her beautiful guest at Cliveden was a spy. In 1938 MI5 tried but failed to arrest her. Only in 1944, as the allies fought their way towards Germany, would the Bletchley Park codebreakers provide clear evidence of her shrouded role for German military intelligence, the Abwehr.
