Marthe Cohn
Spy for France during the Second World War
Marthe Hoffnung Cohn (13 April 1920 – 20 May 2025) was a French nurse, spy, Holocaust survivor and author. She wrote about her experiences as a spy at the end of World War II in the book Behind Enemy Lines (2002).
Life
Marthe Hoffnung was born in Metz on 13 April 1920, into an Orthodox Jewish family, the fifth of eight children of Fischel Hoffnung and his wife Regine. Metz had been a German possession from 1871 to 1918, acquired as part of Alsace-Lorraine in the Franco-Prussian War and relinquished after World War I. Her grandfather was a rabbi who instilled the love of books, and her father ran a small photo-finishing shop. Her parents spoke only German. She witnessed antisemitism near home with the defacement of the Synagogue of Metz. Once, teenagers stoned her family as they left synagogue services, and she watched her father chase them, wielding his belt.
World War II
After the start of World War II in September 1939, Cohn's family moved from the border with Germany to Poitiers, where they stayed after the 1940 German invasion of France. Initially French Jews in the area faced relatively few restrictions after annexation of the Moselle by the Nazis in July 1940, but the situation gradually deteriorated. Cohn began to study at a nursing school in Poitiers.
“Marthe Cohn” enters the record as spy for France during the Second World War. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Marthe, Cohn and France can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“Marthe Cohn” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Marthe, Cohn and France provides the most credible route into that argument.
The record creator and administrative purpose are central evidence, because official documentation reflects both action and institutional priorities. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 15, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q3295188. VIAF identifies the subject as 37158435. The Library of Congress control number is n2002058365. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1920, 2025, 2002 and 1871.
Later summaries often reconcile disputed chronology or motive more neatly than the contemporary record permits. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Compare institutional narratives with records created by participants and affected communities. Dates and formal titles are useful anchors, but not substitutes for context.
- Event chronology
- Institutional context
- Locating named record creators
Contemporary correspondence, government or organizational records, oral histories and cited historical scholarship.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Marthe Cohn”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Marthe Cohn primary sources, Marthe Cohn archive and Marthe research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Marthe Cohn”?
- Which voices are present, absent or mediated by the institution?
- What chronology connects this entry to wider political or social change?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Marthe Cohn” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.