Edith Tudor-Hart
Edith Tudor-Hart was an Austrian-British photographer and spy for the Soviet Union prior to and following World War II. As a journalist, Tudor-Hart used her camera to document the hardships of the working class in Vienna, London, and Wales. When magazine commissions dried up, she took portraits of children. But Tudor-Hart, an early member of the communist youth movement, also acted as a courier for the Communist Party. According to records in the National Archives, Tudor-Hart even owned a high-end Leica camera used to photograph documents stolen from a British munitions factory. The same records show that she was instrumental in the recruiting of the Cambridge Five spy ring, including Kim Philby. Following Philby’s arrest in 1952, Tudor-Hart burned many of her negatives in order to protect herself and her sources. In the documentary Tracking Edith, Tudor-Hart’s great-nephew, Peter Stephan Jungk, says that she was never paid for her work as a Soviet agent and suffered tremendous financial hardships as a result. Despite this, Tudor-Hart remained a staunch communist until the end of her life.