Violette Morris

Violette Morris, a powerhouse athlete with 14-inch biceps, discovered a love for trousers and fast driving while piloting ambulances for the Red Cross during the First World War. But her outrageous and mannish style – she dated Josephine Baker, smoked, and cut her breasts off to better fit behind the wheel of a race car – outraged the respectable upper-middle-class world of women's athletics. And when she was cast out of respectable society, she became a Nazi spy and a sadistic torturer known as the "hyena of the Gestapo."

SOURCES:

Colvin, Kelly Ricciardi. Gender and French Identity after the Second World War, 1944-1954: Engendering Frenchness. London ; New York, NY: Bloomsbury Academic, 2017.

Doyle, Jack. “How a Pioneering Lesbian Became the Nazis’ ‘Hyena.’” OZY, May 25, 2015. http://test-2017-elb-web-us-west-2.aws.ozymandias.com/flashback/how-a-pioneering-lesbian-became-the-nazis-hyena/40366.

Kessler, Martin. “Violette Morris: Pioneering Female Athlete Turned Nazi Spy.” WBUR, February 24, 2017. https://www.wbur.org/onlyagame/2017/02/24/gestapo-hitler-book-anne-sebba.

Mansky, Jackie, and Maya Wei-Haas. “The Rise of the Modern Sportswoman.” Smithsonian Magazine, August 18, 2016. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/rise-modern-sportswoman-180960174/.

Papirblat, Shlomo. “Sporting Champion, Feminist Icon, Nazi Spy? The Extraordinary Life of Violette Morris.” Haaretz.Com. Accessed December 21, 2020. https://www.haaretz.com/life/books/.premium-sporting-champion-feminist-icon-nazi-spy-the-crazy-life-of-violette-morris-1.6869492.

Stryker, Susan. Transgender History. Seal Press, 2008.

FemBio: Frauen.Biografieforschung. “Violette Morris.” Accessed December 21, 2020. https://www.fembio.org/biographie.php/frau/biographie/violette-morris/.

 

Our intro music is Arpeggia Colorix by Yann Terrien, downloaded from WFMU's Free Music Archive and distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License. Our outro music is by DJ Michaeloswell Graphicsdesigner.