Zarah Leander

According to a 2004 book by Anthony Beevor, ("The Mystery of Olga Chekhova"), she worked for Soviet intelligence during World War II, passing information about Nazi Germany to a Soviet contact during her visits home to Sweden.

In 2003, a bronze statue was placed in Zarah Leander's home town Karlstad, by the Opera house of Värmland where she first began her career. After many years of discussions, the town government accepted this statue on behalf of the local Zarah Leander Society.

In an interview recorded shortly before his death in 1996 the senior Soviet intelligence officer Pavel Sudoplatov claimed that Leander had in fact been a Soviet agent with the code name "Rose-Marie". Recruited by the Soviet Union before the outbreak of war, she was said to have refused payment for her work because she was a secret member of the Swedish Communist Party and therefore conducted the work for political reasons. Leander herself denied any suggestion that she had acted as a spy for any country.

In 1987, two Swedish musicals were written about Zarah Leander.

In 1983 New Wave singer Nina Hagen, who had idolised Leander as a child had, released the single "Zarah", based on "Ich weiss, es wird einmal ein Wunder geschehen".

After the war she came back to Germany but she was imposed with a working prohibition too, only in 1948 she was able to gain a foothold as a singer again.

Zarah Leander left the now more difficult surrounding in Germany in 1943 and returned to Sweden after her Berlin home was bombed during an air raid. But there she was meet with hostility as a Nazi sympathizer so she had difficulties to find work.

In 1939, using the proceeds of her record earnings, she bought a big mansion, Lönö, at the Swedish East coast close to Norrköping.

In 1936 she signed a contract with the Berlin film studio, UFA, despite her imperfect command of German. During World War II she became the highest-paid star of the Nazi cinema, upsetting Dr. Goebbels, Minister of Propoganda, who felt that this role should have been filled by a German actress. After the war she tried to re-establish her career with Swedish audiences but was slow to overcome their hostility.

Received a Mercedes-Benz 500K from Adolf Hitler in 1935. She was filmed in that car by Victor Tourjansky.

In the beginning of the 1930s she performed with the Swedish revue artist, producer and songwriter Karl Gerhard who was a prominent anti-Nazi. He wrote a song for Zarah Leander, "I skuggan av en stövel" ("In the shadow of a boot"), in 1934 which strongly condemned the persecution of Jews in Nazi-Germany.

Beginning her acting-singing career in provincial Swedish theaters in 1929, she soon worked her way up to starring roles in Stockholm and Vienna.

Her first husband -from 1926 to 1929- was the actor Nils Leander. Their children Boel, a girl, and Göran, a boy, were born in 1927 and 1929. After being married to journalist Vidar Forsell from 1932 to 1943, she finally tied the knot with pianist Arne Hülphers in 1949, with whom she worked for over 25 years. He died in 1978.