Cairo and Gibraltar, they arrived safely in London and found accom-
modation at the South Kensington apartment of the mother of Kim
Philby. They then briefed the British intelligence officer regarding
members of the Catholic underground resistance in Germany.
Although Vermehren’s defection had been disguised as a kidnap-
ping to protect the family from Nazi reprisals and was not intended
to become public knowledge, British propaganda heralded the
event—purposely exaggerating Vermehren’s importance—in order
to cause disarray among Nazi officials. In reality, he had brought
little of intelligence value, but his departure infuriated Hitler and
became the trigger for the dismissal of Abwehr chief Wilhelm Ca-
naris on 11 February. The Vermehrens remained in England, holding
various jobs and changing their surname to de Saventhem. After also
living in France and Switzerland, they returned to Germany before
her death in 2000. He died in Bonn on 28 April 2005.VERREPT, IMELDA (1944– ). A spy at the North Atlantic Treaty
Organization (NATO) working for Verwaltung Aufklärung (VA),
Imelda Verrept was born in Geneva, Switzerland. After attending a
Flemish Catholic lycée, she remained in Belgium working for the
newspaper De Nieuwe before entering a convent in Brussels for two
years. Her desire to become a secretary proficient in foreign lan-
guages led to a position with a U.S. military liaison group based in
Belgium and then to the international secretariat of NATO in 1972.
Routine security reviews by Belgian officials revealed no irregulari-
ties in her background. The following year, a friendship developed
between Verrept and Wieland Gludowacz, an officer of the VA pos-
ing as an Austrian. They would eventually marry. After Gludowacz
convinced her that many of her Catholic beliefs were compatible
with the socialist aims of the German Democratic Republic, Verrept
agreed to obtain high-level information regarding NATO and its
member states.
During the next five years, Verrept emerged as a prime asset, but
the VA also realized that West German counterintelligence officials
had become increasingly cognizant of Eastern bloc military espio-
nage. For this reason, Ursel Lorenzen, a spy working at NATO for
the Hauptverwaltung Aufklärung, was exfiltrated in April 1979.
After weighing the risks, the VA opted for security, and in spring
474 • VERREPT, IMELDA