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Noor Inayat Khan – The Princess Spy Who Defied the Gestapo


Collage of Noor Inayat Khan's photos in various outfits, including military uniform. Text: "Noor Inayat Khan: The Muslim princess who fought Nazis."

It’s hard to imagine a more unlikely secret agent than Noor Inayat Khan. She was born into a family of Indian royalty, raised in the world of poetry, music, and Sufi teachings, and even published a book of children’s tales. Yet, during the Second World War, Noor, known to her comrades by the codename Madeleine, became the first female radio operator sent into occupied France by Britain’s Special Operations Executive (SOE). Her mission ended in betrayal, imprisonment, and execution, but her courage ensured that her story would live on long after her death.


A Royal and Spiritual Heritage

Noor-un-Nissa Inayat Khan was born on 1 January 1914 in Moscow, into a remarkable family. Her father, Hazrat Inayat Khan, was a Sufi musician and teacher who traced his lineage back to Tipu Sultan, the Tiger of Mysore, who famously resisted British colonisation in India. Her American mother, Ora Ray Baker, later known as Pirani Ameena Begum, was a poet who had fallen in love with Hazrat while he travelled through the United States.


Two women in decorative dresses, one older and one younger, pose for a vintage portrait. They stand closely against a neutral backdrop.
Noor and her American Mother Ora Ray Khan

The family’s early years were marked by upheaval. As the First World War loomed, they left Moscow and settled in London’s Bloomsbury. Later, when the war ended, they moved again to France, living in a house near Paris where Noor spent most of her childhood.


But tragedy struck when Noor was only thirteen. Her father died, leaving behind a grieving widow and four children. Noor, as the eldest, felt the weight of responsibility for her family, a sense of duty that would shape her choices for the rest of her life.



Scholar, Musician, and Writer

In her early adulthood, Noor seemed destined for a peaceful and creative life. She studied child psychology at the Sorbonne while also pursuing music at the Paris Conservatory under the celebrated Nadia Boulanger. She played the harp, wrote poetry, and contributed stories to children’s magazines in both English and French.


Her most significant literary achievement came in 1939, when she published Twenty Jataka Tales in London, a collection of Buddhist fables for children. It was well received, marking the beginning of what might have been a distinguished writing career. But the outbreak of war in September of that year changed everything.


A woman in traditional attire holds a musical instrument, seated on cushions in a vintage room with a bookshelf and potted plants. Black and white.
Noor Inayat Khan with a vina, a stringed Indian musical instrument

Fleeing France and Joining the Fight

When German forces swept into France in 1940, the Khan family escaped through Bordeaux and crossed into England. At first, they stayed with philosopher Basil Mitchell, who had long admired her father’s Sufi teachings.


Although Noor had been raised in a spiritual tradition that emphasised non-violence, she and her brother Vilayat both felt compelled to contribute to the Allied cause. In November 1940, Noor enlisted in the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF), training as a wireless operator, a role that would become central to her fate.


By 1943, she was recruited into the SOE, the secretive organisation created by Winston Churchill to conduct espionage, sabotage, and reconnaissance in occupied Europe. Here, she trained for a mission that few women had attempted before: to operate clandestine radios in Nazi-occupied France.


A woman in a vintage military uniform with a cap poses against a neutral background. The expression is calm. Black and white image.
Noor in WAAF uniform

Training and Doubts

SOE training was notoriously tough. Noor’s physical instructors doubted her suitability – she was not particularly athletic and was known for her sensitive and dreamy nature. She was subjected to mock Gestapo interrogations, parachute training, and lessons in surveillance. Some officers felt she lacked the steel for the job.


Her brother, too, was deeply worried, pleading with her not to go. Her pacifist leanings, he argued, might make the strain unbearable. Even Vera Atkins, the formidable French intelligence officer who interviewed Noor in Mayfair, offered her a way out. Atkins asked if she truly felt she could handle the mission. Noor’s quiet but firm reply was: “Yes.”



Yet Atkins later discovered that Noor’s anxieties were less about herself than about her family. She felt torn apart by the secrecy that forced her to lie to her mother. Eventually, Atkins devised a compromise: Noor’s family would receive reassuring letters as long as she was safe, but in the event of her death, her mother would be told only when there was no hope left. That assurance allowed Noor to leave for France.


Codename Madeleine

On 16 June 1943, Noor parachuted into France under the codename Madeleine. She was assigned to Henri Garry’s resistance network in Le Mans and later moved to Paris.

Her role was critical. Using a bulky and dangerous radio transmitter, she sent coded messages back to London, helping to coordinate arms drops, sabotage, and escape routes. Radio operators were prime targets for the Gestapo, their transmissions could be tracked, and the average life expectancy for operators in the field was a matter of weeks.


Green plaque in Westminster marks the HQ of the Special Operations Executive (1940-1946), honoring secret resistance support.
Plaque outside 64 Baker Street, Westminster, London, wartime headquarters of the SOE.

For four months, Noor outmanoeuvred her pursuers. She frequently changed safe houses, disguises, and locations, the heavy radio always strapped to her back. By the autumn of 1943, she was the last active SOE operator left in Paris.


Betrayal and Capture

Noor was scheduled to return to England in mid-October 1943. But a month before that could happen, she was betrayed. A Frenchwoman, said to be jealous or desperate for money, revealed her whereabouts to the Gestapo.

She was arrested in October and taken to Gestapo headquarters on Avenue Foch in Paris. Even in captivity, Noor resisted. She attempted escape twice, once by clambering onto a roof, but both times she was recaptured.


Worse still, the Gestapo found her notebooks containing copies of her radio signals. Using these, they tricked London into believing they were still in touch with her. As a result, several more SOE agents walked into traps and were executed.



Prison and Torture

After her arrest in October 1943, Noor Inayat Khan was taken to the Gestapo headquarters on Avenue Foch in Paris. She was interrogated for hours at a time, and her captors quickly realised they had captured someone of value. As an SOE wireless operator, she had access to codes and procedures that could unravel entire resistance networks.


Despite the beatings and threats, Noor refused to cooperate. Her spirit was noted even by her enemies: one Gestapo officer later described her as “highly dangerous,” not because of weapons or violence, but because of her quiet determination not to betray her comrades.


In November 1943, she was transferred to Pforzheim prison in southwest Germany. There she was kept in solitary confinement for nearly ten months, an extraordinarily long time for an SOE prisoner. She was shackled hand and foot for much of this period, a measure normally reserved for the most violent offenders. Guards were instructed never to speak to her, and she endured repeated beatings during interrogations.


Yet even under such brutal treatment, Noor held firm. She revealed nothing of operational value, and in moments of courage she tried to communicate with other prisoners. One surviving inmate later testified that Noor managed to scratch her name and her London address onto a bowl — a small act of defiance that proved she had not been broken.


Dachau and Death

In September 1944, with the Allies advancing through France, the Gestapo decided to move their most “difficult” female prisoners out of local prisons. Noor, along with fellow SOE agents Yolande Beekman, Madeleine Damerment, and Eliane Plewman, was taken from Pforzheim.


On 11 September, they were transported to Dachau concentration camp. Unlike many prisoners sent there, Noor and her companions were not intended for forced labour or long-term internment. Their transfer was an administrative step toward execution.


Witness accounts from Dachau suggest that Noor’s final hours were marked by both extraordinary cruelty and extraordinary dignity. The women were held overnight. On the morning of 13 September 1944, they were led out to a secluded part of the camp. According to post-war testimonies from camp officials and later investigations, the women were beaten savagely before being executed.


A man in a suit and collared shirt stares directly at the camera. The background is plain and the mood is neutral or serious.
Friedrich Wilhelm Ruppert

Noor was singled out for harsher treatment. She was beaten by Wilhelm Ruppert, the camp’s executioner, until she was barely conscious. Even then, she is reported to have cried out one final word — “Liberté” (“Freedom”) — before being shot in the back of the head. She was only thirty years old.


The brutality of her death shocked even those who investigated it years later. The war crimes trial at Dachau after the liberation revealed the cold efficiency of the execution, but also underlined Noor’s refusal to surrender her principles. Unlike some prisoners who were broken down through torture, Noor never provided information that endangered others. Her silence cost her life but preserved the lives of many resistance members.


Legacy of Courage

Noor Inayat Khan’s life may have ended in brutality, but her legacy endured. In the years following the war, she was posthumously awarded the George Cross by Britain and the Croix de Guerre by France.



Today, her memory is honoured across Europe. A blue plaque marks her former home on Taviton Street in Bloomsbury, London. At Dachau, a plaque commemorates her sacrifice. In 2012, Princess Anne unveiled a bronze bust of Noor in Gordon Square Gardens, close to where she once lived.

Her story remains powerful precisely because she seemed so unlikely a spy – a gentle writer of children’s stories, a musician, a dreamer. Yet, as one SOE officer later reflected, it was often the most unassuming recruits who showed the greatest courage.


Marble plaque honoring Noor Inayat Khan, dated 1914-1944. Gold text commemorates her resistance efforts during WWII, somber tone.
Plaque honouring Noor Inayat Khan, Memorial Hall, Dachau Concentration Camp

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