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Overlooked Important WWII Figures from History

Khalid Elhassan October 20, 2019 31 min

25. Cole Tries to Save Himself With a Final Con

A month after Germany’s surrender, Harold Cole turned up in southern Germany, claiming to be a British undercover agent, and offering his services to the American occupation forces. He had already done a double cross by working for the Germans, so he now triple-crossed, turned against the Nazis, hunting and flushing them out of hiding, and murdering at least one of them.

The British eventually discovered Cole’s whereabouts and arrested him, but he escaped the prison where he was awaiting court-martial, and returned to France. There, French police received a tip that he was hiding in a central Paris apartment, and on January 8^th, 1946, crept up a staircase to seize him. Their heavy tread gave them away, however, and he met them at the doorway, pistol in hand. In the ensuing shootout, Cole was struck multiple time, and bled to death.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.