Harold Cole: The Worst Traitor of World War II

Throughout history, people labeled as “traitors” are typically the most hated and despised. Typically, we think of individuals like Benedict Arnold in the American Revolution, Judas Iscariot’s betrayal of Jesus, or Brutus who assassinated Julius Caesar but what about Harold Cole?

Harold Cole, sometimes known as Harry Cole or Paul Cole, was born in an East London slum in 1906 to parents Albert Cole and Alice Ann Godfrey. His father, Albert was a laborer who fought in and was killed in World War I. 

Cole was typically described as a tall (approximately six feet in height), attractive man who was always well-dressed. Ever the deceiver, Cole portrayed himself as an upper-class Englishman despite his humble Eastside London roots.

After leaving school at the age of fourteen, Cole turned to a life of crime as a con artist. He quickly became known to police as an embezzler and scammer, employing several false identities as British military officers as he came to adulthood. 

After intermittent jail stays in the 1920s and 1930s, he enlisted in the British Army as war broke out. While with the Royal Engineers in France, Cole’s amiable personality and smarts helped his rapid advancement through the ranks, but the situation soon soured. 

Cole was recaptured and jailed, but the German Blitzkrieg was on the move. During the panicked evacuation of Dunkirk in Operation Dynamo, Cole was released by his guards. 

After the evacuation of Dunkirk, Cole began to build a network of contacts in the towns of Lille and La Madeleine. By the summer of 1940, he was masquerading as a British intelligence captain named “Delobel.” 

Cole’s outward goal, which he did achieve, was to help British soldiers escape from France. Cole’s network had the ability to create new identities, provide guides, and finance travel expenses for the British soldiers using the Pat escape line but all these services cost money. 

The money Cole embezzled from the French Resistance went to finance his own “high life” desires. He used the ill-gotten money on women, fast cars, expensive restaurants, champagne, and ritzy nightclubs. 

Unsurprisingly, Cole’s persona of Captain Delobel eventually came to the attention of British MI9 and MI5 – largely due to his successful management of his section of the Pat escape line. 

Despite his criminal background, Scotland Yard and MI9 decided to allow Cole to operate. They knew who he was, what he had done, and that he was impersonating one of their own, but Cole was efficient and successful in aiding British soldiers escape to England, so they decided to let it slide. 

A self-proclaimed addict to women, Cole sought their company whenever he could. He would convince some to hand over their life savings with promises or use them to advance his agenda. In 1941, Cole met and became involved with Suzanne Warenghem, a 19-year-old guide on the Pat line. 

Cole’s influence continued to grow but with it so did his notoriety. Despite the success he was enjoying as a leader of the Pat line, trouble was brewing within the network. Cole’s compatriots were becoming aware of his double-dealing and theft. 

Albert Guérisse, one of the Belgian escape line leaders in France, called for a meeting between himself, Cole, and a handful of other prominent leaders in Marseilles. When Cole was confronted by Guérisse and the other leaders, he was arrested and locked in a bathroom while they decided how to handle his fraudulent double dealings. 

Cole was arrested in December of 1941 by German intelligence while hiding near Lille. When interrogated for information on the Pat escape lines, he provided them with a 30-page document outlining his associates and their operations. 

After betraying the escape network, Cole broke away from German incarceration and hid in Paris and later Lyon. Survivors of the escape network and German intelligence were both looking for this fugitive, which led to his arrest by Vichy police in June 1942.

With Cole during his arrest was Suzanne Warenghem, now his wife and pregnant with his child. She was initially a part of the espionage proceedings but was judged innocent of the charges. It was only during this trial that she finally realized that her husband was a traitor to both Britain and France. 

Cole, still on trial after his wife’s release, was convicted on espionage charges and initially sentenced to death. His sentence was later changed to life in prison, and he remained incarcerated until the end of 1943.

Cole’s work and time with the SD is largely undocumented but it is known that it was during this time that he helped the Germans track down, arrest, interrogate, and torture his former escape network members.

Dressed in the full black uniform of the Gestapo and driving a red sports car, Cole and Kieffer raced eastward as British and American forces began to close in. Amazingly, Cole’s departure did not go unnoticed by British intelligence.

Cole and Kieffer continued to make their way toward Germany as the Allied armies advanced. When they reached the Black Forest in April 1945, they burned anything that would have identified them as German operatives.

After their surrender to the 117th Cavalry Reconnaissance, Kieffer was released after he was questioned. It is said that Cole, using his ability to persuade people to see things his way, claimed that Kieffer had been extremely helpful to him and secured the German operative’s safe conduct.

In an interesting twist, Cole was given the uniform of a US lieutenant as well as a job with Allied intelligence after he offered his services as an operative. Shockingly, the US Army agreed to it. Cole then proceeded to desert the US Army and fled into occupied Germany.

Cole, operating with a cadre of brutes under his command, arrested Nazi operatives all while looting as much as he could in the Bad Saulgau area of Germany. During this time as an “experienced intelligence agent,” it is said that Cole conducted the brutal, unauthorized execution of at least one former SS officer.

Throughout his years as an escape line operative, as mentioned before, Harold Cole’s craving for women had led to having had multiple lovers and mistresses across France. British intelligence had their eye on two of Cole’s ex-mistresses who were living in Paris.

During Cole’s arrest by Hope, a gunfight ensued which resulted in Hope taking a bullet to the leg. Cole was imprisoned and interrogated after his arrest, but his stay was short-lived.

At this time in Europe, with the war having ended with Germany’s surrender, refugees were everywhere. It would have been easy to have simply faded into the background, never to be seen again, but Harold Cole’s arrogance finally got the better of him.

Responding to a tip that a man matching his description was there, French police raided Billy’s Bar on January 8th, 1946. Upon arriving, police proceeded to the fourth floor where Cole was waiting for them.

How do we view Cole’s legacy? Airey Neave of the MI9 is known to have famously quoted that Cole “was among the most selfish and callous traitors who ever served the enemy in time of war.” Others have called him the “worst traitor of the war.”

Some of the British soldiers that Cole helped to escape later defended him saying that without Harold Cole, they would not have made it back to England. Prior to his German defection, it is true that Cole was exceptionally good as an escape line leader.

Another facet we must consider is the fallout from Cole’s defection to the Germans. It is believed that during his interrogation by Gestapo agents in 1941, Cole betrayed 150 escape-line guides and members of the French Resistance.

For all the operatives he did betray, Cole did not hand over everyone with whom he was involved. Jeannine Voglimacci, a hair stylist whose upstairs apartment served as a meeting place for the Pat line, was spared from Cole’s betrayal.

Neither did Cole give over his wife Suzanne to German intelligence. After her release and journey to Marseilles in 1942, she gave birth to a son who died the following January. Suzanne continued her work and was arrested again in March 1943 for helping a British agent escape from prison.

Among the many individuals whom Cole had betrayed, one man managed to survive and crossed paths with Cole once more. In an ironic twist of fate, Cole’s body was identified by Albert Guérisse, one of Cole’s fellow Pat line leaders.

The moniker “worst traitor of World War II” has not been handed to Harold Cole lightly. Cole first betrayed England, then his network of operatives and the French Resistance, followed by German intelligence, and finally the United States Army.