Vera Atkins
LINGUIST / INTELIGENCE OFFCIER/
ADMINISTRATION (1908 - 2000)
Vera Atkins was born in Romania and was
a British Intelligence officer during the
Second World War. She studied languages
and attended a secretarial college in
London which gained her a place as a
secretary in the French section of the SEO.
From here, Atkins worked her way up to
become an intelligence officer. At the start of
the war, Atkins was part of the British team
which evacuated Poland's Enigma code
breakers with their reverse engineered replica
Enigma machines across the border into
her native Romania, from where they made
their way to France and Britain to
teach the Western Allies cryptanalysis of the
Enigma. She was awarded the French Legion
of Honour in 1995 and a CBE in 1997.
Rosa Luxemburg
MARXIST / ECONOMIST (1871 - 1919)
Rosa Luxemburg was a Polish-German
Marxist theorist and economist who made
significant research and explanations into
Marxist economic thought. She penned the
book "The Accumulation of Capital:
A Contribution to an Economic Explanation
of Imperialism" which is said to be one of the
most important original documents to
Marxist Economics. Luxemburg was anti-war
and campaigned against the First World
War, ending up imprison for her efforts.
She believed the working classes should rise
up and defeat capitalism. Luxemburg was
murdered while taking part in the attempted
German Revolution of 1918-19.
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