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Despina Storch or Despina Davidovitch Storch (1894
or 1895 – March 30, 1918) was an Ottoman Greek woman who was alleged to be a
spy for Germany and the Ottoman Empire during World War I. Storch was later
immortalized as "Turkish Delight", "Turkish beauty", and a
"modern Cleopatra" in spy literature.
Born in Istanbul to a Phanariote Greek family,
Despina married Frenchman Paul Storch when she was 17 years old. Though they
later divorced, their former marriage created a peculiar situation due to
Paul's service in the French army while his ex-wife was suspected of spying for
France's enemies.
Later she made her way to the United States accompanied
by a German woman, Mrs. Elizabeth Charlotte Nix, and a man who purportedly was
a French count named Robert de Clarmont.
Several factors led American authorities to suspect
that Madame Storch was a spy. She aroused the suspicions of the Department of
Justice when she lived the life of a very rich lady, paying $1,000 per month
for her stay in a New York hotel. Mrs. Nix also received an unexplained loan of
$3,000 from Count Bernstorff.
She also traveled
the capitals of the world frequently changing her name: "In Paris, for
instance, she was known as Madame Nezie; in Madrid and London as Madame
Hesketh; in Rome as Madame Davidovitch; at the New York Biltmore, in New York,
as Madame Despina, She also graced Washington with her presence, going by the
alias "Baroness de Bellville at the Shoreham Hotel, as the Baroness de
Bellville since she was accompanied almost everywhere by a mysterious Baron
Henri de Beville (or de Bellville) in the last months before her arrest.."
Word has it she held her famous salons, to which all
the important diplomats and military men were invited, in her rooms at the
Shoreham Hotel. It was also allegedly here where she met with the German
ambassador to pass on everything she learned at her salons. Despina Storch was
a frequent guest at parties due to her remarkable beauty, a fluency in French
and her dancing skill.
Authorities later seized a safe deposit box held for
Madame Storch in a New York bank. It was said to contain important
correspondence, with notable people from around the world, some of which was
coded.
At this point Storch attempted to send her trunks to
Panama, but those were intercepted. Realizing the danger that they were in, the
Baron and Storch obtained French passports and made plans to flee to Cuba.
After their plans became known to the Justice
Department, all four suspects were arrested on March 18, 1918, and sent to
Ellis Island. The authorities tried to follow a suspicious money trail left by
the four co-conspirators but were not able to prove nor disprove that espionage
had taken place.
The Justice Department official who announced
the arrests, Charles F. De Woody, recommended that the four suspects be
deported to France. The problem with trying them in the United States was that the
espionage law only applied to men. President Wilson had mentioned this problem
in his State of the Union address, and Congress was taking action, but not in
time to go after Mme. Stroch and Mrs. Nix.
The Times said of Storch that she is in appearance a strikingly handsome woman, and in the year that she made her home at the Waldorf-Astoria numbered among her friends many well-known persons, some of whom it was intimated yesterday are not at all anxious now to appear to have been among her admirers.
Eventually the Baron, Storch, and two others were
deported from the U.S. as "undesirable."
While on Ellis Island they all became ill; while
three of them recovered, Despina Storch died on March 30 of what was described
as pneumonia at age 23. At the time of her death the authorities believed that
she died of natural causes, but some publications later indicated that she
could have bitten on a poisoned capsule.
Her funeral took place on April 1, 1918. The New
York Sun wrote:
An exquisitely carved white coffin containing the
body of Madame Despina Davidovitch Storch, the most romantic spy suspect
America has yet known, was placed in a vault on the east slope of Mount Olivet
Cemetery, Maspeth, -Queens, yesterday afternoon.
Her companion and co-accused,the Count de Beville, was allowed to leave Ellis Island to attend, accompanied by his parents and a Secret Service agent.
According to a report in the New York Sun, Beville “bore a plaque of roses and some lilies which he tenderly placed in the folded arms of the dead woman.” He knelt by the casket, praying, for two hours. He murmured over and oveagain, and some say the words were “Forgive me,” and others, “Cherie, Cherie, and like French words of endearment.
Outside, a “morbidly inquisitive crowd” milled
around the hearse. When the coffin was borne out of the funeral parlor,
the chatter of the crowd hushed, and all that stirred the quiet was the music of “The Girl I Left Behind Me,” which echoed into the street, as the subway band, on an army recruiting bus, rolled through Fifth avenue, close by.
Despina Storch in Spain, adapted from an illustration in the Washington Times, June 16, 1918
With the death of their main suspect, the U.S. government realized that the case would never be solved, although The New York Times reported her alleged confession just before her death.
The Washington Times was so enamored with Storch that it ran an eleven-chapter series entitled "Mme. Storch – Vampire and German Spy" in the summer of 1918 – a full two page spread each Sunday detailing her career.
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She also graced Washington with her presence, going by the alias "Baroness de Bellville." Word has it she held her famous salons, to which all the important diplomats and military men were invited, in her rooms at the Shoreham Hotel. It was also allegedly here where she met with the German ambassador to pass on everything she learned at her salons.
The first Shoreham Hotel was constructed in 1887 by Vice President of the United States Levi P. Morton. It was designed by the New York firm of Hubert, Pirrson & Company and was located at 15th and H Streets NW. Morton named the hotel for his birthplace, Shoreham, Vermont. The hotel was expanded in 1890 and extensively renovated in 1902 and 1913. The Shoreham went bankrupt in 1927 and was sold to developer Harry Wardman, who demolished the hotel in 1929 and replaced it with the Shoreham Office Building, designed by Mihran Mesrobian . That structure was itself converted to a hotel in 2002, becoming the Sofitel Washington DC Lafayette Square.
The Washington Times was so enamored with Storch that it ran an eleven chapter series entitled "Mme. Storch – Vampire and German Spy" in the summer of 1918 – a full two page spread each Sunday detailing her career. You can read chapters 5-11 in the Library of Congress’s Chronicling America project. See the links below:
- Chapter V - 02 June 1918 - Part 1, Part 2
- Chapter VI - 09 June 1918 - Part 1, Part 2
- Chapter VII - 16 Jun 1918 - Part 1, Part 2
- Chapter VIII - 23 Jun 1918 - Part 1, Part 2
- Chapter IX - 30 June 1918 - Part 1, Part 2
- Chapter X - 07 July 1918 - Part 1, Part 2
- Chapter XI (End) - 13 July 1918 - Part 1, Part 2
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