Early Life
Anna Wolkoff was the eldest child of Admiral Nikolai Wolkoff (1870–1954) who was the last Imperial Russian naval attaché in London. Her family had decided to stay in Britain in the aftermath of the Bolshevik Revolution and they became naturalized British subjects on 10 September 1935. The Wolkoffs operated the Russian Tea Room in South Kensington near the Natural History Museum, a rendezvous point for other White Russians.
Anna and her father held extreme right-wing views and were sympathizers of the Nazi regime in Germany. Anna visited that country several times in the 1930s, later claiming to have met Hans Frank and Rudolf Hess. Her visits caused MI5 to take an interest in her activities and, beginning in 1935, she was placed under surveillance as a possible German spy. She was allegedly associated with Wallis Simpson, a client of her couture business, and also under suspicion by British counter-intelligence.
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