Jeannie Rousseau

Who is Jeannie Rousseau?

Jeannie Rousseau was an Allied intelligence agent in occupied France during World War II, a member of Georges Lamarque's "Druids" network. Codenamed AMNIARIX, she evaded Gestapo agents while gathering crucial information on the Germans' emerging rocket weapons programs from behind enemy lines. Her intelligence reports, forwarded to London, led directly to the British raid on Peenemünde and to delays and disruptions in the V-1 and V-2 programs, saving many thousands of lives in the West. Rousseau was captured twice and spent time in three concentration camps.

R.V. Jones relates that when he first inquired about the source of the extraordinary report that had originally tipped off the British Government to what was going on at Peenemünde, all he could learn was that it came from "une jeune fille la plus remarquable de sa generation," part of a small espionage network reporting from occupied France. Early in the war Rousseau had, because of her gift with languages, served as an interpreter in transactions with the Germans and had begun to report on what she had seen and heard.