Gerda Munsinger

Gerda Munsinger (born Gerda Hesler, Heseler or Hessler, also known as Olga Schmidt and Gerda Merkt; September 10, 1929 – November 24, 1998) was an East German woman and alleged Soviet spy (although these allegations were ultimately unproven). She immigrated to Canada in 1955. Munsinger was the central protagonist of the Munsinger Affair, the first national political sex scandal in Canada, and was dubbed "the Mata Hari of the Cold War" because of her involvement with several Canadian politicians. She returned to Germany in 1961, became the centre of press attention in 1966 when the scandal was publicly revealed, and was the subject of a feature film.

Biography

Munsinger was born in Königsberg, East Prussia (modern Kaliningrad, Russia), on or around September 10, 1929. Little is definitively known of her early life. Her father was reported to be a member of the Communist Party of Germany, and was killed in 1943. However, she was able to emigrate to Montreal in 1955 under her married name aboard the Arosa Star, as the paperwork she completed did not require her to report her maiden name.

Munsinger Affair

Munsinger became involved in relationships with a number of high-ranking Canadian government officials, most notably cabinet ministers George Hees and Pierre Sévigny. She later commented negatively about Hees, suggesting he was "an ex-football star and that's it" who was "too sure of himself as a man"; Sévigny, in contrast, she pitied, saying that newspaper reports about him and his family were "nothing but lies" and that "he was the most innocent person in the whole affair".

The affair became public in March 1966 when Minister of Justice Lucien Cardin mentioned Munsinger's name during a debate in Parliament, in response to comments from the Conservatives about security problems in the Liberal government of Lester B. Pearson. The Liberals had been made aware of the affair two years earlier during a review of security cases involving senior government officials; Pearson had opted to not publicize it, and had instructed his cabinet ministers not to discuss it. After the story broke, the police were sent by the German government to guard Munsinger's apartment and prevent unauthorized access, as a crowd of reporters camped outside for several days. One German reporter posed as a waiter and paid the owner of the restaurant in Munsinger's building to allow him access to her room.

A judicial inquiry regarding the politicians' dalliances with Munsinger found that there had been no security leak resulting from the affair. was tasked with locating her and bringing her to the show. He "snuck her into the Pearson International Airport from where [he] conveniently tipped off the Toronto Star", prompting a headline announcing her return. In the interview, Munsinger noted that "as far as I'm concerned, it wasn't a scandal, it was just life" but that "people know better by now" than to become involved in such affairs while in office. She also ridiculed the suggestion that she was a spy and suggested that Pierre Trudeau would have been better able to manage the scandal than Pearson.

She had planned to write an autobiography, to be titled To Whom it may Concern, but this work was never published.

Legacy

Munsinger's story inspired Canadian writer and director Brenda Longfellow to create the 1992 feature film Gerda. The story also inspired the song "Gerda", written by the Canadian band The Brothers-in-Law who "specialized in taking satirical musical jabs at Canadian scandals and events".

A 1997 article in the Vancouver Sun suggested that the elimination of capital punishment in Canada was a direct result of Pearson's desire to direct Canadian attention away from Munsinger.

Munsinger was briefly profiled by Disclosure, a CBC TV program, in 2001. According to a friend interviewed for the program, Gerda had remarked before her death that "one day, Canadians will again come looking for me".