Louis de Wohl

Wohl worked as an astrologer for the British intelligence agency MI5 during World War II. His MI5 file was released in early 2008. He was recruited initially by Sir Charles Hambro, then running the Special Operations Executive, to devise black propaganda for use against Germany, and allegedly as an informant because he was casting horoscopes for people of interest to MI5. In May 1941 he was sent to America to contribute to astrological magazines and newspapers which at the time were using articles by astrologers favourable to Nazi Germany.

Wohl died in Switzerland in 1961, shortly after finishing his final work, Founded on a Rock.

In 1953, Wohl married Ruth Magdalene Lorch, who was a Lady Commander of the Order of the Holy Sepulchre. He himself held the title of Knight Commander of the Order.

In the United States, Wohl published many articles, lectured against Germany and was interviewed several times by the press. He then returned to England in February 1942, claiming that he had been promised a commission in the British Army. Sefton Delmer, a notable purveyor of black propaganda, arranged a fake document certifying de Wohl as a Captain in the British Army, and he took to wearing the uniform (though he refrained when he realized the position was untenable). His main value to Delmer was his contact with Karl Ernst Krafft, the German astrologer working in Berlin for Dr Goebbels. He assisted Delmer in forging copies of Krafft's magazine Zenit, German, and other astrological magazines dropped over Germany, and 'foretelling' the destruction of U-boats. Delmer nevertheless continued to employ him until the end of the war, and considered his contribution valuable.

He began writing as early as the age of 7. His teachers praised his ability. At the age of 8 he wrote the play "Jesus of Nazareth" because he didn't like how Jesus was portrayed by some books he read. Writing as Ludwig von Wohl, he became quite a successful novelist during his youth in Germany, where sixteen of his novels were turned into films. The best known of these was the 1934 comedy classic Die englische Heirat (The English Marriage).

Wohl was born in Berlin to a poor Catholic family, with a Hungarian father and Austrian mother of Jewish descent. When he was only 17 years old, his mother pushed him into an apprenticeship to a banker, from which he was dismissed in 1924, at the age of 21. In 1935, he emigrated to England due to his objections to the Nazi regime. Some sources claim that he there had a wife named Alexandra, who fled to Santiago, Chile, where she claimed to be a Romanian princess and was known as "La Baronessa."