Britain caught in ‘space between peace and war’, says new head of MI6, the granddaughter of a Nazi

New MI6 chief Blaise Metreweli in front of the MI6 building in London
Photo: standard.co.uk

Britain is caught in “a space between peace and war” complicated by the rise of artificial intelligence and other technologies dominated by powerful individuals and corporations, according to the new head of MI6, ‘The Guardian’ quotes.

Blaise Metreweli, giving her first speech in the job, accused Russia of being insincere about Ukraine peace negotiations but made minimal reference to China as the prime minister, Keir Starmer, seeks to arrange a visit to Beijing…

Power was “becoming more diffuse, more unpredictable as control over these technologies is shifting from states to corporations, and sometimes to individuals”, the spy chief said in a speech at MI6’s London headquarters.

Metreweli did not cite any specific examples, though US corporations dominate social media and Elon Musk,.

Previous UK spy chiefs have in the past raised explicit concerns about an authoritarian China one day controlling developments in AI and quantum computing.

The order of world institutions “designed in the ashes of the second world war” was, she said, being deliberately contested “from sea to space, from the battlefield to the boardroom” and “even our brains” through the deliberate spread of disinformation online.

She said Britain and the world were “operating in a space between peace and war” – which the spy agency, traditionally focused on running agents and working with human sources, had to contend with. She said MI6 had to become “fluent in technology” and anticipate the impact of future advances.

Metreweli, 48, took over as the head of MI6, the UK’s international spy agency, in September, becoming the first woman to hold the post. As its chief, or C, she is the only member of the organisation to be publicly named…

The MI6 headquarters under attack in the film, James Bond: Skyfall
Is it a Warning or already a Prophecy?
Pic.: ‘The Daily Mail’

The Daily Mail: “In a plot twist worthy of John le Carré, we reveal the grandfather of the brilliant new head of MI6 was a Nazi spy chief”

Blaise Metreweli and her grandfather, Nazi Constantine Dobrowolski
Photo: ‘The Daily Mail’

‘The Daily Mail” reveals the fascinating fact that Ms Metreweli’s paternal grandfather was a feared Nazi collaborator and spy chief in his native Ukraine. He spied and killed for Adolf Hitler’s Germany – even boasting of exterminating Jews.

When Blaise Metreweli was announced as the next head of MI6 it was immediately apparent she had long been groomed for the top.

Its legendary vetting services had succeeded in keeping a lid on everything about Ms Metreweli's no doubt remarkable double life.

But there is one thing neither she nor the world's most famous intelligence agency could control, the one thing that none of us get to choose – her family.

Archives in Germany reveal that the woman who from September will take charge of the nation's secrets is the granddaughter of a notorious Nazi collaborator who spied and killed for Adolf Hitler's Germany.

We can disclose that Ms Metreweli's grandfather was Constantine Dobrowolski, a Ukrainian dubbed 'The Butcher' who defected from the Red Army to become the Fatherland's chief informant in the region of Chernihiv in Ukraine. His story does cast an awkward shadow over her impeccable career in MI5, MI6 and the Foreign Office.

The Mail has unearthed hundreds of pages of documents held in archives in Freiburg, Germany, detailing the extraordinary – and blood-soaked – life and times of Dobrowolski which are themselves worthy of a spy thriller.

Known as 'Agent No 30' by Wehrmacht commanders, he had vowed revenge against the Russians ever since they seized Ukraine after the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution.

The archives detail how the Soviets put a 50,000-rouble bounty – £200,000 in today's money – on the head of the local spy chief they labelled 'the worst enemy of the Ukrainian people'.

Within the files are handwritten letters from Ms Metreweli's grandfather to Nazi superiors signed off 'Heil Hitler'. Shockingly, Dobrowolski boasted to German commanders of 'personally' taking part 'in the extermination of the Jews' and killing hundreds of Ukrainian resistance fighters. There are even accounts of him looting the bodies of Holocaust victims and laughing at the sexual assault of female prisoners.

For Ms Metreweli – now coming out of the shadows as MI6's incoming chief, a role that allows her name to be known for the first time – there can be no doubt her grandfather's wartime crimes pose a challenge.

What is indisputable is that the story of how a Nazi spy chief's own granddaughter rose to lead MI6 is nothing short of astounding.

So, who exactly was Constantine Dobrowolski Sr, and what were his crimes? Extensive letters to his Nazi commanders between 1941 and 1943 give a detailed biography of the man in his own words – which make for uncomfortable reading.

In 1941 when the Germans invaded, Dobrowolski immediately reported to the War Commissariat and requested to be sent to the front, where he defected to the Nazis at the first opportunity on August 4, 1941.

Explaining himself to his new German commanders, he wrote: 'If drafted into the Red Army, my political unreliability would have meant I would only have been used in the rear. I had long hoped that Germany would enter the war with Russia.'

He immediately reported to his local military branch and requested that he be sent to the front. 'I wanted to use the panic to get over to the German side in this way, and all the more quickly,' Dobrowolski wrote.

Initially, he served with an SS tank unit, and later told Nazi officers: 'There, I oversaw captured Russian vehicles and personally took part in front-line action near Kyiv and in the extermination of Jews.'

But the history here is just as grim, with the local Jewish community destroyed and more than 300 Jews shot under Nazi occupation. Constantine Sr told his commanders that he had organised a Ukrainian police unit of 300 men who 'cleared' 12 sub-districts there between October and December 1941. During this time, Ukrainian police assisted German murder squads and Hungarian soldiers shooting the Jewish population. One harrowing account claimed that Dobrowolski was part of a police force that is said to have raped, shot, and robbed the bodies of Jewish women in Ponornytsia, Chernihiv.

Over a year later a witness, interrogated by the Germans, claimed Constantine Sr's subordinate gave him 'a gold watch' from one of the victims.

'I had access to [Constantine Sr's] residence in Sosnytsia and saw many valuable possessions there, such as carpets, tablecloths, silk shawls, and a luxurious fur coat, which originated from the Jewish executions in Ponornytsia,' the witness said.

The same witness claimed that he 'overheard' a conversation in which Constantine Sr simply 'laughed' on being told 'that female prisoners in the jail were being sexually abused through violence'. He allegedly said that he 'tolerated these acts without objection'. By his own account, Constantine Sr said he 'cleansed' various districts 'of undesirable elements'. He was commended by a Hungarian colonel for his 'excellent reconnaissance' in this task in December 1941. After this, the Soviets put the 50,000-rouble bounty on his head.

Also within the files The Mail uncovered are handwritten letters from Ms Metreweli's grandfather to Nazi superiors signed off 'Heil Hitler'

Constantine Sr rose to become a local intelligence chief, first serving as an inspector for the Hiwi – Eastern European Nazi collaborators – before joining the Nazis' notorious secret military police, the Geheime Feldpolizei (GFP), in July 1942.

So why is the Mail telling this absorbing John le Carre-esque tale? Because the public needs to hear the real truth rather than a deliberately distorted version of it.

‘The Daily Mail’, 26 June 2025

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