10 Real-Life Spies More Badass Than James Bond

7. Violette Szabo Killed So Many Nazis

Many of these stories have unhappy endings. It's just the nature of spy work, especially during wartime, when an abundance of casualties on either side is sadly par for the course. If there's anything that's unrealistic about the James Bond films and books, it's that he's an agent who's been working consistently for decades without permanent capture, death, or retirement. Let alone the insane amounts of PTSD he should be suffering after all his escapades.

Violette Szabo was another unfortunate life lost during the Second World War, but she made the best of her time on Earth before being captured by the Nazis, deported to Germany, and eventually executed at Ravensbrück concentration camp. There's a reason the Gestapo wanted her dead:€“ she was one of the best spies SOE had.

After the death of her French-Hungarian husband during battle, she quit her switchboard operator job and joined the war effort full time, recruited by the SOE's F-Section thanks to her technical skills and fluency in French. As a field agent, she pretended to be a nurse, but in actuality smuggled information in and out of Nazi-occupied France. It was at the beginning of her third mission proper that she was captured, tortured, and executed - but not before putting up a good fight, single-handedly taking several Germans down in a prolonged fire fight.