April 26th, 1944.
On a quiet country road in Nazi-occupied France, one of the most notorious female collaborators of World War II was driving through Normandy when everything suddenly went wrong. Her car engine began coughing violently before completely dying in the middle of the road.

What she did not know was that French Resistance fighters had allegedly sabotaged the vehicle in advance.

The moment she stepped out of the car, hidden gunmen emerged from cover and opened fire. Bullets ripped through the vehicle and tore into her body. By the time the ambush ended, five people were dead — including two children.

The woman lying dead on the roadside was Violet Morris.

Once celebrated as one of France’s greatest female athletes, she had become infamous during World War II as a ruthless Nazi collaborator nicknamed “The Hyena of the Gestapo.”

But how did a national sports star end up hunted down and executed by her own people?

Before the war, Violet Morris was one of the most extraordinary and controversial women in France.

She played football for the French women’s national team, won gold medals in athletics, competed in boxing, motorcycle racing, car racing, wrestling, tennis, and even weightlifting. In the 1924 Women’s Olympiad, she won gold medals in discus and shot put.

She became especially famous as a racing driver and was known for beating male competitors in brutal endurance races.

But Morris also shocked French society during the 1920s. She smoked heavily, swore openly, dressed in men’s clothing, and rejected traditional expectations placed on women at the time.

Eventually, French sporting authorities turned against her.

She was banned from competing in the 1928 Olympics and later lost her racing license because officials claimed she lacked “morality.” The humiliation reportedly left her furious toward France itself.

Then came Adolf Hitler.

In 1936, Morris was personally invited to attend the Berlin Olympics as an honored guest of Nazi Germany. Hitler himself reportedly insisted she be present. She stayed in luxury hotels paid for by the Nazis and received treatment normally reserved for important political allies.

The relationship shocked many people.

Morris represented almost everything Nazi ideology claimed women should not be — independent, masculine, aggressive, and openly rebellious. Some historians believe Hitler invited her partly to embarrass France after French authorities had publicly rejected her.

But when World War II began and France collapsed under German occupation, Violet Morris made a choice that would seal her fate forever.

She openly collaborated with the Nazis and the Vichy regime.

According to numerous wartime allegations, Morris helped hunt down members of the French Resistance and British SOE agents operating secretly behind enemy lines. Some reports even accused her of personally participating in brutal Gestapo torture sessions.

At the same time, she worked closely with the German Luftwaffe.

She reportedly operated a garage for German military vehicles and helped secure black-market fuel supplies for Nazi aircraft — fuel later used in bombing campaigns against Allied targets.

Whether every accusation against her was true remains debated by historians.

But by 1944, Violet Morris had gained a terrifying reputation inside occupied France. Resistance networks viewed her as an extremely dangerous collaborator who possessed valuable intelligence about underground operations.

The Resistance decided she had to die.

The ambush on April 26th, 1944, was carefully planned. Resistance fighters allegedly tampered with her Citroën before the attack, ensuring the vehicle would fail in the middle of a remote road near Épaignes in Normandy.

As Morris stepped out to inspect the engine, gunfire erupted.

Resistance fighters riddled her body with bullets before disappearing back into hiding. Her corpse reportedly remained unclaimed for months afterward.

But why kill her so publicly?

The French Resistance often targeted high-profile collaborators in public places to send a brutal message: nobody working with the Nazis was untouchable. Morris was not an obscure informant — she was a famous celebrity whose betrayal symbolized collaboration with the occupiers.

To the Resistance, eliminating Violet Morris was not just revenge.

It was a warning to every collaborator in occupied France that betrayal could end with bullets on a lonely roadside.