Juliana Mickwitz

Juliana Mickwitz (1889-1976) was a Finnish-born Russian who became a naturalized American citizen. She was employed with the American military and later National Security Agency as a translator, linguist and cryptanalyst. She was inducted into the Cryptologic Hall of Honor in 2012. Early life Juliane Charlotte Ernestine von Mickwitz was born to Elisabeth Marie Caroline (née von Dittmann) and Ernst Theodor Leopold von Mickwitz (aka , Mikvits, Minckwitz) on 15 May 1889, Vyborg, Grand Duchy of Finland, Russian Empire, on her grandfather's estate called "Halila". She was the oldest of two children and her brother Alexander would later join her in the United States. After learning English, German and Russian at home with a tutor, she entered St Ann's Gymnasium in Saint Petersburg in 1903. She graduated with a gold medal of excellence in 1907 and tutored students until 1909. In that year, she began working as a secretary to Michael Lazareff, president of the Russian Unified Oil Company, and continued working for his widow, Eugenia after Lazareff's death. In 1919, with the rise of the Bolsheviks during the Russian Civil War, Mickwitz managed to hide assets for Lazareff, who in turn, secured their passage to Poland under the story that Mickwitz was engaged to a Polish doctor. On 15 April 1920, the two women arrived in Warsaw, and Mickwitz began trying to preserve the Lazareff assets outside of the Soviet Union and protect them from confiscation. She worked as a translator for various organizations including the American Consulate of Warsaw, the British Embassy and the Canadian US Timber Corporation, until 1925. In that year, she began working as a foreign correspondent with the Polish Agricultural Syndicate for the Kooprolna Cooperative. After a year, she applied for a full-time position with the American Military Attaché Office.