Salon Kitty was a high-class Berlin brothel used by the Nazi intelligence service, the Sicherheitsdienst (SD), for espionage purposes during . Created in the early 1930s, the salon was taken over by SS general Reinhard Heydrich and his subordinate Walter Schellenberg in 1939. The brothel was managed by original owner Kitty Schmidt throughout its entire existence. The plan was to seduce top German dignitaries and foreign visitors, as well as diplomats, with alcohol and women so they would disclose secrets or express their honest opinions on Nazi-related topics and individuals. Notable guests included Heydrich himself, Joseph Dietrich, Galeazzo Ciano and Joseph Goebbels. The building housing the salon was destroyed in an air raid in 1942 and the project quickly lost its importance. Salon Kitty has been the inspiration or subject of many brothels featured in films involving Nazi espionage. History In the 1930s, "Salon Kitty" was a high-class brothel at 11 Giesebrechtstrasse in Charlottenburg, a wealthy district of Berlin. Its usual clientele included German dignitaries, foreign diplomats, top industrialists, high-ranking civil servants and senior Nazi Party members. Its madame was Katharina Zammit, better known as Kitty Schmidt, who ran the brothel from its inception. Schmidt had secretly been sending money to British banks with fleeing refugees ever since the Nazis took power in Germany in January 1933. When she eventually tried to leave the country on 28 June 1939, Sicherheitsdienst (SD) agents arrested her at the Dutch border and took her to Gestapo headquarters. Once there she was seen by Walter Schellenberg, who at that time worked in the counter-intelligence department of the SD. He gave her an ultimatum: cooperate with the Nazis or be sent to a concentration camp. Using Salon Kitty for espionage purposes was an idea of Reinhard Heydrich, a leading SS general and police chief within Nazi Germany. Instead of infiltrating the brothel, Schellenberg took it over altogether. The idea was to entertain prominent guests with wine and women, so they would disclose secrets or talk about their real opinions to ensure their support could be relied upon. The nine rooms of the salon were lavishly expanded and renovated to the highest standards of the 1930s. Schellenberg installed covert listening devices in the rooms and converted the basement into a "workshop" where five operators could make transcriptions of conversations from the love-making rooms. For the purpose of espionage, the SS started looking for young women to