Read Ebook: The German Spy in America The Secret Plotting of German Spies in the United States and the Inside Story of the Sinking of the Lusitania by Jones John Price Roosevelt Theodore Author Of Introduction Etc Wood Roger B Author Of Introduction Etc

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THE GERMAN SPY IN AMERICA

America has been the great background of the European War. Though far removed from the trenches with the play of artillery and the heroic charges, this country has been the scene of an equally dramatic, though silent struggle--a battle not visible to the eye. It has been a conflict of wits, of statesman pitted against statesman, of secret agent striving to outdo his opponent of a belligerent nation; for in America, agents of Germany have been striving for a two-fold aim. They have sought to enmesh the United States in an international conspiracy and to use this country as the means of a rear attack on the Entente Allies.

And New York has been the centre of it all. In several of the huge office buildings that make the thoroughfares of the city seem like canyons, Germany had, and still has, the headquarters of a vast nerve-like system radiating throughout the country. The nerve coils are composed of thousands of secret agents located in every city and town. These men have worked under orders from Berlin in the execution of a series of campaigns designed to be of service to the Teutonic Allies. Against these men have been pitted agents of the American government, all aiming to detect the schemes and frustrate any plans for the violation of our neutrality laws.

A diplomat, famed for his finesse and grace of manner, was at a reception given to distinguished statesmen, talented business men and attractive women. The conversation was turned to the topic of spies. One woman wished to know if the diplomat had encountered any spies.

"Didn't you complain to the management?"

"Ah, no," answered he gravely, "but every time the Count stops at the Hotel Elaborate, I have his baggage searched, too."

Perhaps the diplomat was not serious, but in days when the destiny of nations was at stake, it was likely that he was speaking none too lightly of a game that had doubtless cost him many an hour of the keenest anxiety.

Of all the secret service systems, the German is the most elaborate and machine-like. It has been organized not merely to gather information, but to trample upon the laws of the United States, in order to hinder any project of the Entente Allies. Constructed in the hours of peace with the utmost care and foresight, it was easily expanded in the United States at the outbreak of the war into such a vast network that if a representative of the Allies suddenly retraced his steps or halted suddenly when around a corner, he was almost sure to bump the shins of a German spy. Germany, always methodical and thorough, possessing a genius for moulding a multitude of details into an effective whole, had prepared her secret service system with the same efficiency with which through scores of years she had equipped her military forces for battle; indeed, her secret service was a part of her military forces.

Germany's spy system has been the sword hand of her statesmen and her diplomats. When this war is over and the world learns of the moves, counter-moves, and Machiavellian methods of German diplomats, with their intrigues, secret understandings, and their daring attempts to force this country into dangerous situations, people will realize more clearly than to-day what a marvellous system has been behind many seemingly casual developments in this country. It will be shown how German agents have violated our laws in order to gain secret information for the benefit of Germany; how her secret agents have committed crimes in order to coerce diplomatic negotiations.

RAMIFICATIONS OF UNDERGROUND PLOTS

So perfectly organized and so responsive to the slightest suggestion from Berlin is the American branch of the Kaiser's secret service that vast undertakings--some legitimate, many in violation of American laws--were carried out.

The magician, who invented the wireless, enabled the German General War Staff to move to New York. The splash and splutter of electricity over oceans and continents virtually transported Germany's leading statesmen, tacticians, and scientists at will to hold sessions in Manhattan on matters arising in America and bearing on the battle-front in the many theatres of actual warfare. For instance, how many people know that the secretary to one of the generals on the Western Line was a brother to one of the most notorious woman plotters in America? Germany had foreseen the possibilities of the wireless in war and had developed secret methods of sending code messages by radiogram, when apparently only ordinary messages were being transmitted, and she had also, some way or other, got possession of the code ciphers of other nations. Every night messages have been sent out from Germany, apparently blindly, addressed to no one and have been picked up by hidden receiving stations in America and other countries.

But the German Government has officially denied that she ordered any of her subjects to undertake any act in violation of American laws. Shortly after President Wilson in his message to Congress bitterly attacked the activities of Germans and German-Americans in America, accusing the latter of treason, the German Government authorized the statement that it:

To this official disavowal of German propaganda in America, there are two answers that stand out with dramatic force. First, the extent to which the subjects of Germany are expected to go in war time is shown by excerpts from Germany's War Book of instructions to officers, which says in part:

The War Book of the German General Staff, translated by J. H. Morgan, M.A., pp. 113-114.

Secondly, since Germany sent out that semi-official proclamation from Berlin concerning propagandists, many steps have been taken by the American Government, both administrative and judicial. Captains von Papen and Boy-Ed, military and naval attach?s respectively, have been dismissed from this country for "improper activities in military and naval affairs."

There was no favouritism in the German secret service. Every German, high or low, was open to assignment, disagreeable and dishonourable, in getting information, and to orders to commit crimes--for Germany stops at no crime--that may be necessary to circumvent the enemy.

Captain von Papen showed his feeling keenly one night at a dinner of a few men where the wine flowed freely.

"My God, I would give everything in the world," he exclaimed, "to be in the trenches where I could do the work of a gentleman." In his work, there was no public reward for work well performed according to the war code. That man's sentiments were echoed by von Rintelen, who, when among friends, fairly shook with emotion at the thought of the work in which he was engaged.

"How loathsome I feel," he said. "How this dirty work sticks to me! When this war ends, I shall take a bath in carbolic acid."

THREE EXECUTIVES IN THE UNITED STATES

Over all the thousands of reservists, trained agents, and other spies were the men in charge of the centres of information to whom they made their report; and the three or four chief lieutenants in charge of the various and distinct line of activities into which these matters of war, finance and commerce automatically were divided. There were practically, outside of the Chief Spy, three important executives in this country, supervising respectively the commercial, military and naval lines of information and activity. Each one of these men was surrounded by a group of experts who had charge of a sub-division of the work. All had their legal advisers, their bankers, and every sort of an expert that their special work required. Upon them fell the task of sifting and analysing the mass of facts gathered by the spies and making reports to Berlin. Upon each one of them also fell the duty of carrying out any orders that might come from the General War Staff in Germany.

First and foremost of the three lieutenants was Dr. Heinrich F. Albert, Privy Councillor to the German Embassy in America and Fiscal Agent of the German Empire. He directed the gathering of a huge mass of information of value to Germany concerning the financial, industrial and commercial activities of this country, and was the chief instrument through whom money reached the army of spies. Though he was the director of many activities, nothing criminal, it must be asserted in justice to him, has been traced to him.

The military agent was Captain Franz von Papen, the attach? of the German Embassy. His work was confined specifically to the procuring of information that would be of aid to the Imperial German army and to the military tasks that might be peculiarly helpful to the army.

The naval expert was Captain Karl Boy-Ed, another attach? of the German Embassy. He had under him experts who made a speciality of various lines of naval matters, fortifications, coast defences and explosives.

The headquarters of the entire system were and are yet in New York. Dr. Albert had his offices in the Hamburg-American Steamship Company's building, and he utilized at times a good part of the Hamburg-American Company's staff--a concern in which the Kaiser himself owns a large percentage of the stock. In the same building was the office of Paul Koenig, the business manager of part of Germany's spy system in America, though nominally the Superintendent of Police for the Hamburg-American line. Captain Boy-Ed had his headquarters in Room 801 of 11, Broadway, and Captain von Papen had his on the twenty-fifth floor of 60, Wall Street.

This narrative seeks to show as definitely as possible the work of these three agents of Germany in America and of others co-operating with them. It sets forth the enterprises that they plotted and the ramifications of their organization. It reveals how countless agents, unaware that they were parts of a vast system and often innocent of any intentional wrongdoing, acted their parts. It shows how that part of the machinery engaged in legitimate propaganda was linked at places with the machinery executing illegal acts.

While the conspiracy has been manipulated, the American Government has been very active. To the skill of the United States secret service, headed by Chief William J. Flynn, always alert and apparently unruffled in the most trying crises, and to A. Bruce Bielaski, head of the special agents of the Department of Justice, and William M. Offley, Superintendent of the New York Bureau of the special agents, has fallen the task of seeing that the representatives of the different countries followed the American maxim, "Play fair; play according to the rules of international law and the laws of this country." Upon Police Commissioner Woods, his deputy, Guy Scull, of New York, and his enthusiastic and clever aid, Police Captain Thomas J. Tunney, has devolved also the hazardous and difficult task of combating the schemes of those spies. Those men, by courageous and skilful detective work have unearthed and foiled some of the most daring bomb plots of the Germans.

To Messrs. Flynn and Bielaski, at times, have come secrets of intrigue and conspiracy that must have made them, even as it has the President, almost tremble with the import of impending events that had to be forestalled.

"I always say to these idiotic Yankees they had better hold their tongues."

This attitude of arrogance was Captain von Papen's chief characteristic. Joined to it was the brother trait, bluntness. He believed that the American people were not only stupid but also weak-sighted and that he could do anything he wanted without detection. So he put his heart and soul into military and criminal enterprises upon American soil. The Captain apparently thought that the American authorities would not suspect his machinations, for, unlike Captain Boy-Ed, he made comparatively few efforts to cover up the trails of his activities. That carelessness proved his scorn for American detective methods, for with all his haughtiness and bravado he had been trained in a school of craft. He had been drilled under instructors who placed a prize on cunning, deceit, intrigue, reckless disregard of the rights of others, and the destiny of Prussia as a conqueror. The Captain presumably believed that craft and cunning were not necessary in America.

CONTEMPT FOR DEMOCRACY

Confident that he was eluding the watchful eye of the United States authorities with more skill than his associates, he sent a telegram one day to Captain Boy-Ed, warning him to be more careful. Whereupon the latter, smiling cheerfully to himself, wrote this letter: "Dear Papen: A secret agent who returned from Washington this evening, made the following statement: 'The Washington people are very much excited about von Papen and are having a constant watch kept on him. They are in possession of a whole heap of incriminating evidence against him. They have no evidence against Count B. and Captain B.-E. '" Boy-Ed, a little too optimistically, added: "In this connection I would suggest with due diffidence that perhaps the first part of your telegram is worded rather too emphatically."

UNDER ORDERS FROM BERLIN

He had been selected in his youth for secret work because of an aptness which he early displayed. He had been trained especially for the work which he undertook in other countries under direction of the German General Staff and for the tasks that devolved upon him in America both before and after the war. As a young officer he was sent out from Germany, travelling as a civilian, making special studies of the sentiment of the people, the topography of the country, and getting in touch with other secret workers. One of the countries which he studied with remarkable care was Ireland. He tramped and rode every foot of the land and knew it thoroughly. He displayed something of the knowledge he had acquired when riding in Central Park, one day after the war started, he stopped to chat with an acquaintance who had bought a mare. Waxing enthusiastic over the animal he quickly showed his acquaintance with Ireland by giving the breed of the mare and telling exactly the counties in Ireland where that breed could be found.

How well he disguised himself in those various expeditions when he rode horseback simply as a sightseer, is indicated by his horsemanship. Though he was trained in a riding school at Hanover, where ostensibly they teach the French method, nevertheless in Central Park, where many a morning he could be observed, he displayed perfect English form. They say that when one learns the French style, one invariably clings to it above all others. Naturally, a horseman travelling through Ireland revealing every characteristic of the French school would attract attention.

As the military attach? of the German Embassy, Captain von Papen was under orders, not of Count von Bernstorff, but of the military head in Germany. Appointed personally by the Kaiser as the representative of the German Army in America and Mexico, he had the commission that falls to every military attach? of a foreign government, namely, to make a study of the army of the nation to which he is accredited.

Captain von Papen, always striving for praise and preferment from the Kaiser, was a most enthusiastic gatherer of military information. Knowing that no phase of military activity throughout the world escapes the watchful eye of the Chief Spy or the German General Staff, von Papen was always on the alert for any invention, new method of warfare, or germ of an idea that might be developed into an important advantage for Germany; just as the War Staff got their suggestion for the modern trench warfare from the Indians and later from the Civil War. For instance, shortly before the great war started, Captain von Papen, addressed as "Royal Prussian Captain on the General Staff of the Army," was directed by R. von Wild, of the Ministry of War's office, to proceed to Mexico and there investigate the attacks on railroad trains by means of mines and explosives. He made a thorough investigation and though he reported: "I consider it out of the question that explosions prepared in this way would have to be reckoned with in a European war," he nevertheless sought to utilize that method in blowing up tunnels and railroads in Canada.

How well von Papen, as an organizer and military investigator, acquitted himself in the interest of the Kaiser is set forth in Rear Admiral von Hintze's own language in a report which he made from Mexico to the Imperial Chancellor recommending von Papen for a decoration. That letter is striking; for it suggests the work which von Papen afterwards did in America, if he had not already made the arrangements for it prior to the outbreak of the European conflict. The admiral wrote that von Papen "showed special industry in organizing the German colony for purposes of self-defence and out of this shy and factious material, unwilling to undertake any military activity, he obtained what there was to be got."

While von Papen had a staff of experts and of secret agents prior to the war, he did not then have the perfectly developed system at his command which he used afterwards. That he had his plans well mapped out for any contingency and that he knew the situation thoroughly is vividly illustrated in a draft of a cable message which he sent to Captain Boy-Ed from Mexico City on July 29, 1914, saying:

"If necessary, arrange business for me too with Pavenstedt. Then inform Lersner. The Russian attach? ordered back to Washington by telegraph. On outbreak of war have intermediaries located by detective where Russian and French intelligence office." The latter part of the message, referring to intermediaries, is open to two interpretations: first, that Boy-Ed was to have detectives locate the Russian and French intelligence offices; second, Boy-Ed was to place spies in the Russian and French intelligence bureaus.

Hurrying to Washington, the military attach? immediately took charge of the military part of Germany's spy system. He began to weld together into a vast organization scientists, experts, secret agents and German reservists who would gather information for him and who would be ready at the command of the General War Staff, to undertake any military enterprise. The entire organization of German consuls and representatives in America work in unity in war as in peace. How quickly von Papen got his staff together is shown in a statement made by Franz Wachendorf, alias Horst von der Goltz, alias Bridgeman Taylor, who became one of Papen's aids in spy work and military enterprises. Wachendorf, who was a major in the Mexican army at the outbreak of war, said under oath: "The 3rd of August, 1914; licence was given me by my commanding officer to separate myself from the service of the brigade for the term of six months. I left directly for El Paso, Texas, where I was told by Mr. Kuck, German consul at Chihuahua, Mexico, who stayed there, to put myself at the disposition of Captain von Papen."

CALLING RESERVISTS

The military attach? also had help from Germany and from German reservists coming from other countries. The War Office in Berlin sent him men. Captain Hans Tauscher, the husband of Mme. Gadski, was in Germany when war was declared. A reserve officer of the German Army, he immediately offered himself for duty. His order was to return to America at once and report to Captain von Papen. Likewise, soldiers and secret agents with special equipment, who were in different parts of the world and who had no definite work, were ordered by wireless or through secret channels to hasten to Captain von Papen's assistance. After a time, the Chief Spy in Germany detailed some of his aids to America to help in the upbuilding of a still more effective system of espionage.

Von Papen selected George von Skal, a German journalist and former Commissioner of Accounts of New York, as a paid assistant in his office; and as a matter of fact every one of the big German agents in America had on his staff at least one trained newspaper man. He took as his secretary Wolf von Igel, a young man of distinguished appearance, and through him secretly rented a suite of offices in Wall Street "for advertising purposes."

Another man upon whom he could call for help was Paul Koenig, lent by the Hamburg-American Steamship Company. Through Koenig, von Papen could reach out to countless Germans and select men for any sort of task. Sometimes, however, von Papen met with a refusal. He asked Captain Tauscher to perform a certain piece of work of questionable character and received in substance this answer: "I am ready to do anything within the law but I will not attempt this task." Experts in the chemistry of explosives, scientists of various sorts, lawyers and other advisers were on the military attach?'s staff, all having special tasks and all working for the Kaiser with or without pay.

FOREIGN ARMY ON U.S. SOIL

Von Papen sought to protect his Wall Street suite of offices from public investigation by installing therein a safe bearing the seal of the Imperial German Government. That safe, protected by time-locks and by electrical devices against the curiosity of other secret agents or the prying eyes of policemen, is said to have contained the plans of the military phases of German propaganda. When the Federal agents suddenly descended upon the office one day to arrest von Igel, they found the safe open and the documents neatly laid out on the table preparatory to shipment to Washington. From those papers the State Department and the Attorney-General have learned much of the history of von Papen's activities--the inner workings of the German spy system. In that office von Papen kept the full list of his various secret agents, German and American, working for him, their addresses and telephone numbers; various code books for the deciphering of messages sent to him and for sending word to agents in this country or making reports.

Accordingly, when von Papen's plan for espionage was perfected, he had not only a staff of experts at his elbow, but thousands of reservists and the help of German and Austro-Hungarian consuls and channels of information. He had men at his disposal for dangerous and delicate missions to other countries. The ramifications of the system, the collecting agency and activities which he supervised for the good of the Fatherland were so finely organized and so comprehensive that von Papen in reality was the head of the military division of the German spy system of the entire world, outside of the countries belted by the Allies with a ring of steel.

Facts to prove the details of von Papen's organization and deeds were obtained from the von Igel papers, from the letters and secret documents taken from Captain Archibald; from documents and check stubs found in von Papen's possession when searched at Falmouth, England; from von der Goltz's confession; from scores of witnesses and from facts dug up by the Secret Service and the Department of Justice. The trials of various offenders against neutrality laws have given the public more evidence. United States District-Attorney H. Snowden Marshall, in New York, his assistants, Roger B. Wood, in charge of the criminal division; Raymond H. Sarfaty, John C. Knox, and Harold A. Content, all set forth before the public many phases of the ingenious underground methods of spying and violating the law. Upon the evidence found by those officials and by United States District-Attorney Preston, of San Francisco, the following facts are presented:

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