Duquesne Spy Ring
The Duquesne Spy Ring is the largest
The agents who formed the Duquesne Ring were placed in key jobs in the United States to get information that could be used in the event of war and to carry out acts of sabotage: one opened a restaurant and used his position to get information from his customers; another worked on an airline so that he could report Allied ships that were crossing the Atlantic Ocean; others worked as delivery people as a cover for carrying secret messages.
One German spymaster later commented the ring's roundup delivered "the death blow" to their espionage efforts in the United States. FBI director J. Edgar Hoover called his concerted FBI swoop on Duquesne's ring the greatest spy roundup in U.S. history.[1]
The 1945 film The House on 92nd Street was a thinly disguised version of the Duquesne Spy Ring saga of 1941.[citation needed]
FBI agents
William Sebold (double-agent)
After the Duquesne Spy Ring convictions, Sebold was provided with a new identity and started a chicken farm in California.[2]
Impoverished and delusional, he was committed to Napa State Hospital in 1965. Diagnosed with manic-depression, he died there of a heart attack five years later at 70.[3] His life story as a double agent was first told in the 1943 book Passport to Treason: The Inside Story of Spies in America by Alan Hynd.
James Ellsworth
William Gustav Friedemann
William Gustav Friedemann was a principal witness in the Duquesne case. He began working for the FBI as a fingerprint analyst in 1935 and later became an agent after identifying a crucial fingerprint in a kidnapping case.[6]
After World War II, he was assigned to
Convicted members of Duquesne Spy Ring
Fritz Duquesne
Born in
Duquesne was captured and imprisoned three times by the British, once by the Portuguese, and once by the Americans in 1917, and each time he escaped.[8] In World War I, he was a spy and ring leader for Germany and during this time he sabotaged British merchant ships in South America with concealed bombs and destroyed several.[8] Duquesne was also ordered to assassinate an American, Frederick Russell Burnham, Chief of Scouts for the British Army, but failed to do so.[10] He was known as "The man who killed Kitchener" since he claimed to have sabotaged and sunk HMS Hampshire, on which Lord Kitchener was en route to Russia in 1916.[11]
In the spring of 1934, Duquesne became an intelligence officer for the Order of 76, an American pro-Nazi organization, and in January 1935 he began working for U.S. government's Works Progress Administration. Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, head of the Abwehr, knew Duquesne from his work in World War I and he instructed his new chief of operations in the U.S., Col. Nikolaus Ritter, to make contact. Ritter had been friends with Duquesne back in 1931 and the two spies reconnected in New York on December 3, 1937.[2]
On February 8, 1940, Ritter sent Sebold, under the alias of Harry Sawyer, to New York and instructed him to set up a shortwave radio-transmitting station and to contact Duquesne, code-named DUNN.[2]
Once the FBI discovered through Sebold that Duquesne was again in New York operating as a German spy, director
In a letter to the
Duquesne was found guilty of espionage and sentenced to 18 years in prison. He received a concurrent two-year sentence and was fined $2,000 for violating the
Paul Bante
Born in Germany, Paul Bante served in the German Army during the First World War. In 1930 he came to the United States, where he was naturalized in 1938. Bante, a former member of the German American Bund, claimed that he was brought into contact with agent Paul Fehse because of his ties to Ignatz Theodor Griebl. Before he fled the United States for Germany, Griebl was accused of belonging to a Nazi spy ring along with Rumrich spy ring. Bante helped Fehse to obtain information about ships leaving for Great Britain loaded with war supplies and supplies. As a Gestapo agent, he was supposed to cause discontent amongst trade unionists. Sebold met Bante at the Little Casino Restaurant, which was frequently used by the ring's members. During one of these meetings, Bante talked about making a bomb detonator, after which he later gave dynamite and detonators to Sebold.[13]
Bante pleaded guilty to violating the Registration Act. He was sentenced to 18 months in prison and fined $1,000.[13]
Max Blank
Blank came to the United States from Germany in 1928. While he never became a U.S. citizen, he'd been employed at a German library. Blank boasted to agent Sebold that he had been in the espionage business since 1936, but that he had lost interest in recent years because payments from Germany had fallen off.[13]
Blank pleaded guilty to violating the Registration Act. He was sentenced 18 months in prison and fined $1,000.[13]
Heinrich Clausing
In September,1934, German-born Heinrich Clausing came to the United States, where he became a naturalized citizen in 1938. Around 1938, Heine was recruited to find American automobile and aviation industry secrets that could be passed to Germany through the Duquesne Spy Ring.[13] Later it was discovered that Heine was also the mysterious "Heinrich" who supplied the spy ring with aerial photographs.[13]
After obtaining technical books relating to magnesium and aluminum alloys, Heine sent the materials to Heinrich Eilers. To ensure safe delivery of the books to Germany in case they did not reach Eilers, Heine indicated the return address on the package as the address of Lilly Stein.[13]
Clausing pleaded guilty to espionage and was sentenced to 8 years in prison. He also received a two-year concurrent sentence and was fined $5,000 for violating of the Registration Act.[13]
Paul Fehse
In 1934, Fehse left Germany for the United States, where he was naturalized in 1938. Since emigrating, he'd been employed as a cook aboard ships sailing from the New York Harbor. Fehse was one of the leading forces in the spy ring. He arranged meetings, directed members’ activities, correlated information that had been developed, and arranged for its transmittal to Germany, chiefly through Sebold. Fehse, who was trained for espionage work in Hamburg, claimed he headed the Marine Division of the Nazi espionage system in the United States.[13]
Having become nervous, Fehse made plans to leave the country. He obtained a position on the SS Siboney, which was scheduled to sail from Hoboken, New Jersey, for Lisbon, on March 29, 1941. He planned to desert ship in Lisbon and return to Germany. However, before he could leave, Fehse was arrested by the FBI. Upon his arrest, he admitted sending letters to Italy for transmittal to Germany, as well as reporting the movements of British ships. Fehse pleaded guilty to violating the Registration Act and was sentenced to one year and one day in prison. He later pleaded guilty to espionage and was sentenced to 15 years in prison.[13]
Gustav Wilhelm Kärcher
Kärcher emigrated from Germany to the United States in 1923, and was naturalized in 1931. He served in the German Army during World War I, and was a former leader of the German American Bund in New York. During visits to Germany, Kärcher was seen wearing a German Army officer’s uniform. At the time of his arrest, he was engaged in designing power plants for a gas and electricity company in New York City. Kärcher was arrested with Paul Scholz, who'd just given Kärcher a table of call letters and frequencies for transmitting information to Germany by radio.[13]
After pleading guilty to violating the Registration Act, Kärcher was sentenced to 22 months in prison and fined $2,000.[13]
Herman W. Lang
Herman W. Lang had participated in the Beer Hall Putsch in 1923. He immigrated to the United States in 1927.[2][14]
Until his arrest, machinist and draftsman Lang had been employed as an assembly inspector by the Carl L. Norden Corp., which manufactured the top secret Norden bombsight. In October 1937 he met Ritter and told him he had overnight access to classified drawings and used it to copy them in his kitchen at home while his family was asleep.[14] He then hid the plans in a wooden casing for an umbrella, and, on January 9, 1938, personally handed the umbrella off to a German steward and secret courier on the ship SS Reliance bound for Bremen.[2] For that he received $1500.[14] However, he could not copy all the plans, and Ritter had to invite him to Germany in order to complete a model, where he was received by Hermann Göring himself.[14]
The Norden bombsight had been considered a critical wartime instrument by the
Upon conviction, Lang was sentenced to 18 years in prison on espionage charges and a concurrent two-year term under the Registration Act. He was released and deported to Germany in September 1950.[2]
Evelyn Clayton Lewis
A native of
Rene Emanuel Mezenen
Rene Emanuel Mezenen, a
The German Intelligence Service in Lisbon, Portugal, asked Mezenen to act as a courier, transmitting information between the United States and Portugal on his regular commercial aircraft trips. As a steward he was able to deliver documents from New York to Lisbon in 24 hours. He accepted this offer for financial gain. In the course of flights across the Atlantic, Mezenen reported his observance of convoys sailing for England. He also became involved in smuggling platinum from the United States to Portugal. When discussing his courier role with agent Sebold, Mezenen boasted that he hid the spy letters so well that if they were found it would have taken two to three weeks to repair the airplane.[13]
After pleading guilty, Mezenen was sentenced to 8 years in prison for espionage. He received a concurrent two-year sentence for violating the Registration Act.[13]
Carl Reuper
Having come to the United States from Germany in 1929, Carl Reuper became a citizen in 1936. Prior to his arrest, he served as an inspector for the
Reuper obtained photographs for Germany relating to national defense materials and construction, which he obtained from his employment. He arranged radio contact with Germany through the station established by Felix Jahnke. On one occasion, he conferred with Sebold regarding the latter's facilities for communicating with German authorities. After being convicted at trial, Reuper was sentenced to 16 years in prison on espionage charges and received a concurrent two-year sentence under the Registration Act.[13]
Everett Minster Roeder
Born in the
Sebold had delivered microphotograph instructions to Roeder, as ordered by German authorities. Roeder and Sebold met in public places and proceeded to spots where they could talk privately. In 1936, Roeder had visited Germany and was requested by German authorities to act as an espionage agent. Primarily due to monetary rewards he would receive, Roeder agreed.[13]
Among the Sperry development secrets Roeder disclosed were the blueprints of the complete radio instrumentation of the new Glenn Martin bomber, classified drawings of range finders, blind-flying instruments, a bank-and-turn indicator, a navigator compass, a wiring diagram of the Lockheed Hudson bomber, and diagrams of the Hudson gun mountings.[2] From Roeder the Abwehr also obtained the plans for an advanced automatic pilot device that was later used in Luftwaffe fighters and bombers.[16] At the time of his arrest, Roeder had 16 guns in his Long Island home in New York.[9]
Roeder pleaded guilty to espionage and was sentenced to 16 years in prison. In 1949, Roeder published his book, Formulas in plane triangles.[17]
Paul Alfred W. Scholz
A German native, Paul Scholz went to the United States in 1926 but never attained citizenship. He had been employed in German book stores in New York City, where he disseminated Nazi propaganda.[13]
Scholz had arranged for Josef Klein to construct the radio set used by Felix Jahnke and Axel Wheeler-Hill. At the time of his arrest, Scholz had just given Gustav Wilhelm Kaercher a list of radio call letters and frequencies. He also encouraged members of this spy ring to secure data for Germany and arranged contacts between various German agents.[13]
After being convicted at trial, Scholz was sentenced to 16 years in prison for espionage and received a concurrent two-year sentence under the Registration Act.[13]
George Gottlob Schuh
George Gottlob Schuh, a native of Germany, went to the United States in 1923. He became a citizen in 1939 and was employed as a
As a German agent, he sent information directly to the Gestapo in Hamburg from the United States. Schuh had provided Alfred Brokhoff information that Winston Churchill had arrived in the United States on HMS King George V. He also furnished information to Germany concerning the movement of ships carrying materials and supplies to Britain.[13]
Having pleaded guilty to violation of the Registration Act, Schuh received a sentence of 18 months in prison and a $1,000 fine.[13]
Erwin Wilhelm Siegler
Erwin Wilhelm Siegler went to the United States from Germany in 1929 and attained citizenship in 1936. He had served as chief butcher on the SS America (1940) until it was taken over by the U.S. Navy.[13]
A courier, Siegler brought microphotographic instructions to Sebold from German authorities on one occasion. He also had brought $2,900 from German contacts abroad to pay Lilly Stein, Duquesne, and Roeder for their services and to buy a bomb sight. He served the espionage group as an organizer and contact man, and he also obtained information about the movement of ships and military defense preparations at the Panama Canal.[13]
After being convicted at trial, Siegler was sentenced to 10 years in prison for espionage and a concurrent two-year term for violating the Registration Act.[13]
Oscar Richard Stabler
Born in Germany, Oscar Richard Stabler went to the United States in 1923 and became a citizen in 1933. He had been employed primarily as a barber aboard transoceanic ships. In December 1940, British authorities in Bermuda found a map of Gibraltar in his possession. He was detained for a short period before being released. A close associate of Conradin Otto Dold, Stabler served as a courier, transmitting information between German agents in the United States and contacts abroad.[13]
Stabler was convicted and sentenced to five years in prison for espionage and a concurrent two-year term under the Registration Act.[13]
Heinrich Stade
Heinrich Stade went to the United States from Germany in 1922 and became a citizen in 1929. He had been a musician and publicity agent in New York. He told agent Sebold he had been in the Gestapo since 1936 and boasted that he knew everything in the spy business.[13]
Stade had arranged for Paul Bante's contact with Sebold and had transmitted data to Germany regarding points of rendezvous for
Stade was arrested while playing in the orchestra at an inn on Long Island, New York. Following a guilty plea to violation of the Registration Act, Stade was fined $1,000 and received a 15-month prison sentence.[13]
Lilly Barbara Carola Stein
Born in Vienna, Stein was a Jewish immigrant who had escaped in 1939 with the help of a U.S. diplomat in Vienna, Vice Consul Ogden Hammond Jr.[9] She later met Hugo Sebold, the espionage instructor who had trained William Sebold (the two men were not related) in Hamburg, Germany. She enrolled in this school and was sent to the United States by way of Sweden in 1939.[13]
In New York, she worked as an artist's model and was said to have moved in New York's social circles. As a German agent her mission was to find her targets at New York nightclubs, sleep with these men, and attempt to blackmail them or otherwise entice them to give up valuable secrets. One FBI agent described her as a "good-looking nymphomaniac".[9] Stein was one of the people to whom Sebold had been instructed to deliver microphotograph instructions upon his arrival in the United States. She frequently met with Sebold to give him information for transmittal to Germany, and her address was used as a return address by other agents in mailing data for Germany.[13]
Stein pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 10 years in prison for espionage and a concurrent two-year term for violating the Registration Act.[13] After her release, she left for France where she found employment at a luxury resort near Strasbourg.[9]
Franz Joseph Stigler
In 1931, Franz Joseph Stigler, left Germany for the United States, where he became a citizen in 1939. He had been employed as a crew member and chief baker aboard U.S. ships until his discharge from the
Upon conviction, Stigler was sentenced to serve 16 years in prison on espionage charges with two concurrent years for registration violations.[13]
Erich Strunck
A seaman aboard the ships of the United States Lines since his arrival in the United States, Erich Strunck went to the United States from Germany in 1927. He became a naturalized citizen in 1935. As a courier, Strunck carried messages between German agents in the United States and Europe. He requested authority to steal the diplomatic bag of a British officer traveling aboard his ship and to dispose of the officer by pushing him overboard. Sebold convinced him that it would be too risky to do so.[13]
Strunck was convicted and sentenced to serve 10 years in prison on espionage charges. He also was sentenced to serve a two-year concurrent term under the Registration Act.[13]
Leo Waalen
Leo Waalen was born in
Waalen gathered information about ships sailing for England. He also obtained a confidential booklet issued by the FBI which contained precautions to be taken by industrial plants to safeguard national defense materials from sabotage. He secured government contracts listing specifications for materials and equipment, as well as detailed sea charts of the United States Atlantic coastline.[13]
In May 1941, the
Following his conviction, Waalen was sentenced to 12 years in prison for espionage and a concurrent two-year term for violation of the Registration Act.[13]
Adolf Henry August Walischewski
A German native, Walischewski had been a seaman since maturity. He became a naturalized citizen in 1935. Walischewski became connected with the German espionage system through Paul Fehse. His duties were confined to those of courier, carrying data from agents in the United States to contacts abroad.[13]
Upon conviction, Walischewski received a five-year prison sentence on espionage charges, as well as a two-year concurrent sentence under the Registration Act.[13]
Else Weustenfeld
Else Weustenfeld arrived in the United States from Germany in 1927 and became a citizen 10 years later. From 1935 until her arrest, she was a secretary for a law firm representing the German Consulate in New York City.[13]
Weustenfeld was thoroughly acquainted with the German espionage system and delivered funds to Duquesne which she had received from Lilly Stein, her close friend.[13]
She lived in New York City with Hans W. Ritter, a principal in the German espionage system. His brother, Nickolaus Ritter, was the "Dr. Renken" who had enlisted Sebold as a German agent. In 1940, Weustenfeld visited Hans Ritter in Mexico, where he was serving as a paymaster for the German Intelligence Service.[13]
After pleading guilty, Else Weustenfeld was sentenced to five years' imprisonment on charge of espionage and two concurrent years on a charge of registration violations.[13]
Axel Wheeler-Hill
Axel Wheeler-Hill went to the United States in 1923 from his native Latvia. Between 1918 and 1922, he'd served in the Baltic Freikorps during the Latvian War of Independence.[18] He was naturalized as a citizen in 1929 and was employed as a truck driver.[13]
Wheeler-Hill obtained information for Germany regarding ships sailing to Britain from New York Harbor. With Felix Jahnke, he enlisted the aid of Paul Scholz in building a radio set for sending coded messages to Germany.[13]
Following conviction, Wheeler-Hill was sentenced to serve 15 years in prison for espionage and 2 concurrent years under the Registration Act.[13]
Bertram Wolfgang Zenzinger
Born in Germany, Bertram Wolfgang Zenzinger went to the United States in 1940 as a naturalized citizen of the
In July 1940, Zenzinger received a pencil for preparing invisible messages for Germany in the mail from Siegler. He sent several letters to Germany through a mail drop in Sweden, outlining details of national defense materials.[13]
Zenzinger was arrested by FBI agents on April 16, 1941. Pleading guilty, he was sentenced to 8 years in prison for espionage and 18 months in prison for Registration Act.[13]
Liaisons to the Duquesne Spy Ring
Takeo Ezima
Lieut Commander Takeo Ezima of the Imperial Japanese Navy operated in New York as an engineer inspector using the name: E. Satoz;[9][page needed] code name: KATO.[19]
He arrived on the Heian Maru in Seattle in 1938.[9] On October 19, 1940, Sebold received a radio message from Germany that CARR (Abwehr Agent Roeder) was to meet E. Satoz at a Japanese club in New York.[20]
Ezima was filmed by the FBI while meeting with agent Sebold in New York, conclusive evidence of German-Japanese cooperation in espionage, in addition to meeting with Kanegoro Koike, Paymaster Commander of the Japanese Imperial Navy assigned to the Office of the Japanese Naval Inspector in New York.[9][21] Ezima obtained a number of military materials from Duquesne, including ammunition, a drawing of a hydraulic unit with pressure switch A-5 of the Sperry Gyroscope, and an original drawing from the Lawrence Engineering and Research Corporation of a soundproofing installation, and he agreed to deliver materials to Germany via Japan.[19][21][22] The British had made the Abwehr courier route from New York through Lisbon, Portugal difficult, so Ezima arranged an alternate route to the west coast with deliveries every two weeks on freighters destined for Japan.[20]
As the FBI arrested Duquesne and his agents in New York in 1941, Ezima escaped to the west coast, boarded the Japanese freighter
Nikolaus Adolph Fritz Ritter
Oberstleutnant (Lieutenant colonel) Nikolaus Ritter led spy rings in the United States, Great Britain, and North Africa from 1936 to 1941. Ritter was born in Germany and had served as an officer in the First World War on the Western Front in France where he was twice wounded. He emigrated to New York in 1924, married an American, and returned to Germany in 1936 to join the Abwehr as Chief of Air Intelligence based in Hamburg operating under the code name: DR. RANTZAU.
He first met Fritz Duquesne in 1931, and the two spies reconnected in New York on December 3, 1937. Ritter also met Herman Lang while in New York, and he arranged for Lang to later go to Germany to help the Nazis finish their version of the topsecret Norden bombsight. Ritter achieved several major successes with the Abwehr, most notably the Norden bombsight, in addition to an advanced aircraft auto-pilot from the Sperry Gyroscope Company, and also intelligence operations in North Africa in support of Field Marshal Erwin Rommel. But some of Ritter's recruits became double-agents who catastrophically exposed his spy rings.[9]
Ritter recruited William Sebold who later joined the FBI which resulted in the arrest of the 33 Abwehr agents of the Duquesne Spy Ring. In Great Britain, he recruited Arthur Owens, code named JOHNNY, who became an agent for MI5 (British Intelligence) operating under the code name SNOW. Owens exposed so many Abwehr covert agents operating in Britain that by the end of the war MI5 had enlisted some 120 double agents. Although Ritter was never captured, it was the arrest of the Duquesne Spy Ring that ultimately resulted in Ritter's fall from the Abwehr and his reassignment in 1942 to air defenses in Germany for the remainder of the Second World War.[9]
See also
References
Notes
- ISSN 0040-781X. (subscription required)
- ^ a b c d e f g h Evans, Leslie (April 1, 2014). "Fritz Joubert Duquesne: Boer Avenger, German Spy, Munchausen Fantasist". Retrieved May 19, 2014.
- ^ a b Connelly, Sherryl (12 July 2014). "New Yorker risks life as double agent in Nazi underground, brings down Duquesne Spy Ring: new book". nydailynews.com.
- ISBN 978-1451667950.
- ^ Mormon FBI agent played part in largest espionage case in American history, deseretnews.com, November 5, 2014.
- ISSN 0190-8286.
- ^ ISSN 0190-8286.
- ^ OCLC 605599179.
- ^ ISBN 978-1-4516-6795-0.
- ISBN 1-879356-32-5.
- ^ Wood, Clement (1932). The man who killed Kitchener; the life of Fritz Joubert Duquesne. New York: William Faro, Inc.
- ISBN 0-471-26739-2.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z aa ab ac ad ae af ag ah ai aj ak al am an ao ap aq ar as at au av aw ax ay az ba bb bc bd "Duquesne Spy Ring - FBI". Federal Bureau of Investigation, U.S. Department of Justice. May 19, 2016. Retrieved September 10, 2016.
- ^ a b c d "Spy Story".
- ^ Ross: Strategic Bombing by the United States in World War II
- OCLC 606543265. Archived from the original on 17 April 2001. Retrieved 21 September 2016.)
{{cite journal}}
: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link - ^ "Books". Catalog of Copyright Entries. 3 (1). Washington, DC: Library of Congress: 410. 1949.
- ISBN 978-3-515-06805-5.
- ^ a b "Reveal Nazi-Jap Spy Link in U.S. prior to Dec. 7: Tell how Tokio Agent fled as FBI raided ring". Chicago Tribune. Chicago, Illinois. September 21, 1942.
- ^ a b c Roehner, Bertrand M. (2014). Relations between Military Forces and the Population of Hawaii (PDF). University of Paris.
- ^ a b Newark, Tim (2013). The Mafia at War: The Shocking True Story of America's Wartime Pact with Organized Crime. Skyhorse Publishing.
Sources
- Federal Bureau of Investigation Vault: Frederick Duquesne Case Write-up
- FBI Famous Cases & Criminals: The Duquesne Spy Ring
External links
- Media related to Duquesne Spy Ring at Wikimedia Commons