Operation Pastorius
Operation Pastorius | |
---|---|
Part of the American Theater of World War II | |
Objective | Sabotage American economic infrastructure |
Date | June 1942 |
Executed by | Nazi Germany |
Outcome | Failed |
Operation Pastorius was a failed German intelligence plan for sabotage inside the United States during World War II. The operation was staged in June 1942 and was to be directed against strategic American economic targets. The operation was named by Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, chief of the German Abwehr, for Francis Daniel Pastorius, the organizer of the first organized settlement of Germans in America. The plan involved eight German saboteurs who had previously spent time in the United States.
The plan quickly failed after two of the agents,
Sixteen other people were charged with aiding those in charge of the operation.[1]
Background
After the Japanese
Agents
Recruited for Operation Pastorius were eight Germans who had lived in the United States. Two of them,
All eight were recruited into the Abwehr and were given three weeks of intensive sabotage training in the
The team
Mission
Their mission was to sabotage American economic targets:
Even before the mission began, it was in danger of being compromised, as George Dasch, commander of the team, left confidential documents on a train, and one of the agents, while drunk, announced to patrons in a Paris tavern that he was a secret agent.[10]
On the night of 12/13 June 1942, the first submarine to arrive in the U.S.,
Immediately upon reaching the beach, at around 30 minutes past midnight the saboteurs were discovered amidst the dunes by unarmed
U-202 itself remained stuck in the sand merely 200 metres (660 ft) offshore until daybreak, only when the tide came in was the submarine able to free itself and return to the depths of the ocean.[12] Later that month, U-202 would sink two civilian ships: the Argentine steamer Rio Tercero and the American passenger liner City of Birmingham, before returning to Europe.[18]
The other four-member German team commanded by Kerling landed without incident at
The two teams were to meet on 4 July in a hotel in Cincinnati to coordinate their sabotage operations.[20]
Betrayal
While in the Manhattan hotel, Dasch — clearly unnerved by the encounter with the Coast Guard — called Burger into their upper-story hotel room and opened a window, saying they would talk, and if they disagreed, "only one of us will walk out that door—the other will fly out this window." Dasch told him he had no intention of going through with the mission, hated
On 15 June, Dasch phoned the New York office of the FBI, gave his name as "Franz Pastorius" (the namesake of the operation), and explained the plot, but ended the call when the agent answering doubted his story and thought he was a crackpot.
Trial and executions
Since they were caught before they could do anything, officials were initially unsure on how to proceed against the saboteurs. Attorney General
Placed before a seven-member military commission, the Germans were charged with the following offenses:- Violating the law of war;
- Violating Article 81 of the Articles of War, defining the offense of corresponding with or giving intelligence to the enemy;
- Violating Article 82 of the Articles of War, defining the offense of spying; and
- Conspiracy to commit the offenses alleged in the first three charges.
The trial was held in Assembly Hall #1 on the fifth floor of the
The trial for the eight defendants ended on 1 August 1942. Two days later, all were found guilty and sentenced to death. Roosevelt commuted Burger's sentence to life in prison and Dasch's to 30 years because they had surrendered themselves and provided information about the others. The others were executed on 8 August 1942 in the electric chair on the third floor of the District of Columbia jail and buried in a potter's field in the Blue Plains neighborhood in the Anacostia area of Washington.
Aftermath
The failure of Operation Pastorius caused Hitler to rebuke Admiral Canaris and no sabotage attempt was ever made again in the United States. During the remaining years of the war, the Germans only once more dispatched agents to the United States by submarine. In November 1944, as part of
In 1948, President Harry S. Truman granted executive clemency to Dasch and Burger on the condition that they be deported to the American occupation zone in Germany. In Germany they were regarded as traitors who had caused the death of their comrades.[29] Dasch died in 1992 at the age of 89 in Ludwigshafen, Germany. Burger died in 1975.
Sixteen people, including Herbert Haupt's mother and father, were arrested for aiding the saboteurs. The last person to be arrested was Lutheran Pastor Carl Krepper, a member of the German-American Bund and the German-American Business League, which supported boycotting Jewish businesses. Krepper had helped establish safehouses for the saboteurs. In March 1945, he was found guilty of trading with the enemy and conspiracy to commit sabotage and sentenced to 12 years in prison. Krepper was paroled in 1951, and died in 1972.[30]
For his part in the affair, John Cullen was awarded the coxswain insignia, featured on the front page of the New York Times, and received the Legion of Merit medal. His wedding in 1944 made the newspapers and attracted turnout "well beyond the intended guests".[22] Cullen died in 2011, at the age of 90.[16]
Sometime during the 1960s or 1970s, the
See also
- Duquesne Spy Ring in 1941
- They Came to Blow Up America, a 1943 movie based on Operation Pastorius, featuring George Sanders.
- Saboteur, a 1942 movie concerning acts of sabotage on the U.S. mainland during World War II.
- The Ninth Man, a novel of the 1970s written by John Lee, fictional story of a ninth agent, who evaded capture.
- History of homeland security in the United States
References
Notes
- ^ Spark, Washington Area (1 June 1942), Nazi saboteur Neubauer after his arrest: 1942, retrieved 24 May 2022
- ^ "Germany declares war on the United States - Dec 11, 1941 - HISTORY.com". Retrieved 30 December 2016.
- ISBN 1-5857-4722-X.
- ISBN 0-8758-6331-0.
- ^ "Nazi Saboteur Commission, Vol. 3, 293-457". users.soc.umn.edu. Retrieved 20 November 2023.
- ^ ISBN 0-1950-9268-6.
- ^ LaVOCorrespondent, Carl. "LaVO: Bensalem factory targeted for destruction in World War II". Bucks County Courier Times. Archived from the original on 25 October 2018. Retrieved 22 November 2020.
- ^ Horseshoe Curve, NRHS - Railfan's Guide to the Altoona Area Archived 9 October 1999 at the Wayback Machine(Requires Java 1.6 as of 1 January 2009]
- ^ "When the Nazis Invaded the Hamptons". HISTORY. 28 November 2018. Retrieved 19 June 2023.
- ISBN 978-0-375-41470-1.
- ^ "The Type VIIC boat U-202 - German U-boats of WWII - uboat.net". Retrieved 30 December 2016.
- ^ a b c d Elke Frenzel, Hitler's Unfulfilled Dream of a New York in Flames Der Spiegel 16 September 2010
- ^ Judicial Review for Enemy Fighters: The Court’s Fateful Turn in Ex parte Quirin, the Nazi Saboteur Case Archived 3 December 2013 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ ISBN 978-0-4465-8057-1. Retrieved 25 July 2013.
- ^ Federal Bureau of Investigation: George John Dasch and the Nazi Saboteurs, FBI Famous Cases
- ^ a b c Goldstein, Richard (2 September 2011). "John Cullen, Coast Guardsman Who Detected Spies, Dies at 90". The New York Times. Retrieved 21 February 2024.
- ^ a b c Cox, John Woodrow (23 June 2017). "Six Nazi spies were executed in D.C. White supremacists gave them a memorial – on federal land". The Washington Post. Retrieved 23 June 2017.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-307-42755-7.
- ^ "The Type VIIC boat U-584 - German U-boats of WWII - uboat.net". Retrieved 30 December 2016.
- ^ Page 130, The Florida Historical Quarterly, Volume 49
- ISBN 978-1-59181-049-0.
- ^ ISBN 978-1-4165-8996-9.
- ^ Friedman, Max Paul (September 2003), Review of Fisher, Louis, Nazi Saboteurs on Trial: A Military Tribunal and American Law, H-German, H-Review, retrieved 19 June 2023
- ^ Jessie-Lynne Kerr (12 July 2010). "A Look Back: Nazi agents picked Ponte Vedra as landing point in 1942". The Florida Times-Union.
- ^ "Franklin D. Roosevelt: Proclamation 2561—Denying Certain Enemies Access to the Courts". Archived from the original on 9 August 2016. Retrieved 30 December 2016.
- ISBN 0-3757-6126-8.
- ISBN 978-1-4669-8219-2.
- ISBN 0-1950-9268-6.
- ^ "Shoot or hang themselves?". Der Spiegel (in German) (15). 6 April 1998.
- ^ "Philadelphia pastor who spied for Nazis subject of new book". The Morning Call. 3 January 2015. Retrieved 5 April 2023.
Bibliography
External videos | |
---|---|
Booknotes interview with Michael Dobbs on Saboteurs: The Nazi Raid on America, 28 March 2004, C-SPAN |
- Dobbs, Michael, Saboteurs: The Nazi Raid on America, New York: Knopf, 2004. ISBN 0-375-41470-3
- Rachlis, Eugene, They Came to Kill: The Story of Eight Nazi Saboteurs in America, New York: Random House, 1961.
- ISBN 0-375-50246-7
- Federal Bureau of Investigation: George John Dasch and the Nazi Saboteurs
- Lippmann, David H., World War II Plus 55, June 10-13th, 1942
- Montauk Life: The Night of the Nazis
- Cornell University School of Law: Ex Parte Quirin (summary)
- Samaha, Joel, et al. (eds.), Transcript of Proceedings before the Military Commission to Try Persons Charged with Offenses against the Law of War and the Articles of War, Washington D.C., 8 to 31 July 1942, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota, 2004. [1]
- Abella, Alex & Gordon, Scott, Shadow Enemies: Hitler's Secret Terrorist Plot Against the United States, Guilford, CT: Lyons Press, 2002. ISBN 1-58574-722-X
Further information
- The Facts Don't Matter Archived 21 April 2009 at the Wayback Machine An hour-long This American Life radio episode (original air date 3/12/2004) about the events leading up to Ex parte Quirin
External links
- Amagansett U.S. Life-Saving & Coast Guard Station Museum
- Six Nazi Saboteurs Executed in Washington - Ghosts of DC history blog
- They Came to Blow Up America at IMDb- a 1943 film about saboteurs, led by a German-American, landing on Long Island
- Richard Goldstein (2 September 2011). "John Cullen, Coast Guardsman Who Detected Spies, Dies at 90". The New York Times.