Passport given to Horst von der Goltz
Passport given to Horst von der Goltz under thealiasof Bridgeman H. Taylor
A passport for facile entrance into Canada had been applied for by one of Luederitz's henchmen in Baltimore in the name of "Bridgeman Taylor," and had been forwarded in care of Karl W. Buck, who lived at 843 West End Avenue, New York. With this guerdon of American protection Goltz set out for Buffalo about September 10—the last day of the Battle of the Marne—Busse and Fritzen carrying the dynamite and apparatus, and Covani, as Goltz naïvely related, "attending to me." He found rooms at 198 Delaware Avenue, in the heart of Buffalo. He learned of the terrain for the enterprise from a German ofmysterious occupation, who had lived in Buffalo for several years. Within a few days Goltz and his companions moved on to Niagara Falls—a move made easier by an exchange of telegraphic communications between Papen and himself. It is only necessary to quote, from the British Secret Service report to Parliament, those messages which Goltz received from the attaché, or "Steffens," as Papen chose to sign himself:
New York, N. Y. Sept. 15, 14Mr. Taylor, 198 Delaware Ave. BuffaloSent money today. Consult lawyer John Ryan six hundred thirteen Mutual Life Building Buffalo not later than seventeenth.Steffens, 112 Central Park South12.45 p.
New York, N. Y. Sept. 15, 14
Mr. Taylor, 198 Delaware Ave. Buffalo
Sent money today. Consult lawyer John Ryan six hundred thirteen Mutual Life Building Buffalo not later than seventeenth.
Steffens, 112 Central Park South12.45 p.
New York, N. Y. Sept. 16-14Mr. Taylor, 198 Delaware Avenue, Bflo.Ryan got money and instructions.Steffens,1.14 p.
New York, N. Y. Sept. 16-14
Mr. Taylor, 198 Delaware Avenue, Bflo.
Ryan got money and instructions.
Steffens,1.14 p.
Goltz and Covani "consulted" Mr. Ryan, who had received $200 on September 16 from Papen through Knauth, Nachod & Kuhne.
Then Goltz claimed that he made two aeroplane flights over Niagara Falls, and "reconnoitered the ground." Something went wrong, for after a week arrived the following telegrams:
New York, N. Y. Sept. 24-14.John T. Ryan, 613 Mutual Life Bldg. Buffalo.Please instruct Taylor cannot do anything more for him.Steffens.12:51 p.
New York, N. Y. Sept. 24-14.
John T. Ryan, 613 Mutual Life Bldg. Buffalo.
Please instruct Taylor cannot do anything more for him.
Steffens.12:51 p.
New York, N. Y. Sept. 26-14.Mr. Taylor, care Western Union, Niagara Falls, N. Y.Do what you think best. Did you receive dollars two hundredRyan9.45 A.
New York, N. Y. Sept. 26-14.
Mr. Taylor, care Western Union, Niagara Falls, N. Y.
Do what you think best. Did you receive dollars two hundred
Ryan9.45 A.
These messages are open to several constructions. They do not contradict Goltz's claim that he "learned that the first contingent of Canadian troops had left the camp." They could indicate that his chief was not fully satisfied with his technique. Perhaps the most intriguing feature of the telegrams is their presence in a safe-deposit vault in Holland when Goltz was captured months later. It may be assumed that if (as he maintained) he was being watched constantly in Buffalo by the United States Secret Service, one of the first things he would have done is to destroy any messages received. We leave the reader to decide—after he has traced Goltz's history a step or two further.
Whatever the occasion, the Welland enterprisewas dismissed; the dynamite was left with an aviator in Niagara Falls; Fritzen and Busse were discharged from service, and Covani and Goltz left for New York. In a letter dated December 7, from Buffalo, poor Busse wrote to Edmund Pavenstedt, at 45 William Street, New York, pleading that he had been left without any money in Niagara Falls; that he had written to von Papen and had been compelled to wait two weeks before he got $20. His expenses had accumulated during the fortnight, he could not find work, he even had sold his overcoat, and he begged Pavenstedt to send him money to come back to New York. "My friend Fritzen," he added, "was sent back some weeks ago by a gentleman in the German-American Alliance.... I would appreciate anything you can do for me, especially since I enlisted in such a task ... Von Papen signs himself Stevens."
The military attaché was frankly disgusted at the failure of the undertaking. Goltz claims to have explained everything satisfactorily, and to have been given presently a new commission—that of returning to Germany for further instructions from Abteilung III of the General Staff, the intelligence department of the Empire.
On October 8 Goltz sailed for Europe, armed with his false passport, and a letter ofintroduction to the German Consul-General in Genoa. He reached Berlin safely, received his orders, returned to England, and was arrested on November 13. The public was not informed of his arrest, yet in Busse's letter from Buffalo of December 7, he mentioned Goltz's capture in London. News traveled fast in German channels.
Examination of his papers resulted in a protracted imprisonment, which daily grew more painful, and finally Goltz agreed to turn state's evidence against his former confrères. It was not until March 31, 1916, that Captain Tauscher was interrupted at his office by the arrival of agents of the Department of Justice, who placed him under arrest. He was held in $25,000 bail on a charge of having furthered a plot to blow up the Welland Canal.
Meanwhile Goltz's confession had implicated him in something more than a casual acquaintance with the plot; stubs in the check-book of Captain von Papen established payment made by the latter to Tauscher of $31.13, which happened to be the exact total of two bills from the du Pont Company to Captain Tauscher for dynamite and hemp fuses delivered on September 5 and 13 to "Bridgeman Taylor." Prior to the trial in June and July, 1916, Tauscher offered to plead guilty for a promise of the maximum fine withoutimprisonment, but his offer was rejected by the United States attorneys. A letter was introduced as testimony to his good character from General Crozier, the then head of the Ordnance Department at Washington. Goltz made an unimpressive witness, and Captain Tauscher, protesting his innocence as a mere intermediary in the affair, was acquitted of the charge.
Of the smaller fry Fritzen was arrested in Los Angeles in March, 1917. He stated then to officers that he had made trips to Cuba after the outbreak of war in 1914, had traveled over southern United States in two attempts to reach Mexico City, and had finally found employment on a ranch. He was sentenced to 18 months in prison. Tucker and Busse were witnesses at the Tauscher trial and were treated leniently. Covani turned from his previous occupation as hunter to that of quarry, and was not apprehended.
Information gathered by the Federal authorities and produced in court proved that Captain von Papen and reservist German army officers in the country planned a second mobilization of German reservists to attack Canadian points. That the project was seriously considered for a time is evidenced by a note in the diary found on the commander of theGeier, in Honolulu, in whichhe said that the German consul in Honolulu, George Rodiek, had had orders from the San Francisco consulate to circulate a report to that effect. Hundreds of thousands of rifles and hundreds of rounds of ammunition that were to be available for German reservists were stored in New York, Chicago and other cities on the border. Many a German-American brewery concealed in the shadows of its storehouses crates of arms and ammunition. Tauscher stored in 200 West Houston Street, New York, on June 21, 1915, 2,000 45-calibre Colt revolvers, 10 Colt automatic guns, 7,000 Springfield rifles, 3,000,000 revolver cartridges and 2,500,000 rifle cartridges. When the New York police questioned him about this arsenal, he said he had purchased them in job lots, for speculation. As a matter of fact they had been intended for use in India, but had been diverted on the Pacific coast and returned to New York.
A bolder version of the plot of invasion came from Max Lynar Louden, known to the Federal authorities as "Count Louden." He was a man of nondescript reputation, who had secret communications with the Germans in the early part of the war. He confessed that he was party to a scheme for the quick mobilization and equipment of a full army of German reservists.Louden was consistently annoying to the Secret Service in that he refused openly to violate the neutrality laws, but the moment the authorities learned of the fact that he was supposed to have two or three wives they made an investigation which resulted in his imprisonment. His story, if not altogether reliable, is interesting.
Through German-American interests, the plans were made in 1914, he said, and a fund of $16,000,000 was subscribed to carry out the details. Secret meetings were held in New York, Buffalo, Philadelphia, Detroit, Milwaukee, and other large cities, and at these meetings it was agreed that a force of 150,000 reservists was available to seize and hold the Welland Canal, strategic points and munitions centers.
"We had it arranged," said Louden, "to send our men from large cities following announcements of feasts and conventions, and I think we could have obtained enough to carry out our plans had it not been for my arrest on the charge of bigamy. The troops were to have been divided into four divisions, with six sections. The first two divisions were to have assembled at Silvercreek, Mich. The first was to have seized the Welland Canal. The second was to have taken Wind Mill Point, Ontario. The third was to go from Wilson, N. Y., to Port Hope. The fourthwas to proceed from Watertown, N. Y., to Kingston, Ontario. The fifth was to assemble near Detroit and land near Windsor. The sixth section was to leave Cornwall and take possession of Ottawa.
"It had been planned to buy or charter eighty-four excursion and small boats to use in getting into Canada. All of the equipment was to have been put aboard the boats, and when quarters for 120,000 men had been found it would have been easy to continue the expedition. The German government was cognizant of the plan and maps, etc., were to have been furnished by the German government. A representative of the British Ambassador offered $20,000 for our plans."
But none of the first German-American expeditionary forces left for their destinations. Their project was innocently foiled by Amelia Wendt, Rose O'Brien and Nella Florence Allendorf. These ladies were Louden's wives.
Justice and Metzler—Koenig's personality—von Papen's checks—The "little black book"—Telephone codes—Shadowing—Koenig's agents—His betrayal.
Justice and Metzler—Koenig's personality—von Papen's checks—The "little black book"—Telephone codes—Shadowing—Koenig's agents—His betrayal.
In a narrative which attempts so far as possible to proceed chronologically, it becomes necessary at this point to introduce Paul Koenig. For, on September 15, 1914, he sent an Irishman, named Edmund Justice, who had been a dock watchman, and one Frederick Metzler to Quebec for information of the number of Canadian troops in training. On September 18 Koenig left New York and met Metzler in Portland, Maine. He received his report, and on September 25 was in Burlington, Vt., where he conferred with Justice, and learned that the two spies had inspected the fortifications in Quebec, and had visited the training camps long enough to estimate the number and condition of the men. (Their information Koenig reported at once to von Papen, and it is possible that it dictated Papen's recall of Goltz from Buffalo the next day.)
Who was Paul Koenig? His underlings knew him as "P. K.," and called him the "bull-headed Westphalian" behind his back. He had a dozen aliases, among them Wegenkamp, Wagener, Kelly, Winter, Perkins, Stemler, Rectorberg, Boehm, Kennedy, James, Smith, Murphy, and W. T. Munday.
He was a product of the "Kaiser's Own"—the Hamburg-American Line. He had been a detective in the service of the Atlas Line, a subsidiary of the Hamburg-American, and for some years before the war was superintendent of the latter company's police. In that capacity he bossed a dozen men, watching the company's laborers and investigating any complaints made to the line. His work threw him into constant contact with sailors, tug-skippers, wharf-rats, longshoremen, and dive-keepers of the lowest type, and there was little of the criminal life of the waterfront that he had not seen.
He had arms like an ape, and the bodily strength of one. His expression suggested craft, ferocity, and brutality. Altogether his powerful frame and lurid vocabulary made him a figure to avoid or respect. Waterfront society did both—and hated him as well.
Paul Koenig
Paul Koenig, the Hamburg-American employe, who suppliedand directed agents of German violence in America
Von Papen saw in Koenig's little police force the nucleus of just such an organization as heneeded. The Line put Koenig at the attaché's disposal in August, 1914, and straightway von Papen connected certain channels of information with Koenig's own system. He supplied reservists for special investigations and crimes, and presently Koenig became in effect the foreman of a large part of Germany's secret service in the East. As his activities broadened, he was called upon to execute commissions for Bernstorff, Albert, Dr. Dumba, the Austro-Hungarian ambassador, and Dr. Alexander von Nuber, the Austrian consul in New York, as well as for the attachés themselves. He acted as their guard on occasion, served as their confidential messenger, and made himself generally useful in investigation work.
The guilt-stained check-book of the military attaché contained these entries:
March 29, 1915. Paul Koenig (Secret Service Bill) $509.11April 18, Paul Koenig (Secret Service Bill) $90.94May 11, Paul Koenig (Secret Service) $66.71July 16, Paul Koenig (Compensation for F. J. Busse) $150.00August 4, Paul Koenig (5 bills secret service) $118.92
March 29, 1915. Paul Koenig (Secret Service Bill) $509.11
April 18, Paul Koenig (Secret Service Bill) $90.94
May 11, Paul Koenig (Secret Service) $66.71
July 16, Paul Koenig (Compensation for F. J. Busse) $150.00
August 4, Paul Koenig (5 bills secret service) $118.92
Those entries represent only the payments made Koenig by check for special work done for von Papen. Koenig received his wages from theLine. When he performed work for any one else he rendered a special bill. This necessitated his itemizing his expenditures, and this Germanly thorough and thoroughly German system of petty accounting enabled our secret service later to trace his activities with considerable success. Koenig and von Papen used to haggle over his bills—on one occasion the attaché felt he was being overcharged, and accordingly deducted a half-dollar from the total.
"P. K." also had an incriminating book—a carefully prepared notebook of his spies and of persons in New York, Boston and other cities who were useful in furnishing him information. In another book he kept a complete record of the purpose and cost of assignments on which he sent his men. He listed in its pages the names of several hundred persons—army reservists, German-Americans and Americans, clerks, scientists and city and Federal employees—showing that his district was large and that his range for getting information and for supervising other pro-German propaganda was broad. For his own direct staff he worked out a system of numbers and initials to be used in communication. The numbers he changed at regular intervals and a system of progression was devised by which each agent would know when his number changed.He provided them with suitable aliases. These men had alternative codes for writing letters and for telephone communication to be changed automatically by certain fixed dates.
Always alert for spies upon himself, Koenig suspected that his telephone wire was tapped and that his orders were being overheard. So he instructed his men in various code words. If he told an agent to meet him "at 5 o'clock at South Ferry" he meant: "Meet me at 7 o'clock at Forty-second Street and Broadway." His suspicions were well-grounded, for his wire was tapped, and Koenig led the men who were spying on him an unhappy dance.
For example: he would receive a call on the telephone and would direct his agent, at the other end of the wire, to meet him in fifteen minutes at Pabst's, Harlem. It is practically impossible to make the journey from Koenig's office in the Hamburg-American Building to 125th Street in a quarter of an hour. After a time his watchers learned that "Pabst's, Harlem" meant Borough Hall, Brooklyn.
He never went out in the daytime without one or two of his agents trailing him to see whether he was being shadowed. He used to turn a corner suddenly and stand still so that an American detective following came unexpectedly face toface with him and betrayed his identity. Koenig would laugh heartily and pass on. Thus he came to know many agents of the Department of Justice and many New York detectives. When he started out at night he usually had three of his own men follow him and by a prearranged system of signals inform him if any strangers were following him.
The task of keeping watch of Koenig's movements required astute guessing and tireless work on the part of the New York police. So elusive did he become that it was necessary for Captain Tunney to evolve a new system of shadowing him in order to keep him in sight without betraying that he was under surveillance. One detective, accordingly, would be stationed several blocks away and would start out ahead of Koenig. The "front shadow" was signaled by his confederates in the rear whenever Koenig turned a corner, so that the man in front might dart down a cross-street and manœuvre to keep ahead of him. If Koenig boarded a street car the man ahead would hail the car several blocks beyond, thus avoiding suspicion. In more than one instance detectives in the rear, guessing that he was about to take a car, would board it several blocks before it got abreast of Koenig. Hisalertness kept Detectives Barnitz, Coy, Terra, and Corell on edge for months.
It was impossible to overhear direct conversation between Koenig and any man to whom he was giving instructions. Some of his workers he never permitted to meet him at all, but when he kept a rendezvous it was in the open, in the parks in broad daylight, or in a moving-picture theatre, or in the Pennsylvania Station, or the Grand Central Terminal. There he could make sure that nobody was eavesdropping. If he met an agent in the open for the first time he gave him some such command at this:
"Be at Third Avenue and Fifty-ninth Street at 2:30 to-morrow afternoon beside a public telephone booth there. When the telephone rings answer it."
The man would obey. On the minute the telephone would ring and the man would lift the receiver. A strange voice told him to do certain things—either a definite assignment, or instructions to be at a similar place on the following day to receive a message. Or he might be told to meet another man, who would give him money and further orders. The voice at the other end of the wire spoke from a public telephone booth and was thus reasonably sure that the wire was not tapped.
And Koenig trusted no man. He never sent an agent out on a job without detailing another man to shadow that man and report back to him in full the operations of the agent and of any persons whom he might deal with. He was brutally severe in his insistence that his men do exactly what he told them without using their own initiative.
Koenig had spies on every big steamship pier. He had eavesdroppers in hotels, and on busy telephone switchboards. He employed porters, window-cleaners, bank clerks, corporation employees and even a member of the Police Department.
This last, listed in his book as "Special Agent A. S.," was Otto F. Mottola, a detective in the warrant squad. The notebook revealed Mottola as "Antonio Marino," an alias later changed to Antonio Salvatore. Evidence was produced at Mottola's trial at Police Headquarters that Koenig paid him for investigating a passenger who sailed on theBergensfjord; that he often called up Mottola, asked questions, and received answers which Koenig's stenographer took down in shorthand. Through him Koenig sought to keep closely informed of developments at Police Headquarters in the inquiry being made by the police into the activities of the Germans.Mottola was dismissed from the force because of false statements made to his superiors when they questioned him about Koenig.
Koenig's very caution was the cause of his undoing. The detectives who shadowed him learned that he "never employed the same man more than once," which meant simply that he was careful to place no subordinate in a position where blackmail and exposure might be too easy. To this fact they added another trifling observation; they noticed that as time went on he was seen less in the company of one George Fuchs, a relative with whom he had been intimate early in the war. They cultivated the young man's acquaintance to the extent that he finally burst out with a recitation of his grievances against Koenig, and betrayed him to the authorities.
"P. K." was defiant always. "They did get Dr. Albert's portfolio," he said one day, "but they won't get mine. I won't carry one."
Hans von Wedell's bureau—The traffic in false passports—Carl Ruroede—Methods of forgery—Adams' coup—Von Wedell's letter to von Bernstorff—Stegler—Lody—Berlin counterfeits American passports—Von Breechow.
Hans von Wedell's bureau—The traffic in false passports—Carl Ruroede—Methods of forgery—Adams' coup—Von Wedell's letter to von Bernstorff—Stegler—Lody—Berlin counterfeits American passports—Von Breechow.
Throughout August, 1914, it was comparatively easy for Germans in America who wished to respond to the call of the Fatherland to leave American shores. A number of circumstances tended swiftly to make it more hazardous. The British were in no mind to permit an influx of reservists to Germany while they could blockade Germany. The cordon tightened, and soon every merchant ship was stopped at sea by a British patrol and searched for German suspects. German spies here took refuge in the protection afforded by an American passport. False passports were issued by the State Department in considerable quantities during the early weeks of war—issued unwittingly, of course, for theapplicant in most cases underwent no more than the customary peace-time examination.
We have already seen that von der Goltz easily secured a passport. The details of his application were these: Karl A. Luederitz, the German consul at Baltimore, detailed one of his men to supply Goltz with a lawyer and an application blank (then known as Form 375). The lawyer was Frederick F. Schneider, of 2 East German Street, Baltimore. On that application Goltz swore that his name was Bridgeman H. Taylor, his birthplace San Francisco, his citizenship American, his residence New York City, and his occupation that of export broker. Charles Tucker served as witness to these fantastic sentiments. Two days later (August 31) the State Department issued passport number 40308 in the name of Taylor, and William Jennings Bryan signed the precious document.
It was not necessary at that time to state the countries which the applicant intended to visit. Within a few weeks, however, that information was required on the passport.
Each additional precaution taken by the Government placed a new obstacle in the way of unlimited supply of passports. The Goltz method was easy enough, but it soon became impossible to employ it. The necessity for sending newsthrough to Berlin by courier was increasingly urgent and it devolved upon Captain von Papen to systematize the supply of passports. The military attaché in November selected Lieutenant Hans von Wedell, who had already made a trip as courier to Berlin for his friend, Count von Bernstorff. Von Wedell was married to a German baroness. He had been a newspaper reporter in New York, and later a lawyer. He opened an office in Bridge Street, New York, and began to send out emissaries to sailors on interned German liners, and to their friends in Hoboken, directing them to apply for passports. He sent others to the haunts of tramps on the lower East Side, to the Mills Hotel, and other gathering places of the down-and-outs, offering ten, fifteen or twenty dollars to men who would apply for and deliver passports. And he bought them! He spent much time at the Deutscher Verein, and at the Elks' Club in 43rd Street where he often met his agents to give instructions and receive passports. His bills were paid by Captain von Papen, as revealed by the attaché's checks and check stubs; on November 24, 1914, a payment in his favor of $500; on December 5, $500 more and then $300, the latter being for "journey money." Von Wedell's bills at the Deutscher Verein in November, 1914, came to $38.05, according toanother counterfoil. The Captain in the meantime employed Frau von Wedell as courier, sending her with messages to Germany. On December 22, 1914, he paid the baroness, according to his check-book, $800.
Hans von Wedell and his wife
Hans von Wedell and his wife. He was an important memberof the false-passport bureau and she a messengerfrom von Papen to Germany
The passports secured by von Wedell, and by his successor, Carl Ruroede, Sr., a clerk in Oelrichs & Co., whom he engaged, were supplied by the dozens to officers whom the General Staff had ordered back to Berlin. Not only American passports, but Mexican, Swiss, Swedish, Norwegian and all South American varieties were seized eagerly by reservists bound for the front. Germans and Austrians, who had been captured in Russia, sent to Siberia as prisoners of war, escaped and making their way by caravan through China, had embarked on vessels bound for America. Arriving in New York they shipped for neutral European countries. Among them was an Austrian officer, an expert aeroplane observer whose feet were frozen and amputated in Siberia, but who escaped to this country. He was ordered home because of his extreme value in observation, and after his flight three-fourths of the way round the world, the British took him off a ship at Falmouth to spend the remainder of the war in a prison camp.
Captain von Papen used the bureau frequentlyfor passports for spies whom he wished to send to England, France, Italy or Russia. Anton Kuepferle and von Breechow were two such agents. Both were captured in England with false passports in their possession. Both confessed, and the former killed himself in Brixton Jail.
Von Wedell and Ruroede grew reckless and boastful. Two hangers-on at the Mills Hotel called upon one of the writers of this volume one day and told him of von Wedell's practices, related how they had blackmailed him out of $50, gave his private telephone numbers and set forth his haunts. When this and other information reached the Department of Justice, Albert G. Adams, a clever agent, insinuated himself into Ruroede's confidence, and offered to secure passports for him for $50 each. Posing as a pro-German, he pried into the inner ring of the passport-buyers, and was informed by Ruroede just how the stock of passports needed replenishing.
Though in the early days of the war it had not been necessary for the applicant to give more than a general description of himself, the cry of "German spies!" in the Allied countries became so insistent that the Government added the requirement of a photograph of the bearer. The Germans, however, found it a simple matter togive a general description of a man's eyes, color of hair, and age to fit the person who was actually to use the document; then forwarded the picture of the applicant to be affixed. The applicant receiving the passport, would sell it at once. Even though the official seal was stamped on the photograph the Germans were not dismayed.
Adams rushed into Ruroede's office one day waving a sheaf of five passports issued to him by the Government. Adams was ostensibly proud of his work, Ruroede openly delighted.
"I knew I could get these passports easily," he boasted to Adams. "Why, if Lieutenant von Wedell had kept on here he never could have done this. He always was getting into a muddle."
"But how can you use these passports with these pictures on them?" asked the agent.
"Oh, that's easy," answered Ruroede. "Come in the back room. I'll show you." And Ruroede, before the observant eyes of the Department of Justice, patted one of the passports with a damp cloth, then with adhesive paste fastened a photograph of another man over the original bearing the imprint of the United States seal.
"We wet the photograph," said Ruroede, "and then we affix the picture of the man who is to use it. The new photograph also is dampened, but when it is fastened to the passport there stillremains a sort of vacuum in spots between the new picture and the old because of ridges made by the seal. So we turn the passport upside down, place it on a soft ground—say a silk handkerchief—and then we take a paper-cutter with a dull point, and just trace the letters on the seal. The result is that the new photograph dries exactly as if it had been stamped by Uncle Sam. You can't tell the difference."
Adams never knew until long afterward that when he met Ruroede by appointment in Bowling Green, another German atop 11 Broadway was scrutinizing him through field-glasses, and examining every one who paused nearby, who might arouse suspicion of Adams' ingenuous part in the transaction.
Through Adams' efforts Ruroede and four Germans, one of them an officer in the German reserves, were arrested on January 2, on the Scandinavian-American linerBergensfjordoutward bound to Bergen, Norway. They had passports issued through Adams at Ruroede's request under the American names of Howard Paul Wright, Herbert S. Wilson, Peter Hanson and Stanley F. Martin. Their real names were Arthur Sachse, who worked in Pelham Heights, N.Y., and who was returning to become a lieutenant in the German Army; Walter Miller, August R.Meyer and Herman Wegener, who had come to New York from Chile, on their way to the Fatherland.
On the day when Ruroede, his assistant, and the four men for whom he obtained passports were arrested, Joseph A. Baker, assistant superintendent of the Federal agents in New York, took possession of the office at 11 Bridge Street. As he was sorting papers and making a general investigation, a German walked in bearing a card of introduction from von Papen, introducing himself as Wolfram von Knorr, a German officer who up to the outbreak of the war had been naval attaché in Tokio. The officer desired a passport. Baker, after a conversation in which von Knorr revealed von Papen's connection with the passport bureau, told him to return the next day. When the German read the next morning's newspapers he changed his lodging-place and his name.
Von Wedell himself was a passenger on theBergensfjord, but when he was lined up with the other passengers, the Federal agents, who did not have a description of him, missed him and left the vessel. He was later (January 11) taken off the ship by the British, however, and transferred to another vessel for removal to a prison camp. She struck a German mine and sank, and Von Wedell is supposed to have drowned.
A few days before he sailed, he wrote a letter to von Bernstorff which fixes beyond question the responsibility for his false passport activities. The letter, dated from Nyack, where he was hiding, on December 26, 1914, follows:
"His Excellency The Imperial German Ambassador, Count von Bernstorff, Washington, D. C. Your Excellency: Allow me most obediently to put before you the following facts: It seems that an attempt has been made to produce the impression upon you that I prematurely abandoned my post, in New York. That is not true."I—My work was done. At my departure I left the service, well organized and worked out to its minutest details, in the hands of my successor, Mr. Carl Ruroede, picked out by myself, and, despite many warnings, still tarried for several days in New York in order to give him the necessary final directions and in order to hold in check the blackmailers thrown on my hands by the German officers until after the passage of my travelers through Gibraltar; in which I succeeded. Mr. Ruroede will testify to you that without my suitable preliminary labors, in which I left no conceivable means untried and in which I took not the slightest consideration of my personal weal or woe, it would be impossible for him, as well as for Mr. von Papen, to forward officers and 'aspirants' in any number whatever, to Europe. This merit I lay claim to and the occurrences of the last days have unfortunately compelled me, out of sheer self-respect, to emphasize this to your Excellency."II—The motives which induced me to leave NewYork and which, to my astonishment, were not communicated to you, are the following:"1. I knew that the State Department had, for three weeks, withheld a passport application forged by me. Why?"2. Ten days before my departure I learnt from a telegram sent me by Mr. von Papen, which stirred me up very much, and further through the omission of a cable, that Dr. Stark had fallen into the hands of the English. That gentleman's forged papers were liable to come back any day and could, owing chiefly to his lack of caution, easily be traced back to me."3. Officers and aspirants of the class which I had to forward over, namely the people, saddled me with a lot of criminals and blackmailers, whose eventual revelations were liable to bring about any day the explosion of the bomb."4. Mr. von Papen had repeatedly urgently ordered me to hide myself."5. Mr. Igel had told me I was taking the matter altogether too lightly and ought to—for God's sake—disappear."6. My counsel ... had advised me to hastily quit New York, inasmuch as a local detective agency was ordered to go after the passport forgeries."7. It had become clear to me that eventual arrest might yet injure the worthy undertaking and that my disappearance would probably put a stop to all investigation in this direction."How urgent it was for me to go away is shown by the fact that, two days after my departure, detectives, who had followed up my telephone calls, hunted up mywife's harmless and unsuspecting cousin in Brooklyn, and subjected her to an interrogatory."Mr. von Papen and Mr. Albert have told my wife that I forced myself forward to do this work. That is not true. When I, in Berlin, for the first time heard of this commission, I objected to going and represented to the gentleman that my entire livelihood which I had created for myself in America by six years of labor was at stake therein. I have no other means, and although Mr. Albert told my wife my practice was not worth talking about, it sufficed, nevertheless, to decently support myself and wife and to build my future on. I have finally, at the suasion of Count Wedell, undertaken it, ready to sacrifice my future and that of my wife. I have, in order to reach my goal, despite infinite difficulties, destroyed everything that I built up here for myself and my wife. I have perhaps sometimes been awkward, but always full of good will, and I now travel back to Germany with the consciousness of having done my duty as well as I understood it, and of having accomplished my task."With expressions of the most exquisite consideration, I am, your Excellency,"Very respectfully,"(Signed)Hans Adam von Wedell."
"His Excellency The Imperial German Ambassador, Count von Bernstorff, Washington, D. C. Your Excellency: Allow me most obediently to put before you the following facts: It seems that an attempt has been made to produce the impression upon you that I prematurely abandoned my post, in New York. That is not true.
"I—My work was done. At my departure I left the service, well organized and worked out to its minutest details, in the hands of my successor, Mr. Carl Ruroede, picked out by myself, and, despite many warnings, still tarried for several days in New York in order to give him the necessary final directions and in order to hold in check the blackmailers thrown on my hands by the German officers until after the passage of my travelers through Gibraltar; in which I succeeded. Mr. Ruroede will testify to you that without my suitable preliminary labors, in which I left no conceivable means untried and in which I took not the slightest consideration of my personal weal or woe, it would be impossible for him, as well as for Mr. von Papen, to forward officers and 'aspirants' in any number whatever, to Europe. This merit I lay claim to and the occurrences of the last days have unfortunately compelled me, out of sheer self-respect, to emphasize this to your Excellency.
"II—The motives which induced me to leave NewYork and which, to my astonishment, were not communicated to you, are the following:
"1. I knew that the State Department had, for three weeks, withheld a passport application forged by me. Why?
"2. Ten days before my departure I learnt from a telegram sent me by Mr. von Papen, which stirred me up very much, and further through the omission of a cable, that Dr. Stark had fallen into the hands of the English. That gentleman's forged papers were liable to come back any day and could, owing chiefly to his lack of caution, easily be traced back to me.
"3. Officers and aspirants of the class which I had to forward over, namely the people, saddled me with a lot of criminals and blackmailers, whose eventual revelations were liable to bring about any day the explosion of the bomb.
"4. Mr. von Papen had repeatedly urgently ordered me to hide myself.
"5. Mr. Igel had told me I was taking the matter altogether too lightly and ought to—for God's sake—disappear.
"6. My counsel ... had advised me to hastily quit New York, inasmuch as a local detective agency was ordered to go after the passport forgeries.
"7. It had become clear to me that eventual arrest might yet injure the worthy undertaking and that my disappearance would probably put a stop to all investigation in this direction.
"How urgent it was for me to go away is shown by the fact that, two days after my departure, detectives, who had followed up my telephone calls, hunted up mywife's harmless and unsuspecting cousin in Brooklyn, and subjected her to an interrogatory.
"Mr. von Papen and Mr. Albert have told my wife that I forced myself forward to do this work. That is not true. When I, in Berlin, for the first time heard of this commission, I objected to going and represented to the gentleman that my entire livelihood which I had created for myself in America by six years of labor was at stake therein. I have no other means, and although Mr. Albert told my wife my practice was not worth talking about, it sufficed, nevertheless, to decently support myself and wife and to build my future on. I have finally, at the suasion of Count Wedell, undertaken it, ready to sacrifice my future and that of my wife. I have, in order to reach my goal, despite infinite difficulties, destroyed everything that I built up here for myself and my wife. I have perhaps sometimes been awkward, but always full of good will, and I now travel back to Germany with the consciousness of having done my duty as well as I understood it, and of having accomplished my task.
"With expressions of the most exquisite consideration, I am, your Excellency,
"Very respectfully,"(Signed)Hans Adam von Wedell."
Ruroede was sentenced to three years in Atlanta prison. The four reservists, pleading guilty, protested they had taken the passports out of patriotism and were fined $200 each.
The arrest of Ruroede exposed the New York bureau, and made it necessary for the Germansto shift their base of operations, but it did not put an end to the fraudulent passport conspiracies. Captain Boy-Ed assumed the burden, and hired men to secure passports for him. One of these men was Richard Peter Stegler, a Prussian, 33 years old, who had served in the German Navy and afterward came to this country to start on his life work. Before the war he had applied for his first citizenship papers but his name had not been removed from the German naval reserve list.
"After the war started," Stegler said, "I received orders to return home. I was told that everything was in readiness for me. I was assigned to the naval station at Cuxhaven. My uniform, my cap, my boots and my locker would be all set aside for me, and I was told just where to go and what to do. But I could not get back at that time and I kept on with my work."
He became instead a member of the German secret service in New York. "There is not a ship that leaves the harbor, not a cargo that is loaded or unloaded, but that some member of this secret organization watches and reports every detail," he said. "All this information is transmitted in code to the German Government." In January, 1915, if not earlier, Stegler was sent by the German Consulate to Boy-Ed's office,where he received instructions to get a passport and make arrangements to go to England as a spy. Boy-Ed paid him $178, which the attaché admitted. Stegler immediately got in touch with Gustave Cook and Richard Madden, of Hoboken, and made use of Madden's birth certificate and citizenship in obtaining a passport from the American Government. Stegler paid $100 for the document. Stegler pleaded guilty to the charge and served 60 days in jail; Madden and Cook were convicted of conspiracy in connection with the project, and were sentenced to 10 months' imprisonment.
"I was told to make the voyage to England on theLusitania," continued Stegler. "My instructions were as follows: 'Stop at Liverpool, examine the Mersey River, obtain the names, exact locations and all possible information concerning warships around Liverpool, ascertain the amount of munitions of war being unloaded on the Liverpool docks from the United States, ascertain their ultimate destination, and obtain a detailed list of all the ships in the harbor.'
"I was to make constant, though guarded inquiries, of the location of the dreadnought squadron which the Germans in New York understand was anchored somewhere near St. George's Channel. I was to appear as an Americancitizen soliciting trade. Captain Boy-Ed advised me to get letters of introduction to business firms. He made arrangements so that I received such letters and in one letter were enclosed some rare stamps which were to be a proof to certain persons in England that I was working for the Germans.
"After having studied at Liverpool I was to go to London and make an investigation of the Thames and its shipping. From there I was to proceed to Holland and work my way to the German border. While my passport did not include Germany, I was to give the captain of the nearest regiment a secret number which would indicate to him that I was a reservist on spy duty. By that means I was to hurry to Eisendal, head of the secret service in Berlin."
Stegler did not make the trip because his wife learned of the enterprise and begged him not to go. He too had run afoul of the vigilant Adams, and was placed under arrest in February, 1915, shortly after he decided to stay at home. In his possession were all the letters and telegrams exchanged between him and Boy-Ed, and one telegram from "Winkler," Captain Boy-Ed's servant.
Stegler also said that he had been told by Dr. Karl A. Fuehr, one of Dr. Albert's assistants,that Boy-Ed previously had sent to England Karl Hans Lody, the German who in November, 1915, was put to death as a spy in the Tower of London. Lody had been in the navy, had served on the Kaiser's yacht and then had come to this country and worked as an agent for the Hamburg-American Line, going from one city to another. Shortly after the war started Lody had gone on the mission of espionage which cost him his life.
Captain Boy-Ed authorized the commander of the German cruiserGeier, interned in Honolulu, to get his men back to Germany as best he could, by providing them with false passports. Still another of Boy-Ed's protégés was a naval reservist, August Meier, who shipped as a hand on the freighterEvelynwith a cargo of horses for Bermuda. On the voyage practically all of the horses were poisoned. Meier, however, was arrested by the Federal authorities on the charge of using the name of a dead man in order to get an American passport. In supplying passports and in handling spies, Captain Boy-Ed was more subtle than his colleague, von Papen. Nevertheless the Government officials succeeded in getting a clear outline of his activities. The exposure of Boy-Ed's connection with Stegler made itnecessary for the German Government to change its system once more.
The Wilhelmstrasse had a bureau of its own. Reservists from America reported in Berlin for duty in Belgium and France, and their passports ceased to be useful, to them. The intelligence department commandeered the documents for agents whom they wished to send back to America. Tiny flakes of paper were torn from the body of the passport and from the seal, in order that counterfeiters might match them up. On January 14, 1915, an American named Reginald Rowland obtained a passport from the State Department for safe-conduct on a business trip to Germany. While it was being examined at the frontier every detail of the document was closely noted by the Germans. Some months later Captain Schnitzer, chief of the German secret service in Antwerp, had occasion to send a spy to England. He chose von Breechow, a German whom von Papen had forwarded from New York, and who had his first naturalization papers from the United States. To Breechow he gave a facsimile of Rowland's passport identical with the original in every superficial respect except that the spy's photograph had been substituted for the original, and the age of the bearer set down as 31—ten years older than Rowland.
Von Breechow passed the English officials at Rotterdam and at Tilbury. He soon fell under suspicion, however, and his passport was taken away. When the British learned that the real Rowland was at home in New Jersey, and in possession of his own passport, they sent for it, and compared the two. Breechow's revealed a false watermark, stamped on in clear grease, which made the paper translucent, but which was soluble in benzine. The stamp, ordinarily used to countersign both the photograph and the paper in a certain way, had been applied in a different position. With those exceptions, and the suspicious Teutonic twist to a "d" in the word "dark," the counterfeit was regular.
The Rosenthal case was the first to bring to light the false passport activities in Berlin. Rosenthal, posing as an agent for gas mantles, traveled in England successfully as a spy under an emergency passport issued by the American Embassy in Berlin. Captain Prieger, the chief of a section in the intelligence department of the General Staff, asked Rosenthal to make a second trip. The spy demurred, doubting whether his passport might be accepted a second time. The Captain turned to a safe, extracted a handful of false American passports, and said: "I can fit you out with a passport in any name you wish."Rosenthal decided to employ his own. He was arrested and imprisoned in England.
As the State Department increased its vigilance the evil began to expire. It was further stifled by concerted multiplication by the Allies of the examinations which the stranger had to undergo. But during its course it made personal communication between Berlin and lower Broadway almost casual.
Increased munitions production—The opening explosions—Orders from Berlin—Von Papen and Seattle—July, 1915—The Van Koolbergen affair—The autumn of 1915—The Pinole explosion.
Increased munitions production—The opening explosions—Orders from Berlin—Von Papen and Seattle—July, 1915—The Van Koolbergen affair—The autumn of 1915—The Pinole explosion.
A bomb is an easy object to manufacture. Take a section of lead pipe from six to ten inches long, and solder into it a partition of thin metal, which divides the tube into two compartments. Place a high explosive in one compartment and seal it carefully (the entire operation requires a gentle touch) and in the other end pour a strong acid; cap it, and seal it. If you have chosen the proper metal for the partition, and acid of a strength to eat slowly through it to the explosive, you have produced a bomb of a type which German destroying agents were fond of using in America from the earliest days of their operation.
When the first panic of war had passed, the Allied nations took account of stock and sent their purchasing agents to America for warmaterials. Manufacturers of explosives set to work at once to fill contracts of unheard-of size. They built new factories almost overnight, hired men broadcast, and sacrificed every other consideration to that of swift and voluminous output. Accidents were inevitable. Probably we shall never know what catastrophes were actually wrought by German sympathizers, for the very nature of the processes and the complete ruin which followed an explosion guarded the secret of guilt. No doubt carelessness was largely to blame for the earlier explosions, but instead of diminishing as the new hands became more skillful, and as greater vigilance was employed everywhere, the number of disasters increased. The word "disaster" is used advisedly. Powder, guncotton, trinitrotoluol (or TNT, as it is better known), benzol (one of the chief substances used in the manufacture of TNT) and dynamite were being produced in great volume for the Allies in American plants within a comparatively short time—all powerful explosives even in minute quantity.
At sea the German navy was losing control daily. It therefore behooved the German forces in America to stop the production of munitions at its source. It may be well, for the force which such presentation carries, to recount very brieflythe major accidents which occurred in America in the first few months after August, 1914.
On August 30 one powder mill of the du Pont Powder company (strictly speaking the E. I. du Pont de Nemours Company) at Pompton Lakes, New Jersey, blew up. In September a guncotton explosion in the Wright Chemical Works caused the death of three people, and a large property damage. In October the factory of the Pain Fireworks Display Company was destroyed, and several people were killed. In the same month the fireworks factory of Detwiller and Street in Jersey City suffered an explosion and the loss of four lives. These explosions were the opening guns.
Throughout August and September most of these accidents may be attributed to the inexperience and confusion which followed greatly increased production in the powder mills. But a circular dated November 18, issued by German Naval Headquarters to all naval agents throughout the world, ordered mobilized all "agents who are overseas and all destroying agents in ports where vessels carrying war material are loaded in England, France, Canada, the United States and Russia."
Followed these orders:
"It is indispensable by the intermediary of thethird person having no relation with the official representatives of Germany to recruit progressively agents to organize explosions on ships sailing to enemy countries in order to cause delays and confusion in the loading, the departure and the unloading of these ships. With this end in view we particularly recommend to your attention the deckhands, among whom are to be found a great many anarchists and escaped criminals. The necessary sums for buying and hiring persons charged with executing the projects will be put at your disposal on your demand."
Equally incriminating proof that the "destroying agents" were active in and about the factories lies in a circular intercepted by the French secret service in Stockholm, in a letter addressed by one Dr. Klasse in Germany to the Pan-German League in Sweden, in which he said:
"Inclosed is the circular of November 22, 1914, for information and execution upon United States territory. We draw your attention to the possibility of recruiting destroying agents among the anarchist labor organization." This circular was signed by Dr. Fischer, Councillor General of the German Army.
In the first six months of 1915 the du Pont factories at Haskell, N. J., Carney's Point, N. J., Wayne, Pa., and Wilmington, Del., experiencedexplosions and fires; a chemical explosion occurred in a factory in East 19th Street, New York; the Anderson Chemical Company, at Wallington, N. J., was rocked on May 3 by an explosion of guncotton which cost three lives; five more lives were flashed out in a similar accident in the Equitable powder plant at Alton, Ill. On New Year's Day, the Buckthorne plant of the John A. Roebling Company, manufacturers of shell materials, at Trenton, was completely destroyed by fire, the property loss estimated at $1,500,000. And on June 26, the Ætna Powder plant at Pittsburgh suffered a chemical explosion which killed one man and injured ten others.
Most of these "accidents" had taken place near the Atlantic seaboard. Yet Germany was active in the far West. On May 30 a barge laden with a large cargo of dynamite lay in the harbor of Seattle, Washington. The dynamite was consigned to Russia and was about to be transferred to a steamer, when it exploded with a shock of earthquake violence felt many miles inland, and comparable to the explosion in the harbor of Halifax in December, 1917. Two counterfoils in von Papen's check-book cast some light on the activities of the consulate in Seattle, the first dated February 11, 1915, the amount $1,300, the payee "German Consulate, Seattle," the pennednotation. "Angelegenheit" (affair) preceded by a mysterious "C"; the second dated May 11, 1915, for $500, payable to one "Schulenberg"[2]through the same consulate.
The month of July was a holocaust. A tank of phenol exploded in New York, the benzol plant of the Semet Solvay Company was destroyed at Solvay, N. Y.; on the 7th serious explosions occurred at the du Pont plant at Pompton Lakes and at the Philadelphia benzol plant of Harrison Brothers (the latter causing $500,000 damage); on the 16th five employees were killed in an explosion and fire at the Ætna plant at Sinnemahoning, Pa., three days later there was another at the du Pont plant in Wilmington; on the 25th a munitions train on the Pennsylvania line was wrecked at Metuchen, N. J.; on the 28th the du Pont works at Wilmington suffered again; andthe month came to a fitting close with the destruction of a glaze mill in the American Powder Company at Acton, Mass., on the 29th. (The British army in Mesopotamia had just entered Kut-el-Amara at this time, and far to the northward Germany was prosecuting a successful campaign to force a Russian retirement from Poland.)
Each incident raised havoc in its immediate vicinity. Each represents a carefully worked-out plan involving a group of destroying agents. There is not space here to describe the plots in detail, nor to picture the horror of their results. But the affidavit of Johannes Hendrikus Van Koolbergen, dated San Francisco, August 27, 1915, may serve to show typical methods of operation, as well as to provide a story more than usually melodramatic.
Van Koolbergen was a Hollander by birth, and a British subject by naturalization. In April, 1915, he met in the Heidelberg Café, in San Francisco, a man named Wilhelm von Brincken, who lived at 303 Piccadilly Apartments, and who asked Van Koolbergen to call on him there. The latter, however, was leaving for Canada, and it was not until some five weeks later that he returned and found that in his absence von Brinckenhad twice telephoned him to pursue the acquaintance.
Van Koolbergen called. Von Brincken explained that he was a German army officer, on secret service, and employed directly by Franz Bopp, the German consul in San Francisco. His visitor's identity and personality was apparently well known to him, for he offered Van Koolbergen $1,000 for the use of his passport into Canada, "to visit a friend, to assist him in some business matters." Van Koolbergen refused to rent his passport, but volunteered to go himself on any mission. This offer was discussed at a later meeting at the consulate with Herr Bopp, and accepted, after, as Koolbergen said, "I became suspicious, and upon different questions being asked me ... I became very pro-German in the expression of my sentiments."
He was shown into an adjoining office, and von Brincken popped in, and "asked me if I would do something for him in Canada ... and I answered: 'Sure, I will do something, even blow up bridges, if there is any money in it.' (This struck my mind because of what I had read of what had been done in Canada of late—something about a bridge being blown up—) And he said: 'If that is so, you can make good money.'"
Von Brincken made an appointment with his newly engaged destroying agent for the following day. On the window-sill of 303 Piccadilly Apartments sat a flower pot with a tri-colored band around its rim. If the red was turned outward towards Van Koolbergen as he came along the street, he was to come right upstairs. If he saw the blue, he was to loiter discreetly about until the red was turned; if the white area showed, he was to return another day.
The red invitation signaled him to come up, and the two bargained for some time over Van Koolbergen's Canadian mission, without coming to an understanding. Once safely out of von Brincken's sight, the "destroying agent" pattered to the British Consulate and betrayed to Carnegie Ross, the consul, what was afoot. Ross urged him to advise Canada at once, so Van Koolbergen retold his story in a letter to Wallace Orchard, in the freight department of the Canadian Pacific Railway at Vancouver, B. C.
Orchard telegraphed back demanding Van Koolbergen's presence at once, and furnished money and transportation. Meanwhile the latter had pretended to accept von Brincken's commission to go to Canada and blow up a military train, bridge, or tunnel on the Canadian Pacific line between Revelstoke and Vancouver, for which hewas to receive a fee of $3,000. The German exhibited complete maps of the railroad, told when a dynamite train might be expected to pass over that section of the road, and outlined to Van Koolbergen just where and when he could procure dynamite for the job. So on a Sunday morning in early May Van Koolbergen arrived in Vancouver, and lost no time in getting in touch with Orchard and the British Secret Service, with whom he framed the following plan:
Van Koolbergen was to send a letter to von Brincken warning him that something would happen in a day or two. The Vancouver newspapers would then carry a prepared story to the effect that a tunnel had caved in in the Selkirk mountains, whereupon Van Koolbergen was to collect for his services, and to secure incriminating evidence in writing from von Brincken if possible.
The plot worked well. The news story appeared, and cast a mysterious air over the accident. Van Koolbergen at once wrote a postcard to von Brincken:
"On the front page of Vancouver papers of (date) news appears of a flood in Japan. Our system may be in trouble, so wire here at the Elysium Hotel."
"On the front page of Vancouver papers of (date) news appears of a flood in Japan. Our system may be in trouble, so wire here at the Elysium Hotel."
A few days later Van Koolbergen returned to San Francisco and met von Brincken, who toldhim that he had replied to the postcard by telegram:
"Would like to send some flowers to your wife but do not know her address,"
"Would like to send some flowers to your wife but do not know her address,"
which meant simply that he had wished to communicate with Van Koolbergen through the latter's wife. (These messages, by the way, were despatched from Oakland by Charles C. Crowley, who will appear again.) And von Brincken paid Van Koolbergen $200 in bills, and asked him to come to the consulate for the balance of his fee.
Franz Bopp was skeptical. For some reason he mistrusted Van Koolbergen. He produced a map of British Columbia and asked him to describe what he had accomplished. Van Koolbergen, confused for a moment, suggested that he would be unwise to go into detail before three witnesses (Bopp, von Brincken, and von Schack, the vice-consul). Bopp rose indignantly and said that his secret was safe with three who had been sworn to serve the Vaterland. So Van Koolbergen invented and related the story of The Dynamiting That Never Was, supporting it with copies of the Vancouver newspapers. Bopp wanted more proof; at Van Koolbergen's suggestion, he wrote one Van Roggenen, the Dutchvice-consul at Vancouver, asking him to "inquire of the General Superintendent of the Canadian Pacific Railway Company why a car of freight which I expected from the East had not arrived yet, and to kindly wire me at my expense." Van Roggenen happened to be a friend of Van Koolbergen's, and of course any inquiry made of the railroad for Van Koolbergen's car of freight would have been tactfully construed and properly answered. But to make assurance doubly sure, Van Koolbergen wired Orchard in Vancouver to send him the following telegram:
"Superintendent refuses information. Found out however that freight has been delayed eleven days on account of accident. Signed V. R."
"Superintendent refuses information. Found out however that freight has been delayed eleven days on account of accident. Signed V. R."
Armed with this fictitious reply, which Orchard soon sent him, Van Koolbergen called at the consulate, and was paid $300 more in cash. In order to get as much money as possible as soon as possible, the "destroying agent" agreed to cut his price from $3,000 to $1,750, and was promised the money the next day. The next day came, but no money. Van Koolbergen sent a sharp note to the Consul, suggesting blackmail, and the German Empire in San Francisco capitulated; von Brincken met Van Koolbergen at the Palace Hotel and paid him $1,750, (of which he extracted $250as commission!). He made Koolbergen sign a receipt for $700, as he said a payment of $1,750 would look bad on the books, was much too high—even seven hundred was high, but could be justified if any one higher up complained. "And," concluded the thrifty Van Koolbergen in his affidavit written August 27, "I have some of the greenbacks given me by von Brincken now in my possession."
The San Franciscan participants in the episode were finally brought to justice. Bopp, Baron Eckhardt, von Schack, Lieutenant von Brincken, Crowley, and Mrs. Margaret Cornell, Crowley's secretary, were indicted, tried, and convicted. The men received sentences of two years and fines of $10,000 each; Mrs. Cornell was sentenced to a year and a day. The three members of the consulate, thanks to their other activities, involved themselves in a series of charges for which the maximum punishment was something more than the average man's lifetime in prison. Certain of their adventures will appear in other phases of German activity to be discussed. They may be dismissed here, however, with the statement that the California consulate also planned the destruction of munitions plants at Ætna, Indiana, and at Ishpeming, Michigan.
The State Department released on October 10,1917, a telegram from the Foreign Office in Berlin, addressed to Count von Bernstorff, which established beyond question the chief's familiarity with these operations, and more especially the continued desire of the Foreign Office to interrupt transcontinental shipping in Canada. It is dated January 2, 1916. Its text follows:
"Secret. General staff desires energetic action in regard to proposed destruction of the Canadian Pacific Railroad at several points, with a view to complete and protracted interruption of traffic. Captain Boehm, who is known on your side, and is shortly returning, has been given instructions. Inform the military attaché and provide the necessary funds."Zimmermann."
"Secret. General staff desires energetic action in regard to proposed destruction of the Canadian Pacific Railroad at several points, with a view to complete and protracted interruption of traffic. Captain Boehm, who is known on your side, and is shortly returning, has been given instructions. Inform the military attaché and provide the necessary funds.
"Zimmermann."
The factory explosions continued. The Midvale Steel Company suffered incendiary fires; a Providence warehouse containing a consignment of cotton for Russia was burned; there were fires in the shell plant of the Brill Car Company, in the Southwark Machinery Company, and in the shell department of the Diamond Forge and Steel Company. For August the ghastly recitation proceeds somewhat as follows: Bethlehem Steel Company, powder flash, ten killed; League Island Navy Yard, Philadelphia, fire on battleshipAlabama; Newport News Navy Yard, three fires in three weeks. In September an explosion in theaeroplane factory of the Curtiss plant at Depew, New York, a German suspected; explosions in the shell factory of the National Cable and Conduit Company at Hastings, New York; an explosion of benzol and wax in the plant of Smith and Lenhart, New York, in which two people were seriously injured; an explosion in a fireworks factory at North Bergen, N. J., in which two people were killed; an explosion which cost two lives in the shell factory of the Westinghouse Electric Company at Pittsburgh. Scarcely a week went by during the autumn without an explosion and fire which wiped out from one to a dozen lives, and from one hundred thousand to a million dollars. Munitions plants were blown to atoms in a moment, and hardly before the charred ground had cooled, were being rebuilt, for the guns in France were hungry.
Out of the mass of munitions accidents in the year 1915 stands sharp and clear the Bethlehem Steel fire of November 10—of which all Germany had had warning, and on which the German press was forbidden to comment—when 800 big guns were destroyed. The du Pont and Ætna organizations suffered again and again; a chemical plant had two fires which cost three-quarters of a million dollars; two explosions in the Tennessee Coal and Iron Works atBirmingham, Alabama, did considerable property damage, and assisted Germany further by frightening labor away from work. Suspects were arrested here and there, and always their trails led back to German or Austrian nationality or sympathy.
Their chiefs were elusive. Captain von Papen sauntered out of the Ritz-Carlton into Madison Avenue, New York, one afternoon. He idled down to Forty-second Street, and paused, as if undecided where to promenade. He turned east, walked a block, and turned again down the ramp into the Grand Central Station. Quickening his pace—he had only a minute more—he crossed the great waiting-room, presented a ticket at the train gate, and a moment later was in the Twentieth Century Limited, the last passenger aboard. He was seen next day in Chicago. And for a month thereafter he was completely lost to the authorities, while, as they found out later, he made a grand tour of the country, going first to Yellowstone Park, then down the Pacific Coast to Mexico, where he joined Boy-Ed, and finally returning to New York through San Francisco. He had ample opportunity to confer with his consular deputies, and his destroying agents. In August a train loaded with 7,000 pounds of dynamite from the du Pont works at Pinole,California, was destroyed; in the evidence against von Papen is this letter concerning the price to be paid for the Pinole job:
"Dear S.: Your last letter with clipping today, and note what you have to say. I have taken it up with them and 'B'" (who was Franz Bopp) "is awaiting decision of 'P'" (who was von Papen) "in New York, so cannot advise you yet, and will do so as soon as I get word from you. You might size up the situation in the meantime."
"Dear S.: Your last letter with clipping today, and note what you have to say. I have taken it up with them and 'B'" (who was Franz Bopp) "is awaiting decision of 'P'" (who was von Papen) "in New York, so cannot advise you yet, and will do so as soon as I get word from you. You might size up the situation in the meantime."
Glancing back over the record of 1915—which was hardly mitigated in the succeeding years of war—one is inclined to marvel at the hardy perennial pose of the deported attaché, who said as he left the United States:
"I leave my post without any feeling of bitterness, because I know that when history is once written, it will establish our clean record despite all the misrepresentations and calumnies spread broadcast at present."
"I leave my post without any feeling of bitterness, because I know that when history is once written, it will establish our clean record despite all the misrepresentations and calumnies spread broadcast at present."