The charming little seamstress is one of the most capable of the Japanese espionage agents operating in the Canal Zone area. Lola Osawa is not her right name. She is Chiyo Morasawa, who arrived at Balboa from Yokahama on the Japanese steamship "Anyo Maru" on May 24, 1929, and promptly disappeared for almost a year. When she appeared again, she was Lola Osawa, seamstress. She has been an active Japanese agent for almost ten years, specializing in getting photographs of military importance. Her husband, who entered Panama without a Panamanian visa on his passport, is a reserve officer in the Japanese Navy. He lives with Lola in the room above the shop, never does any work though he passes as a merchant, and is always wandering around with a camera. Occasionally he vanishes to Japan. His last trip was in 1935. At that time he stayed there over a year.

To defend the ten-mile-wide and forty-six-mile-long strip of land, lakes and canal which the Republic of Panama leased to the United States "in perpetuity," the army, navy and air corps have woven a network of secret fortifications, laid mines and placed anti-aircraft guns. Foreign spies and international adventurers play a sleepless game to learn these military and naval secrets. The Isthmus is a center of intrigue, plotting, conniving, conspiracy and espionage, with the intelligence departments of foreign governments bidding high for information. For the capture or disablement of the Canal by an enemy would mean that American ships would have to go around the Horn to get from one coast to another—a delay which in time of war might prove to be the difference between victory and defeat.

Because of the efficiency and speed of modern communication and transportation, any region within five hundred to a thousand miles of a military objective is considered in the "sensitive zone," especially if it is of great strategic importance. Hence, espionage activities embrace Central and South American Republics which may have to be used by an enemy as a base of operations. Costa Rica, north of the Canal, and Colombia, south of it, are beehives of secret Japanese, Nazi and Italian activities. Special efforts are made to buy or lease land "for colonization," but the land chosen is such that it can be turned into an air base almost overnight.

For decades Japanese in the Canal Zone area have been photographing everything in sight, not only around the Canal, but for hundreds of miles north and south of it; and the Japanese fishing fleet has taken soundings of the waters and harbors along the coast. Since the conclusion of the Japanese-Nazi "anti-Communist pact," Nazi agents have been sent to German colonies in Central and South America to organize them, carry on propaganda and cooperate secretly with Japanese agents. Italy, which had been only mildly interested in Central America, has become extremely active in cultivating the friendship of Central American Republics since she joined the Tokyo-Berlin tie-up. Let me illustrate:

The recognized vulnerability of the Canal has caused the United States to plan another through Nicaragua. The friendship of the Nicaraguan Government and people, therefore, is of great importance to us from both a commercial and a military standpoint. It is likewise of importance to others.

Italy undertook to gain Nicaragua's friendship when she joined the Japanese-Nazi line-up. First, she offered scholarships, with all expenses paid, for Nicaraguan students to study fascism in Italy. Then, on December 14, 1937, about one month after a secret Nazi agent arrived in Central America with orders to step on the propaganda and organizational activity, the Italian S.S. "Leme" sailed out of Naples with a cargo of guns, armored cars, mountain artillery, machine guns and a considerable amount of munitions.

On January 11, 1938, the Secretary of the Italian Legation in San Jose, Costa Rica, flew to Managua, Nicaragua, to witness the delivery of arms which arrived in Managua on January 12, 1938. Diplomatic representatives do not usually witness purely business transactions, but this was a shipment worth $300,000 which the Italian Government knew Nicaragua could not pay. But, as one of the results, Italy today has a firm foothold in the country through which the United States hopes to build another Canal. The international espionage underground world, which knew that the shipment of arms was coming, has it that Japan, Germany and Italy split the cost of the arms among themselves to gain the friendship of the Nicaraguan Government.

A flood of Nazi propaganda sent on short-wave beams is directed at Central and South America from Germany. In Spanish, German, Portuguese and English, regular programs are sent across at government expense. Government subsidized news agencies flood the newspapers with "news dispatches" which they sell at a nominal price or give away. The programs and the "news dispatches" explain and glorify the totalitarian form of government, and since many of the sister "republics" are dictatorships, they are ideologically sympathetic and receptive.

The Nazis are strong in Colombia, south of the Canal, with a Bund training regularly in military maneuvers at Cali. Since the Japanese-Nazi pact, the Japanese have established a colony of several hundred at Corinto in the Cauca Valley, thirty miles from Cali.

The Japanese colony was settled on land carefully chosen—long, level, flat acres which overnight can be turned into an air base for a fleet landed from an airplane carrier or assembled on the spot. And it is near Cali that Alejandro Tujun, a Japanese in constant touch with the Japanese Foreign Office, is at this writing dickering for the purchase of 400,000 acres of level land for "colonization." On such an acreage enough military men could be colonized to give the United States a first-class headache in time of war. It is two hours flying time from Cali to the Canal.

The entrances on either side of the Panama Canal are secretly mined. The location of these mines is one of the most carefully guarded secrets of the American navy and one of the most sought after by international spies.

The Japanese, who have been fishing along the West Coast and Panamanian waters for years, are the only fishermen who find it necessary to use sounding lines to catch fish. Sounding lines are used to measure the depths of the waters and to locate submerged ledges and covered rocks in this once mountainous area. Any fleet which plans to approach the Canal or use harbors even within several hundred miles north or south of the Canal must have this information to know just where to go and how near to shore they can approach before sending out landing parties.

The use of sounding lines by Japanese fishermen and the mysterious going and comings of their boats became so pronounced that the Panamanian Government could not ignore them. It issued a decree prohibiting all aliens from fishing in Panamanian waters.

In April, 1937, the "Taiyo Maru," flying the American flag but manned by Japanese, hauled up her anchor in the dead of night and with all lights out chugged from the unrestricted waters into the area where the mines are generally believed to be laid. The "Taiyo" operated out of San Diego, California, and once established a world's record of being one hundred and eleven days at sea without catching a single fish. The captain, piloting the boat from previous general knowledge of the waters rather than by chart, unfortunately ran aground. The fishing vessel was stranded on a submerged ledge and couldn't get off.

In the morning the authorities found her, took off her captain and crew—all of whom had cameras—and asked why the boat was in restricted waters.

"I didn't know where I was," said the captain. "We were fishing for bait."

"But bait is caught in the daytime by all other fishermen," the officials pointed out.

"We thought we might catch some at night," the captain explained.

Since 1934, when rumors of the Japanese-Nazi pact began to circulate throughout the world, the Japanese have made several attempts to get a foothold right at the entrance to the Canal on the Pacific side. They have moved heaven and earth for permission to establish a refrigeration plant on Taboga Island, some twelve miles out on the Pacific Ocean and facing the Canal. Taboga Island would make a perfect base from which to study the waters and fortifications along the coast and the islands between the Canal and Taboga.

When this and other efforts failed and there was talk of banning alien fishing in Panamanian waters, Yoshitaro Amano, who runs a store in Panama and has far flung interests all along the Pacific coasts of Central and South America, organized the Amano Fisheries, Ltd. In July, 1937, he built in Japan the "Amano Maru," as luxurious a fishing boat as ever sailed the seas. With a purring diesel engine, it has the longest cruising range of any fishing vessel afloat, a powerful sending and receiving radio with a permanent operator on board, and an extremely secret Japanese invention enabling it to detect and locate mines.

Like all other Japanese in the Canal Zone area, Amano, rated a millionaire in Chile, goes in for a little photography. In September, 1937, word spread along the international espionage grapevine that Nicaragua, through which the United States was planning another Canal, had some sort of peculiar fortifications in the military zone at Managua.

Shortly thereafter the Japanese millionaire appeared at Managua with his expensive camera and headed straight for the military zone. Thirty minutes after he arrived (8:00 A.M. of October 7, 1937), he was in a Nicaraguan jail charged with suspected espionage and with taking pictures in prohibited areas.

I mention this incident because the luxurious boat was registered under the Panamanian flag and immediately began a series of actions so peculiar that the Republic of Panama canceled the Panamanian registry. The "Amano" promptly left for Puntarenas, Costa Rica, north of the Canal, which has a harbor big enough to take care of almost all the fleets in the world. Many of the Japanese ships went there, sounding lines and all, when alien fishing was prohibited in Panamanian waters. Today the "Amano Maru" is a mystery ship haunting Puntarenas and the waters between Costa Rica and Panama and occasionally vanishing out to sea with her wireless crackling constantly.

Some seventy fishing vessels operating out of San Diego, California, fly the American flag. San Diego is of great importance to a potential enemy because it is a naval as well as an air base. Of these seventy vessels flying the American flag, ten are either partially or entirely manned by Japanese.

Let me illustrate how boats fly the American flag:

On March 9, 1937, the S.S. "Columbus" was registered as an American fishing vessel under certificate of registry No. 235,912, issued at Los Angeles. The vessel is owned by the Columbus Fishing Company of Los Angeles. The captain, R.I. Suenaga, is a twenty-six-year-old Japanese, born in Hawaii and a full-fledged American citizen. The navigator and one sailor are also Japanese, born in Hawaii but American citizens. The crew of ten consists entirely of Japanese born in Japan.

The ten boats which fly the American flag but are manned by Japanese crews are: "Alert," "Asama," "Columbus," "Flying Cloud," "Magellan," "Oipango," "San Lucas," "Santa Margarita," "Taiyo," "Wesgate."

Each boat carries a short-wave radio and has a cruising range of from three to five thousand miles, which is extraordinary for just little fishing boats. They operate on the high seas and where they go, only the master and crew and those who send them know. The only time anyone gets a record of them is when they come in to refuel or repair.

In the event of war half a dozen of these fishing vessels, stretched across the Pacific at intervals of five hundred or a thousand miles, would make an excellent system of communication for messages which could be relayed from one to another and in a few moments reach their destination.

In Colon on the Atlantic side and in Panama on the Pacific, East and West literally meet at the crossroads of the world. The winding streets are crowded with the brown and black people who comprise three-fourths of Panama's population. On these teeming, hot, tropical streets are some three hundred Japanese storekeepers, fishermen, commission merchants and barbers-few of whom do much business, but all of whom sit patiently in their doorways, reading the newspapers or staring at the passer-by.

I counted forty-seven Japanese barbers in Panama and eight in Colon. In Panama they cluster on Avenida Central and Calle Carlos A. Mendoza. On both these streets rents are high and, with the exception of Saturdays when the natives come for haircuts, the amount of business the barbers do does not warrant the three to five men in each shop. Yet, though they earn scarcely enough to meet their rent, there is not a lowly barber among them who does not have a Leica or Contax camera with which, until the sinking of the "Panay," they wandered around, photographing the Canal, the islands around the Canal, the coast line, and the topography of the region.

They live in Panama with a sort of permanence, but nine out of ten do not have families—even those advanced in years. Periodically some of them take trips to Japan, though, if you watch their business carefully, you know they could not possibly have earned enough to pay for their passage. And those in the outlying districts don't even pretend to have a business. They just sit and wait, without any visible means of support. It is not until you study their locations, as in the Province of Chorrera, that you find they are in spots of strategic military or naval importance.

Since there were so many barbers in Panama, the need for an occasional gathering without attracting too much attention became apparent. And so the little barber, A. Sonada, who shaves and cuts hair at 45 Carlos A. Mendoza Street, organized a "labor union," the Barbers' Association. The Association will not accept barbers of other nationalities but will allow Japanese fishermen to attend meetings. They meet on the second floor of the building at 58 Carlos A. Mendoza Street, where many of the fishermen live. At their meetings one guard stands outside the room and another downstairs at the entrance to the building.

On hot Sunday afternoons when the Barbers' Association gathers, the diplomatic representatives of other nations are usually taking a siesta or are down at the beach, but Tetsuo Umimoto, the Japanese Consul, climbs the stairs in the stuffy atmosphere and sits in on the deliberations of the barbers and visiting fishermen. It is the only barbers' union I ever heard of whose deliberations were considered important enough for a diplomatic representative to attend. This labor union has another extraordinary custom. It has a special fund to put competitors up in business. Whenever a Japanese arrives in Panama, the Barbers' Association opens a shop for him, buys the chairs-provides him with everything necessary to compete with them for the scarce trade in the shaving and shearing industry!

At these meetings the barber Sonada, who is only a hired hand, sits beside the Japanese Consul at the head of the room. Umimoto remains standing until Sonada is seated. When another barber, T. Takano, who runs a little hole-in-the-wall shop and lives at 10 Avenida B, shows up, both Sonada and the Consul rise, bow very low and remain standing until he motions them to be seated. Maybe it's just an old Japanese custom, but the Consul does not extend the same courtesy to the other barbers.

In attendance at these guarded meetings of the barbers' union and visiting fishermen, is Katarino Kubayama, a gentle-faced, soft-spoken, middle-aged businessman with no visible business. He is fifty-five years old now and lives at Calle Colon, Casa No. 11.

Way back in 1917 Kubayama was a barefoot Japanese fisherman like the others now on the west coast. One morning two Japanese battleships appeared and anchored in the harbor. From the reed-and vegetation covered jungle shore, a sun-dried, brown panga was rowed out by the barefooted fisherman using the short quick strokes of the native. His brown, soiled dungarees were rolled up to his calves; his shirt, open at the throat, was torn and his head was covered by a ragged straw hat.

The silvery notes of a bugle sounded. The crew of the flagship lined up at attention. The officers, including the Commander, also waited stiffly at attention while the fisherman tied his panga to the ship's ladder. As Kubayama clambered on board, the officers saluted. With a great show of formality they escorted him to the Commander's quarters, the junior officer following behind at a respectful distance. Two hours later Kubayama was escorted to the ladder again, the trumpet sounded its salute, and the ragged fisherman rowed away—all conducted with a courtesy extended only to a high ranking officer of the Japanese navy.

Today Kubayama works closely with the Japanese Consul. Together they call upon the captains of Japanese ships whenever they come to Panama, and are closeted with them for hours at a time. Kubayama says he is trying to sell supplies to the captains.

Japanese in the Canal Zone area change their names periodically or come with several passports all prepared. There is, for instance, Shoichi Yokoi, who commutes between Japan and Panama without any commercial reasons. On June 7, 1934, the Japanese Foreign Office in Tokyo issued passport No. 255,875 to him under the name of Masakazu Yokoy with permission to Visit all Central and South American countries. Though he had permission for all, he applied only for a Panamanian visa (September 28, 1934), after which he settled down for a while among the fishermen and barbers. On July 11, 1936, the Foreign Office in Tokyo handed Yokoy another passport under the name of Shoichi Yokoi, together with visas which filled the whole passport and overflowed onto several extra pages. Shoichi or Masakazu is now traveling with both passports and a suitcase full of film for his camera.

Several years ago a Japanese named T. Tahara came to Panama as the traveling representative of a newly organized company, the Official Japanese Association of Importers and Exporters for Latin America, and established headquarters in the offices of the Boyd Bros. shipping agency in Panama.

Nelson Rounsevell, publisher of the Panama American, who has fought Japanese colonization in Canal areas, printed a story that this big businessman got very little mail, made no efforts to establish business contacts and, in talking with the few businessmen he met socially, showed a complete lack of knowledge about business. Tahara was talked about and orders promptly came through for him to return to Japan.

This was in 1936. Half a year later, a suave Japanese named Takahiro Wakabayashi appeared in Panama as the representative of the Federation of Japanese Importers and Exporters, the same organization under a slightly changed name. Wakabayashi checked into the cool and spacious Hotel Tivoli, run by the United States Government on Canal Zone territory and, protected by the guardian wings of the somewhat sleepy American Eagle, washed up and made a beeline for the Boyd Bros. office, where he was closeted with the general manager for over an hour.

Wakabayashi's business interests ranged from taking pictures of the Canal in specially chartered planes, to negotiating for manganese deposits and attempting to establish an "experimental station to grow cotton in Costa Rica."

The big manganese-and-cotton-photographer man fluttered all over Central and South America, always with his camera. One week he was in San Jose, Costa Rica; the next he made a hurried special flight to Bogota, Colombia (November 12, 1937); then back to Panama and Costa Rica. He finally got permission from Costa Rica to establish his experimental station.

In obtaining that concession he was aided by Giuseppe Sotanis, an Italian gentleman wearing the fascist insignia in the lapel of his coat, whom he met at the Gran Hotel in San Jose. Sotanis, a former Italian artillery officer, is a nattily dressed, slender man in his early forties who apparently does nothing in San Jose except study his immaculate finger nails, drink Scotch-and-sodas, collect stamps and vanish every few months only to reappear again, still studying his immaculate finger nails. It was Sotanis who arranged for Nicaragua to get the shipment of arms and munitions which I mentioned earlier.

This uncommunicative Italian stamp collector paved the way for Wakabayashi to meet Raul Gurdian, the Costa Rican Minister of Finance, and Ramon Madrigal, Vice-president of the government-owned National Bank and a prominent Costa Rican merchant. Shortly after Costa Rica gave Wakabayashi permission to experiment with his cotton growing, both the Minister of Finance and the Vice-president of the government bank took trips to Japan.

The ink was scarcely dry on the agreement to permit the Japanese to experiment in cotton growing before a Japanese steamer appeared in Puntarenas with twenty-one young and alert Japanese and a bag of cotton seed. They were "laborers," Wakabayashi explained. The "laborers" were put up in first-class hotels and took life easy while Wakabayashi and one of the laborers started hunting a suitable spot on which to plant their bag of seed. All sorts of land was offered to them, but Wakabayashi wanted no land anywhere near a hill or a mountain. He finally found what he wanted half-way between Puntarenas and San Jose—long, level, flat acres. He wanted this land at any price, finally paying for it an annual rental equal to the value of the acres.

The twenty-one "laborers" who had been brought from Chimbota, Peru, where there is a colony of twenty thousand Japanese, planted an acre with cotton seed and sat them down to rest, imperturbable, silent, waiting. The plowed land is now as smooth and level as the acres at Corinto in Colombia, south of the Canal.

The harbor at Puntarenas, as I mentioned earlier, would make a splendid base of operations for an enemy fleet. Not far from shore are the flat, level acres of the "experimental station" and the twenty-one Japanese who could quickly turn these smooth acres into an air base. It is north of the Panama Canal and within two hours flying time of it, as Corinto is south of the Canal and within two hours flying time.

The Boyd Bros. steamship agency, to which Tahara and Wakabayashi went immediately upon arrival, is an American concern. The manager, with whom each was closeted, is Hans Hermann Heildelk of Avenida Peru, No. 64, Panama City, and, though efforts have been made to keep it secret, part owner of the agency. Heildelk is also the son-in-law of Ernst F. Neumann, the Nazi Consul to Panama.

On November 15, 1937, Heildelk returned from Japan by way of Germany. Five days later, on November 20, 1937, his father-in-law, who, besides being Nazi Consul, owns in partnership with Fritz Kohpcke, one of the largest hardware stores in Panama, told his clerks that he and his partner would work a little late that night. Neither partner went out to eat and the corrugated sliding door of the store, at Norte No. 54 in the heart of the Panamanian commercial district, was left open about three feet from the ground so that passers-by could not see inside unless they stooped deliberately.

At eight o'clock a car drew up at the corner of the darkened street in front of Neumann & Kohpcke, Ltd. Two unidentified men, Heildelk and Walter Scharpp, former Nazi Consul at Colon who had also just returned from Germany, stepped out, and stooping under the partly open door, entered the store. Once inside Scharpp quietly assumed command. To all practical purposes they were on German territory, for the Nazi consulate office was in the store.

Scharpp announced that the group had been very carefully chosen because of their known loyalty to Nazi Germany and because of their desire to promote friendship for Germany in Latin American countries and to cooperate with the Japanese, who had their own organization functioning efficiently in Central and South America.

"Some of these countries are already friendly," said Scharpp, "and we can work undisturbed provided we do not interfere in the Panama Canal Zone. It is North American territory, and you will have trouble from their officials and intelligence officers as well as political pressure from the States. You understand?"

"Panama is friendly to North America," said Kohpcke.

"Precisely. At the present time it is not wise to do much more than broadcast, but at a propitious time we shall be able to explain National Socialism to the Panamanians."

He looked at Kohpcke, whose left eyelid droops more than his right, giving him the appearance of being perpetually sleepy. Kohpcke looked at Neumann.

"Tonight we want to organize a Bund in Panama. In a few days I am going to Costa Rica to organize another and then leave for Valparaiso."

The others nodded. They had been informed that Scharpp was to have complete charge of Nazi activities from Valparaiso to Panama. That night they established Der Deutsch-Auslaendische Nazi Genossenschafts Bund, with the understanding that it function secretly. The list of members was to be controlled by Neumann.

Scharpp explained that secrecy was advisable to avoid antagonizing the Panamanian Government, "which is friendly to Italy and we can cooperate with the Italian Legation here."

"The Japanese are more important that the Italians," Kohpcke pointed out.

"The Japanese will work with us," Heildelk assured him.

"But we can't be seen with them—"

"Fritz [Kohpcke] will call a meeting in Jacobs' house," said Scharpp.

"Jacobs!" exclaimed one of the unidentified men. "You don't mean the Austrian Consul!"

Scharpp nodded slowly. "He is generally believed to be anti-Nazi. His partner spent twelve years in Japan and speaks Japanese perfectly. The Japanese Consul knows and trusts both. We cannot find a better place."

On the night of December 13, 1937, forty carefully selected Germans who, during the intervening month had become members of the Bund in Panama, arrived singly and in small groups at the home of August Jacobs-Kantstein, Panamanian merchant and Austrian Honorary Consul.

Five Japanese, headed by Tetsuo Umimoto, also came. One, K. Ishibashi, formerly captain of the "Hokkai Maru" and a reserve officer in the Japanese Navy; K. Ohihara, a Japanese agent staying with the Japanese Consul but having no visible reason to be in Panama; two captains of Japanese fishing boats and A. Sonada, the barber who organized the labor union and in whose presence the Consul does not sit until the barber is seated.

Throughout the meeting, presided over by the elderly but tall and soldierly Austrian Consul, the Japanese said little. It was primarily the first get-together for Nazi-Japanese cooperation in the Canal Zone area.

"Mr. Umimoto has not said much," remarked Jacobs.

"There is so little to say when there are so many present," said the little Consul apologetically.

The others understood. The Japanese were too shrewd to discuss detailed plans with so many present.

A few days later Umimoto called upon Heildelk and was closeted with him for three hours. Shortly after that Sonada made a hurried trip to Japan.



VI

Secret Agents Arrive in America

Germany's interest in the Panama Canal became acute only after Japan joined the Rome-Berlin axis "to exchange information about Communism"—an exchange which appears to be more concerned with military secrets than with Communism.

The activities of Japanese and Nazi agents in Latin American countries and especially around the Canal, the organizing of a fascist rebellion in Mexico to the south of us and intensive propaganda carried on in Canada to the north, are but part of the broad invasion of the Western Hemisphere by the Fifth Column—an invasion which began almost immediately after Hitler got into power. Since the United States is the most important country in the Americas, it was and is subject to special concentration by secret Nazi agents.

The first threads spun spread out in many directions, with propaganda as the base from which to broaden espionage activities. One of the earliest of the secret agents sent to this country was an American, Colonel Edwin Emerson, soldier of fortune, mediocre author and fairly competent war correspondent. Emerson lived at 215 East 15th Street, New York City and had an office in Room 1923 at 17 Battery Place, the address of the German Consulate General. Room 1923 was rented by a representative of the German Consul General. The rent paid was nominal and in at least one instance, to avoid its being traced, it was paid in cash by Hitler's diplomatic representative. Prior to the renting of this room, Emerson had desk space with the German Consulate General for six weeks.

The May 15, 1933, issue of the Amerika Deutsche Post, a Nazi propaganda organ published in New York, carried an advertisement stating that the editor of this paper made his headquarters in Emerson's room. This was the first indication that Emerson had arrived in this country to handle Nazi propaganda.

For many years Emerson had wandered about the globe covering assignments for newspapers and magazines and always bragging about his Americanism and his "patriotism." One of his great boasts was that he was with Roosevelt's Rough Riders during the Spanish-American war; what he never told was that Roosevelt brought him back from Cuba in irons.

From his room paid for by the German Consul General, Emerson launched the "Friends of Germany."[6] This organization was the chief disseminator of pro-Hitler and anti-democratic propaganda in the United States, but the Colonel directed the propaganda somewhat stupidly. The "Friends of Germany" held meetings with "storm troops" in full uniform; bitter attacks were made against Jews and Catholics at large mass meetings. Visiting officers and sailors, from German ships docked in New York, appeared at these meetings to preach fascism and Nazism, until a wave of resentment swept the country. One of the keynotes of these talks was sounded by Edward F. Sullivan of Boston at a meeting held at Turnhalle, Lexington Avenue and 85th Street, on June 5th, 1934, when he repeatedly referred to Jews as "dirty, stinking kikes" and announced that he proposed to organize a strong Nazi group in Boston.

Propaganda Minister Goebbels in Berlin became annoyed at the public reaction, and the entire Nazi foreign propaganda service was reorganized. Emerson was ordered back to Germany for explicit instructions on how to carry on propaganda without antagonizing the entire country.

In October, 1933, Royal Scott Gulden (who has no connection with the mustard business, but is a distant relative of the head of it), who had been cooperating with Emerson, tried to organize an espionage system to watch Communists. In this effort Gulden enlisted the aid of Fred R. Marvin, a professional patriot. At three o'clock on the afternoon of March 10, 1934, a very secret meeting was called by Gulden at 139 East 57th Street. Present were Gulden, J. Schmidt and William Dudley Pelley, head of the Silver Shirts.

The meeting decided to adopt anti-semitic propaganda—to play on latent anti-semitism—as part of the first campaign to attract followers. The country was in a serious economic crisis with considerable unrest throughout the land. Both Hitler and Mussolini got into power in periods of great unrest by promising peace and security to the bewildered people. Men of means were terrified by fears of "revolution" and this group, directed by Emerson, began to preach that the revolution might come any minute and that the Jews were responsible for Moscow, the Third International, the Mississippi flood and anything else that troubled the people. When the meeting ended the "Order of '76"[7] had been born and Royal Scott Gulden appointed Secretary to direct espionage and propaganda.

From the very beginning Emerson tried to get people into places which would provide access to important information. On February 22, 1934, a merger of the Republican Senatorial and Congressional Campaign Committees to conduct the Party's Congressional campaign independent of the Republican National Committee was announced in a joint statement by Senator Daniel O. Hastings of Delaware and Representative Chester C. Bolton of Ohio, chairmen, respectively, of the two committees.

Several weeks before this announcement, the two committees had employed Sidney Brooks, for years head of the research bureau of the International Telephone and Telegraph Company. Brooks, because of his position, was close in the confidences of Republican Senators and Congressmen. He heard state secrets and had his fingers on the political pulse of the country.

Shortly after he took charge of the joint committee for the Senators and Congressmen, Brooks made a hurried visit to New York. On March 4, 1934, he drove to the Hotel Edison and went directly to Room 830 where a man registered as "William D. Goodales—Los Angeles," was awaiting him. Mr. "Goodales" was William Dudley Pelley, head of the Silver Shirts, who had come to New York to confer with Brooks and Gulden. After this conference the two went to Gulden's office where they had a confidential talk that lasted over an hour during which an agreement was made to merge the Order of '76 with the Silver Shirts so as to carry on their propaganda more effectively.

Brooks himself, on his mysterious visits to New York, went to 17 Battery Place, which houses the German Consulate General. At that address he visited one John E. Kelly. In a letter to Kelly dated as far back as December 27, 1933, he wrote: "I will be in New York Friday to Monday and can be reached in the usual manner—Gramercy 5-9193 (care Emerson)."

Sidney Brooks also was a member of the secret Order of '76. Before anyone could join he had to give, in his own handwriting and sealed with his own fingerprints, certain details of his life. Brooks' application for membership in this espionage group organized with the help of a Nazi sent to this country, revealed that he was the son of the Nazi agent, Colonel Edwin Emerson, and that he was using his mother's maiden name so that connection could not be traced too easily.



One of the other early propagandists who is still active as a "patriot" was Edward H. Hunter, Executive Secretary of the Industrial Defense Association, Inc., 7 Water Street, Boston. Early in 1934, while the negotiations for the merging of the espionage order and the Silver Shirts were going on, this rooter for American liberty heard Germany was spending money in this country and on March 3, he wrote to the "Friends of Germany":

"Under separate cover we are sending you twenty-five copies of our Swan Song of Hate as requested and you may have as many as you wish.

"Several times I have conferred with Dr. Tippelskirch and at one time suggested that if he could secure the financial backing from Germany, I could start a real campaign along lines that would be very effective.

"All that is necessary to return America to Americans is to organize the many thousands of persons who are victims of Judaism and I am ready to do that at any time."

Dr. Tippelskirch, with whom Hunter discussed getting money from Germany for anti-semitic work, was the German Consul in Boston.

The activities of the early agents ranged from propaganda to smuggling and espionage, though at the beginning the espionage was on a minor scale. It took several years of organizing pro-German groups in this country before they could pick the most reliable for the more dangerous spy work. Much of the propaganda was sent in openly through the mails, but some of it was of so vicious and anti-democratic character that the Propaganda Ministry in Germany decided it was wiser to smuggle it in from Nazi ships.

One of the chief smugglers was Guenther Orgell,[8] at that time head of the "Friends of Germany," through whom the propaganda was distributed to various branches of the organization throughout the country. In those days Orgell lived at 606 West 115th Street, New York City,[9] and was ostensibly employed as an electrical engineer by the Raymond Roth Co., 25 West 45th Street. Let me illustrate how he worked:

At twenty minutes to ten on the evening of March 16, 1934, the North German Lloyd "Europa" was preparing to sail at midnight. The gaily illuminated boat was filled with men and women, many in evening dress, seeing friends off to Europe. German stewards, all of them members of the ship's Nazi Gruppe, stood about smiling, bowing, but watching every passenger and visitor carefully.

People wandered all over the boat. Many visited the library on the main promenade deck, which has a German post office. There was a great deal of laughter and chatter. Orgell, dressed in an ordinary business suit and carrying a folded newspaper in his hands, wandered in. Catching the post office steward's eye, he casually took four letters from his coat pocket and handed them to the steward who as casually slipped them into his pocket. There were no stamps on the letters, which, incidentally, constituted a federal offense.

Still so casual in manner that the average observer would not even have noticed the transfer of the letters, Orgell wandered over to a desk in the library and rapidly wrote another letter—so important, apparently, that he dared not carry it with him for fear of a mishap. The letter was sealed and handed to the steward.

The library had a great many visitors. No one seemed to be paying any attention to this visitor or passenger talking to the steward. With a quick glance around him, Orgell took in everyone in the library and seemed satisfied. He caught the steward's eye again and nodded. The steward opened a closet in the library, the second one left of the main aisle on the port side toward the stern of the boat. A thin package was taken from its hiding place and quickly slipped to Orgell who covered it with his newspaper and promptly left the ship.

This was the manner in which Nazi secret instructions and spy reports were sent and received—a procedure that kept up until the arrest of the Nazi spies who were tried late in 1938.

When Orgell needed trusted men to deliver messages to and from the boats as well as to smuggle off material, he usually called upon the American branch of the Stahlhelm, or Steel Helmets, which used to drill secretly in anticipation of Der Tag in this country. Only when he felt that he was not being watched, or only in the event of the most important messages, did he go aboard the ships personally. Orgell's liaison man in the smuggling activities was Frank Mutschinski, a painting contractor who used to live at 116 Garland Court, Garritsen Beach, N.Y.

Mutschinski came to the United States from Germany on the S.S. "George Washington," June 16, 1920. He was commander of one of the American branches of the Stahlhelm which had offices at 174 East 85th Street, New York. While he was in command, he received his orders direct from Franz Seldte, subsequently Minister of Labor under Hitler. Seldte at that time was in Magdeburg, Germany. Branches of the Stahlhelm were established by him and Orgell in Rochester, Chicago, Philadelphia, Newark, Detroit, Los Angeles and Toronto (the first step in the Fifth Column's invasion of Canada).

To help Orgell in his smuggling activities, Mutschinski supplied him with a chief assistant, Carl Brunkhorst. It was Brunkhorst's job to deliver the secret letters. Nazi uniforms for American Storm Troopers were smuggled into this country off German ships by Paul Bante who lived at 186 East 93rd Street, New York City. Bante, at the time he was engaged in the smuggling activities, was a member of the 244th Coast Guard as well as the New York National Guard.

In the early days of organizing the Nazi web over the United States, the German agents received cooperation from racketeering "patriots" who saw possibilities of scaring the wits out of the American people by announcing that the "revolution" was just around the corner. The country was in an economic crisis, the American people were bewildered and didn't know which way to turn, there was considerable unrest in the land, and the Nazi agents and their American counterparts visualized in Hitler's cry that "Communism and the Jews" were responsible, grand pickings from the scared suckers.

Since Communism, especially in those restless days in the depths of the depression, was the bugaboo of the rich, it was inevitable that some unscrupulous but shrewd observers of the American scene would take advantage of this fear and capitalize on it. One of the chief racketeers, a man who subsequently worked very closely with secret Nazi agents in this country, was Harry A. Jung, Honorary General Manager of the American Vigilant Intelligence Federation, Post Office Box 144, Chicago. This organization was originally founded to spy on Communists and Socialists. For a while Jung collected from terrified employers by promising to inform them about the threat of revolution—what time it would occur and who would lead it. In return he collected plenty.

In time employers got fed up when the rowboat loaded with bomb-throwing Bolsheviks failed to arrive from Moscow. Pickings became slim. Jung was badly in need of a new terror-inspiring "issue" with which to collect from the suckers. He found it at the time Emerson was sent here from Germany. Gulden, Pelley and their associates were launching an anti-semitic campaign as the first step to attract people to the "Friends of Germany." Jung likewise discovered the "menace of the Jew" and peddled it for all it was worth.



There was an air of secrecy about the whole outfit. Even the location of the office in the Chicago Tribune Tower was kept from the membership; all they were given was the post office box number. As soon as he collected enough material from the Daily Worker and other Communist publications, he sent agents to call on the gullible businessmen with horrendous stories of the Muscovites now on the high seas on their way to capture the American Government. The salesmen collected and in turn got forty per cent of the pickings.

When Jung heard that William Dudley Pelley was making money on the Jew-and-Catholic scare and that others like Edward H. Hunter of the Industrial Defense Association were talking with the German Consul General about getting money from Germany for propaganda, he got busy peddling "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion," long discredited as forgeries. Armed with these, Jung's high pressure salesmen scoured the country, collecting shekels from Christian businessmen and getting their forty per cent commissions.

It was not long before Jung, Pelley and others were working in full swing with secret Nazi agents sent into this country for propaganda and espionage purposes.

FOOTNOTES:

[6] Subsequently changed to "Friends of the New Germany" and then to the current "German-American Bund."

[7] Still functioning on a minor scale. The Fifth Column has since these early beginnings established much more efficient groups.

[8] Following passage of the new 1938 law requiring all foreign agents to register, Orgell registered with the State Department as a German agent.

[9] He now lives at Great Kills, Staten Island, N.Y.



VII

Nazi Spies and American "Patriots"

Once the spadework was done by the early Nazi agents sent into the United States, the web rapidly embraced native fascists, racketeering "patriots" and deluded Americans who swallowed their propaganda. When Japan joined the Rome-Berlin axis, espionage directed against American naval and military forces became one of the major interests of the foreign agents, especially on the West Coast.

Some five years ago, after the McCormick Congressional Committee investigation into Nazi activities turned up a number of propagandists, there was a lull in their activity until the nation-wide denunciations died out. In the meantime Goebbels again ordered the reorganization of the entire propaganda machine in this country.

It was during this period that the approaching Presidential elections presented an immediate task for the Nazis to work on. The Roosevelt Administration was considered by the Nazis both here and in Germany as none too friendly to Hitler, and before the election got well under way the Nazis here, upon instructions from their local leaders who act only upon instructions from the German Propaganda Bureau, became active in the anti-Roosevelt campaign. Both Nazi agents and "patriotic" American groups working with Nazi agents (without much money after the Congressional Committee's exposes) suddenly found themselves possessed of more than enough capital with which to operate. Some of the money came from the Nazis and some from anti-Roosevelt forces.

One of the most vicious of the anti-Roosevelt propaganda mediums was established by Nazi agents in a carefully hidden printing plant.



No one who got off on the sixth floor at 325 W. Ohio St., Chicago, and entered the John Baumgarth's Specialty Company, would have suspected anything out of the ordinary about the place. It looked just like hundreds of other business firms where pale girls and anemic-looking men made calendars.

People came up on the ancient elevator, attended to their affairs at the desks in front of the door, and left. Very few of them ever went behind the enormous piles of cardboard and paper which almost obstructed the passage to the right of the desks. But if you turned into this passage and then turned to the left, you came upon a wooden partition. Unless you were watching for it you would think it a wall.

There was no indication of what was behind the partition. There was only a shiny Yale lock in a door carefully hidden from the eyes of casual visitors. If you knew nothing about it and tried to open the door, you would find it locked. If you knocked or banged on it, there would be no answering sign from the other side, and the young man operating the cutting machine alongside the partition would merely stare at you blankly.

But if you knocked three times quickly, paused for a split second and then knocked once more, the door would be opened immediately. Without the proper signal all the knocking in the world would not help, for this was the entrance to the carefully guarded publication rooms of the American Gentile and the headquarters for Nazi anti-democratic activities in the Middle West. But even more guarded than the location of the printing plant were the goings and comings of the paper's editor, Captain Victor DeKayville and his financial backer, Charles O'Brien.

This brings me to two of the leading Nazi agents in the United States, one of whom originally started the newspaper. Certainly none of the American suckers who gave them money to spread pro-Nazi propaganda knew that both were masquerading under false names and that one of them is an ex-convict.

Those social leaders in Chicago and San Francisco, whose doors were always open to the handsome, dashing Prince Peter Kushubue with his sad eyes and his talk of how the Bolsheviki had confiscated his vast estates and family jewels in Old Russia, may be interested to learn that his Highness, the Prince, is really—well, let me give a brief sketch of his activities before he became a Nazi agent:

In 1922, a Russian emigre, born in Petrograd and christened Peter Afanassieff or Aphanassieff, came to the United States seeking his fortune, preferably in the form of a wealthy heiress. As an ordinary run-of-the-mill Afanassieff, he was just an unemployed White Russian looking for a job and it didn't take him long to discover that in this democratic country heiresses and their doting papas go nuts over titles. So overnight Peter Afanassieff blossomed out into Prince Peter Kushubue; and as a Prince whose wealth had been confiscated by the Bolsheviki, the doors of San Francisco society opened to him.

Afanassieff just barely missed marrying a wealthy heiress on the West Coast, and in his despondence he tried his hand at a little forgery. But he picked the wrong outfit to practice penmanship on. He forged a United States Treasury check and when the federal men got after him he fled to Chicago. He was picked up and on November 29, 1929, he found himself before a U.S. Commissioner who ordered his return to San Francisco. On December 19 of the same year he pleaded guilty before Federal Judge F.J. Kerrigan and was given a year and a half. At the trial he admitted to being just an ordinary Afanassieff and served his sentence under that name.

When he came out he alternated between being Prince Kushubue and an ordinary Afanassieff and then, because the 1930 crash had kicked the bottom out of the market for foreign titles, he picked himself a good solid American name: Armstrong. He said it was his mother's maiden name. For convenience we'll call him Armstrong from now on.

When he arrived in Chicago in 1933, he met some White Russians who were working with Harry A. Jung on an altogether new translation of the "Protocols." Jung planned to publish and distribute the forgeries in order to scare the wits out of his Christian suckers, but changed his mind when he discovered he could buy them cheaper and resell at a higher price. Jung, in turn, introduced Armstrong to Nazi agents.

Jung and the ex-convict hit it up. Before long Armstrong became Jung's secret agent No. 31 (Jung is No. 1 and always signs his letters to agents with that number. His agents, too, sign only their numbers. They are not supposed even to write the number but every once in a while an agent slips up and scribbles a postscript in his own handwriting. A reproduction of one of No. 31's reports to the No. 1 Guy appears on the opposite page.)

It was not long after Jung introduced Armstrong to Nazi agents that the White Russian decided that he could work the racket himself. He began to meet secretly with Nazi agents without telling Jung about it. Their favorite meeting place was at Von Thenen's Tavern, 2357 Roscoe St., Chicago. Present at these meetings, usually called by Fritz Gissibl, head of the "Friends of the New Germany,"[10] were Armstrong, Captain Victor DeKayville, J.K. Leibl (who organized an underground Nazi clique in South Bend, Ind.), Oscar Pfaus, Nick Mueller, Toni Mueller, Jose Martini, Franz Schaeffer and Gregor Buss. When Gissibl couldn't attend, his right-hand man Leibl acted for him.

In March, 1936, Armstrong and the others decided to establish a "National Alliance" to aid in Nazi work. They decided to use the utmost secrecy lest what they were doing and who were behind it, leak out. They met only in private homes and so careful were they that the host of one meeting would not be told where the next meeting was to be held. Only a picked handful of the most trusted Nazi agents were invited.

The first meeting was held at Bockhold's home, 1235 Wave-land Ave., Chicago; the second at the home of Mrs. Emma Schmid, 4710 Winthrop Ave., Chicago. To the second meeting they invited C.O. Anderson of 601 Diversey Parkway, Chicago. He was listed by the Nazis and the White Russians as a good sucker because he had contributed money to Jung.





The White Russians and the Nazi agents then decided to start a publishing business as the first step to attract followers. They issued a paper called the Gentile Front. They were extremely careful to keep the editorial and publication addresses secret. All mail was sent only to Post Office Box No. 526 in the old Chicago Post Office. The company was named the Patriotic Publishing Co. and with the utmost secrecy editorial offices were established at 5 S. Wabash in Chicago and the paper printed in the basement at 4233 N. Kildare where the Merrimac Press functioned.

Subsequently, to throw anyone who might be watching them off the trail, they changed the name of the publishing company to the Right Cause Publishing Co. and issued an avalanche of Nazi propaganda. It was through this secretly organized and secretly functioning propaganda center that Harry A. Jung, ultra-"patriot," distributed printed attacks on Roosevelt just before the Presidential election.

The American Gentile, backed by Nazi money, published the most insane rantings imaginable. But when one is inclined to dismiss them as insanity, one remembers that it was the same sort of stuff Hitler used in winning millions of bewildered Germans to his banner. The pre-election issue (October, 1936) of the Gentile will serve as an illustration of what they published and distributed through the United States mails:

Former Congressman Louis T. McFadden[11] died on October 1 from a stroke. He was sixty years old. The American Gentile, however, implied that he had been murdered by Jews; Senator Bronson Cutting (killed in an airplane crash) also was murdered by Jews. Huey Long was murdered by Jews. Walter A. Liggett, the newspaper editor, was murdered by Jews, and it was an international ring of Jewish bankers who hired Booth to murder Abraham Lincoln.

Of course it was crazy, but the coal digger in Kentucky or the bedeviled farmer in the Middle West who couldn't pay his taxes or the unemployed worker in an industrial center who couldn't find a job did not know history any too well nor understand the workings of the economic system; and when they were told by newspapers brought to them by the United States Government mails that their economic difficulties were due to a Jewish-Communist plot, that Roosevelt was a Jew and was controlled by Jews and Communists, some of them were prone to believe it. With this irresponsible propaganda anti-semitism grew. Men and women were attracted to the Nazi web without dreaming of the forces disseminating the propaganda of the motives behind them.

The most capable of those drawn into the Nazi propaganda machine were chosen for more serious work. Some were used for propaganda; others were given definite espionage assignments. The espionage and propaganda divisions of the Nazi machine in this country are separate bodies. They overlap only in serving as a recruiting ground.

The smuggling of anti-democratic propaganda off Nazi ships entering American ports was exposed by the McCormick Congressional Committee, but it stopped only for a brief period. The Nazi ships which bring in propaganda also bring secret instructions to agents here and take back their reports. To eliminate tell-tale evidence, Dr. George Gyssling, Nazi Consul in Los Angeles, has paid out cash to leaders of the German propaganda machine on the West Coast. Affidavits to this effect are in my possession.

The headquarters for the West Coast propaganda machine which dabbles a little in espionage, is the Deutsches Haus, 634 W. 15th Street, Los Angeles. The building is supposed to be merely a meeting place for German-Americans and sympathizers of the Hitler regime. Actually its functions are far more sinister.

The Deutsches Haus, before it was turned into a center of Nazi activity, had been a typical Los Angeles home. When the Nazis took it over, they ripped out several of the front rooms and turned it into a barn-like affair with a skylight overhead and a raised platform from which speakers sing the praises of Hitler and fascism. In the rear part of the hall is a combined bar and restaurant where the German-Americans drink their beer and whiskies and plot the smuggling of propaganda from Nazi ships and the carrying on of espionage against American military and naval forces.

I use the word "plot" for precisely what it means. From this house, naturalized American citizens and native Americans direct espionage and propaganda activities paid for by a foreign government and designed against the peace and security of the United States.

The leader of this group, Hermann Schwinn, was appointed by Minister of Propaganda Goebbels in Germany and is the recipient of personal letters of praise from Adolf Hitler for his work. Schwinn is a naturalized citizen,[12] a comparatively young man in his early thirties, ruddy-faced and with a thin, quivering mustache on his upper lip. This little Fuehrer's office is just off the meeting hall and adjoins the small bookstore where the purchaser can get pamphlets, books, and newspapers attacking democracy.

When I called upon Schwinn at the Nazi headquarters and introduced myself, he smiled amiably and granted my request for an interview. The German-American Bund, he explained immediately (the reorganized Friends of the New Germany), is now a patriotic organization, consisting only of American citizens.

The German-American Bund, Schwinn continued as we seated ourselves in his office, was now a "patriotic organization striving to create among Americans a better understanding of Nazi Germany, to combat anti-Nazi propaganda and the boycott against Germany, and to fight Communism." He took about ten minutes to explain their peaceful objectives and their great love for the United States.

"Everything is America for the Americans and to fight all alien theories and interests?" I asked, summing up his explanation.

"That's right," he beamed.

"Does any propaganda come from Germany to help save America for the Americans?"

"No, sir!" he said. "We have nothing to do with Germany; we are Americans first. Mr. Dickstein[13] says that there is propaganda coming, but he was never able to prove any of his statements."

"Then how does propaganda like World Service from Erfurt, Germany, get into this country?"

"Oh, I get it," he said casually. "Anyone can subscribe to it for a dollar and a half a year. We get two or three copies around here—by subscription, of course."

"There must be a lot of subscribers in the United States for I've seen a great many copies. I thought that perhaps it comes in batches from Germany for distribution here so members of the Nazi groups in the United States could use it to help save America for the Americans."

"No," he smiled. "It's all a subscription matter."

"I see. Do you know Captain George Trauernicht?"

Schwinn shot a startled glance at me and nodded slowly. "Yes," he said, "he's Captain of the Hapag Line ship 'Oakland.'"

"Do you ever visit him?"

"Yes; he was here last week."

"Doesn't he bring batches of World Service and other propaganda for you every time he comes into port?"

"No," Schwinn said sharply. "The visits I pay him are purely social. Just to drink a glass of good German beer."

"Do you usually pay social visits carrying a brief case?"

"Now, wait a minute," he protested. "Don't write down the answer until I think."

I stopped typing on his office machine which he had permitted me to use to take verbatim notes of the interview and waited while he thought. After a lengthy silence I added:

"You had a brief case on Thursday when you visited him."

He continued thinking for a little longer and then said that he thought he had had a brief case on that trip.

"But why do you ask me that?" he demanded. "There was nothing in that brief case."

"Sure there was. The brief case always contains reports you send back to Germany and instructions from Germany are brought to you by Captain Trauernicht as well as other captains of German ships docking here and in San Diego."

"I have never taken off propaganda nor given nor received reports," Schwinn insisted. "Somebody told you something and you've got it all wrong."

"Suppose I mention a few instances. At four o'clock on Monday afternoon, March 9, 1936, your beer-drinking friend, Captain Trauernicht, waited for you at the gangplank of his boat—for your 'social' visit. What he wanted was the package of sealed reports from Nazi agents throughout the United States which you were bringing in your brief case. In due time you arrived and gave him the reports. Then you started on a drinking spree—"

"I don't know what you're talking about," Schwinn interrupted.

"Maybe I can refresh your memory. That was the evening the Captain took a lady from Beverly Hills, to the first mate's cabin—remember? You know, the lady who lives on North Crescent Drive—shall I mention her name?"

Schwinn's face turned an apoplectic red and he became quiet.

"On Monday, February 10, 1936," I continued. "Reinhold Kusche, leader of the O.D. unit in your organization and a 'patriotic' naturalized American citizen, was on board the steamer 'Elbe' docked in Los Angeles harbor. He telephoned to one of your Nazi agents, Albert Voigt, that the Captain was sailing at five o'clock for Antwerp and was furious because the agents' reports had not yet been delivered to him. Kusche told Voigt to bring the reports in a hurry—which Voigt promptly did.

"On Tuesday evening, May 12, 1936, the Captain of the Nazi ship 'Schwaben', which had just arrived from Antwerp, Belgium, came to your office and handed you a sealed package of orders and propaganda. He laid it on your desk in this room. The package contained copies of World Service—which is obtainable, you remember, only by subscription at a dollar and a half a year."

"It is not true—" Schwinn interrupted excitedly.

"I have a copy from the batch he brought to you. But let's continue. On Monday, June 8, 1936, you yourself went to the Nazi ship 'Weser' and gave the captain secret reports to take back to Germany and left with secret orders he had brought over—orders sealed in brown, manila paper[14]—and a large package of Fichte-Bund propaganda. I have a copy from that batch, too."

Schwinn stared at me and then smiled. "You can't prove anything," he said with assurance.

"I have affidavits about all these items and more—affidavits from men on board the Nazi ships."

"It's impossible!" he exclaimed. "No German on the ship would dare to sign an affidavit!"

"But I have them," I repeated.

"You intend to publish them?" he asked, a cunning look appearing in his eyes.

His eagerness to discover who had given me affidavits was funny and I laughed. "I'll publish the information contained in them," I explained. "The names of the signers will be given only to an American governmental or judicial body which may look into your 'patriotic' activities. But let's get on. Do you know the Nazi Consul in Los Angeles—Dr. George Gyssling?"

He sat silently for a moment as if hesitating whether to speak.

"Don't be afraid to talk," I said. "The Consul isn't. You know, of course, that he does not like you?"

A deep red flush suffused his face. "It's mutual!" he said. "I know he talks—"

Throughout the interview Schwinn tried almost pathetically, despite his obvious dislike of Gyssling, to cover up the Consul's interference in American affairs. When I told Schwinn I had affidavits showing that Rafael Demmler, President of the Steuben Society of Los Angeles, got two hundred dollars in April, 1936, from the Nazi Consul to help maintain the Deutsches Haus as a center of Nazi propaganda, he shook his head bewilderedly; and when I pointed out that he himself got one hundred and forty-five dollars in cash from the Nazi Consul on Tuesday, April 28, 1936, to cover expenses incurred by Schwinn in the effort to bring the German-American groups together for the better dissemination of Nazi propaganda, his face turned alternately white and red and finally he exploded:

"Did Gyssling tell you that?"

"I'm not saying who told it to me. But let's get on with some of your other 'patriotic' activities. On Thursday, June 18, 1936, you visited Captain Trauernicht in company with Count von Buelow—"

For the first time since the interview began Schwinn sat upright in his chair as if I had struck him. All the other subjects had left him slightly disturbed but still with an obvious sense that he was not on particularly dangerous ground. But at the mention of Von Buelow's name a look of actual fear spread over his face.

"On that day," I continued, "you and the Count went directly to the Captain's cabin where you handed over your reports—"

"What are you getting at?" Schwinn demanded sharply.

"I'm getting at the Count. What do you know about him?"

"Nothing. I know nothing about him. I've met him, that's all."

"Have you ever visited his home at Point Loma,[15] San Diego?"

Schwinn stared at me without answering.

"Have you ever been there?" I repeated.

"Yes," he said slowly.

"Did you ever observe how, through his study windows, you could see almost everything going on at the American naval base—"

"I have nothing to say," Schwinn interrupted excitedly.

Among the men sent here directly by Rudolf Hess, Hitler's right-hand man, is a former German-American businessman named Meyerhofer. This Nazi came here with special instructions from Hess, a personal friend of his, to reorganize the Nazi machine in the United States. He arrived early in 1935 posing as a businessman. After consultations with Nazi leaders in New York, including the Nazi Consul General, he went to Detroit to confer with Fritz Kuhn,[16] national head of the German-American Bund. From Detroit he went to Chicago where he held more conferences with Nazi agents and then went directly to Los Angeles for conferences with Schwinn, Von Buelow and other secret agents operating in the United States. Meyerhofer's mission was not only to reorganize the propaganda machine but to try to place it on a self-supporting basis so that in the event of war when funds from Germany would be cut off, an efficient Nazi machine could continue functioning.

It was with this knowledge in mind that I asked Schwinn what he knew about Meyerhofer. At the mention of his name the Nazi leader for the West Coast again showed a flash of fear. He hesitated a little longer than usual and then said in a low voice, "He is a member of our organization. He came from Germany about thirty or forty years ago." Suddenly he added, "He's an American citizen."

"I know he's an American citizen. But are you sure he didn't come from Germany—on his latest trip—in January of last year?"

Schwinn smiled a little wryly. "He might have," he said in the same low tone.

"He's a personal friend of Rudolf Hess—"

"Listen!" Schwinn exclaimed. "You're on the wrong track!"

"Maybe; but what's his business here?"

"He's a businessman!"

"What's his business?"

Schwinn shrugged his shoulders. "I don't know," he said and then with growing excitement, "I tell you you're on the wrong track!"

"Then what are you so excited about?"

"Because you're on the wrong track—"

"Okay. I'm on the wrong track and you know nothing about Nazi spies. Do you know of the visits paid by the Japanese Consul in Los Angeles to Nazi ships when they come into port and of his conferences with Nazi captains—"

"The Japanese! We have nothing to do with the Japanese. We are a patriotic group—"

"Yes, I know. What do you know about Schneeberger?"

Schwinn answered with an "M-m-m-m." His jaw bones showed against the ruddy flesh of his cheeks. He stared up at the ceiling. "He was a Tyrolian peasant boy," he said without looking at me. "A boy traveling around the world; you know, just chiseling his way around—"

"Just a bum, eh?"

"That's it," he agreed quickly. "Just a bum."

"What would your connections be with bums? Do you usually associate with Tyrolian bums who are chiseling their way around the world?"

"Oh, he just came here like so many other people. He wanted money; so I gave him a little help and he went to San Francisco and Oakland. He vanished. I haven't any idea where he might be now. Maybe he's in Chicago now."

"He couldn't possibly be in Japan now, could he?"

"He spoke of going to Japan," Schwinn admitted.

"You saw him off on a Japanese training ship which the Japanese Government sent here from the Canal Zone, didn't you?"

"I don't know," he said defiantly. "I know nothing about him."

"The treaty between Japan and Germany providing for exchange of information about Communists was signed November 25, 1936. But in September, 1936, Schneeberger told you he was leaving on a Japanese training ship for Japan. No training ship was expected on the West Coast at that time by the United States port authorities, and yet a Japanese training ship appeared—ordered here from the Canal Zone. It was on this ship that Schneeberger left. Apparently, then, the Nazis and the Japanese had already been working together—and you were cooperating because you took Schneeberger around. You took him to Count von Buelow's home at Point Loma, overlooking the American naval base. You know that Schneeberger was not broke because he was spending money freely—"

"He was broke," Schwinn interrupted weakly.

"If he was so broke, how do you account for his carrying around an expensive camera and always having plenty of film with which to photograph American naval and military spots?"

"I don't know. Maybe he carried the camera around to hock in case he went broke."

The absurdity of the excuse was so patent that I laughed. Schwinn smiled a little.

"All right. What do you know about a man named Maeder?"

Again that long, drawn-out "M-m-m-m." A long pause and Schwinn said, "Maeder is an American citizen, I believe."

"Yes; you are, too. But what's his business in this country?"

"I don't know," Schwinn said helplessly. "I really don't know."

"You know nothing about his activities or observations of American naval and military bases? Do you usually take in members without knowing anything about them?"

"Sometimes we do and sometimes we do not—"

"But orders were sent from Germany to make this an American organization—"

Schwinn nodded without admitting it verbally.

"And since you throw out all Germans who are not American citizens, you check with the Consul General in New York as to whether they are fit—"

"We have nothing to do with the Consul General—"

"What happened to Willi Sachse who used to be a member here?"

"He is supposed to have gone back to Germany."

"Have you heard from him from Germany?"

"No; I haven't heard since he left."

"You received a letter recently from him from San Francisco where he is watching foreign vessels—"

"Oh," said Schwinn, raising his hands in a helpless gesture, "I know you have spies in my organization."

We talked a little longer—of visits he made to Nazi agents in the Middle West and in New York, of secret conferences with propagandists and spies. But he refused to do any more than shrug his shoulders at all new questions.

"I have said too much already," he said.

FOOTNOTES:

[10] Gissibl left for Stuttgart, Germany, and leadership was taken over by his brother, Peter.

[11] Before McFadden died, I published evidence that while he was a member of Congress he worked with Nazi agents in this country.

[12] As this book went to press, the U.S. Government had just begun action to revoke Schwinn's citizenship, claiming that he had obtained it by making false statements.

[13] Congressman Samuel Dickstein. The McCormick Congressional Committee was frequently referred to as the "Dickstein Committee" because Dickstein had introduced the resolution for the investigation.

[14] During the trial of the four Nazi spies in New York the Federal prosecutor brought out that they also carried orders sealed in brown, manila paper.

[15] Von Buelow has since sold his home and moved into the El Cortez Hotel in San Diego.

[16] At that time working for Henry Ford.



VIII

Henry Ford and Secret Nazi Activities

One of the Chief Nazi propagandists in the United States recently ran in the United States Senate primaries in Kansas and was almost nominated. He is Gerald B. Winrod, who poses as a Protestant minister but has no affiliations with any reputable church.

Winrod, even before he tried to get into the Senate, was one of the most brazen of the Nazis' Fifth Column operating in this country. He has held secret consultations with officials in the German Embassy in Washington and carries on his propaganda under Fritz Kuhn's direction.

Shortly after Winrod returned from a mysterious trip to Germany and held an equally mysterious long consultation at the Nazi Embassy in this country (1935), he organized the Capitol News and Feature Service, with offices at 209 Kellogg Building, Washington. The "news service" supplied smaller papers throughout the land with "impartial comments" on the national scene. The Service was edited by Dan Gilbert, a San Diego newspaperman, and the material was sent free of charge (as is the material sent to the Latin American countries from Germany and Italy). It was of course, deliberately calculated to spread pro-Hitler sentiment and propaganda.

Few who read Winrod's publications realize the extent of his activities. On March 1, 1937, Senator Joseph T. Robinson addressed the United States Senate on what appeared to him to be "unfair propaganda" carried on by Winrod against President Roosevelt's proposed reorganization of the judiciary system. The Senator stated that he could not understand why the issues should be deliberately falsified by a gentleman of the cloth—that it reminded him of the old Ku Klux Klan tactics.

The Senator did not know that Winrod's propaganda against Roosevelt was only part of a propaganda campaign cunningly and brazenly organized by Nazis in this country in an effort to defeat a man who, they felt, was not friendly to them. In this campaign, Nazi agents worked openly and secretly with a few unscrupulous members of the Republican Party in an effort to defeat Roosevelt.

Several years ago Winrod was a poverty-stricken man living at 145 N. Green Street, Wichita, Kansas. He called himself a minister but all church bodies have repudiated him. Without a church, he did a little evangelistic preaching and lived off collections made from his audience. It was a precarious livelihood and often the "Reverend" did not have enough money to buy even ordinary necessities.

Records in several Wichita department stores tell the story of the evangelist's poverty before an angel came to visit him. All the storekeepers with whom Winrod dealt requested that their names be withheld, but signified their willingness to present their records to any governmental body which might be interested in the sudden wealth he acquired after he became an intense Hitler propagandist. In the days of his poverty Winrod, the records show, could afford to buy only the cheapest furniture, the cheapest clothes, and pay for them on the installment plan in weekly payments ranging from fifty cents to two or three dollars a week.

I am reproducing with this chapter several of the installment cards. The reader will notice that as late as 1934 Winrod was paying at the rate of one dollar a week. It was in this period that Nazi agents in the United States were carrying on their intensive campaign, and it was also in this period that Winrod began to harangue his audiences about the "menace of the Jews and the Catholics."



Then one day, the Reverend Gerald B. Winrod suddenly found himself possessed of enough money to go to Germany. When he came back in February, 1935, he had new suit cases, new clothes and a fat check book. The records in the Wichita department stores where he had been getting credit for clothes and furniture show that after his return from Germany he paid all his debts in lump sums—by check. Then he became a publisher.

In his newspaper, The Revealer, he published a report on his trip to Europe, but did not mention where he got the money for the jaunt. The report (February 15, 1935) told of his discovery that the German people loved Hitler and that only "Jewish influence in high circles of certain governments is making it impossible for Germany to carry on normal trade and financial relations with other countries."

In this period of his new-found prosperity he established contacts with Nazi agents and pro-fascists like Harry A. Jung of the American Vigilant Intelligence Federation, Colonel Edwin Emerson, James True and a host of other patrioteers.

Before the Presidential election he made another trip to Germany. When he returned, he enlarged his distribution apparatus and was apparently important enough for high Nazi officials visiting the United States to meet with him. One of these was Hans von Reitenkranz, who came quietly to the United States as Hitler's personal representative to arrange for oil purchases—oil which Germany needed badly for her factories and especially for her growing war machine.

Von Reitenkranz is a friend of Professor Kurt Sepmeier of the University of Wichita. He introduced Winrod to the Professor. They became friendly. When I was in Wichita making inquiries about the Reverend Winrod, I constantly came across the Professor's trail. Both he and Winrod had been meeting regularly but with an effort at secrecy.

In January, 1937, after several meetings with Professor Sepmeier, Winrod went to Washington. I also went to Washington and found that the Reverend was calling at the German Embassy. On one of his visits he remained inside for an hour and eighteen minutes. Whom he saw or what he discussed I do not know; but immediately after this long visit, the News and Feature Service was organized with money enough to send its items out free of charge to the papers that would accept them.

Gilbert, who headed the Service, was for many years the personal representative of William Dudley Pelley, leader of the Silver Shirts. The Nazis had been trying to get the Silver Shirts to cooperate with them in a fascist "united front" and the appointment of Gilbert was the first indication that a friendly cooperation had been established.



Winrod had been in constant communication with Pelley, and Pelley had conferred several times with Schwinn. The Nazis were eager to get a native American body into the organization so they would have an American "front."

Gilbert opened offices in Washington and, fearful lest their location become known, rented Post Office Box No. 771, Ben Franklin Station, for use as a mailing address. After the first issue had been sent out, Winrod and his agents canvassed prominent industrialists for donations to support the "news service" on the grounds that it was furthering religious activities and fighting Communism. The money collected was actually used to carry on anti-democratic propaganda. A number of industrialists contributed. I have a list of them, but since there is no conclusive evidence that they knew the money was being spent by Nazi agents, I shall not publish the names. I mention it merely as an illustration of how wealthy men are victimized by racketeers with pleas of "patriotism" and "public service." Harry A. Jung did the same thing by getting money from rich Jews "to fight Communism" and from rich gentiles "to fight the menace of the Jew."



With the first issue of the Capitol News and Feature Service, the following announcement was mailed to the editors of rural weeklies:

"Good Morning, Mr. Editor! Capitol News and Feature Service herewith delivers three priceless articles, fresh from the Nation's capitol. Use them without cost. You will hear from us each week. Watch for these interesting articles."

An examination of the "priceless articles" showed that they were designed primarily to attack American democracy.

Since his return from Germany and his conferences at the Nazi Embassy, Winrod has made frequent trips into Mexico where he has met with Mexican fascists—especially with leaders of the Mexican Gold Shirts which were organized by Hermann Schwinn. Again we discover the tie-up between fascist organizations in the United States and those to the south of us.

When the Nazis reorganized their propaganda machine several years ago and established smuggling headquarters on the West Coast, propaganda taken off Nazi ships docking in San Diego and Los Angeles included material printed in Spanish for the special use of General Nicholas Rodriguez, head of the Gold Shirts.

The Spanish as well as the English material was taken to the Deutsches Haus in Los Angeles and turned over to Schwinn, who forwarded the batches to Rodriguez. The contact man between Schwinn and the head of the fascist movement in Mexico is a native American named Henry Douglas Allen of San Diego. Allen, under the pretext of being a mining engineer and interested in prospecting in Mexico, went repeatedly into the neighboring country with the smuggled propaganda and delivered it to Rodriguez' agents.

Since native Americans, especially if they say they wish to prospect, can travel across the international boundary into Mexico as often as they please without arousing suspicion, Allen was chosen as the liaison man between Nazi agents in the United States and Rodriguez. As I said earlier, the Nazis tried from the beginning to get an American "front" and to draw as many Americans into it as possible—obviously strategic preparation for future work more serious than mere propaganda. Hence Allen was instructed to become active in the Silver Shirt movement. He organized Down Town Post No. 47-10 and established Silver Shirt recruiting headquarters in Room 693 at 730 South Grand Ave., Los Angeles.

In August, 1936, when a lot of Nazi and anti-Roosevelt money was being shelled out in efforts to defeat Roosevelt, Allen became extremely active. While Pelley was out of town, he was instructed to work with Kenneth Alexander, Pelley's right-hand man. Alexander was formerly a still-photographer at United Artists Studios. The two opened offices in the Broadway Arcade Building and on October 1, 1935, moved to the Lankersheim Building at Third Street near Spring, Los Angeles.

Rodriguez, after he was given assurances of Nazi aid, worked not only with Nazi agents in this country but also with Julio Brunet, manager of the Ford factory in Mexico City.

The earliest documentary record I have of their tie-up is a letter Rodriguez wrote to Ford's manager on September 27, 1934, on Gold Shirt stationery. The letter merely asks Brunet to give jobs to two "worthy young men" and is written in a manner that shows Rodriguez and Brunet are rather close.

By February 7, 1935, Rodriguez and the Ford executive in Mexico had become sufficiently intimate for the fascist leader to express his appreciation of Brunet's placing Gold Shirts in the plant. His letter addressed to the manager of the Ford Company follows:

We have been informed by our delegate, Senora N.M. Colunga, that she was very well treated by you and that in addition you informed her that our request for work for some of our comrades who needed it has also been heard. Not doubting but that this will be fulfilled, A.R.M. [the Gold Shirts] sends you the most expressive thanks for having seen in you the recognition of one of the greatest obligations of humanity to Mexicanism.

On November 19, 1935, shortly before the Gold Shirts felt they were powerful enough to attempt the overthrow of the Mexican Government and the establishment of a fascist dictatorship, Rodriguez wrote to the manager of the Ford plant, asking for the two ambulances which had been promised the fascists by the Ford manager. Rodriguez had organized his attempted Putsch carefully, with a women's ambulance corps to care for the wounded in the expected fighting. The letter, again translated almost literally, follows:

Sr. Manager of the Ford Company Nov. 19, 1935. City Highly Esteemed Senor:

This will be delivered to you personally by Sr. General Juan Alvarez C., who comes with the object of ascertaining if that company would be able to supply two ambulances which they had already offered, for the transportation of the Women's Sanitary Brigade on the 20th day of this month at 8 A.M.

Thanking you in advance for the references, I am happy to repeat that I am at your command. Affectionately and attentively, S.S.

NICHOLAS RODRIGUEZ C. Supreme Commander.



In the street fighting that followed the attempted fascist Putsch a number were killed and wounded. It was after this fight that Rodriguez was exiled.

I am reproducing some of these letters from carbon copies, initialed by Rodriguez, which were in his files. Why he initials carbon copies I don't know, but I have a stack of his correspondence with Nazi agents and almost all of his carbons are initialed.

On October 4, 1936, Allen wrote to the exiled fascist leader. Ostensibly the letter invited him to address the Silver Shirts. Actually it was for a special conference about "matters of vital importance to us both." This letter was written when Schwinn was holding conferences with Pelley to merge forces in a fascist united front, and when Schneeberger was preparing to leave for Japan on a training ship ordered up from the Canal Zone by the Japanese to take him on board. The letter follows:

Dear General Rodriguez:

Upon receipt of this letter will you kindly communicate with me and advise me whether it would be possible for you to come to Los Angeles in the near future to make an address to our organization here. We shall be glad to defray all expenses which will include airplane both ways if you desire it. We shall also offer you bodyguard for your protection if you deem it necessary. Your fight is our fight and it is our desire to have you come to Los Angeles especially to confer with us relative to matters of vital importance to us both. I would suggest that if you can arrange to come, you telegraph me (charges collect) upon receipt of this letter so that I may make arrangements without delay.

Fraternally yours, HENRY ALLEN.

When I went to Mexico to look into Nazi activities, I gave a copy of this letter to the Minister of the Interior. At that time Allen was again in Mexico under the pretense of looking into his mining interests, but a check showed that he had actually gone there to confer secretly with a Mexican army man, General Iturbe. At my request the Mexican Government looked into Allen's movements and learned that he had entered Guaymas, center of Japanese activities, with Kenneth Alexander, Pelley's chief aid.

The connection between Ford's Mexican manager and General Rodriguez might be considered an unfortunate incident for which Ford could not be held responsible. This would be a reasonable assumption if the Nazi-Rodriguez-Ford tie-up in Mexico were an isolated case. The facts, however, show it is not.



The national leader of the Nazi propaganda machine in this country has been on the Ford pay roll. Kuhn was supposed to work for Ford as a chemist, but while on Ford's pay roll he traveled around the United States conferring with other secret Nazi agents and actively directing Nazi work in this country.

Ford has a highly developed and exceedingly efficient espionage system of his own which, among other things, watches what his employees do—even to their home life. Kuhn's activities were known to Harry Bennett, head of the Ford secret service or "Personnel Department," as it is called, and Bennett reports to Ford. Furthermore, Kuhn's Nazi connections had been publicized in both the American and the Nazi press and were no secret. Jews and Christians alike protested to Ford about his employee's anti-democratic work while on the motor magnate's pay roll, but Kuhn was left undisturbed to travel around organizing Nazi groups. In 1938 Ford was given the highest medal of honor which Hitler can give to a foreigner. No statement was ever made as to just what Henry Ford had done for the Nazi Fuehrer to merit the honor.

Simultaneously with Kuhn's intensified work, Ford's confidential secretary, William J. Cameron, became active again. Cameron was editor of Ford's Dearborn Independent when that newspaper published the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion" after they had been proved to be forgeries. When a nation-wide protest arose from Jews and Christians who were shocked at seeing one of the richest and most powerful men in the country use his wealth to disseminate race hatred, and when the protest grew into a boycott of his cars, Ford apologized and discontinued the newspaper. But instead of easing his editor out or giving him some other job, he made him his confidential secretary.



When Kuhn went to work for Ford, the national headquarters of the Nazi propaganda machine was moved to Detroit, and the anti-democratic activities increased in intensity. Employing Nazi anti-semitism as the bait to attract dissatisfied and bewildered elements in the population, a new organization made its appearance: The Anglo-Saxon Federation, headed by Ford's private secretary. Headquarters were established in the McCormick Building in Chicago, Room 834, at 332 S. Michigan Ave. and in the Fox Building in Detroit.

In July, 1936, Cameron, obviously because Ford was violently anti-Roosevelt, stepped out as head of the organization and became its Director of Publications. When Winrod was raising money from American industrialists to support the Capitol News and Feature Service, Cameron was among the contributors.

The Anglo-Saxon Federation began to distribute the "Protocols" again. I bought a copy in the Detroit offices of the organization, stamped with the name of the organization. The introduction quotes Ford as approving of them. It states:

Mr. Henry Ford, in an interview published in the New York World. February 17, 1921, put the case for Nilus[17] tersely and convincingly thus:

"The only statement I care to make about the 'Protocols' is that they fit in with what is going on. They are sixteen years old, and they have fitted the world situation up to this time. They fit it now."

When Ford was on the witness stand in a libel suit some fifteen years ago and admitted his ignorance of matters with which even grammar school children are familiar, the country laughed. His ignorance, however, is his own affair, but when he takes no step to curb his personal representative from working with secret foreign agents to undermine a friendly government, it becomes a matter, it appears to me, of importance to the people of this country and the Government of the United States.



FOOTNOTES:

[17] The man who forged the "Protocols" originally and who subsequently confessed to having done so.



IX

Nazi Agents in American Universities

The universities are too important a training ground for Nazi agents to ignore. A few professors in some of our universities have joined the growing list of anti-democratic propagandists. Some of them are German subjects and do not disguise their pro-Nazi bias; others carry on their propaganda as a "scholarly analysis" of the Hitler regime—with a fervor, however, that smacks of the paid propagandist.

German exchange students, too, studying at some of our universities, are active in various efforts to draw native Americans within the sphere of Nazi influence. Some of these students came here ostensibly to study for degrees, but devote most of their time to spreading Nazi ideology and meeting with secret Nazi agents and military spies. Such was Prince von Lippe of the University of Southern California.

Von Lippe is not an American citizen as so many of the agents are. With no visible means of support, he received expenses from a total stranger—oddly enough, Count von Buelow whose home overlooked the naval base in San Diego and who was constantly in conferences with Nazi agents. It was to Count von Buelow, you recall, that Hermann Schwinn brought Schneeberger as soon as he arrived on his way to Japan, and von Buelow took him around while Schneeberger photographed areas in the military and naval zone. A number of very secret conferences were held while Schneeberger was on the West Coast, in the home of Dr. K. Burchardi, a Los Angeles physician who visits Nazi ships with Schwinn and von Buelow (on one occasion Schneeberger summoned Burchardi to come with him to a Nazi ship which had just docked in Los Angeles—and the physician dropped his work and went).

German exchange students, when they enter this country, are under instructions to report to the German-American Bund. On July 4, 1936, three exchange students—a young lady and two young men—entered Los Angeles while on a motor tour of the country. They were students at Georgia Tech. In Los Angeles they went directly to the Deutsches Haus and presented a letter of introduction to Hermann Schwinn who assigned them quarters at the home of Max Edgan, one of Schwinn's lieutenants. The students then made a detailed report to Schwinn on the political work they were carrying out at Georgia Tech.

But the professors are the chief hope of Nazi agents attempting to spread the idea of totalitarian government and a bit of race hatred as the bait to attract some elements in the population. Some of the professors and some of their activities follow briefly:

Professor Frederick E. Auhagen, formerly of the German Department, Seth Low Junior College, Columbia University.

Dr. Auhagen came to this country in 1923 and worked as a mining engineer in Pennsylvania. From 1925 to 1927 he was with the Foreign Department of the Equitable Trust Co.; then became connected with Columbia University in 1927. He is not an American citizen and constantly refers to Germany as "my native country."

This professor is one of the leading academic apologists for Herr Hitler in the United States. Besides carrying on his pro-Nazi propaganda in the classroom, he does a great deal of lecturing, sometimes appearing before the Foreign Policy Association. On one occasion, in an address before the Men's Club of the Baptist Church at Rockville, Long Island, he stated that Seth Low Junior College was opened "in order to keep Hebrew faces off the campus at Columbia University."

Auhagen never tried to hide his sympathies with Nazism. Preceding a debate on February 1, 1936, before the City Club of Cleveland, he gave press interviews as a Nazi, and in the debate upheld Hitler as the savior of Germany and world civilization. With a fervor far removed from professorial calm, he explained that American newspaper dispatches about the treatment of Jews and Catholics in Germany were exaggerated.

"As to criticism of Germany's treatment of Catholics," he said again in Denver, Colorado on July 26, 1935, "that is not true!"

Professor Frederick K. Krueger, of Wittenberg college, with whom Auhagen is rather closely identified in arranging and giving talks about Nazis and totalitarian government, at every opportunity issues press interviews along the same line. In them he explains that the anti-Nazi sentiment in the United States press does not represent the editors, but is dictated by Jews who "control the press, the motion pictures and other organs of public opinion."

Because of the high scientific standing of Professor Vladimir Karapetoff of the Cornell engineering faculty, he is listened to with more attention and respect than are the more blatant propagandists for the adoption of fascist tactics and principles. Shortly after Hitler took power, the Professor started to do his share on the campus. At first he did it subtly, but when this made little headway he began to talk of the "growing domination of Jews in American life, politically as well as economically" and emphasized that the large number of Jews in the Law School and on the campus generally was becoming a problem.

"It's the smooth-faced Jew whom we must fear," he kept repeating, "and not the long-bearded Jewish rabbi."

Not content with expressing personal opinions, he took to organizing groups, addressing them on the subject of the Jew; and on one occasion he called a special meeting of the Officer's Club with the proviso that Jews be excluded.

Paul F. Douglas,[18] teacher of German, Economics and Political Science at Green Mountain College, wrote a book, God Among the Germans, which purports to be an introduction to the mind and method of Nazism.

I have information coming from a reputable source that Dr. Douglas was paid by the Nazi Government to write the book. This source is unwilling to let his name be used, but is ready to testify and lay his information before any governmental body which will investigate the devious methods of Nazi agents in this country.

There are at various universities throughout the country other professors and instructors quite active in spreading pro-Hitler propaganda. Some of them meet with Nazi agents closely allied to the espionage machine. I offer only these few as illustrations of Nazi efforts to get footholds in the American universities.

Along with efforts to carry on their work in the universities, Nazi agents tried to get a foothold in the political life of the country by finding a few Republicans who were willing to use anti-democratic propaganda in their efforts to defeat Roosevelt during the Presidential campaign. At no time in American history did secret agents of a foreign power so brazenly attempt to interfere in the internal affairs of the American people. Nor at any time in American history did agents of a foreign government find such willing cooperation from unscrupulous American politicians.

Among those who worked with Hitler agents was Newton Jenkins, director of the Coughlin-Lemke Third Party.[19] The Detroit Priest and the Congressman were fully aware, preceding and during the campaign, that Jenkins supported Hitler and was a Jew-baiter of the first order. They were aware of this while they were appealing for Jewish votes. The Radio Priest and the Congressman kept in constant touch with their campaign manager and knew what sort of government Jenkins wanted.