Jenkins' association with Nazis dates to the days preceding the launching of the Presidential campaign. At that time he participated in a secret conference held in Chicago with the object of uniting the scattered fascist forces in the United States to form a powerful fascist united front. Among those who attended were Walter Kappe, Fritz Gissibl and Zahn—three active Hitler agents assigned to the Mid-West area; William Dudley Pelley, leader of the Silver Shirts; Harry A. Jung, the ultra-"patriot"; George W. Christians of Chattanooga, Tenn., head of the American fascists; and several others. The conference ended with an agreement to support a Third-Party movement directed by Jenkins.

Throughout the campaign Jenkins stressed an exaggerated nationalism, advocated "party patrols" similar to Hitler's storm troops and adopted the Nazi Jew-baiting tactics. His first public appearance with the Nazis was on October 30, 1935, at a meeting held in Lincoln Turner Hall, 1005 Diversey Building, Chicago. Uniformed storm troopers with the swastika on their arm bands patrolled the room. In the course of his talk he said:

The trouble with this country now is due to the money powers and Jewish politicians who control our Government. The Federal Treasury is being controlled by a Jew, Morgenthau, and a Jew, Eugene Meyer. The State, County and our own Municipal Government is being controlled by Jewish politicians. Our own Mayor signs what the Jews want him to sign. Nearly in every department of our country and local government you will find a Jew at the head of it. Not only under a Democratic administration but also under a Republican administration we will find the same conditions.... The American people must free itself from the money plunderers who have thrown this country into the World War and also a possibility of dragging them into the present war for private gain and shake off their shoulders the Jewish politicians. The Third Party promises to do both.

This is precisely the sort of stuff paid Nazi agents in the propaganda division are ordered to disseminate, and this is the man Father Coughlin and Congressman Lemke picked to direct their campaign.

It was a Nazi agent, Ernst Goerner of Milwaukee, who spread the story, aided by anti-Roosevelt forces, that Frances Perkins, Secretary of Labor, was a Jewess. The story received such wide publicity that she had to issue a public statement giving her birth and marriage records.

Goerner is one of the important Nazi agents in the Mid-West. He's a bit eccentric and the Nazis sometimes have difficulty keeping him in line, but when Schwinn made a trip East shortly before the election campaign, he stopped off specially to see Goerner who thereupon sent a flood of propaganda throughout the country about Secretary Perkins' ancestry as well as charges that Roosevelt and almost all Government officials were Jews.

It was after Schwinn's trip to the East that other disseminators of anti-democratic propaganda, like Robert Edward Edmondson and James True, came to life in a big way. One of the penniless men who suddenly blossomed into the money after Schwinn's trip East was Olov E. Tietzow, who used Post Office Box No. 491 in Chicago lest the fact that he lived at 715 Aldine Ave. be discovered.

Up until a few months before the campaign Tietzow was an unemployed electrical engineer who had difficulty paying the three-dollar weekly rent for his hall bed-room at the Aldine Ave. address. After Schwinn's visit and meeting with him, Tietzow began to commute by air between Chicago and Buffalo where he opened a branch office.

Tietzow was tested out a little at first. He was put to work in the offices of the Friends of the New Germany on Western Ave. and Roscoe St., Chicago. In his spare time he worked out of 1454 Foster Ave., Chicago. A quotation or two from some of his letters will give an indication of his activities. On February 21, 1936, he wrote to William Stern, Fargo, N.D., a member of the Republican National Committee. He said in part:

Information about the so-called fascist movement here in the U.S.A. will be furnished by me if you so desire, together with other data you might be interested in. An opportunity to discuss our national problems and to lay before patriotic persons of means and influence and before national organizations my plans for a nationwide movement would be welcome....

This letter to a high Republican Party official was written after Tietzow had outlined the contents to Toni Mueller, Nazi agent in Chicago reporting directly to Fritz Kuhn.

Since most of the patrioteers were opposed to the New Deal and since some of them were already working with Nazi agents in this country, it was not long before they were going full blast in their "Save America" racket. The people of the United States, though they don't talk much about it, are thoroughly patriotic in the fullest sense of the word. To accuse anyone of not being a patriot is almost worse than telling a man that he is a son of not quite a lady. The racketeers in patriotism long ago discovered that people would contribute to a "patriotic cause" if only to escape the reputation of being unpatriotic; and the racketeers have made a nice living out of it. For some of the patrioteers it has become a thriving business, with everybody involved—except the suckers—getting his cut. Some of the big "patriotic" organizations are really influential, and the small ones are hopefully struggling along in the expectation of bigger and better and more patriotic days when the pickings will be more than attractive.



Every time I start looking into organizations with high-sounding and impressive names, I am profoundly impressed with the accuracy of Barnum's noted observation. Raise the cry of "patriotism" and perfectly good Americans forget to try to find out just what the "patriotic" activities are, and shell out without a murmur. Industrialists particularly like the "Americanism" of the patriotic groups because almost all of them incorporate an anti-labor policy. The propaganda, of course, is rarely conducted as an open fight against labor, but is put across as a fight to save America from the Communists.

Some of the racketeering patriotic organizations with a more or less devout following include the National Republican Publishing Company, Washington, D.C., the American Vigilant Intelligence Federation, Chicago, Ill., the Paul Reveres, Chicago, Ill., the Industrial Defense Association, Boston, Mass., the American Nationalists, Inc., New York, N.Y. and the American Nationalist Party, Los Angeles, Calif. There are a number of others, but these are some of the most blatant.

The National Republican Company, 511 11th Street, N.W., Washington, D.C., is one of the most influential. It publishes the National Republic, a journal accepted by men high in public office and by leading industrialists as earnestly trying to inculcate "Americanism" into Americans.

The National Republic has an amazing list of endorsers—governors, mayors, senators, congressmen and nationally-known industrialists. The magazine is virtually the entire organization and is dedicated "to defending American ideals and institutions." It is headed by Walter S. Steele, who was tied up with Harry A. Jung of the American Vigilant Intelligence Federation before he went into business for himself. While Steele was working with the ace of racketeers in patriotism, the president-editor of the National Republic also eked out a few pennies by distributing the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion." Today, however, he confines himself chiefly to fighting Communism, spreading race hatred only when it is paid for in advertisements. Books distributed by Nazi propagandists in furthering their anti-democratic campaign—such books as T.N.T. by Colonel Edwin Hadley and The Conflict of the Ages find space in the National Republic's pages. Colonel Hadley headed the Paul Reveres which tried to organize fascist groups on American university campuses, and The Conflict of the Ages devotes a full chapter to the Nazi "proofs" of the authenticity of the "Protocols."

I mention these to show the type of stuff Steele is willing to disseminate—if he is paid for it. And by permitting the use of their names, the sponsors, consciously or unconsciously, aid him in his anti-American activities.

The detailed aims of the National Republic are to provide a "weekly service to twenty-three hundred editors, to defend American institutions against subversive radicalism; a national information service on subversive organizations and activities; an Americanization bureau serving schools, colleges and patriotic groups; conducted for the public good from Washington, D.C., by nationally known leaders."

The procedure of conducting the organization "for the public good" includes high-pressuring the shekels from the suckers. Steele, a former newspaperman, learned from his association with that other arch-patriot, Jung. So when Steele established his own racket, he found one of his early aids in former Senator Robinson of Indiana. Robinson was closely tied up with the Ku Klux Klan. Through Robinson and through other politicians reached with the cry "Save America," he got a long list of prominent sponsors and gradually increased it until now it reads like a Who's Who of reactionary industrialists and innocent politicians. With letters of introduction from Senator Robinson, Steele's high pressure gang set out to collect in the name of patriotism.

The procedure was simple. Salesmen presented their letters of introduction to the mayor of a city. The mayor was impressed with the high "patriotic" motives and especially with the imposing list of names sponsoring the efforts. The mayor introduced the high-pressure fellows to other people—and the milking began.

Let me illustrate a little more specifically:

On March 4, 1936, Steele sent two of his ablest dollar-pullers, Messrs. Fahr and Hamilton, into the Oklahoma oil fields where the industrialists would like to see a minimum of 200 per cent Americanism instilled in the public mind. Messrs. Fahr and Hamilton had letters of introduction to Mayor T.A. Penny of Tulsa, Okla. When the salesmen approached the Mayor, they had not only the long and imposing list of names on the letterhead but additional letters of introduction from ex-Governor Curley of Mass., ex-Senator Robinson of Indiana and Congressman Martin Dies of Texas. The drummers wanted the Mayor to introduce them to the Chairman of the Tulsa Board of Education who could help them get funds in Tulsa and elsewhere. The funds were to be used to place the "patriotic" magazine in the public school system in order "to preserve this country against subversive activities, particularly Communism."

It was a neat circulation-getting stunt, performed without Fahr and Hamilton telling what percentage of the take they got.

The Mayor gave the letters of introduction. With these letters and the excellent contacts thus established, they started down the sucker list from W.G. Skelly, head of the Skelly Oil Co., Tulsa to Waite Phillips of the Phillips Petroleum Co.

Like his former colleague Harry A. Jung, Steele works on the big industrialists by whispering confidentially that he has sources of information about which he can't talk much but which make it possible for him to keep the industrialists informed about "subversive radicals." For a reasonable price and perhaps a contribution to a worthy cause, Steele would supply the industrialist with "confidential information for members only" which would keep him up to date about the radicals threatening America. The "confidential information" must not be shown to anybody else. Extreme caution is necessary lest the radicals find out about the "information service." With all this hocum, secrecy and whispering, the industrialist becomes a member at so much per not realizing that the information thus peddled can be got for three cents a day—five cents on Sundays—by buying the Daily Worker. It's just one of the little patriotic rackets the boys have cooked up.

Working closely with Steele is James A. True of the James True Associates, another precious racketeer who stepped from patrioteering into efforts to organize in conjunction with Nazi agents a secret armed force in the United States. With True in this effort to establish a Cagoulard organization in this country, were some of the most active Nazi agents and patrioteers.

FOOTNOTES:

[18] Not to be confused with Prof. Paul H. Douglas of the University of Chicago, a highly reputable scholar and a stanch defender of democracy.

[19] Father Coughlin was finally reprimanded by the Vatican for his unpriestly attacks upon the President.



X

Underground Armies in America

Early in 1938 native Americans, working with Nazi agents, completed plans to organize a secret army along the general lines of the Cagoulards in France. The decision was made after the liaison man between Nazi agents here and plotters for the secret army met with Fritz Kuhn and Signor Giuseppe Cosmelli, Counselor to the Italian Embassy in Washington.

The liaison man is Henry D. Allen, who moved from San Diego to 2860 Nina St., Pasadena, Calif. Allen, the reader may recollect, helped Schwinn organize the Mexican Gold Shirts which unsuccessfully attempted to seize the Mexican Government. Allen is still active in a plot to overthrow the Cardenas Government, working at the moment with Gen. Ramon F. Iturbe, a member of the Mexican Chamber of Deputies, with Gen. Yocupicio who is smuggling arms as part of a plan to rebel, and with Pablo L. Delgado who took over the fascist Gold Shirt work under a different name after Rodriguez was exiled when his attempt to march on the Government failed.

To understand the feverish activities of foreign agents and native Americans working with foreign agents, one must remember that when the World War broke out in 1914, Germany was caught with only small espionage and sabotage organizations in the United States. It cost the German War Office large sums of money to build them under difficult and dangerous conditions. The Nazis do not intend to be caught the same way in the event a war finds the United States on the enemy side or, if neutral, supplying arms and materials to the enemy.

The first step to prevent such a development is to build an enormous propaganda machine and to draw into it as many native Americans as possible. Because of the future potentialities of natives as spies and saboteurs, the Nazi leaders take extraordinary precautions to safeguard their identities. Should the United States become involved in a war with fascist powers, especially Germany, the German members of the Bund can be watched and, if necessary, interned; but native Americans not known as Bund members can move about freely, hence the care to prevent their identities from becoming known. Schwinn, for instance, keeps a regular list of the German-American Bund members at the Deutsches Haus in Los Angeles. The native American members, however, are not listed. The names are kept in code and only Schwinn knows the code numbers.

Military considerations thus lead the Nazi General Staff to maintain this propaganda in the United States, despite the knowledge Nazi leaders in Germany have that its activities and distasteful propaganda here are seriously hampering German-American commercial relations.

The propaganda machine is already functioning as the German-American Volksbund. The second step, as was demonstrated in France with the Cagoulards and in Spain with Franco's Fifth Column, is to organize secret armies capable of starting sporadic outbreaks tantamount to civil war—a procedure which would naturally deflect the country's energies in war time.

This second step was taken after careful study, and Henry D. Allen was chosen as the liaison man between those maneuvering the plot.

The private letters exchanged between Allen and his fellow conspirators are now in my possession. Some of the letters exchanged were signed with the writers' real names and some with code names. Allen's code name, for instance, is "Rosenthal."

On April 13, 1938, he wrote to a "G.D." (of whom more shortly) as follows:

Have just sent Delgado into Sonora incognito. This move has resulted from a four-party conference held in Yuma a few days ago. This party was composed of Urbalejo, chief of the Yaqui nation, Joe Mattus, his trusted lieutenant, Delgado and myself. Yocupicio has completely come over to our side, which you can perceive from the outcome of the little tryout in Aqua Prieta a few weeks ago. Delgado has arrived safely at Bocatete, and will get the boys in that part of the country pretty active.... Inasmuch as I am his legal and properly accredited representative in the United States, you may rest assured that there will be no doubt as to the objectives of this movement south of the Rio Grande.

I have received three letters from General Iturbe in which he tells me that they are taking the Spanish copies of the Protocols which K. sent me, and making 5,000 copies of same. In each letter he begs me to set a time and date for meeting him at Guadalajara for the purpose of effecting the necessary plans for active campaigning with Delgado. I will arrange all of this as soon as you consider it expedient....

ROSENTHAL.

Two days later (April 15, 1938) he wrote from Fresno, Calif. under his own name to F.W. Clark, 919-1/2 S. Yakima Ave., Tacoma, Wash. The letter reads in part:

Relative to the Gold Shirts of Mexico, please be advised that we found it necessary to reorganize this group in August, 1937. The activist elements have proceeded and are now carrying on under the name of the Mexican Nationalist Movement of which Pablo L. Delgado is the nominal head. I am the legal and personal representative of Delgado in the movement in the United States.

So much for his current activities to establish fascism to the south of us.

Most Americans who fall for Nazi propaganda do not suspect that they are being played for suckers by shrewd manipulators pulling the strings in Berlin, and probably not one of the many reputable and sincerely patriotic Americans who fell for Allen's "patriotic" appeals suspects his activities against the country he so zealously wants to "save."

Some shrewd observer once remarked that "patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel." Whenever I come across an "ultra-patriot" with foam dripping from his mouth while he beats his chest with loud cries about his own honesty and the crookedness of those running the country, I suspect a phony. As a rule, I look for the criminal record of a man who's yelling "Chase out the crooks" and "Let's have honest government," and all too often I find one. Henry D. Allen, alias H.O. Moffet, alias Howard Leighton Allen, alias Rosenthal, etc., ex-inmate of San Quentin and Folsom prisons, is no exception; his criminal record extends over a period of twenty-nine years.

Let me give the record before I start quoting from his letters, chiefly for the benefit of those sincere and loyal Americans who thought his Swastika-inspired activities represented honest convictions.

May 17, 1910: Arrested in Los Angeles charged with uttering fictitious checks. In simple language this means just a little bit of forgery. Los Angeles Police Department file, No. 7613.

June 10, 1910: Sentenced to three years imprisonment; sentence suspended upon tearful assurances of good behavior.

May 12, 1912: Picked up in Philadelphia charged with being a fugitive; brought back to Los Angeles.

July 1, 1912: Committed to San Quentin. Guest No. 25835.

April 21, 1915: Committed to Folsom from Santa Barbara on a forgery charge. Guest No. 9542.

Feb. 1, 1919: Arrested in Los Angeles County charged with suspicion of a felony. Los Angeles County No. 14554.

June 31, 1924: Arrested in San Francisco, charged with uttering fictitious checks. No. 35570.

Oct. 5, 1925: Los Angeles Police Department issued notice that Allen was wanted for uttering fictitious checks. Bulletin No. 233.

Allen is apparently a prolific writer—of bad checks and of long reports about his activities to his superiors.

Two of Allen's close friends are also native Americans: C.F. Ingalls of 2702 Bush St., San Francisco and George Deatherage (the G.D. mentioned earlier). Deatherage now lives and operates out of St. Albans, W. Va. He organized the American Nationalist Confederation which used to have its headquarters in Palo Alto, Calif. Both these gentlemen also work with Schwinn.

On January 7, 1938, Deatherage received from San Francisco a letter signed "C.F.I."—in a plain envelope without a return address. The letter is very long and detailed. I quote in part:

We must get busy organizing grid-lattice-work or skeleton for a military staff throughout the nation, and in this we need representatives of fascist groups, and we need Americans with whom these others may be incorporated.... All must believe in being ruthless in an emergency....

The political and the military organizations must not be unified. They have different aims. With one hand we offer the public a potential program. Whether they accept it or not and whether they wish to return to the ideals embodied in a representative form of a constitutional federal republic or not, is of secondary importance. Of first importance is the need of the emergency military organization to function simultaneously should our enemies revolt if we should win politically or should we revolt if our enemies win politically.

On January 19, 1938, Deatherage received a letter signed with the code name "Laura and Clayton." "Laura" is Hermann Schwinn. This letter, too, is long and goes into details on how best to organize the secret military group and have it ready for instant action. The letter states at one point:

After we do all this, now then we shall have the national military framework all steamed up and oiled and coupled to the multiplicity of working parts ready to appear on all fronts....

After "C.F.I." and "Laura and Clayton" had decided on the details of the secret military body in which they needed the aid of "Nazi and fascist" forces, they needed money and arms.

Early in January, Allen received from "Mrs. Fry and C. Chapman" four hundred and fifty dollars for a trip to Washington, D.C. "Mrs. Fry and C. Chapman" live in Santa Monica, but use Glendale, Calif, for a post office address. This money was spent between January 13 and February 10, 1938, according to the expense account Allen turned in to the Fry-Chapman combination.

Three days after Allen got the money (January 16, 1938), he received from Schwinn a letter of introduction to Fritz Kuhn, addressed to the Amerikadeutscher Volksbund, 178 E. 85th Street, New York City. The letter was written in German. Following is the translation:

My Bund Leader:

The bearer of this letter is my old friend and comrade-in-arms, Henry Allen, who is coming East on an important matter.

Mr. Allen knows the situation in Los Angeles and California very well and can give you important information. We can give Allen absolute confidence.

Hail and Victory, HERMANN SCHWINN.

The "important matter" on which Allen was going East and which he wanted to discuss with the national Nazi leader in this country, was to contact the Italian Embassy, the Hungarian Legation, James True of the James True Associates (distributors of "Industrial Control Reports" from its headquarters in Washington, D.C.), George Deatherage in St. Albans, W. Va., and several others.

Allen reported regularly to Chapman, signing his letters with the code name "Rosenthal." I quote in part from one letter written from Washington on January 24, 1938:

Upon calling at the Rumanian Embassy I found the Ambassador with all his attaches are of the Carol-Tartarescu regime, and they are sailing on Wednesday, January 26. The new Ambassador will arrive with his staff on Saturday, I am told. The letter which you gave me I mailed to Budapest myself, not daring to entrust it to the present staff at the Embassy. At the Italian Embassy I found the Ambassador away, but I had a very delightful and satisfactory conference with Signor G. Cosmelli, who is the Italian counselor....

Shortly after the conference at the Italian Embassy, True and Allen conferred. Subsequently, True wrote to Allen and added a postscript in long hand: "But be very careful about controlling the information and destroy this letter."

Allen did not destroy it immediately. The letter, dated February 23, 1938, reads in part:

The bunch of money promised off and on for three years may come through within the next week or two. We have had so many disappointments that I hardly dare hope but there seems a fair chance of results. If it comes through we will have you back here in a hurry. You, George, and I will get together and prepare for real action.

If your friends want some pea shooters, I have connections now for any quantity and at the right price. They are United States standard surplus. Let me know as soon as you can.

To these events must be added the peculiar and unexplained actions of the Dies Congressional Committee appointed to "investigate subversive activities." The Committee employed a Nazi propagandist as one of its chief investigators and refused to question three suspected Nazi spies working in the Brooklyn Navy Yard. Congressman Martin Dies of Texas, chairman of the Committee, gave two of the National Republic's high-pressure men letters of introduction when they started out on a little milking party in the name of patriotism. He received the cooperation of Harry A. Jung, and he refused to examine the files of James A. True when the above letter was brought to his Committee's attention.

But these actions merit more detailed consideration.



XI

The Dies Committee Suppresses Evidence

Three Suspected Nazi Spies were quietly taken out of the Brooklyn Navy Yard to the Dies Congressional Committee headquarters in New York in Room 1604, United States Court House Building. The three men were each questioned for about five minutes by Congressman J. Parnell Thomas[20] of New Jersey and Joe Starnes of Alabama. The men were asked if they had heard of any un-American goings-on in the Navy Yard. Each of the three subpoenaed men said he had not, and the Congressmen sent them back to work in the Navy Yard after warning them not to say a word to anyone about having been called before the Committee.

When I learned of the Congressional Committee's refusal to question men they had subpoenaed, I wondered at the unusual procedure—especially since it promptly put Nazi propagandists (such as Edwin P. Banta, a speaker for the German-American Bund) on the stand as authorities on "un-American" activities in the United States. A little inquiry turned up some interesting facts.

One of the Committee's chief investigators, Edward Francis Sullivan of Boston, had worked closely with Nazi agents as far back as 1934. Sullivan's whole record was extremely unsavory. He had been a labor spy, had been active in promoting anti-democratic sentiments in cooperation with secret agents of the German Government and in addition was a convicted thief. (Shortly after Slap-Happy Eddie, as he was known around Boston because of his convictions on drunkenness, lined up with the Nazis, he got six months for a little stealing.) Before going on with the Congressional Committee's strange attitude toward suspected spies and known propagandists in constant communication with Germany, it might be well to review a meeting which the Congressional Committee's investigator addressed in the Nazi stronghold in Yorkville.



On the night of Tuesday, June 5, 1934, at eight o'clock, some 2,500 Nazis and their friends attended a mass meeting of the Friends of the New Germany at Turnhall, Lexington Ave. and 85th Street, New York City. Sixty Nazi Storm Troopers—attired in uniforms with black breeches and Sam Brown belts, smuggled off Nazi ships—were the guard of honor. Storm Troop officers had white and red arm bands with the swastika superimposed on them. Every twenty minutes the Troopers, clicking their heels in the best Nazi fashion, changed guard in front of the speakers' stand. The Hitler Youth organization was present. Men and women Nazis sold the official Nazi publication, Jung Sturm, and everybody awaited the coming of one of the chief speakers of the evening who was to bring them a message from the Boston Nazis.

W.L. McLaughlin, then editor of the Deutsche Zeitung, spoke in English. He was followed by H. Hempel, an officer of the Nazi steamship "Stuttgart," who vigorously exhorted his audience to fight for Hitlerism and was rewarded by shouts of "Heil Hitler!" McLaughlin then introduced Edward Francis Sullivan of Boston as a "fighting Irishman." The gentleman whom the Congressional Committee chose as one of its investigators into subversive activities, gave the crowd the Hitler salute and launched into an attack upon the "dirty, lousy, stinking Jews." In the course of his talk he announced proudly that he had organized the group of Nazis in Boston who had attacked and beaten liberals and Communists at a meeting protesting the docking of the Nazi cruiser "Karlsruhe," in an American port.

The audience cheered. Sullivan, again giving the Nazi salute, shouted: "Throw the goddam lousy Jews—all of them—into the Atlantic Ocean. We'll get rid of the stinking kikes! Heil Hitler!"

The three suspected Nazi spies were subpoenaed on August 23, 1938. They were:

Walter Dieckhoff, Badge No. 38117, living at 2654 E. 19th Street, Sheepshead Bay.

Hugo Woulters, Badge No. 38166, living at 221 East 16th Street, Brooklyn.

Alfred Boldt, Badge No. 38069, living at 64-29 70th Street, Middle Village, L.I.

Boldt had worked in the Navy Yard since 1931. Dieckhoff and Woulters went to work there within one day of each other in June, 1936.

The three men were kept in the Committee's room from one o'clock on the day they were subpoenaed until five in the afternoon. When it became apparent that the Congressmen would not show up until the next day, the men were dismissed and told to come back the following morning.

Not a word was said to them as to why they had been subpoenaed. Nevertheless Dieckhoff, who was with the German Air Corps during the World War, instead of going to his home in Sheepshead Bay, drove to the home of Albert Nordenholz at 1572 Castleton Ave., Port Richmond, S.I., where he kept two trunks. Nordenholz, a German-American naturalized citizen for many years, is highly respected by the people in his neighborhood. When Dieckhoff first came to the United States, the Nordenholzes accepted him with open arms. He was the son of an old friend back in Bremerhafen, Germany. Dieckhoff asked permission to keep two trunks in the Nordenholz garret; he stored them there when he went to work in the Brooklyn Navy Yard.

During the two years he worked in the Yard, he would drop around every two weeks or so and go up to the garret to his trunks. Just what he did on those visits, Nordenholz does not know.

On the night Dieckhoff was subpoenaed he suddenly appeared to claim the trunks. He told Nordenholz that he planned to return to Germany. Just what the trunks contained and what he did with them I do not know. They have vanished.

I called upon Dieckhoff in the two-story house in Sheepshead Bay where he lived. He had no intimate friends, didn't smoke, drink or run around. The life of the German war veteran seemed to be confined to working in the Navy Yard, returning home unobtrusively to work on ships' models and making his occasional visits to Nordenholz's garret.

So far as I could learn, Dieckhoff became a marine engineer, working for the North German Lloyd after the World War. In 1923 he entered the United States illegally and remained for two years. Eventually he returned to Germany, but came back to the United States, this time legally, applied for citizenship papers and became a naturalized citizen five years later.

Before he went to work on American war vessels, he worked in various parts of the country—in automobile shops, in the General Electric Co. in Schenectady and as an engineer on Sheepshead Bay boats. Even after Hitler came into power, he worked on Sheepshead Bay boats. After the Berlin-Tokyo axis was formed (1935), Germany became particularly interested in American naval affairs, for the axis, among other things, exchanged military secrets. Shortly before the agreement was made, Dieckhoff suddenly went to work for the Staten Island Shipbuilding Co., Staten Island, which was building four United States destroyers, numbers 364, 365, 384 and 385. He worked on these destroyers during the day. Until late at night he pursued his hobby of building ships' models, which he never made an attempt to sell.

Dieckhoff weighed his words carefully during our talk.

"Why did you apply for a transfer from Staten Island to the Brooklyn Navy Yard?" I asked.

"I don't know," he said. "I guess there was more money in it."

"How much were you getting when you were working on the destroyers?"

"It was some time ago," he said slowly. "I do not remember very good."

"How much are you getting now at the Navy Yard?"

"Forty dollars and twenty-nine cents a week."

"You went to Germany last year for a couple of months and before that you went to Germany for six months. Were you able to save enough for these trips on your wages?"

"I do not spend very much," he said. "I live here all alone."

"How much do you save a week?"

"Oh, I don't know. Ten dollars a week."

"That would make five hundred dollars a year—if you worked steadily, which you didn't. You traveled third class. A round trip would be about two hundred dollars. That would leave you three hundred to spend provided you did not buy clothes, etc., for these trips. How did you manage to live in Germany for six months on three hundred dollars? Did you work there?"

He hesitated and said, "No, I did not work there. I traveled around. I was not in one place."

"How did you do it on three hundred dollars for six months?"

"My brother gave me money."

"What's your brother's business?"

"Oh, just general business in Bremerhafen. He's got a big business there."

"Perhaps I can get a report from the American Consul—"

"Oh," he interrupted. "His business isn't that big."

"Have you a bank account?"

He hesitated again and then said, "No, I do not make enough money for a bank account."

"Where do you keep your money for trips to Germany? In cash?"

"Yes, in cash."

"Where? Here? In this room?"

"No. Not in this room. I have it locked up."

"Where?"

"Oh, different places," he said vaguely.

"Where are those places?"

"I have my money with a friend."

"Who?"

"Nordenholz, Albert Nordenholz."

"You work in Brooklyn, live in Sheepshead Bay and save ten dollars a week in Port Richmond with a friend? Isn't that a long distance to go to save money?"

He shrugged his shoulders without answering.

"What's Nordenholz's business?"

"I think he's retired. I think he used to be a butcher."

"You don't know very much about a man's business and you travel all this distance to give him money to save for you when there are banks all around? Why do you do that?"

"Oh, I don't know. It seems to me that it is better that way."

Later when I asked Nordenholz, he denied that Dieckhoff had ever given him any money to hold.

Dieckhoff had worked on turbines, gear reductions and other complicated mechanical parts on the cruiser "Brooklyn." The moment I asked him if he handled blueprints he answered in the affirmative, but quickly added that the blueprints were returned every night and locked up by the officers. A capable machinist could, he admitted, after careful study remember the blueprints well enough to make a duplicate copy.

"When you went to Germany after working on the destroyers did anyone ever question you about them over there?"

"No," he said quickly. "Nobody."

"My information is that you did talk about structural matters."

He looked startled. "Well," he said, "my brother knew I worked in the Brooklyn Navy Yard. We talked about it, naturally."

"My information is that you talked about it with other people, too."

He stared out of the window with a worried air. Finally he said, "Well, my brother has a friend and I talked with him about it."

"A minute ago you said you had not talked about it with anyone."

"I had forgotten."

"This is the brother who gave you money to travel around in Germany?"

He didn't answer.

"I didn't hear you," I said.

"Yes," Dieckhoff said finally, "he gave me the money."

I called upon the second of the three suspected spies subpoenaed by the Dies Committee. Alfred Boldt had done very responsible work on the U.S. cruiser "Honolulu." Though he had not been in Germany for ten years, he suddenly got enough money last year to go there and to send his son to school at a Nazi academy. Boldt, too, has no bank account. He needed a minimum of seven hundred dollars for his wife and himself to cross third class, but the Dies Committee was not interested in where the money for the trip had come from.

Boldt left for Germany on August 4, 1936, and returned September 12. On the evening I dropped in to see him, he was tensely nervous. He had heard that someone had been around to talk with Dieckhoff.

"I understand your only son, Helmuth, is going to school in Langin, Germany?" I asked.

"Yes," he said, "I sent him there two years ago."

"No schools in the United States for a fifteen-year-old boy?"

"I wanted him to learn German."

"What do you pay for his schooling over there?"

He hesitated. His wife, who was sitting with us and occasionally advising him in German, suddenly interrupted in German, "Don't tell him. That's German business."

I assume they did not know that I understood, for Boldt passed off her comment as if he had not heard it and said casually, "Oh, twenty-five dollars a month."

"You earn forty dollars a week at the Navy Yard, pay for your son's schooling in Germany, clothes, etc., and you and your wife took more than a month's trip to Germany last year. How do you do it on forty a week?"

His wife giggled a little in the adjoining room. Boldt shrugged his shoulder without answering.

"The cheapest the two of you could do it, third class, would be about seven hundred dollars. Where do you have your bank account?"

"No. No bank account," his wife interrupted sharply.

"All the money is kept here, right here in this house," he laughed.

"You saved all that money in cash?"

"Yes; in cash, right here."

"No banks?"

"We like it better like that—in cash."

Boldt, like Dieckhoff, had been a marine engineer on the North German Lloyd. He went to work in the Brooklyn Navy Yard in 1931. When the cruiser "Honolulu" made its trial run in the spring of 1938, Boldt was on board.

Like Dieckhoff and Boldt, Harry Woulters, alias Hugo Woulters, the third of the three subpoenaed men, is a naturalized citizen of German extraction. He went to work in the Navy Yard within one day of Dieckhoff. Before that, both had worked on the same four American destroyers at the Staten Island Shipbuilding Company.

The house where Woulters lives has a great many Jews in it, judging from the names on the letterboxes, and since Hugo sounded too German, he listed his first name as "Harry."

"You and Dieckhoff worked on the same destroyers on Staten Island and you say you never met him there?" I asked.

"No, I never met him until the second day after I went to work in the Navy Yard."

"How many people work on a destroyer—a thousand?"

"Oh, no. Not that many."

"About one hundred?"

"About that," he said uncertainly.

"And you worked with Dieckhoff for six months on the same warships and never met him?"

"Yes," he insisted.

"How come that if you never met him both of you applied for jobs at the Brooklyn Navy Yard at about the same time?"

He shrugged his shoulders. "I don't know. It's funny. Sounds funny, anyway."

"When you worked on the cruiser 'Honolulu' you handled blueprints?"

"Yes, of course, but they were never left in my possession overnight," he added quickly. I couldn't help but think that Dieckhoff, too, had been very quick in protesting that the blueprints had never been left in his possession overnight. They seemed worried about that even though I had not said anything about it.

"Were they ever left in your possession overnight?"

"No. They guarded the blueprints—"

"My information is that they were left in your possession."

"Wells, sometimes—blueprints—you know, when you work from blueprints sometimes, yes, sometimes blueprints were left in my possession overnight. I was working on reduction gears on the cruiser 'Brooklyn' and I kept the blueprints overnight."

"How often?"

"I can't remember how often. Sometimes the blueprints were kept overnight in my tool box."

"You also worked on turbines and other complicated and confidential structural problems on the warship?"

"Yes."

"And you kept those blueprints overnight, too?"

"Sometimes—not often. Sometimes I left them in my tool box overnight."

Woulters, during the latter period of construction on the "Brooklyn" and the "Honolulu" had got two jobs which most workers do not like. He had the four to midnight and the midnight to eight A.M. watches. Normally Woulters likes to stay at home with his wife.

"While you had these watch duties you had pretty much the run of the ship?"

He hesitated and weighed his words carefully before answering. Finally he nodded and added hastily, "But no one can get on board."

"I didn't ask that. Did you have the run of the ship while everybody else was asleep when you were on watch?"

"Yes," he said in a low voice.

"How did you happen to work in the Brooklyn Navy Yard?"

"Oh, I don't know. I like to work for the Government."

"Have you a bank account?"

"Yes."

"What bank?"

"Oh, I don't know, it's some place on Church Avenue."

"You have about 2,400 dollars in the bank, a nice apartment, and you and your wife went on a trip to Germany last year. Did you save all that money in so short a time on wages of forty dollars a week?"

He shrugged his shoulders.

"Your bank account does not show withdrawals sufficient to cover the trip to Germany—"

"Say," he interrupted excitedly as soon as he saw where the question was leading, "when I was called before the Dies Committee, the Congressman there shook hands with me and asked me if I knew anything about un-American activities in the Navy Yard. I told him I didn't and he told me to go back to work and not to say anything about having been called before them. Now I do not understand why you ask me all these questions. The Congressman told me not to talk and I am saying nothing more. Nothing."

The Dies Congressional Committee was not interested in these three men whom they had subpoenaed and then, oddly enough, refused to question. Besides this very strange procedure by a Committee empowered by the Congress to investigate subversive activities, the Dies Committee withheld for months documentary evidence of Nazi activities in this country directed from Germany. The Committee obtained letters to Guenther Orgell and Peter Gissibl, but quietly placed them in their files without telling anyone about the existence of these documents. They did not subpoena or question the men involved.

The letters the Committee treated so cavalierly are from E.A. Vennekohl in charge of the foreign division of the Volksbund fuer das Deutschtum im Ausland with headquarters in Berlin, letters from the foreign division headquarters in Stuttgart, and from Orgell to Gissibl.

Gissibl was in constant touch with Nazi propaganda headquarters in Germany, receiving instructions and reporting not only on general activities, but especially upon the opening by the Nazis here of schools for children in which Nazi propaganda would be disseminated.

The letters, freely translated, follow. The first is dated October 29, 1937, and was sent by Orgell from his home at Great Kills, S.I.:

Dear Mr. Gissibl:

Many thanks for your prompt reply. My complaint that one cannot get an answer from Chicago refers to the time prior to May, 1937.

I assume from your writing that it is not opportune any more to deliver further books to the Arbeitsgemeinschaft, etc.

The material which Mr. Balderman received came from the V.D.A.[21] It has been sent to our Central Book distributing place (Mirbt). If he wishes he can get more any time; that is, if you recommend it.

The thirty books for your Theodore Koerner School, which arrived this summer (via the German Consulate General in Chicago), also came from the V.D.A. If you need more first readers or study books, please write directly to me. Your request then goes immediately—without the official way via the Consulate and Foreign Office—to our Central Book distributing place. Please say how many you need and what else beside the first readers and primers[22] you need. I will take care that it will be promptly attended to. Fritz Kuhn, of course, has to be informed of your request and has to give his okay....

With German greetings, CARL G. ORGELL.

Five days earlier Orgell had written to Gissibl: "You may perhaps remember that I am in charge of the work for the Volkbund fuer das Deutschtum im Ausland[23] for the U.S.A."



On March 18, 1938, Gissibl, who had been taking instructions from Orgell, received the following letter from Stuttgart:

Dear Peter:

From your office manager. Comrade Moeller, I received a letter dated February 15. He informed me among other things that an exchange of youth is out of the question for this year. I regret this very much. I would like to see, in the interests of our common efforts, if we would have had youth all ready this year, especially also from your district. Perhaps it is still possible with your support. The time, of course, which is still at our disposal, is very limited. This I can see clearly.

I will write to you again in greater detail soon. In the meantime you can perhaps send me more detailed information about the development of your school during the past weeks; I recommend again the fulfillment of your justified wishes wholeheartedly. Let us hope that the result might be achieved very soon towards which we in common strive.

Hearty greetings from house to house.

In loyal comradeship, Yours, G. MOSHACK.

On May 20, 1938, E.A. Vennekohl, of the People's Bund for Germans Living Abroad, wrote to Gissibl as follows:

Dear Comrade Gissibl:

We wrote you yesterday that the 3,000 badges for the singing festival would be sent to you via Orgell; for various reasons we have now divided the badges in ten single packages of which two each went to the following addresses: Friedrich Schlenz, Karl Moeller, Karl Kraenzle, Orgell and two to you.

Please inform your co-workers respectively and take care that in case duties have to be paid they should be laid out; please see to it that Orgell refunds the money to you later; this was the simplest and the only way by which the badges could be sent in order to arrive on time.

With the German people's greetings, E.A. VENNEKOHL.

These documents in the hands of the Dies Committee show definite tie-ups between German propaganda divisions and agents in the United States (some of them came through the Nazi diplomatic corps), yet these documents were put aside. The letters from True, Allen, and others quoted in the previous chapter were also placed before the Congressional Committee. It refused to call the men involved.





FOOTNOTES:

[20] Formerly known as J. Parnell Feeney. He changed his name because he thought he could get along better in the business world with a name like Thomas than with a name as potently Irish as Feeney.

[21] Nazi propaganda center for foreign countries with headquarters in Germany.

[22] The notorious Nazi Primer teaching children songs of hate against Jews and Catholics.

[23] People's Bund for Germans Living Abroad.



Conclusion

The activities of the few agents and propagandists described in the foregoing chapters do not, as I said in the preface, even scratch the surface of what seem to be widespread efforts to interfere in the internal affairs of the American people and their Government; but a few basic conclusions can reasonably be drawn from what little is known of the Fifth Column's operations.

Berlin-directed agents in foreign countries sometimes combine propaganda and espionage, frequently using the propaganda organizations as the bases for espionage. In the United States, so far as I have been able to ascertain, agents of the Rome-Berlin-Tokyo axis are just beginning to cooperate. In the Central and South American countries, however, the axis has apparently agreed to a division of labor, each of the fascist powers assuming a specific field of activity.

Germany, Italy and Japan have already shown the extent to which they will go in their drive for raw materials vital to their industries and war machines. In Spain, the German and Italian Fifth Column organized and fomented a bloody civil war in order to establish a wide fascist area to the south of France, for Germany and Italy, of course, consider France a potential enemy in the next war. In France itself, German and Italian agents, aided by their Governments, built an amazing network of steel and concrete fortifications manned by at least 100,000 heavily armed men—all this before France awoke to the treason within her own borders.

The strategy pursued by the Fifth Column in different countries falls into like patterns. In Austria, before it was swallowed, Nazi agents first established propaganda organizations as the bases from which to work. When, after the abortive attempt to seize the Austrian Government, the Nazis were made illegal, they went underground but continued to get aid from Germany. Eventually Berlin ordered Standarte II organized as a specific body prepared to provoke disturbances. When the Austrian police quelled them, the provocations enabled Germany to protest that German citizens were being attacked and mistreated. The activities of Standarte II, directed by the Gestapo, continued with increasing intensity until the unfortunate country was absorbed.

In Czechoslovakia the same strategy was followed: first the establishment of propaganda centers to which Nazis and Nazi sympathizers could gravitate—under the cloak of bodies seeking to improve relations between the Sudeten Germans and the Czech Government; then the utilization of propaganda headquarters and branches as centers for espionage. Shortly before the Munich Pact, Standarte II again came into being, creating disorders which, when Czech police tried to suppress them, enabled Germany to raise the cry that Czech subjects of German blood were being cruelly mistreated.

Invariably the aggressor nation raises a moral issue to cover up proposed acts of aggression. Italy wanted to "civilize the Ethiopians" by dropping bombs on defenseless women and children. Germany and Italy openly sent aid to Franco "to keep Spain from being Bolshevized." And so on. The broad "moral issue" on the international field to cover up aggressions by the Rome-Berlin-Tokyo axis is "Communism." The axis, announced as having been formed "to exchange information about Communism," is really a military alliance now generally recognized. With the same issue, the axis is now boring into the Western Hemisphere. Actually the reasons seem to be military and not missionary.

Germany, especially, has sent and is sending agents not only to carry on espionage but to organize groups for political pressure upon the American republics. I very much doubt, from all I have been able to learn, if the motive is primarily to win the Americas over to the joys of totalitarian government or to the theory of Aryan supremacy. The money and the effort seem to be expended for more practical reasons. The Bunds can exert not only political pressure, but can develop natives with fascist leanings into the spies and saboteurs so badly needed in war time; for this reason it is worth the enormous effort and money it is costing the aggressor nations.

When the long expected war breaks, neither Europe nor the Far East will be in a condition to supply war materials and foodstuffs to the warring countries. The chief sources of raw materials will be the Western Hemisphere. A strong foothold in the Americas means a tremendous advantage in the coming struggle, since materials are as important to an army as is man power. And, should the fascist powers be unable to get these raw materials for themselves, secret agents can at least sabotage shipments to enemy countries—as did German agents in the United States during the first years of the World War, while we were still neutral.

Mexico, because of its enormous oil supplies, plays an important part in fascist military strategy. Consequently, we find intensive efforts by the axis, and especially Germany, to overthrow the Cardenas Government because it is avowedly anti-fascist. A fascist government, helped into power by the Rome-Berlin-Tokyo axis, could be depended upon to supply much needed oil in war time.

The United States, as one of the world's greatest sources of raw materials and foodstuffs, is an even more important factor. Germany has not forgotten that its armies had the Allies on their knees when American supplies and American man power turned their imminent victory into defeat; should America be on the side of the democracies as against the fascist powers, sabotaging shipments of supplies and men will be as important as crushing an enemy line.

The tactics utilized in the Western Hemisphere by the Fifth Column are similar to those used in Europe. Propaganda machines, masquerading as organizations designed to promote better relationships between a fascist and an American nation, are set up. Fascist movements are organized, usually from across national boundaries. In Mexico, Nazi agents operating out of the United States organized the Gold Shirts; subsequently, as in Austria, a Putsch was attempted (in 1935 and again in 1938). The storing of arms in Sonora by General Yocupicio, who is working with Nazi agents, promises another rebellion when the time seems ripe.

In Central America, the axis is presenting small republics with gifts of arms in efforts to win their friendship. Agents sent from Germany are establishing Nazi centers and the home Government is supplying them with propaganda. In Panama the situation is somewhat more sharp. There Japan has always had an intense interest in the Canal. In the axis, Germany has become a co-worker since she has large colonies in Brazil and Colombia, next door to the Panama Canal. These colonies are now being organized at a feverish pace while the countries themselves are deluged with propaganda over special short-wave beams. In Brazil, a Nazi-directed abortive Putsch took place in 1938.

These activities point to an objective which certainly is not calculated to be in the interest of the United States and our Monroe Doctrine. From all indications the efforts appear directed toward ringing the United States with fascist countries, or at least countries with fascist bodies capable of giving the United States a headache should she ever be involved in a war with one or all of the axis powers.

In the United States itself we find that the strategy is the same as that followed in Austria, Czechoslovakia and in countries of the Western World. The German-American Bund functions "to promote better relations between the United States and Germany," but the efforts consist of persistent anti-American and anti-democratic propaganda and, within the past year or two, of serving as a base for military and naval spies.

With Germany directing the strategy, her agents in all countries raise the issue of the "menace of the Jew and the Catholic," with especial emphasis upon the Jew; the Catholics are still too strong for the Nazis to come to grips with at this time.

The Federal Government, of course, has ample legal machinery for prosecuting spies, but espionage is only part of the broad Nazi campaign against this democratic Government. So far as the Western World is concerned, the Federal Government has already taken steps to try to counteract the short-wave broadcasts by German and Italian government-controlled stations. Counter broadcasts are being employed as a defensive measure, and though of value, will probably not completely counteract fascist "news" agencies supplying propaganda in the guise of news, free of charge, to the Central and South American newspapers as well as printed propaganda sent from Germany and distributed by the bunds. Outside of military action, economic pressure seems to be the only language the fascist governments understand, and a little of that pressure by the American Government would probably make them understand our resentment at their invasion far more than broadcasts and general talk about a family of nations in the Western Hemisphere.

Our laws and courts provide a machinery which can be used to prevent any infringement upon the democratically constituted rights of the people. It is of vital importance, however, that preparations for fascist lawlessness be vigilantly uprooted. The Italian and German people made just this fatal mistake of tolerating the activities of Mussolini's and Hitler's gangs until they grew strong enough to seize power and crush every sign of democracy.

There is no reason why a great people, attacked by a pernicious ideology, cannot counteract such propaganda with greater and more intelligent propaganda to educate our people to the advantages of democracy—to what fascism really means to everyone, including the big industrialists and financiers, some of whom have been flirting with fascism. The Government, however, can and should be instructed by the representatives of the people, to take proper steps to stop the infiltration of Nazi agents and propagandists into this country.

There are various other and perhaps more practical and useful steps which can be taken, but those can be worked out once the people awake to the danger of permitting fascist propaganda to go on, and sentiment becomes strong enough to put an end to foreign-directed activities here.

—THE END—

This book has been produced wholly under union conditions. The paper was made, the type set, the plates electrotyped, and the printing and binding done in union shops affiliated with the American Federation of Labor. All employees of Modern Age Books, Inc., are members of the Book and Magazine Guild, Local No. 18 of the United Office and Professional Workers of America, affiliated with the Congress of Industrial Organizations.

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- Typographical errors corrected in text: Page 44: Potosi replaced with Potosi Page 109: Nicholas Rodriguez replaced with Nicholas Rodriguez Page 122: 'Among those who attended where' replaced with 'Among those who attended were' -

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