FBI rounds up accomplices of saboteurs
Swift punishment pledged; ‘whole crowd caught,’ Hoover declares
By Robert Evans, United Press staff writer
New York –
The Federal Bureau of Investigation today sought additional confederates of eight Nazi spies put ashore by German submarines to organize a campaign of sabotage against America’s war industries. Their arrest was expected shortly.
It appeared that the confederates were faring no better than the spies, captured before they had a chance to dig up the explosives they buried on Long Island and Florida beaches, or enjoy the fortune in U.S. currency they brought with them.
The FBI announced last night that:
Additional arrests have been made of accomplices and contacts of the saboteurs and more may be made.
The number was not announced.
Federal officials were deciding whether civil or military courts would inflict the “swift and thorough” reprisals – probably the firing squad or gallows – that Attorney General Francis Biddle promised against the agents.
Mr. Biddle said in Washington:
You may be sure that the Department of Justice will proceed with this case swiftly and thoroughly.
Mr. Biddle today canceled all appointments for the next 48 hours to devote his full time to determine the manner of prosecuting the saboteurs.
Justice Department officials, meanwhile, declined to comment on the possibility that FBI agents had infiltrated into the Gestapo, or even the German High Command, and that this led to the “tipoff” on the mission of the saboteurs.
Cites “complicating factors”
Neither would they comment on the possibility that the FBI had stationed agents to watch the landing of the men and to trail them to their contacts in this country.
Mr. Biddle revealed that “a number of complicating legal factors” were involved. One arises from the fact that two of the Nazis are citizens of the United States and six are aliens.
The citizens can be prosecuted for treason, while the aliens cannot. The final decision as to whether civil or military courts would try them may rest with President Roosevelt.
In any event, however, it was believed that their chances of escaping the death penalty were slight.
The death penalty was also likely for the “accomplices and contacts.” Officials said they would probably be charged with treason.
FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover doubted that U-boats had landed more than eight agents.
He said:
We’ve caught the whole crowd.
Agents E. J. Connelley and Thomas J. Donegan said in New York that the eight had been arrested without violence, that they had known what to expect if they were caught.
They would not reveal how the Nazis were arrested, though six were seized here and two were arrested in Chicago one directly after he had proposed to a young widow and been accepted.
The FBI also revealed that $20,000 more of the money that was to have financed their sabotage had been found, bringing to a total of $169,700 in U.S. currency with which they landed in rubber boats, four at Amagansett Beach, Long Island, on June 13, and four at Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla., on June 17.
They had Selective Service cards counterfeited in Germany and Social Security cards, which they might have obtained in this country before returning to Germany for schooling in sabotage.
Their clothes were American-made, presumably those in which they had used in the United States. The FBI intimated that they had stayed away from Yorkville, a district where New York’s alien Germans are concentrated, and that they had spent their first few days in Broadway restaurants, gorging themselves after the stringency of German rations.
Became citizens in 1930
The U.S. citizens are Peter Burger and Herbert Haupt. Haupt, 22, became a citizen when his father was naturalized in Chicago in 1930. Burger has been a naturalized citizen since 1933.
Haupt returned to Chicago soon after he landed, renewed his acquaintance with Mrs. Gerda Melind, pretty young widow, and they were engaged to be married next week. But Mrs. Melind said the engagement was off.
She said:
Once a spy, always a spy, that’s what I always say.
Burger, George John Dasch, Heinrich Heinck (alias Henry Kaynor) and Richard Quirin (alias Richard Quintas) landed on Long Island. Dasch was leader of the group.
Haupt, Edward John Kerling, Werner Thiel and Herman Neubauer landed in Florida. Thiel was the leader.
Their campaign was to cover a two-year period and they were “magnificently” trained for the job. They rowed ashore in the dead of night, buried powerful explosives and tools in holes along shore, and left to recruit confederates.
Among the vital American installations they intended to sabotage were the Aluminum Co. of America plants in Tennessee, East St. Louis, Ill., and in Massena, NY; Hell Gate Bridge, an important transportation point in Metropolitan New York; the Pennsylvania Railroad Terminal in Newark, NJ, eastern terminus of the line to Washington and points west; the Horseshoe Curve of the Pennsylvania Railroad near Altoona, Pa.; New York City’s water supply system and the Niagara Falls hydroelectric plant.
But the FBI was quickly upon them. Agents declined, however, to comment on a report that the four who landed on Long Island were seen by an unnamed Coast Guardsman patrolling the beach and that they overpowered him.
Bribe reported
The Nazis debated at some length, according to this report, whether to kill him and finally decided that to do so would immediately put officers on their trail. Accordingly, it was reported, they gave him $270 as a bribe, warned him to keep his mouth shut and let him go. As soon as he was released, however, he turned in the money and gave the alarm.
Now, it was reported, guards have been strongly reinforced at points where more spies might land.