Sabotage! by Sayers & Kahn, 1942 (book outline)

Sabotage! The Secret War Against America
by Michael Sayers & Albert E. Kahn
Harper & Brothers Publishers, 1942
(notes of the book)

Front cover (photo)

Back cover (photo)

Cover flap (photo)

Vice President Wallace quote, May 8, 1942: ...Hitler and Japan will cooperate to do the unexpected...fifth columnists in the U.S will sabotage not merely our war material plants, but our minds.

Forward by the authors:

Nazi Germany is the creation of spies and saboteurs.

The burning of the Reichstag by Hermann Goerings’s arsonists is history’s supreme act of sabotage that consolidated Nazi power.

At the home of Cologne banker Baron Kurt von Schroeder a secret bargain was struck with arch-saboteur Franz von Papen that brought ex-Reichswehr spy Hitler to power.

Leaders of the Nazi state are:

criminals, like Dr. Robert Ley.
terrorists, like Captain Fritz Wiedemann.
assassins, like Baron Manfred von Killinger.

The same ganster types head Italy under Mussolini and Japan. In Japan, political murders by the secret Black Dragon Society paved their way to power.

The Axis’ saboteurs are like a second army operating on a world scale, wrecking: industry, agriculture, transport, the press, finance, labor, the armed forces, politics.

Even some Americans play a part.

PART I

Chapter 1 - "The Ghosts That Walk Again"

March 1941, sabotage caused the Pittsburgh Express to derail, 5 killed, 121 injured. Fascist Ukrainian saboteurs working for the Nazis were suspected.

The Hour, an anti-fascist newsletter in New York City revealed:

the Pittsburgh area was infested with a fascist Ukrainian terrorist organization.
Capt. Leonid Klimenko

- a Ukrainian emissary from the German War Office.
- before the wreck met with key fifth columnists working in the Pittsburgh area.

Fiodore Wozniak ("the Firebug")

sabotage agent for Germany.
January 1917, burned and blew up a shell-assembly plant near Kingsland, New Jersey. $17 million damage.
April 1941, he walked into the office of The Hour and told them not to write about him anymore.

June 1939, Supreme Court Justice Roberts handed down the decision which said Germany waged undeclared war by sabotage on the U.S. between 1914-1917.

Capt. Franz von Papen

German ambassador in Washington.
organized German sabotage in the U.S.
January 1915, received coded message by Zimmerman (the Kaiser’s Minister of Foreign Affairs) with sabotage instructions.
purchased a New York firm, G. Amsinck & Co., which was used as a front for sabotage work.
dispatched his sabotage agents all over the U.S. (at least a $40 million project).
described Americans as "idiotic Yankees."
wanted to invade Canada.
expulsed from the U.S., was promoted in Germany.
U.S. damage more than $150 million.

Baron Manfred von Killinger

in pre-Hitler Germany was a pioneer Storm Troop chief.
arranged the murder of Catholic Minister Matthias Erzberger, escaped conviction because of his high Nazi connections.
helped plan the Reichstag Fire with Hermann Goering, Ernst Roehm & others.
1937, came to U.S., set up West Coast units of the German American Bund for Nazi espionage-sabotage against American shipping and aircraft industries.

Capt. Fritz Wiedeman

WWI friend of Hitler.
when von Killinger was exposed he replaced him.
collaborated with the Japanese.
paymaster for Nazi underground in U.S. Paid out more than $5 million (NY Times 2/20/41).

Baron Edgar von Spiegel

New Orleans Consul General.
a former U-boat commander, now a Nazi saboteur-diplomat.
tried to blackmail an American newspaper which caused a State Dept. investigation.

Dr. Herbert Scholz

consul at Boston
rep. of Himmler’s Gestapo in the U.S.
pressured German-Americans to assist the Bund and the Nazi secret service.
set up an espionage-sabotage network along the Boston waterfront.

Col. Walther Nicolai (called the "Silent Colonel")

during WWI was chief of Section IIIB (Intelligence) of the German High Command.
after WWI, was funded by Alfred Hugenberg (financial backer of Nazi party) to reorganize Section IIIB and help destroy the German Republic.

Guenther Gustav Rumrich

young German-American, worked for Section IIIB.
1938, placed on trial in NYC for sabotage and espionage. But the real "big fish" got away.

- Dr. Schmidt, alias "Sanders"
- Capt. Lt. Eric Pfeiffer, in charge of espionage in N. & S. America.
- Dr. I. Griebl, organized a ring of saboteurs in American defense factories.

Frederick Joubert Duquesne.

had worked for Nicolai in WWI.
was in charge of sabotage of British shipping in South American ports.
1918, arrested in the U.S., but escaped.
1941, began sabotaging U.S. electric power and gas plants.
June 1941, arrested by the FBI.

Paul Scheffer

worked under Col. Oberhaus, one of Nicolai’s lieutenants in Section IIIB.
posed as a liberal journalist for Goebbels’ newspaper Das Reich.
1930-36, went to the Soviet Union and helped sabotage Soviet agriculture. His contact was Mikhail Alexandrovich Chernov.

- in the pay of German Intelligence.
- headed The People’s Commission of Trade in the Ukraine.
- Later became head of The People’s Commisariat of Agriculture of U.S.S.R.
- 1938, Chernov and 20 others were tried in Moscow, Chernov was sentenced to be shot.

1938, Scheffer went to U.S., by 1941 was living in U.S. and picked up by the FBI when Germany declared war on the U.S.

During WWI, a team traveled around the U.S. infecting mules, horses and cattle with diseases. Thousands of soldiers also died.

sent by Col. Nicolai.
financed by von Papen.
Anton Dilger, a German-American medical graduate from John Hopkins University created germs in a lab he set up in Chevy Chase, near Washington. He later revolted against his mission and was murdered by German spies.

Chapter 2 - "Saboteurs At Work"

September 1941, FBI established:

Germany laid plans for sabotage of U.S. defense industries, transport and shipping.
$$ from Dutch, Spanish & South American banks.
spies and saboteurs worked in American defense plants and on U.S. steamship lines.

William G. Sebold was a German-American whom the Nazi secret police trained in sabotage & espionage not knowing he was an FBI informant. The Gestapo trained him at a school in Hamburg, Germany:

Leica camera, microphotographic reductions, codes, telegraphy, short-wave radio, secret inks, explosives, poisons.
the "Collectors" got hold of info.
the "Transmitters" forwarded data to Germany.
the "Couriers" carried messages to and from Germany.
the "Drops" were addresses where reports were sent.
the "Specialists" were the saboteurs.

Sebold was trained as a "Transmitter."

School chief was Dr. Nicolaus Adolf Fritz Ritter. He sent Sebold to the U.S. using the name William G. Sawyer.

set up office in the Newsweek Building in NYC.
$$ sent to him through a Mexican branch of the Chase National Bank, Dec. 1940.
his contacts:

- Herman Lang, worked at the Norden Plant, former Nazi Storm Trooper with Hitler, knows Hermann Goering.
- Else Weustenfeld, worked in a law office in NYC.
- Lily Barbara Carola Stein, Long Island, link between German Military Intelligence and its agents in U.S. Her $$ came through Amsterdam and S. American Banks.
- Frederick Joubert Duquesne, NYC, expert saboteur, invented bombs, built short-wave radio in Long Island to transmit to Germany. $$ came from Dr. Ritter through Chase National Bank. Duquesne had at least 30 spies in U.S. working for him.

Another group worked in NYC area under Kurt Frederick Ludwig.

reported to Heinrich Himmler, head of Gestapo in Germany.
worked with Lucy Boehmler, member of the Queens, New York unit of The German American Bund.
Rene Charles Froehlich, soldier at Fort Jay, Governors Island.

Ludwig’s real leader was Ulrich von der Osten, high officer in German Military Intelligence, killed by a taxi cab in Times Square, March 1941. He had a report on the defenses of Pearl Harbor and Hickham Field.

June 28, 1941, the FBI rounded up the entire Duquesne ring, and later Ludwig’s group.

Devices for fire setting, explosions or cause wreckage of machinery:

incendiary bomb disguised as chiclets.
"cigars" (developed by Dr. Scheele in 1915)
"fire-pencil"
"fire-envelope" discovered by FBI in 1941.
"Zepplinite" for forest fires. Delayed-action hydrogen gas balloon.
Time bombs, traditional - British Pavilion at the NY World’s Fair 7/4/40.
"can of food"
"cabbage-bomb"
"piece of coal"
"cracker" disguised as a spark plug for planes, and explodes when it reaches a certain temperature.

Special acids deteriorates cloth

parachutes
airplane fabrics
uniforms

Poisons during WWI in canned foods for the Allies.

Wrecking military equipment.

The German American Bund

organized to help the Nazis recruit spies and saboteurs in key jobs in American industries.
The Bund Fuehrer Fritz Kuhn had been a chemist at the Ford Motor Company in Detroit.
slowdowns and strikes on production lines.
infiltrated the Harrison, New Jersey gas works of the Public Service Corporation, supplied much gas to New Jersey’s defense industries.
infiltrated the New York Liquidometer plant, warship and aircraft parts for U.S. Army & Navy.

Nazi agents have long wanted to take over the American labor movement so they could sabotage production.

Detroit 1939, formed The National Workers League, headed by Parker Sage (pro-American propaganda, fight Jew bosses, etc.)
the auto workers figured them out, but they didn’t go away.
collaborated with the KKK. Suddenly the KKK reversed their position of opposing organized labor and encouraged their members to capture executive positions in the auto workers union.

- Packard plant
- at the Sojourner Truth Settlement (defense housing project) black workers were prevented from entering their homes, caused riots.

Chapter 3 - "Sabotage By Cartel"

1915, Dr. Heinrich Albert created a fake munitions concern, the Bridgeport Projectile Company. $$ came from the German Foreign Office. Said it was a British-financed corp.

Large scale economic sabotage by creating artificial scarcities, tied up machinery & supplies.

bought liquid chlorine.
bought up stocks of carbolic acid.

Exposed by U.S. Secret Service and expelled from U.S. along with von Papen.

During WWI von Papen’s associate and rival was Capt. Franz von Rintelen.

arrived in U.S. March 1915.
NY firm E.V. Gibbon, Inc.
bought up large amounts of ammo hoping to create a shortage, but wasn’t very effective.
returned to traditional time-bomb & fire-pencil sabotage.

But the tactic of economic sabotage would become the official policy of the Third Reich. Bought up whole industries and achieved colossal economic sabotage through manipulation of international partnerships, cartels and patent pools.

American production of military optical instruments were sabotaged because of the cartel formed between Bausch and Lomb Optical Company of Rochester, NY and Carl Zeiss of Jena, Germany.
Remington Arms has been restricted to use their patented Tetracene, used in guns & ammo, because of their cartel agreement with the German trust, I.G. Farben.
Beryllium ("the magic metal") makes steel almost unbreakable. The Beryllium Corporation of America had an agreement with the German firm of Seimens and Halske which gave the Nazis exclusive rights in Europe, and their American partner couldn’t ship any products to England.
ALCOA’s (Aluminum Corp. of America) agreement with I.G. Farben resulted in U.S. magnesium production in 1940 at 5,680 tons, while in Germany was 19,000 tons. Similar agreement restricted aluminum production to 3/4 to 1/2 of Germany’s production.
an agreement between General Electric and the German Krupp trust gave Nazis veto power over American production of tungsten carbide (for tool manufacture). 1940 Nazi Germany was producing as much as 20x as America.
Jasco, Inc., a chemical company in Baton Rouge, LA organized by Standard Oil of New Jersey and the German trust I.G. Farben in 1930 was under German control. September 1939, the Germans ordered Standard to dismantle the plant.

According to the Senate Truman Committee:

Because of German agreements with Standard Oil of New Jersey development of synthetic rubber and oil production in U.S. was delayed.
Standard helped the Nazis in 1939 design their plant facilities in Germany for making synthetic aviation gasoline.
Standard withheld info from the U.S. while giving it to Germany.

Chemnyco, Inc. of NY

American rep. of I.G. Farben.
collected info on American war production for the German Gov. and Nazi saboteurs in the U.S.

Bendix Aviation

a General Motors affiliate.
because of a patent pool with Robert Bosch Company of Stuttgart they had to send military info to the Nazis as late as May, 1940.

April 22, 1942, Pres. Roosevelt ordered the seizure of all patents controlled directly or indirectly by the enemy.

Chapter 4 - "Tokyo Terrorists"

Los Angeles and its war industries would be crippled if the aqueduct system that supplies the water was sabotaged.

In Los Angeles, a member of the Black Dragon, a secret Japanese terrorist society, was found with a short-wave radio, maps of Hawaii’s fortifications, plans of the LA water supply system.

The Japanese Intelligence Service

collaborated with the Germans shortly after Hitler came to power.
Germany’s Section IIIB aide Major Gen. Ott (later German Ambassador to Tokyo) helped Japanese espionage & sabotage activities in Asia and the Americas.
the chief base for joint Nazi-Japanese operations in the Western Hemisphere was El Salvador.
by 1936 was virtually in control of the Japanese Gov. and High Command.
the Japanese Military Servicemen’s League (by 1941 had 7,200 members) and The Imperial Comradeship League (by 1941 had 4,800 members) were controlled by The Black Dragon. Served as schools of espionage & sabotage. Mostly on the West Coast and Hawaii.
before Pearl Harbor, moved in droves and took up residents and business near military establishments, oil storage tanks, oil wells, harbors and ports in Calif. 3,000 Japanese lived on Terminal Island at the entrance to Los Angeles.
after Dec. 7, when FBI raided Japanese communities they found guns, ammo, spying & sabotaging equipment.
the Japanese Consulates in American cities communicated with Japanese fishing fleets in the pacific.

The manager of the San Francisco branch of Mitsubishi tried to get info from the trade journal Petroleum World in 1940.

February 20, 1942, they were set back when President Roosevelt issued an executive order evacuating anyone alien or citizen from military areas, and throughout the West Coast area a mass evacuation of Japanese and Japanese-Americans. They were forced to rely on mostly non-Japanese agents and the Nazi underground.

White Russian Fascists

under Japanese command for years.
leader was "Count" Anastase Andreivitch Vonsiatsky of Thompsen, Connecticut.

- master spy & saboteur in 3 continents.
- ex-Czarist officer and agent of the Japanese High Command.
- wife was a millionaire.
- prepared for his "Holy Crusade" against Bolshevism.
- recruited White Russian emigre’s in all parts of the world for his "Crusade."
- 1933, founded the "Russian National Fascist Revolutionary Party," swastika as the emblem.
- branches in NYC, SF, LA, Sao Paulo, Brazil, Harbin, Manchukuo.
- conspired with the German American Bund and other Axis agencies to bring about a fascist coup in the U.S.
- financed smuggling of saboteurs & spies in Soviet Russia.
- trained men at his Connecticut estate.

Vonsiatsky was in contact with:

- William Dudley Pelley, chief of the Silver Shirts.
- Robert Edward Edmondson, anti-Semetic pamphleteer.
- Henry Allen, head of the American White Guard, ex-convict, and collaborator with the Nazi-inspired Gold Shirts of Mexico.
- Father Charles Coughlin, pro-Axis propagandist in Royal Oak, Michigan.

He helped finance arms to the fascist forces in Spain when the Hitler-instigated Franco revolt broke out.

Important Japanese, German & Italian functionaries visited regularly Vonsiatsky’s Thompson, Conn. headquarters. Discussed fascist coup in the U.S.

150,00 White Russians living in Japanese territory, headed by saboteur-spy Lt. Gen. Gregory Semenoff, an ex-Czarist.

One week before Pearl Harbor they joined the Japanese Army under the command of Major Batase.

Vonsiatsky

went on to Tokyo.
went to Dairen, Manchukuo, one of the Far Eastern centers of fascist White Russian operations.
went to Germany, met with Alfred Rosenberg, Dr. Goebbels, & reps. of the Military Intelligence of the German High Command.
then back to U.S.

Shortly before Pearl Harbor in Chicago a secret meeting with:

G. Wilhelm Kunze, head of the German American Bund.
Otto Willumeit, head of the Chicago division of the Bund.
Father Aleksi Pelypenko, a Ukranian priest.
"Count" Vonsiatsky.

Vonsiatsky helped finance Nazi agents in U.S. but wanted Berlin to guarantee him a high post in Russia when the Nazi armies take over.

Pelypenko later reported all he knew about Vonsiatsky to the FBI.

Summer of 1941, Fiodore "The Firebug" Wozniak asked Pelypenko to get him a sabotage job, he needed the work.

Chapter 5 - "Bombers and Killers"

The Ukrainian National Home, "a mutual benefit society" at East 6th Street, NYC.

1938, kidnapping, torture, murder.
two of the gang, Gula and Sacoda, were executed at Sing Sing, were members of ODWU

William Piznak, Ukrainian-American arrested for having sabotage equipment in his basement at 225 E. 95th St. His brother, Michael Piznak, had also lived in the house.

attorney for the Ukrainian-American Society.

The Hetman

a Berlin-directed Ukrainian organization.
supervised by Alfred Rosenberg’s Foreign Political Office of the Nazi Party.

ODWU

another Berlin-directed Ukrainian terrorist organization.
founded 1931 in the U.S. by Omelian Senyk-Gribiwisky, a Ukrainian terrorist from Berlin.
supervised by Col. Walther Nicolai’s Section IIIB (German Military Intelligence).
more powerful than the Hetman.

Both have built their cells in American industrial centers. Have branches throughout Europe, Asia, N. & S. America. In regular communication with German, Japanese & Italian agents.

The Ukrainian fifth column is the most important auxiliary of the international Nazi espionage & sabotage machine, and the only place it can’t function is in the Ukraine because in 1938 the Soviet authorities shot its chief ring-leaders.

Baltic German Dr. Paul Rohrbach helped establish an "Independent Ukraine" under German rule (Ukrainians were then under the Russian Czar). Kaiser Wilhelm liked the idea because of the Ukrainian wheat and oil.

1918, the Kaiser established an "Independent Ukraine" under German "protection."

Field Marshal Hermann von Eichhorn, commander of the German forces in the Ukraine.
Dr. Rohrbach was Eichhorn’s advisor.
the government was set up by General Pavel Petrovitch Skoropadski.

- a Russian cavalryman.
- didn’t speak a word of Ukrainian.
- received title of "The Hetman" (Head Man) of the Ukraine.
- his cabinet were Russian and Ukrainian murderers & terrorists.

But the newly-formed Red Army & guerrilla bands crushed them, so they returned to Berlin, where they became the protégés of The German High Command and began plotting with the Nazi Party to overthrow the Weimar Republic.

The "Hetman Organization" was placed under Dr. Alfred Rosenberg.

chief Nazi advocate of Eastward expansion.

Ukrainian fifth column in the U.S., known as OUN (Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists)

organized by Col. Nicolai of the Intelligence Service of the High Command.
headed by Col. Eugene Konovaletz.

- 1922, Hitler met and liked him.
- rapist and killer.
- also worked for the Japanese General Staff.

OUN cells in Soviet Russia, France, Rumania, Czechoslavakia, Poland, South America, Canada, U.S.
espionage, sabotage & assassination schools for OUN members
1928-31, sabotaged factories and farms in Poland. Assassinated Polish politicians.

1938, Soviet Gov. smashed the entire OUN in the Ukraine. Hitler and Nicolai thought Col. Konovaletz knew too much about German Government’s secrets so they blew him up with a bomb disguised as a gift.

1933, Col. Nicolai selected Omelian Senyk-Gribiwisky ("Salesman of Terror") to organize the Nazi-Ukrainian network in the U.S.

Col. Konvaletz’s right-hand man.
linked to almost every major assassination in Poland in the early post-war years.

ODWU front organizations mushroomed in industrial cities where Ukrainian-Americans lived.

May 1934, Senyk-Gribiwisky founded the "Ukrainian Aviation School" at Montgomery, NY.

perfect for training spies & saboteurs.
one of the financiers, Demetrius Gula, was later executed at Sing Sing.
the chief "flying instructor", Burton H. Gilligan, associated with The German American Bund.

By 1935 more than 100 ODWU units in the U.S in important industrial centers.

workers, insurance agents, salesmen, priests, journalists.

Vassil Avramenko

headed Avramenko Film Co.
worked with the powerful ODWU unit in Pittsburgh.
partner was Kalina Lissiuk.

1941, Senyk-Gribiwinsky was to receive a high gov. position in the Nazi-occupied Ukraine but was shot while marching into the Soviet Ukraine with Hitler’s armies.

Svoboda, newspaper of the Ukrainian Nationalist Association – 40,000 members.

pro-Axis propaganda in American cities.
headquarters, 83 Grand St., Jersey City.
editor, Luke "Big Mouse" Myshuha (Ukrainian).

- 1939, his contact was to be a Nazi-Ukrainian agent in Rome (no more contact with Berlin).

headquarters was a clearing house for espionage directives from Berlin, Tokyo and Rome.

Chapter 6 - "How Many Were Sabotaged?"

February 9, 1942, the great liner Normandie (name changed to S.S. Lafayette) burned and sank at the pier in the North River (NYC).

officially ruled an accident, but was probably sabotaged by the Germans.

8 ships headed for Russia with supplies either sank or were forced back to port from shifting cargo, wasn’t properly secured. This has never been a problem before. Probably sabotage.

1941, industrial disasters caused American production a loss of 1.5 billion man-hours.

Spring 1942, Forest Fires

North Carolina
New Jersey
Rhode Island (worst in their history)
Connecticut

In New Hampshire the German sabotage device the "Zepplinite" was found but the candle had burned out.

Chapter 7 - "Counter-Sabotage"

Agencies for fighting sabotage in U.S.:

FBI (in supreme charge)
G2 (Military Intelligence)
Naval Intelligence

Sept. 6, 1939, Roosevelt put FBI in supreme charge. Later that same month a General Intelligence Division was established in Wash. under FBI direction.

Summer of 1942 in NY area 49 members of two large Nazi espionage-sabotage rings were arrested.

one ring was headed by Frederick Joubert Duquesne, an agent of Col. Nicolai.
the other headed by Kurt Frederick Ludwig, an agent of Heinrich Himmler.

June 1942, another ring was smashed by the FBI when they raided Anastase Vonsiatsky’s headquarters at Thompson, Connecticut. Arrested:

Anastase Vonsiatsky
Gerhardt Wilhelm Kunze, former Fuehrer of the German American Bund.
Dr. Otto Willumeit of Chicago, former leader of the Chicago unit of the German American Bund.
Reverend Kurt E. Molzahn, pastor of a Philadelphia Lutheran Church, go-between for the spy ring. (the only one who pleaded not guilty)
Dr. Wolfgang Ebell, a physician of El Paso, TX, home used as headquarters for German & Japanese agents.

June 1942, 8 saboteurs landed by German subs in Florida & Long Island were arrested by the FBI.

Following America’s entry into the war, the FBI successfully raided homes and hideouts in every part of the country. U.S. defense plants organized anti-sabotage units and cooperated with the FBI, Military & Naval Intelligence.

PART II

"Psychological Sabotage"

Undermining morale, warping public opinion. It is a secret war directed against the mind and spirit of the people. Nazi "strategist of terror" Dr. Ewald Banse: "The enemy’s nation’s originally solid, powerful and well-knit fabric must be gradually disintegrated, broken down, rotted, so that it falls apart like a fungus treaded upon in a forest."

Weapons of the Axis psychological saboteurs include:

disruptive propaganda, malicious rumors & lies, artificially created opposition movements, deliberate exploitation of genuine opposition movements, bribery, corruption & intimidation.

Their job is to soften up the people, and to make them easy prey for the Gestapo hangmen.

In the U.S. the psychological saboteurs have had 5 major objectives:

1) race hatred to disrupt the American people.
2) undermine the confidence in the government & Roosevelt Administration.
3) isolate & prevent U.S. from joining any anti-Axis alliance
4) keep the U.S. unprepared for the Second World War.
5) build an American fascist party as a fifth column ally to the Axis attack.

Chapter 8 - "The Secret Offensive"

1940, Hitler’s 5th column of psychological saboteurs were at work in each country before the Nazis invaded: Holland, Norway, Poland, France.

August 1940, George Sylvester Viereck, one of the leading Nazi agents in the U.S., head & brains of the propaganda machine.

met with Senator Ernest Lundeen of Minnesota.
met with Representative Hamilton Fish.
delivered large envelope to Sen. Rush D. Holt of W. Virginia.

Hitler, Dr. Colin Ross (Nazi ideologist of the "Germanization" program), and Dr. Joseph Paul Goebbels wanted to "Germanize" America. Goebbels: "Nothing will be easier than to produce a bloody revolution in North America. No other country has so many social and racial tensions. We shall be able to play on many strings there."

After 1933, Nazi-controlled German-American organizations on U.S. soil popped up all over. Supervised by Ernstt Wilhelm Bohle from Berlin.

head of the Foreign Division of the Nazi Party in 1934.
appointed to the position of Gauleiter of the Disrict of Germans Abroad.

According to a Swiss newspaper Bohle had 548 groups in 45 countries under him. 25,000 propaganda agents and 2,500 special Gestapo men.

The Psychological Laboratory

agency of the Third Reich in Berlin assisting Bohle.
opened in 1929.
under he supervision of Col. Hans von Voss, commander of the German Army’s Division of Psychology.
when Hitler came to power the Laboratory acquired two new special divisions, under Col. Nicolai and Col. Dr. Albrecht Blau.
research into "American national psychology."
The German American Bund (an "American citizens’ group") spread propaganda that the Roosevelt administration had fallen into the hands of Jews and communists. 1936, headed by Fritz Kuhn.

- chemist at the Ford Motor Company.
- 1919, in Bavaria had been a member of the Epp Brigade which murdered and terrorized democratic Germans.

The German American Bund didn’t appeal to non-Germans, so they looked for other groups. 1933-39 more than 750 of these organizations sprang up. Set Gentile against Jew.

By 1937 their anti-Semetic propaganda was successful but they still needed a leader that people could look up to, like Hitler in Germany. One candidate was Father Charles E. Coughlin:

magazine Social Justice in 1939 had a circulation of 1,000,000.
weekly radio show on over 47 stations, 4,000,000 listeners.
was pro-fascist.
his organization, the Christian Front, formed in 1938, 200,000 members by 1939.

The Christian Front, the German American Bund, the Christian Mobilizers, Silver Shirts, and others roamed the streets of NYC, Boston, Philadelphia, Cleveland, Akron & other cities attacking men & women. Campaign of psychological sabotage.

January 13, 1940, FBI caught 17 members of the Christian Front red-handed planning to kill about a dozen Congressmen, kill Jews, seize Post Offices, the Customs House, and armories in NYC. Much of their ammo had been stolen from the National Guard. They hailed Coughlin as their leader.

Because the trial was rigged, they were all found not guilty, but Coughlin’s organization never really grew into a mass movement.

Hermann Schwarzmann, leader of the Astoria, Long Island unit of the German American Bund, thought Charles Lindbergh would make a great leader.

Col. Walther Nicolai’s Section IIIB had personality-analysis of hundreds of leading statesmen throughout the world. (bribe, blackmail)

one of Dr. Blau’s ace "observers" was F. Schoenemann, who (as a "foreign correspondent") accompanied Roosevelt on his 1936 trip to Lincoln, Nebraska.
August Halfeld, a personal emissary of Dr. Goebbels, also kept an eye on Roosevelt.

Goebbels, the Nazis and their fifth column allies in the U.S. called for the impeachment of Roosevelt. Said he was a traitor.

William Kullgren - fifth column leader of Atascadero, CA.
Parker Sage’s Detroit National Workers League.
William Dudley Pelley - chief of the Silver Shirts.
Francis P. Moran - Director of the Christian Front in Boston.
Governor Philip F. La Follette of Wisconsin.
former Governor William Murray of Oklahoma.
Representative Clare E. Hoffman of Michigan.

The American Fellowship Forum (published a magazine called Today’s Challenge)

founded in NYC on March 16, 1939.
National Director was Dr. Friedrich Ernest Ferdinand Auhagen, Prof. of German Literature at Columbia University.

- Nazi agent
- former 2nd Lieutenant in Kaiser’s army.
- entered German Intelligence after Hitler seized power.
- received $$ from Dr. G. Kurt Johannsen, Nazi paymaster in Hamburg, Germany.
- also received $$ from German-American industrialist Dr. Ferdinand A. Kertess, Pres. Of the Chemical Marketing Company of NYC, and one of the incorporators of the American Fellowship Forum. Espionage work for the German Government.
- conferred with Friedhelm Draeger, German Consul in NYC. (U.S. section leader of Ernst Bohle’s Ausland’s-Organization and was in charge of espionage-sabotage operations in the NY area.)
- lived in Elmhurst, Long Island.
- met frequently with Dr. Herbert Scholz, Boston Consul, key Gestapo agent on the East Coast.

With the outbreak of war in Europe, committees similar to the American Fellowship Forum sprang up overnight in America with a hands off policy toward the war in Europe.

Rep. Hamilton Fish’s committee "National Committee to Keep America Out of Foreign Wars."

set it up just before visiting Nazi Germany, fall 1939.
just before outbreak of the war he met with Axis leaders, including:

- Joachim von Ribbentrop, the Foreign Minister of the Third Reich.
- Count Galeazzo Ciano, the Foreign Minister of Fascist Italy.

used Joachim von Ribbentropp’s private plane.

Isolationist businessman Avery Brundage’s "peace" group, Citizen’s Keep America Out of War Committee.

Chicago
invited Charles A. Lindbergh to speak at Soldiers Field, which he accepted.

3 other important Committees formed under the sponsorship of certain isolationist Senators & Representatives:

The Islands for War Debts Committee
War Debts Defense Committee
Make Europe Pay War Debts Committee

Oct. 21, 1940, all these Committees attempted to unite into a single powerful anti-Administration and isolationist bloc, called the No Foreign Wars Committee.

Washington Conference
50 reps. from "peace" organizations
headed by Verne Marshall, Mid-Western isolationist newspaper publisher.
financed in part by oil man William Rhoads Davis, who had large investments in Germany.

The America First Committee

1940, organized by R. Douglas Stuart, Jr.

- Yale University
- heir to the Quaker Oats fortune.

speaker at an early meeting was Charles A. Lindberg.
more promising than the other committees.

Chapter 9 - "The Head and Brains"

George Sylvester Vierek

kept portraits of Hitler & Kaiser Wilhelm in his NY apartment.
July 1940, used Congressman Fish’s office to send out copies of Sen. Lundeen’s speeches.
born in Munich, Germany 1884.
became an American citizen in 1901.
employ of German Imperialism.
WWI defended the Kaiser’s Germany & spread propaganda opposing America’s entry into the war siding with the Allies.
received $100,000 from the Central Powers for his propaganda services during WWI.
$$ from paymasters connected with the von Papen sabotage ring.

- such as Dr. Consantin Dumba, Ambassador of Austria-Hungary and one of the 1st diplomats to be expelled from the U.S.
- such as Count Johann Heinrich von Bernstorff, German Ambassador to Washington who supervised sabotage operations in America.

went to work for Hitler when he came to power.
Received $$ from Dr. Otto Kiep, Nazi Consul General in New York.
received $$ from an American publicity firm which was under contract to the German Tourist Bureau.
"correspondent" for a Munich newspaper edited by Dr. Giselher Wirsing, an assistant of Dr. Goebbels.
received $500 a month from the German Library of Information, the official Nazi propaganda agency in NYC.

- Viereck edited the Library’s publication Facts in Review and sent it free to prominent Americans.

Viereck was registered with the U.S. State Dept. as a paid propaganda agent of the Gov. of the Third Reich.

Flanders Hall, Inc. in New Jersey

financed by Viereck, fronted for him.
small publishing concern incorporated by the Hauck brothers.
1915, the father, Adolf Hauck,Sr. & Viereck served on a committee "raising funds for German war orphans."
by mid-summer 1940 published a dozen propaganda books.

- original texts provided by German Institute of Information in Berlin.

reprinted a speech by Sen. Ernest Lundeen attacking Lord Lothian, then (6/40)British Ambassador to the U.S. (Vierick had written the speech for Sen. Lundeen)
published a manuscript by Rep. Stephen A. Day of Illinois, attacking the policy of the Administration.
ex-Senator Rush D. Holt of W. Virginia wrote a book for Flanders Hall but was never published. But Viereck sent a manuscript to Berlin which was intercepted by the British at Bermuda.
To help prevent Roosevelt’s $4.8 billion Selective Service Bill (defense program) from passing in Congress, Viereck wrote speeches for Sen. Lundeen.

- just before giving one of Viereck’s speeches, Aug. 31, 1940, Sen. Lundeen was killed in a plane crash. So a similar version was delivered by Theodore H. Hoffman, head of the Steuben Society.

The Franking Privilege

Viereck figured out that by placing pro-Axis propaganda in the Congressional Record tens of thousands of reprints could be mailed out postage-free by Congressmen using the "franking privilege."
many Congressmen used for this probably didn’t know what was going on.

To avoid direct contact with Rep. Fish’s office Viereck had Prescott Dennet set up a special propaganda "committee" in Wash. D.C. in spring 1940.

an isolationist publicist in Wash. D.C.
operated under 3 different names:

- War Debts Defense Committee
- Make Europe Pay War Debts Committee
- Islands for War Debts Committee

franked envelopes for addressing went to the Christian Front, Silver Shirts, America First Committee, & others.

- William Dudley Pelley sent out brochures advertising the "Protocols of Zion."
- one chief re-distributor for American First was Ralph Townsend, a paid Japanese agent in San Francisco.

German propaganda objectives:

strengthen and replenish Germany.
weaken and harass Germany’s foe’s.
keep America out of the war.

Chapter 10 - "America First!"

The America First Committee rally in Philadelphia 5/29/41

16,000 attended, some gave nazi salute when cheering.
none of the speakers really knew that Germany was behind it, pulling the strings.
Charles A. Lindbergh called for the overthrow of the Roosevelt Administration. "Are we going to let Jews run this country?"

At Charles Lindbergh’s suggestion, Douglas Stuart, Jr. asked General Robert E. Wood (Chairman of the Board of Sears, Roebuck & Co.) to lead America First.

Stuart met with wealthy ex-diplomat William R. Castle.

former Under-Secretary of State in the Hoover Administration.
in close touch with former Pres. Hoover, Sen. Burton K. Wheeler, Gen. Wood, Charles Lindbergh, Alice Roosevelt Longworth, & other anti-Administration bigwigs.
his views were publicized in official German and Japanese propaganda journals.

America First Committee financed by:

William H. Regnery, Chicago millionaire.
Clay Judson, Chicago attorney
Stuart
Gen. Wood

The original committee included:

Henry Ford, given a medal by Hitler.
Avery Brundage, former Chairman of the American Olympic Games Committee when in Berlin 1936.
Charles A. Lindbergh, later the Committee’s #1 hero & spokesman, medal from Hitler.

Main objective - Keep America out of the War!

Many were probably sincere, not knowing they were dupes of Nazi & Japanese agents.

Jan. 22, 1941, Short-wave radio broadcast by Dr. Joseph Paul Goebbels, Propaganda Minister for the Third Reich: "The America First Committee is truly American and truly patriotic!"

Members of he German American Bund moved quietly into the chapters of the America First Committee. Other supporters were: William Pelley’s Silver Shirts, The Christian Fronters, the KKK, White Russian Fascists, Christian Mobilizers, & others.

The American Legion in California found that the entire fifth column in the U.S. had joined the America First movement.

Laura Ingalls

popular & powerful speaker for the America First Committee.
famous aviatrix
paid Nazi agent
socialite, dancer, actress
Sept. 1939, "bombed" the White House with anti-war leaflets.
$$ came from Baron Ulrich von Gienanth, head of the Gestapo in the U.S. (his title was Second Secretary of the German Embassy in Washington).
worked with Hans Thomson, The German Charge’ d’Affaires.
Fritz Weidemann, German Consul in San Francisco.
arrested by the FBI for failing to register as an agent of the Third Reich. Sentenced to 8 months to 2 years.

Frank B. Burch, distinguished member of the Akron, Ohio community.

a founder of the America First Committee in Akron, Ohio.
elected to state Senate in 1923.
hated Roosevelt & the New Deal.
1939 duped by Dr. Karl Kapp, German Consul at Cleaveland, fell for he "international Jew" line.
gave lists of names to Kapp, who turned them over to George Sylvester Vierek.
front for Nazi propaganda in the mid-west.
Sept. 1941 indicted for not registering as an agent of the German Gov.

1939 Hollywood, a screenwriter takes a trip to Nazi Germany. His list:

Fraulein Reimann, German Embassy (London).
Herr Leichtenstern, one of Goebbels’ right-hand men.
Herr Bohle (Ernst Wilhelm Bohle), specialist in psychological saboage in U.S.

He came back with $$, some of it he gave to G. Allison Phelps.

head of "The American Group" in Hollywood.
had a radio broadcast in Hollywood, KMTR.
said Hollywood was controlled by "alien forces" & "communists" who were producing movies to involve the U.S. in the war against Germany.
fall 1940, published a pamphlet with names of "Reds" (all Jewish names) in Hollywood. An almost identical list of names appeared in the 1/12/40 issue of the official Nazi propaganda newsletter, Welt-Dienst.

A year prior to the Welt-Dienst issue Hitler spoke out against Hollywood. Said it was a center of anti-Nazism, democracy and communism, can’t be tolerated any longer.

Shortly after, Fritz Kuhn, Fuehrer of the German American Bund, demanded a "thorough cleansing of the Hollywood film industry of all alien, subversive elements."

William Dudley Pelley printed an article: "Who’s Who In Hollywood - Find the Gentile!"

Early 1941, G. Allison Phelps began broadcasting demands for an investigation of the movie industry. He then went to Washingon D.C. & worked out of the office of Sen. Robert Rice Reynolds of N. Carolina.

Returned to the West Coast and broadcasted that his efforts in Washington would soon be apparent.

At the request of Senator Gerald P. Nye of N. Dakota, on Aug. 1 1941 Sen. Bennett Champ Clark of Missouri introduced Senate Resolution No. 152, which said that movies & radio have been used for propaganda for participation in the war. Therefore, the Committee on Interstate Commerce will investigate any propaganda by the movie industry.

The Committee on Interstate Commerce was headed by Senator Burton K. Wheeler of Montana, leader of the America First Committee congressional bloc.

The America First "investigators" objected to the anti-Nazi films:

The Great Dictator
Confessions of a Spy
Escape
Man Hunt
I Married a Nazi

but not the Nazi-produced films, like Victory In The West.

Wendell Willkie made public statements exposing the anti-Hollywood witch-hunt and the "investigation" was dropped.

Lake Geneva, Wisconsin

The office of Scribner’s Commentator magazine moved there.

- published by Douglas M. Seward, editor George T. Egleston, both promoted America First Committee and Lindbergh.

Summer of 1941 became the unofficial headquarters of the America First Committee.
visitors that summer included Charles Lindbergh, General Robert E. Wood, Senator Burton Wheeler, Senator Gerald Nye, ex-Senator Rush Holt, Ralph Townsend (secret Japanese agent from San Francisco), Louise Carus (also joined the editorial staff, daughter of German-American industrialist of La Salle, Illinois, at whose home Nazi spy Dr. Auhagen was arrested by federal agents). Seward Bishop Collins

- wealthy former NY editor
- moved into a large estate at Lake Geneva.
- stored short-wave radio equipment in his garage.
- 1938 provided bail for Mrs. Ignatz Griebl, wife of he Nazi spy who fled the U.S. that year.
- had a bookstore in NYC, meeting place for fifth columnists.

In August 1941 Stewerd & Eggleson published the 1st issue of their newspaper The Herald.

pro-Nazi propaganda.
plugged America First Committee.

Later, when facing the Washington Federal Grand Jury for Axis propaganda, they said they got $100,000 from Charles S. Payson, NY millionaire & admirer of Linbergh, but the money mostly went to finance Scribner’s Commentator. They said the $30,000 that financed The Herald was given to them anonymously, they didn’t know who it was. The source of The Herald’s foreign news came straight from the Propaganda Ministries of Berlin, Rome, & Tokyo, via short-wave radio.

Their publications were distributed throughout the country for free.

Also mailed out copies to the U.S. armed forces.

This was psychological sabotage.

Sept. 11, 1941 - Lindbergh declared that only 3 groups wanted war: "The British, the Jewish, and the Roosevelt Administration."

The German American Bund proposed Lindbergh for President of the U.S.

Col. Joseph M. Patterson’s Daily News called for the formation of an "American First Party."

Col. Robert R. McCormick’s Chicago Tribune called for an "America First Party."

Nov. 1941 secret meeting in Wash. to discuss political plans for the America First Committee.

General Wood
Senators Nye, Wheeler, Taft
Reps. Karl Mundt & Day, and others.

Their plans:

1) launch campaign to impeach Sec. of Navy Frank Knox.
2) align the clergy against aid to the Soviet Union by stressing the "Bolshevik menace."
3) non-interventionist propaganda, more than before.
4) set up an America First Party in time for the 1942 elections.

Dec. 7, 1941 - Japan bombs Pearl Harbor.

Chapter 11 - "America At War"

Dec. 12, 1941 - The America First Committee officially disbanded.

Dec. 17, 1941 - secret meeting at the home of Edwin Sibley Webster Jr., wealthy Wall Street broker and former Exec. Director of the NY Chapter of the American First Committee.

Lindbergh
Horace J. Haase

Haase said they would come to power later, with Lindbergh the leader.

A few weeks later Haase set up an organization called "Americans for Peace."

3 days before Pearl Harbor the Chicago Tribune printed highly confidential military information. Sec. of War Henry L. Stimson denounced it saying they revealed military secrets to the enemy.

The psychological sabotage continued after the war:

undermine the people’s confidence in wartime leadership
stirring up prejudices against Allied nations
racial propaganda
artificial antagonisms between business and labor
William Randolph Hearst
Capt. Joseph M. Paterson
Capt. Robert R. McCormick
Sen. Gerald P. Nye
Rep. Clare E. Hoffman of Michigan
Rep. Martin Dies of Texas
Rep. Harold Knutson of Minnesota
Sen. Burton K. Wheeler of Montana
Sen. C. Wayland Brooks of Illinois
Rep. Stephen Day of Illinois
Rep. Dewey Short of Missouri
Rep. Paul Schafer of Michigan
Sen. Robert Rice Reynolds of N. Carolina, Chairman of the Senate Military Affairs Committee

Chapter 12 - "America Strikes Back"

The Axis powers underestimated America’s response to the war.

Many of the psychological saboteurs were sentenced to prison.

Special Grand Juries were set up in many parts of the U.S. to investigate enemy propaganda activities.

NY Grand Jury indicted many German American Bund members.
Washington Federal Grand Jury indicted many men and women for trying to sabotage the morale among American soldiers and sailors by picturing the United Nations as weak and ineffective, America’s leaders as untrustworthy and the war as a "Jewish plot."

Archibald MacLeish, Director of the Office of Facts and Figures, told the American Society of Newspaper Editors on April 17, 1942: "...the most pernicious and pervasive defeatism in not practiced by those who violate the statutes of their country openly. It is practiced by those who take scrupulous care to stay within the law – to come, as one of them is reported to have told his staff, 'as close to treason as I dare.'"

The tiny group of defeatist Congressmen continue their work in Washington D.C.

The answer to the problem of wartime psychological sabotage lies with the American people themselves.

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