“A hundred or more of their subordinates have been convicted of
various criminal offenses and sent to prison. Still more were promptly
interned in prison camps at the outbreak of war in 1917. The secret
army included all types, from bankers to longshoremen. Many of them
were conspicuous figures in American public life, and of these no small
part were allowed to remain at large under certain restrictions—and
under surveillance. Germany’s army in the United States was powerful
in numbers; the fact that so many agents were working destruction
probably hastened their discovery; the loyalty of many so-called
German-Americans was always questionable. The public mind, confused
as it had never been before by the news of war, was groping about for
sound fundamentals, and was being tantalized with false principles by
the politicians. Meanwhile Count von Bernstorff was watching Congress
and the President, Dr. Albert was busy in great schemes, Captain von
Papen was commanding an active army of spies, and Captain Boy-Ed was
engaged in a bitter fight with the British navy.”
But long after the departure of the principals for their native land
the enterprises they had inaugurated persisted.
Among the pre-war activities the German government made a contract with
Dr. Karl Buenz, American head of the Hamburg-American Line, for the
provisioning, during war, of German ships at sea, the contract being
jealously guarded in the German Embassy at Washington. Merchant ships
were to be used for the purpose. July 31, 1914, a cablegram from Berlin
called on Dr. Buenz to begin filling his contract. The first ship to
be loaded (with coal) was the _Berwind_, and the question arose as
to who among the conspirators should apply for the clearance papers.
Finally G. B. Kulenkampff, a banker and exporter, was directed to do
so. He swore to a false manifest of the cargo and got the papers.
The _Berwind_ carried food as well as coal for the provisioning of
German warships to be found at secretly designated points, and her
destination was not Buenos Ayres as the clearance papers declared, so
the United States was unwittingly a party to German naval operations,
on the third day of the war, by German mendacity. The _Berwind_ sailed
for a little island known as Trinidad (not the British West Indian
island) about 70° east of Brazil, and there her cargo was transferred
to five German ships, one of which was the _Kap-Trafalgar_, presently
sunk by the British auxiliary cruiser, the _Carmania_, which steamed
into view while the _Trafalgar_, the _Berwind_ and one other of the
vessels were still at Trinidad.
It is interesting to know that most of the ships chartered for this
lawless purpose did not carry out the intention. The _Unita_ was one of
them and we are told:
“Her skipper was Eno Olsen, a Canadian citizen born in Norway.
Urhitzler, the German spy placed aboard, made the mistake of assuming
that Olsen was friendly to Germany. He gave him his ‘orders,’ and the
skipper balked. ’“Nothing doing,” I told the supercargo,’ Captain Olsen
testified later, with a Norwegian twist to his pronunciation. ‘She’s
booked to Cadiz, and to Cadiz she goes!’ So the supercargo offered me
$500 to change my course. “Nothing doing—nothing doing for a million
dollars,” I told him. The third day out he offered me $10,000. Nothing
doing. So,’ announced Captain Olsen with finality, ‘I sailed the
_Unita_ to Cadiz and after we got there I sold the cargo and looked up
the British consul.’”
Under the Buenz contract twelve ships were either purchased or
chartered at a total cost of $1,419,394, and it is said that of their
shiploads of supplies less than $30,000 worth were ever transferred to
German war vessels. Buenz, after much delay in the proceedings, was
sentenced to eighteen months’ imprisonment in the Federal penitentiary
at Atlanta.