After living for ten years in France, they were discovered giving
information to the Germans by telephone. They confessed and were shot.]
Later suspicions were aroused by the activities of the German wireless,
but the German operators were not at once removed. The United States
began taking down the seemingly meaningless jargon that came every
morning from the Nauen Station near Berlin. It was two years later,
however, that a key to the jumble was discovered and the code revealed.
Two codes in fact were found.
“The chief significance of the discovery of the two codes is their
conclusive proof that while von Bernstorff was protesting to the
American government that he could not get messages through to Berlin,
nor replies from the Foreign Office, he was actually in daily, if
not hourly, communication with his superiors. Messages were sent out
by his confidential operators under the very eyes of the American
naval censors. After the break of diplomatic relations with Berlin,
in February, 1917, the authorities set to work decoding the messages,
and the State Department from time to time issued for publication
certain of the more brutal proofs of Germany’s violation of American
neutrality. The Ambassador and his Washington establishment had served
for two years and a half as the ‘central exchange’ of German affairs in
the western world. After his departure communication from German spies
here was handicapped only by the time required to forward information
to Mexico; from that point to Berlin air conversation continued
uninterrupted.”
It may be noted in passing that Captain Karl Grasshof of the cruiser
_Geier_, that took refuge from the British by tying up in Honolulu
harbor, gave high proof of the German nice sense of honor in respect
of hospitality. He instituted a series of afternoon concerts by the
ship’s band, that the music might drown out the noise of the wireless
apparatus as he sent messages to raiders at sea or threw off false
reports in English, the purpose of which was to make trouble between
the United States and Japan. He said at one time that von Papen
inspired this peculiar treachery, but afterwards denied it.