CAPTAIN VON PAPEN, BUYER OF PASSPORTS AND PROMOTER OF SEDITION
Three other phases of Captain von Papen’s campaigns against the Allies
upon American territory as a base of operations remain to be set forth.
They are his supervision of a bureau for obtaining fraudulent passports
for German reservists ordered home to fight for the Fatherland, the
fomentation of insurrections in the colonies of the Allies and of war
between Mexico and the United States.
PASSPORT FORGERIES
The passport bureau is a striking instance of Germany’s disregard of the
rights and laws in a neutral country. With the sending of Great
Britain’s ultimatum to Germany, the cable between Germany and the United
States had been cut. The United States forbade the use of wireless for
the transmission of messages in code to Germany, or the use of the cable
for cipher dispatches to the warring countries. The Allies’ war vessels
began at once to search all passenger ships for German citizens, taking
them off and sending them to concentration camps. Meantime, von Papen,
Boy-Ed and the other German officials realized the utmost necessity of
transmitting to their respective home offices information concerning the
developments in America. They knew also the vital necessity of sending
back to Berlin, army and naval officers who had been selected and
trained for special commissions in the event of war.
But they had been taught in their early days the value of fraudulent
passports, and to these they turned at once. The Germans had at first no
regular passport bureau for the aid of German reservists. Every German,
left to his own resources, did the best he could under the
circumstances. Carl A. Luederitz, German consul in Baltimore, has been
indicted on a charge of conspiracy in connection with obtaining a
fraudulent passport for Horst von der Goltz under the name of Bridgeman
Taylor. The young German has confessed that with the aid of Herr
Luederitz he applied for a passport and on August 31, 1914, obtained one
bearing the signature of William J. Bryan, then Secretary of State. To
get that document von der Goltz took an oath that he was born in San
Francisco.
But this method was rather loose, and upon Captain von Papen devolved
the necessity of establishing a regular system. The military attaché,
always resourceful and daring, selected for the work Lieutenant Hans von
Wedell. Von Wedell had been a newspaper reporter in New York, later a
lawyer; but when he received orders from Captain von Papen, he gladly
undertook the work in New York, bureaus being started in other cities.
He opened an office in Bridge Street, New York, and began to send out
emissaries to Germans in Hoboken, directing them to apply for passports.
He sent others to the haunts of hoboes on the Bowery, to the cheap
hotels, and other gathering places of the downs-and-outs, offering ten,
fifteen and twenty dollars to men who would apply for passports. He
spent much time at the Deutscher Verein, at the Elks clubhouse, where he
would meet his agents, give them instructions and receive passports. His
bills were paid by Captain von Papen, as revealed by the attaché’s
cheques and counterfoils. These show that on November 24, 1914, von
Papen paid him $500; that on December 5, he gave him $500 and then $300,
the latter being for journey money; that he paid von Wedell’s bills at
the Deutscher Verein, amounting in November, 1914, to $38.05. Meantime,
he was using Mrs. von Wedell as a courier, sending her with messages to
Germany. On December 22, 1914, he paid Mrs. von Wedell, by his own
account, $800.
BUYING PASSPORTS WHOLESALE
The passports which von Wedell, and later on his successor Carl Ruroede,
Sr., obtained, were used for the benefit of German officers whom the
General Staff had ordered back to Berlin. American passports, then
Mexican, Swiss, Norwegian and the passports of South American countries,
were seized eagerly by various reservists bound for the front. Stories
were told in New York of Germans and Austrians, who had been captured by
the Russians, sent to Siberia as prisoners of war, escaping therefrom,
and making their way by caravan through China, embarking on vessels
bound for America, arriving in New York and thence shipping for neutral
countries. Among them was an Austrian officer, an expert observer in
aeroplane reconnaissance, who lost both his feet in Siberia, but who
escaped to this country. He was ordered home because of his extreme
value in reconnoitring. The British learned of him, however, and took
him off a ship at Falmouth to spend the remainder of the war in a prison
camp.
Captain von Papen used the passport bureau to obtain passports for spies
whom he wished to send to England, France, Italy and Russia. Among these
men were Kuepferle and von Breechow, both of whom were captured in
England, having in their possession fraudulent passports. Kuepferle and
von Breechow both confessed.
But so reckless was von Wedell’s and Ruroede’s work that the authorities
soon discovered the practice. Two hangers-on at the Mills Hotel called
upon the writer one day and told him of von Wedell’s practices, related
how they had blackmailed him out of $50, gave his private telephone
numbers and set forth his haunts. As a result of this and other
information reaching the Department of Justice, Albert G. Adams, a
clever agent, started out one day, got into the confidence of Ruroede
and offered to get passports for him for $50 each. Meantime, von Wedell
had gone on a trip to Cuba, apparently on passport matters, and Adams,
posing as a pro-German, got into the inner ring of the passport-buyers.
He was informed by Ruroede as to what was wanted.
CHANGING OFFICIAL STAMPS
Though in the early days of the war it had not been necessary for the
applicant to give to the Federal authorities anything more than a
general description of himself, the reports of German spies in the
Allies’ countries became so insistent that the Government directed that
the document, bearing the United States seal, must have the picture of
the person to whom it was issued. The Germans, however, were not
worried. It was a simple matter to give a general description of a man’s
eyes, colour of hair, age and so forth, that would fit the man who was
actually to use the document and then forward the picture of the
applicant, who, getting the passport, would sell it. Even though the
official stamp was placed on the picture, the Germans were not dismayed.
Federal Agent Adams rushed into Ruroede’s office one day waving five
passports which had been issued to him in a batch by Uncle Sam. Adams
seemed proud of his work. Ruroede was delighted.
“I knew I could get these passports easily,” boasted Ruroede. “Why, if
Lieutenant Hans von Wedell had kept on here, he never could have done
this. He always was getting into a muddle.”
“But how can you use these passports with these pictures on them?” asked
the agent, curiously.
“Oh, that’s easy,” answered Ruroede. “Come into the back room and I’ll
show you.” The agent followed the German, who immediately soaked one of
the passports with a damp cloth and with adhesive paste fastened a
photograph of another man over the original upon which the imprint of
the United States seal had been made.
“We wet the photograph,” said Ruroede, “and then we affix the picture of
the man who is to use it. The new photograph also is dampened, but when
it is fastened to the passport, there still remains a sort of vacuum in
spots between the new picture and the old, because of ridges made by the
seal. Well, turn the passport upside down, place it on a soft ground
made with a silk handkerchief, and then, taking a paper cutter with a
dull point, just trace the letters on the seal. The result is that the
new photograph looks exactly as if it had been stamped by Uncle Sam. You
can’t tell the difference.”
Through the work of Adams, four Germans, one of them an officer of the
German reserves, were arrested on the Norwegian-America liner
_Bergensfjord_, outward bound to Bergen, Norway. They had passports
issued to them through Ruroede’s bureau under the American names of
Howard Paul Wright, Herbert S. Wilson, Peter Hansen and Stanley F.
Martin. Their real names were Arthur Sachse, Pelham Heights, N.Y., who
was returning to Germany to become a lieutenant in the German Army;
Walter Miller, August R. Meyer, and Herman Wegener, who had come to New
York from Chile, on their way to the Fatherland. Ruroede pleaded guilty
and was sentenced to three years in Atlanta, Ga., prison. The four
Germans, also pleading guilty, protested they had taken the passports
out of patriotism and were fined $200 each.
Von Wedell, himself, was a passenger on the steamer _Bergensfjord_, but
when he was lined up with the other passengers, the Federal agents, who
did not have a description of him, were deceived, and let the vessel
proceed. He was taken off the ship by the British and placed in prison.
The arrest of Ruroede exposed the New York bureau, and made it necessary
for the Germans to shift their base of operations; but it did not put an
end to the fraudulent passport conspiracies, as will be shown. In the
face of the exposures, so daring were the German agents that they
continued to commit fraud upon the United States, and to put in danger
every honest American travelling in Europe with an American passport.
FOMENTING REVOLTS
Captain von Papen was a supervisor and a promoter of sedition. His
headquarters in Wall Street were the centre of lines running out to
British and French colonies, where Germany planned at critical moments
to start revolutions, if it would help her interests.
One of the enterprises which Captain von Papen, acting under orders from
Berlin, supervised in the United States, was a revolt against British
rule in India. Preparations for this insurrection had been in the making
for years, and, in the course of all of them, German agents were working
with the Hindus and also with the German-Irish in America, the latter
organization being really headquarters for many Hindus travelling from
Germany to England, then to United States, on their way back to India.
There has been for years a sort of understanding between pro-German
Irish and certain members of an American society interested in India. In
this organization, prior to the war, were men who were plotting a
revolution in India, who were in touch with German agents and who
received German money.
Immediately after the outbreak of the war, von Papen and his agents
poured more money into Hindu pockets, and made arrangements to supply
arms and ammunition to Hindus. For the promotion of this German-Hindu
conspiracy, two other centres were established. One was fathered by
Germans in San Francisco, and another was at Shanghai, China.
Confessions by men, who were active in the enterprise, tell how Hindus
in sympathy with the sedition plots conferred with certain German
officials in Berlin, that they came to New York—this in the course of
the war—where they met certain pro-German-Irishmen and were aided
financially. From New York they journeyed to Chicago, where more money
was handed to them, and then to San Francisco, where they had talks with
Hindu revolutionists—whose openly avowed aim is in rousing the people of
India to celebrate the year 1917, “the diamond jubilee of the mutiny of
1857,” by a general and universal rising against British rule in India.
HINDUS LAUNCH BOMB CAMPAIGN
Many Hindus, who were assembled in the West, also had an opportunity to
study the fine art of explosive and bomb making at a bomb factory up in
the state of Washington. On several occasions groups of Hindus equipped
with money and carrying secretly arms with them sailed from San
Francisco for the Philippines, planning thence to go to India.
Furthermore, ships were chartered by German agencies to carry arms and
ammunition to India and Ceylon. The American schooner _Annie Larsen_ and
the ship _Maverick_, both owned by a man named Fred Jebsen, a German
naval officer, were chartered on the Pacific coast to sail for India in
June, 1915. The _Annie Larsen_ was seized by the United States officials
at Hoquiam, Washington, and on board was found a cargo of rifles and
ammunition. The _Maverick_, however, got away also equipped with rifles
and cartridges, carrying a number of Hindus. The good ship had a most
eventful voyage, the sailors and the passengers suffering many
hardships, and finally reached Batavia, where she was seized by the
Dutch authorities.
In the early stages of his plans, Captain von Papen had an opportunity
to send a rather detailed report of events in India to the secret office
in Berlin. The chance came through Captain Archibald, who was about to
sail from this country, and Captain von Papen, accordingly, prepared in
code a long message. This document, which has been translated, is
illuminating. Here it is:
* * * * *
“Since October, 1914, there have been various local mutinies of
Mohammedan native troops, one practically succeeding the other. From the
last reports, it appears that the Hindu troops are going to join the
mutineers.
“The Afghan army is ready to attack India. The army holds the position
on one side of the Utak River. The British army is reported to hold the
other side of the said river. The three bridges connecting both sides
have been blown up by the British.
“In the garrison located on the Kathiawar Peninsula, Indian mutineers
stormed the arsenal. Railroad and wireless station have been destroyed.
The Sikh troops have been removed from Beluchistan; only English,
Mohammedans and Hindu troops remain there.
“The Twenty-third Cavalry Regiment at Lahore revolted; the police
station and Town House were stormed. The Indian troops in Somaliland in
Labakoran are trying to effect a junction with the Senussi. All Burmah
is ready to revolt.
“In Calcutta, unrest is reported with street fighting; in Lahore, a bank
was robbed; every week at least two Englishmen are killed; in the
north-western district many Englishmen killed, munitions and other
material taken, railroads destroyed; a relief train was repulsed.
“Everywhere great unrest, in Benares a bank has been stormed.
“Revolts in Chitral very serious; barracks and Government buildings
destroyed. The Hurti Mardin Brigade, under General Sir E. Wood, has been
ordered there. Deputy Commissioner of Lahore wounded by a bomb in the
Anakali Bazaar.
“Mohammedan squadron of the cavalry regiment in Nowschera deserted over
Chang, south-west Peshawar. Soldiers threw bombs against the family of
the Maharajah of Mysore. One child and two servants killed, his wife
mortally wounded.
“In Ceylon a state of war has been declared.”
* * * * *
THE REVOLT IN IRELAND
The extensive conspiracy on the part of Germany to start a revolt in
Ireland has been thoroughly set forth in the public prints in connection
with the arrest and trial of Sir Roger Casement as a rebel. Sir Roger
worked openly among the Irish prisoners in Germany, travelling backwards
and forwards between Ireland and Germany by means of a German submarine.
Nevertheless, a very large and important American phase of this whole
revolution occupied von Papen’s attention prior to his recall. German
agents here were in touch with the Irishmen in America, who were
actively co-operating with Patrick H. Pearse.
German funds were poured into Irish hands in America, the money being
used for the purchase of arms and the printing of seditious papers and
leaflets. More than $100,000 was collected in America for Ireland
between September, 1914, and April, 1915. Plans also were worked out
with the aid of Germans in America to ship arms and supplies to the
Irish rebels.
There also have been vague reports of dramatic schemes in America to arm
the Arabs in northern Africa and start an uprising against British rule.
There have been signs of dramatic plottings to stir up trouble in
Afghanistan and in Egypt. It is a fact that various attempts have been
made to ship rifles and cartridges from the United States to South
America and then from South America to Africa. Some of these have proved
successful. In other cases, the shipments have been stopped.
FORCING WAR IN THE UNITED STATES
_Throughout all the crises arising between the United States and Germany
over the submarine campaign, German agents constantly kept in view the
possibility of a war between their country and this nation._ They
prepared for it.
“Before I left New York,” confesses von der Goltz, “I had some
conversation with Captain von Papen about the war, and while speaking of
the end of the war Captain von Papen said: ‘_Should things start to look
bad for us, there will be something happen over here._’ In connection
with other statements of his, he speculated on America joining Germany,
or on a possible uprising.” The significance of that remark was shown
two years and a half later when on January 31, 1917, three days before
the break between the United States and Germany, an order went forth
from the German Embassy in Washington. Immediately the machinery of
every German merchantman interned in American ports was wrecked. The
damage was $30,000,000.
Here again Captain von Papen’s and Captain Boy-Ed’s advice and orders
were involved. _It devolved_ upon Captain von Papen not only to keep in
thorough touch with the development of American military affairs, but
also _to study constantly the topography of the United States, the plan
of cities and their surroundings from a military viewpoint. Upon him
fell the task of stationing German reservists in the various cities and
towns where, in case of hostilities, they would be valuable to the
German cause._ German efficiency and foresight came to the front in
connection with these plans. _There were under consideration at one time
when the crisis between the United States and Germany was acute,
military plans to start a reign of terror in America._
First of all, Captain von Papen and Captain Boy-Ed _supervised the
purchase of ground near New York and Boston, which was to be used for
the construction of concrete bases for big guns in the same manner in
which the Germans prepared in Belgium, England and France prior to the
war_. There is absolute proof that German representatives spent money
for this purpose, and that they caused to be built foundations that
could be used for big guns for the purpose of making an attack upon New
York City, for instance. But that was only a part of the scheme.
When von Papen and his colleague Boy-Ed were recalled, it was announced
by the State Department that the reason was “improper activities in
military and naval affairs.” A brief summary of Captain von Papen’s
activities shows that he violated the courtesies extended to him as a
diplomatic agent in secretly sending code messages by couriers; that he
handed out money for fraudulent passports; that he schemed in military
enterprises against Canada; that he plotted with Ambassador Dumba to
start strikes in American factories; that he plotted in connection with
other criminal activities in this country, such as blowing up factories;
that he was a promoter of seditious enterprises; and that he and his
associates schemed to start war between the United States and Mexico.
When he set foot upon the gangway of the steamship _Noordam_, homeward
bound, he said: “I leave my post without any feeling of bitterness,
because I know full well that when history is once written it will
establish our clean record, despite all the misrepresentations spread
broadcast.” But at the moment he handed out that statement he was
carrying under his arm a portfolio which was a veritable diary of his
payments to law-breakers. Again he gave proof of his expression about
“stupid Americans,” because he thought he could make those “stupid
Americans” believe him, and that he could sneak the proofs of his
law-breaking past the British at Falmouth. Again the stupidity was on
his side.