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[Illustration:
© Harris & Ewing
ATTORNEY-GENERAL THOMAS W. GREGORY
Who directed the nation-wide work of arresting and prosecuting
German plotters and of interning dangerous enemy aliens]
FIGHTING
GERMANY’S SPIES
By
FRENCH STROTHER
[Illustration: (Publisher colophon)]
_Illustrated_
GARDEN CITY NEW YORK
DOUBLEDAY PAGE & COMPANY
1918
COPYRIGHT, 1918, BY
DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, INCLUDING THAT OF
TRANSLATION INTO FOREIGN LANGUAGES,
INCLUDING THE SCANDINAVIAN
_FOREWORD_
_“Fighting Germany’s Spies” is published to bring home to the
public in a detailed and convincing manner the character of the
German activities in the United States. By courtesy of the Bureau
of Investigation of the Department of Justice the facts and
documents of this narrative have been verified._
CONTENTS
PAGE
Foreword v
Introduction xi
CHAPTER
I. The inside story of the passport frauds and the first
glimpse of Werner Horn 3
II. The inside story of Werner Horn and the first glimpse
of the ship bombs 37
III. Robert Fay and the ship bombs 60
IV. The inside story of the Captain of the _Eitel Friedrich_ 83
V. James J. F. Archibald and his pro-German activities 92
VI. A tale told in telegrams 109
VII. German codes and ciphers 134
VIII. The Tiger of Berlin meets the Wolf of Wall Street 158
IX. The American Protective League 192
X. The German-Hindu conspiracy 223
XI. Dr. Scheele, chemical spy 258
LIST OF HALF-TONE ILLUSTRATIONS
Attorney-General Thomas W. Gregory _Frontispiece_
FACING PAGE
German agents who dealt in fraudulent passports 16
The official German plotters at Washington 32
Captain Thierichens and scenes on the _Eitel Friedrich_ 88
“When the water gets to the boilers” 112
Mr. A. Bruce Bielaski 152
Rintelen and his confederates 184
Officers of the American Protective League 200
LINE CUTS IN THE TEXT
PAGE
A German attaché reminds Bernstorff of Wedell 6
The successful use of a fraudulent passport 18
Von Papen and Albert appear as unneutral plotters 28, 29
The card “of the guileless stranger from Tokyo” 31
Von Papen becomes accessory to a crime 33
Two of Ruroede’s visitors’ credentials 34
Horn’s application for a furlough 39
Werner Horn’s plan of escape 41
Werner Horn’s commission in the German army 48, 49
Werner Horn’s confession 56, 57
The _Lusitania_ warning 94, 95
Code message transmitting money to Sir Roger Casement 137
A letter from John Devoy, an Irish-American, exposing his
hand in a plot with the Germans 140
Extracts from a German code expert’s blotter 147
Bolo’s handwriting 148
A tale told in cablegrams 150, 151
The Cohalan-Irish Revolution message 154, 155
INTRODUCTION
Espionage has always been to Americans one of the hateful relics
of an outworn political system of Europe from which America was
fortunately free. We lived in an atmosphere not tainted with
dynastic ambitions or internal oppression. We had no secret agents
spying and plotting in other countries and were slow to suspect
other countries of doing such things here.
The war, however, disillusioned us. We found our soil to be
infested with representatives of an unscrupulous Power which did
not hesitate to violate our hospitality and break its most sacred
pledges in using this country as a base for unneutral plots against
France and Great Britain. We soon learned that these plots were
directed against us as well. They were only another manifestation
of the spirit which led to the open hostility of Germany which
forced us into war.
For a time we were at a great disadvantage in meeting the
situation. We had no secret police; we had no laws adequate to deal
with these novel offenses.
The Department of Justice met the situation, so far as it could
under existing law, by a great enlargement of its Bureau of
Investigation, and by the creation of a legal division devoted
entirely to problems arising out of the war. Congress substantially
supplied the deficiency in the laws by the passage of appropriate
statutes. Under the powers obtained in these two directions the
Department proceeded vigorously to the suppression of sedition, the
internment of enemy aliens, and the prosecution of German agents.
Its success is, I feel, attested by the absence of disorder in
this country under war-time conditions. Open German activities
have long since ceased here and the more subtle operations have
been driven so far under cover as to be ineffective. In this work
the Department of Justice has had the efficient and loyal aid of
private citizens, who have responded generously to a patriotic
impulse, through the agency of the American Protective League and
similar organizations.
Mr. Strother’s narrative covers some of the more outstanding cases
of the period when German plotting was at its height. The failure
of these plots and the retribution visited upon the evil-doers are
evidences, not merely of governmental efficiency, but of that of
old, age-old, substantive laws of morality, which Germany as a
nation has undertaken to flout--as we now know, in vain--both here
and elsewhere.
T. W. GREGORY
Attorney-General.
Washington, D. C.
August 14, 1918.
FIGHTING GERMANY’S SPIES
FIGHTING GERMANY’S SPIES
CHAPTER I
THE INSIDE STORY OF THE PASSPORT FRAUDS
AND
THE FIRST GLIMPSE OF WERNER HORN
When Carl Ruroede, the “genius” of the German passport frauds,
came suddenly to earth in the hands of agents of the Department
of Justice and unbosomed himself to the United States Assistant
District Attorney in New York, he said sadly:
“I thought I was going to get an Iron Cross; but what they ought to
do is to pin a little tin stove on me.”
The cold, strong hand of American justice wrung that very human cry
from Ruroede, who was the central figure (though far from the most
sinister or the most powerful) in this earliest drama of Germany’s
bad faith with neutral America--a drama that dealt in forgery,
blackmail, and lies that revealed in action the motives of greed
and jealousy and ambition, and that ended with three diplomats
disgraced, one plotter in the penitentiary, and another sent to a
watery grave in the Atlantic by a torpedo from a U-boat of the very
country he had tried to serve. This is the story:
Twenty-five days after the Kaiser touched the button which publicly
notified the world that Germany at last had decided that “The Day”
had come--to be exact, on August 25, 1914--Ambassador Bernstorff
wrote a letter effusively addressed to “My very honoured Mr. Von
Wedell.” (Ruroede had not yet appeared on the scene.) The letter
itself was more restrained than the address, but in it Bernstorff
condescended to accept tentatively an offer of Wedell’s to make
a nameless voyage. The voyage was soon made, for on September
24th Wedell left Rotterdam, bearing a letter from the German
Consul-General there, asking all German authorities to speed him
on his way to Berlin, because he was bearing dispatches to the
Foreign Office. Arrived in Berlin, Wedell executed his commission
and then called upon his uncle, Count Botho von Wedell, a high
functionary of the Foreign Office. He was aflame with a great idea,
which he unfolded to his uncle. The idea was approved, and right
after the elections in November he was back in New York to put it
into execution, incidentally bearing with him some letters handed
him by order of Mr. Ballin, head of the Hamburg-American Steamship
Company, and another letter “for a young lady who goes to America
in the interest of Germany.” If unhappy Wedell had let this be his
last voyage--but that belongs later in the story.
Wedell’s scheme was this: He learned in Berlin that Germany had at
home all the common soldiers she expected to need, but that more
officers were wanted. He was told that Germany cared not at all
whether the 100,000 reservists in America got home or not, but
that she cared very much indeed to get the 800 or 1,000 officers
in North and South America back to the Fatherland. Nothing but the
ocean and the British fleet stood in their way. The ocean might be
overcome. But the British fleet----? Wedell proposed the answer: He
would buy passports from longshoremen in New York--careless Swedes
or Swiss or Spaniards to whom $20 was of infinitely more concern
than a mere lie--and send the officers to Europe, armed with these
documents, as neutrals travelling on business. Once in Norway or
Spain or Italy, to get on into Germany would be easy.
For a few weeks Wedell got along famously. He bought passports and
papers showing nativity from Norwegian, Swedish, Danish, and Swiss
longshoremen and sailors. Meantime, he got in touch with German
reserve officers and passed them on to Europe on these passports.
[Illustration: A GERMAN ATTACHÉ REMINDS BERNSTORFF OF WEDELL
This telegram is from Haniel von Haimhausen, the counsellor of
the German Embassy in Washington, and was sent in response to an
inquiry from Bernstorff for the name of the man who had offered to
act as a messenger to Germany for him. The message reads:
Count Bernstorff, care Ritz Carlton. Hans Adam von Wedell
attorney fifteen William Street, New York he has been introduced
by consul Hossenfelder, Haniel.]
But he was not content with these foreign passports. In the case
of a few exceptionally valuable German officers he wished to have
credentials that would be above all suspicion. Consequently, he set
about to gather a few American passports. Here his troubles began,
and here he added the gravest burden to his already great load of
culpabilities. For Von Wedell was an American citizen, and proud
of it. But he was prouder still of his German origin and his high
German connections, and in his eagerness to serve them he threw
overboard his loyalty to the land of his adoption.
Von Wedell applied to a friend of his, a certain Tammany lawyer of
pro-German sympathies, who had supplied him with a room belonging
to a well-known fraternal organization as a safe base from which
to handle his work in passports. What he wanted was an agent who
was an American and who had political acquaintanceship that would
enable him to work with less suspicion and with wider organization
in gathering American passports. Through the lawyer he came in
contact with an American, who for the purposes of this story may be
called Mr. Carrots, because that is not his name but is remotely
like it. Carrots seemed willing to go into the enterprise and at
a meeting in Von Wedell’s room Von Wedell carefully unfolded the
scheme, taking papers from a steel cabinet in the corner to show
a further reason why the American passports he already had would
soon be useless. This reason was that the Government was about to
issue an order requiring that a photograph of the bearer should be
affixed to the passport and that on this photograph should appear
half of the embossing raised by the impression of the seal of the
Department of State. He agreed to pay Carrots $20 apiece for all
genuine passports he would supply to him. Carrots accepted his
proposal and departed.
Instead of going out to buy passports, he went at once to the
Surveyor of the Port of New York, Mr. Thomas E. Rush, and told
him what Wedell was doing. Mr. Rush promptly got in touch with
his chief in the Treasury Department at Washington, who referred
the matter to the State Department, and they, in turn, to the
Department of Justice. The result was that Carrots went back to
Wedell about a week later and told him he would not be able to go
on with the work but would supply someone to take his place. This
was satisfactory to Wedell.
In the meantime, Wedell had introduced Carrots to a
fellow-conspirator, Carl Ruroede, a clerk in the ship forwarding
department of Oelrichs & Company--a man of little position, but
fired by the war with the ambition to make a name in German circles
that would put him in a position to succeed Oelrichs & Company as
the general agent of the North German Lloyd in New York.
About this time Wedell lost his nerve. He was a lawyer and
realized some of the possible consequences of certain of his acts.
He had had occasion to forge names to two passports; and also
he found out that he had reasons to suspect that he was under
surveillance. These reasons were very good: he had arranged for the
transportation to Italy of a German named Doctor Stark, using the
passport of a friend of his in the newspaper business named Charles
Raoul Chatillon. Wedell got wind of the fact that Stark had been
taken off the steamer _Duca de Aosta_ at Gibraltar, and was being
detained while the British looked up his credentials.
Wedell by this time was in a most unhappy plight. Bernstorff and
Von Papen had no use for him because he had been bragging about
the great impression he was going to make upon the Foreign Office
in Berlin by his work. If any impressions were to be made upon the
Foreign Office in Berlin by anybody in America, Bernstorff and
Von Papen wanted to make them. Wedell was so dangerously under
suspicion that Von Papen, Von Igel, and his Tammany lawyer friend
had all warned him he had better get out of the country. Wedell
took their advice and fled to Cuba.
The substitute whom Carrots had promised now entered the case, in
the person of a man who called himself Aucher, but who was in
reality a special agent of the Department of Justice. Aucher was
not introduced to Ruroede, the now active German, and so, when he
began his operations, he confronted the very difficult task of
making his own connections with a naturally suspicious person.
Carrots had been dealing with Ruroede after Wedell’s disappearance;
and, by the time he was ready to quit, Ruroede had told him that
“everything was off for the present,” but that if he would drop
around again to his office about January 7, 1915, he might make use
of him. Aucher, now on the case, did not wait for that date, but on
December 18th called on Ruroede at his office at room 204 of the
Maritime Building, at No. 8 Bridge Street, across the way from the
Customs House.
In this plainly furnished office Aucher appeared in the guise of a
Bowery tough. He succeeded admirably in this rôle--so well, indeed,
that Ruroede afterward declared that he “succeeded wonderfully in
impressing upon my mind that he was a gangman, and I had visions
of slung shots, pistol shots, and holdups” when he saw him. Aucher
opened the conversation by announcing:
“I’m a friend of Carrots.”
“That’s interesting,” was Ruroede’s only acknowledgment.
“He’s the guy that’s getting them passports for you,” went on
Aucher, “and all I wants to know is, did you give him any cush?”
“What do you mean?” asked Ruroede.
“Nix on that!” Aucher exclaimed. “You know what I mean. Did you
give that fellow any money?”
To which Ruroede replied: “I don’t see why I should tell you if I
did.”
“Well,” retorted Aucher, “I’ll tell you why. I’m the guy that
delivers the goods, and he swears he never got a penny from you.
Now did he?”
It was at this point that Ruroede had his visions of slung shots,
so he admitted he had paid Carrots $100 only a few days before.
“Well,” demanded Aucher, “ain’t there going to be any more?”
“Nope. Not now,” Ruroede replied. “Maybe next month.”
“Now see here,” said Aucher. “Let’s cut this guy out. He’s just
nothing but a booze fighter, and he’s been kidding you for money
without delivering the goods. What’s the matter with just fixing it
up between ourselves?”
Ruroede now tried to put Aucher off till Christmas, having recalled
meanwhile that the steamer _Bergensfjord_ was to sail on January
2d, and that he might need passports for officers travelling on
that ship. But Aucher protested that he was “broke,” and further
impressed on Ruroede that he had gotten no money from Carrots or
Wedell for his work for them. He also produced six letters written
by the State Department in answer to applicants for passports,
and finally convinced Ruroede of his good faith and that he ought
to start him to work right away. They haggled over the price,
and finally agreed on $20 apiece for passports for native-born
Americans and $30 apiece for passports of naturalized citizens--the
higher price for getting the latter because they involved more
red-tape and hence more risk. Aucher was to come back on December
24th and bring the passports and get some money on account.
On that day Aucher called at Ruroede’s office, and after further
quarrelling about Carrots and his honesty, Ruroede declared that
he was ready to do business. Aucher objected to the presence of a
young man in the room with them, and Ruroede replied:
“Oh, he’s all right. He’s my son, and you needn’t be afraid to talk
with him around.”
Aucher then produced an American passport, No. 45,573, made out in
the name of Howard Paul Wright, for use in Holland and Germany. It
was a perfectly good passport, too, as it had been especially made
out for the purpose by the Department of State at the request of
the Department of Justice. It bore Mr. Bryan’s genuine signature,
and a photograph of “Wright,” who was another agent of the Bureau
of Investigation. Aucher also declared he was on the way toward
getting the other five passports. Ruroede threw the Wright passport
on his desk and said:
“I’ll keep this. Go ahead and get the others.”
“What about money?” demanded Aucher.
“I’ll pay you $25 for it--no, I’ll do better than that. To show you
I mean business, take that,” and he threw a $100 bill on the table.
Ruroede also gave Aucher photographs of four German officers, and
begged him to get passports right away to fit their descriptions,
because he wanted to get these men off on the Norwegian Line
steamer _Bergensfjord_, sailing January 2d. He added that the
officers of the Norwegian Line had all been “smeared” (otherwise
“fixed”) and that they would “stand for anything.” He also said
that he would take at least forty more passports from Aucher, and
that he would want them right along for six months or a year,
depending on the length of the war.
Aucher delivered two more passports to Ruroede in his office on
the morning of December 30th. Ruroede was rather indifferent about
getting them, because--alas for the glory of the “invincible”
Prussian arms!--two of his German officers had gotten “cold feet”
and had refused to go. Ruroede told Aucher to come back at two
o’clock and he would give him $100. Aucher invited Ruroede to have
luncheon with him, and as they left the building Ruroede explained
with much pride that he had chosen his office here because the
building had several entrances on different sides of the block, and
he used one entrance only a few days at a time and then changed to
another to avoid suspicion.
The Government’s special agent complimented him highly on this bit
of cleverness in the art of evasion. Five minutes later the two
were sitting at a lunch counter with another special agent casually
lounging in and taking the seat next to his fellow operative,
where he could overhear and corroborate the account of Ruroede’s
conversation.
After a discussion of Wedell’s forgeries and present whereabouts,
and a further discussion of the buying of passports (in which
Ruroede confided to Aucher that “there is a German fund that was
sent over here for that purpose”) the pair walked back toward
Ruroede’s office. At the Whitehall Street entrance Ruroede told
Aucher to come around to the Bridge Street entrance in about
fifteen minutes to get the money, and that in the meantime he would
send his son out to cash a check so that he could deliver it in
bills. Aucher spent part of the fifteen minutes signalling to four
other special agents who had reinforced him, and then went around
to the Bridge Street entrance, with one of his confederates in
sight.
In a few moments, Ruroede’s son rushed out with a bank book in his
hand. Aucher stopped him and told him he ought to have a coat on,
a device to let Aucher’s fellow operative see him talking to the
boy so he could identify him. The boy then went on to the bank,
followed by Aucher’s confederate, who saw him cash the check and
followed him back to the building.
When the boy returned, Aucher again spoke to him and said: “Tell
your father I will be in the café at Whitehall and Bridge streets
and that he is to meet me there. I don’t think it is a good thing
for anybody to see me hanging around the front entrance.”
Aucher then went on into the café and signalled to the other three
operatives to follow him. He took a seat in a bootblack’s chair
near the entrance and proceeded to have his shoes blacked. In about
ten minutes Ruroede’s son came out and was about to pass by him
when Aucher hailed him. Ruroede’s son then took a sealed envelope
from his inside pocket and handed it to Aucher.
“Where is your father?” Aucher asked.
“Oh, he’s got a man upstairs with him,” said young Ruroede, “and he
couldn’t come down.”
“Wait a minute,” said Aucher, and tore open the envelope in the
presence of Ruroede’s son, and, so that the other special agents
could see him do it, counted out ten $10 bills, $100 in all. As
he was counting them, the operative who had followed Ruroede’s
son to the bank came in and shouldered the boy to one side and
then stood right by him while the money was being counted. Aucher
went on to impress on Ruroede’s son that business was business and
that the best of friends sometimes fell out over money matters;
that his father might have unintentionally counted out $80 or $90
instead of the full $100 and it was safer to take some precautions
than to take a chance of creating bad blood between them. He then
invited Ruroede’s son to have a drink with him, which he did, both
of them taking the strongest Prussian drink--milk. When they were
about to part on Whitehall Street Aucher told Ruroede’s son to
tell his father he would be down the next morning with the other
two passports he had mentioned to him, and again impressed on
the boy the importance of accuracy in money matters. Aucher then
returned to headquarters with the other special agents and listed
the distinguishing marks on the bills and marked them for future
identification.
[Illustration: GERMAN AGENTS WHO DEALT IN FRAUDULENT PASSPORTS
H. A. Von Wedell Carl Ruroede]
[Illustration: AMERICANS HIRED TO BLOW UP SHIPS AND FACTORIES
C. C. Crowley Lewis J. Smith]
The next morning Aucher telephoned to Ruroede and told him he had
been able to get only one of the two passports he wanted, giving
as the excuse for his failure to get the other the story that it
had been promised to him by a man working on a job in Long Island
and that this man had met with an accident and was in the hospital;
that it would take a day or two to go out there to get a written
order from him to a brother who would turn the passport over to
Aucher. Ruroede accepted an invitation to take luncheon with Aucher
at Davidson’s restaurant at the corner of Broad and Bridge streets.
[Illustration: THE SUCCESSFUL USE OF A FRAUDULENT PASSPORT
An English translation of the letter, the first and last pages of
which are shown above, follows:
_S. S. Kristianiafjord_, _Bordjen_, Nov. 20, 1914. Most honoured
Mr. Ruroede: As you see, my voyage across succeeded magnificently
with your kind help. The weather until Sunday was fine--then
three days’ storm. The beginning was not of a nature to inspire
confidence, for five hours after we had left New York we were
stopped by a cruiser and for two hours the ship’s papers were
searched for contraband. We had also some copper on board, but
that was for Norway, whereupon they let us go. Our Captain then
ran straight North to the 63 latitude. We nearly touched Iceland
in order to get out of the way of other cruisers. It was only
while we were making for Bergen from a northerly direction
yesterday that a cruiser overtook and stopped us, and for a short
while six of your men were feeling pretty shaky, especially I,
for among the 18 first-class passengers, more than half were
Germans, also a former vice-consul from Japan (now captain of
cavalry) of the Bonn Hussars, Naval Officer from China, and
others. The incident lasted only a half hour. After searching for
ship’s papers, the gentlemen disappeared, and we breathed more
freely, and drank a cocktail to the ---- and your prosperity.
Once more many thanks for your assistance. May you help many
others as well. With best wishes, Yours, Edward Eaton, in Japan
named Eichelbert.]
Shortly after noon they met on the street and went into the
restaurant together. A few minutes after they were seated two of
the special agents came in and took a table about fifteen feet
away. After Aucher had ordered lunch for himself and Ruroede, he
took out of his pocket another of the series of genuine passports
supplied by the State Department, to which he had attached one of
the photographs Ruroede had given him for this purpose. He handed
the passport to Ruroede, who opened only one end of it, just enough
to glance at the photograph and seal.
“That’s fine,” said Ruroede, and was about to slip it into his
pocket when Aucher seized it and exclaimed:
“Fine? I should say,” and opened the passport wide so that one of
the other special agents could see the red seal on it. “Just look
at that description. Eh? He is the fellow with the military bearing
and I gave him a description I figured a man like him should answer
to.”
At this point, the special agent who had seen the seal left his
seat at the table and walked to the cashier’s desk. As he passed,
Ruroede was holding the passport in his hands and Aucher was
pointing out the description. Ruroede then put the passport into
his pocket and said again: “That’s fine.”
Aucher then opened a discussion of Von Wedell’s career and
disappearance. Ruroede was very contemptuous of the missing man.
“He was a plain fool,” he said. “He paid $3,500 altogether and got
very little in return. A fellow came to him one day and told him he
could get him American passports and Von Wedell said: ‘All right;
go ahead.’ The fellow returned later and said he would have to have
some expense money and he gave him $10. A little while later a
friend of the first man came to Von Wedell wanting expense money.
When Von Wedell decided to put him off, he became threatening and
Von Wedell, fearing he might tell the Government authorities, gave
_him_ some money. A few days later about twenty fellows came
looking for Von Wedell. But quite aside from that sort of business
Von Wedell’s foolishness in forging names on two American passports
is the thing that made him get away.”
“Did I understand you to say,” asked Aucher, “that he had gone to
join his wife?”
“No,” replied Ruroede, “she will be in Germany before him. She
sailed last Tuesday. He went to Cuba first and there got a Mexican
passport of some sort that will take him to Spain. He ought to be
in Barcelona to-day and from there go to Italy, and then from there
work his way into Germany.”
“You say Von Wedell spent $3,500 of his own money?” Aucher asked.
“No, no,” exclaimed Ruroede, “he got it from the fund.”
“Well, who puts up this money--who’s back of it?”
“The Government.”
“The German Government?”
“Yes,” said Ruroede. “You see it is this way: There is a captain
here who is attached to the German Embassy at Washington. He has
a list of German reservists in this country and is in touch with
the German consulates all through the country and in Peru, Mexico,
Chile, etc. He gets in touch with them, and the consuls send
reservists, who want to go to the front, on to New York. When they
get here, this captain tells them: ‘Well, I can’t do anything for
you, but you go down to see Ruroede.’ Sometimes he gives them his
personal card.”
“Is this captain in reserve?” Aucher interrupted.
“Oh, no, he is active,” Ruroede replied. “You see,” he continued,
“he draws on this fund for $200 or $300 or $1,000, whatever he may
need, and the checks are made to read ‘on account of reservists.’
You see, they have to have food and clothing, also, so there is
nothing to show that this money is paid out for passports or
anything like that. I meet this captain once a week or so, and tell
him what I am doing and he gives me whatever money I need. You see,
there must be no connection between him and me; no letters, no
accounts, nothing in writing. If I were caught and were to say what
I have told you, this captain would swear that he never met me in
his life before.”
Who this captain was became perfectly clear through an odd
happening two days later. On that day, January 2, 1915, Aucher
telephoned to Ruroede at his office and made an appointment to
meet him at a quarter of one. This meeting will doubtless remain
forever memorable in Ruroede’s experience.
At twelve-thirty a whole flock of special agents left the office
of the Bureau of Investigation of the Department of Justice in
the Park Row Building. There were nine representatives of the
Department in the group. When they got near Ruroede’s office they
were joined by two others who had been shadowing Ruroede. They had
located him at the Eastern Hotel, several blocks away, where he was
at the moment with one of the German officers who planned to sail
that day on the Norwegian Line steamer _Bergensfjord_ with one of
the false passports.
Shortly after one o’clock one of the special agents notified
the group that Ruroede had returned to his office and then this
operative, and one other, went to the Customs House and stationed
themselves at a window opposite Ruroede’s office to wait for a
signal which Aucher was to give when he had delivered the passport
to Ruroede.
When Aucher met Ruroede in the latter’s office Ruroede’s son was
present, but in a few moments the younger man took his leave, and
his departure was noted by one of the agents outside. After a few
minutes’ conversation Aucher handed Ruroede the missing passport
and made his signal to the two men inside the Customs House window.
These men reported to the main group on the street and thereupon
the whole flock descended on Ruroede’s office and placed both
Ruroede and Aucher under arrest.
They seized all of Ruroede’s papers before they took him away,
including the passport which Aucher had just delivered to him.
Aucher put up a fight against his brother officers, so as to make
Ruroede believe that his arrest was genuine, but was quickly
subdued and taken away. A few minutes later Ruroede also was taken
from his office over to the offices of the Bureau of Investigation,
but to another room than Aucher. Operatives were left behind in
Ruroede’s office, and in a little while Ruroede’s son came in. He,
too, was arrested and taken to still another part of the office of
the Bureau.
Now there entered Ruroede’s office a stranger, who to this day does
not know that he unwittingly gave the officers of the United States
Government the information that Captain Von Papen was directly
responsible for the passport frauds. This man entered while one
of the operatives was busily gathering up the papers on Ruroede’s
desk. He said he wanted to see Mr. Ruroede. The operative asked
him what his business was, and he replied that he had a letter to
give him; and answering an inquiry, he said this letter was given
him by Captain Von Papen, to be delivered to Ruroede.
The operative calmly informed the caller that he was Mr. Ruroede’s
son and that he could give the letter to him. The stranger refused,
so the operative told him that his “father,” Ruroede, would be in
in a few minutes. After the few minutes were up, he told the caller
that he was sure that his “father” would not return after all,
and that he had better go with him to where his “father” was. The
stranger agreed and they left the office together, the operative
taking him directly to the office of the Bureau of Investigation.
On the way, the stranger decided to give him the letter from
Captain Von Papen, and also told him that he had come from Tokyo
by way of San Francisco; that he was very anxious to get back to
Germany; and that he was sorry he was not sailing on the boat
leaving that day. He knew, he said, that Ruroede had a great many
officers sailing on the ship that day, and asked if he thought the
operative’s “father” could make an arrangement to start him to
Germany, too. He gave as a reason for his urgency the fact that he
had with him eight trunks which contained very important papers in
connection with the war that should be delivered in Berlin without
delay.
Upon arriving at the office of the Bureau of Investigation the
operative excused himself for a moment and went into another room,
where he concocted a plan with a fellow agent to pose as the senior
Ruroede. The operative then brought the stranger in and introduced
his confederate as his father. The stranger gave this agent of
the Department his card which was printed in German and, which
translated into English, read, “Wolfram von Knorr, Captain of
Cruiser, Naval Attaché, Imperial German Embassy, Tokyo.”
But let us leave the guileless caller in the hands of the guileful
agent of Justice for a few moments, returning to him a little later.
Meanwhile, four of the agents from the Department--the minute they
received the signal that Ruroede was under arrest--hastened to the
Barge Office dock and boarded the revenue cutter _Manhattan_, on
which they overtook the Norwegian Line steamship _Bergensfjord_
at four o’clock, about one half hour after it had set sail. They
were accompanied by several customs inspectors and ordered the
_Bergensfjord_ to heave to. All the male passengers on board were
lined up. Strange as it may seem, they discovered four Germans,
of such unmistakable names as Sachse, Meyer, Wegener, and Muller,
travelling under such palpably English and Norwegian names as
Wright, Hansen, Martin, and Wilson. Stranger still, they all turned
out to be reserve officers in the German army. Sache proved to be
travelling as none other than our friend “Howard Paul Wright,” for
whom Aucher had supplied Ruroede with the passport--as, indeed, he
had for the three others.
Meanwhile, Ruroede was the centre of another little drama that
lasted until well toward midnight. He was being urged by the United
States Assistant District Attorney to “come across” with the facts
about his activities in the passport frauds, and he had stood up
pretty well against the persuasions and hints of the attorney and
the doubts and fears of his own mind. About eleven o’clock at
night, as he was for the many’th time protesting his ignorance and
his innocence, another agent of the Bureau of Investigation walked
across the far end of the dimly lit room--in one door and out
another--accompanied by a fair-haired lad of nineteen.
“My God!” exclaimed Ruroede, “have they got my son, too? The boy
knows nothing at all about this.”
This little ghost-walking scene, borrowed from “Hamlet,” broke down
Ruroede’s reserve, and he came out with pretty much all the story,
ending the melancholy exclamation with which this story began: “I
thought I was going to get an Iron Cross; but what they ought to do
is to pin a little tin stove on me.”
Ruroede admitted that he had met Captain Von Papen in New York
frequently and that Von Papen had given him money at different
times, but he denied that this money was given him for use in
furnishing passports. On this point he stood fast, and to this day
he has not directly implicated Von Papen in these frauds, though it
cost him a sentence of three years in the Federal penitentiary at
Atlanta, imposed just two months later.
One thing Ruroede did confess, however, and in doing so he was the
Hand of Fate for the timorous Von Wedell. Ruroede confessed that
his assertion to Aucher, that Wedell was then in Barcelona, was a
lie, and that the truth was that Wedell had recently returned from
Cuba and was aboard the _Bergensfjord_! This confession came too
late to serve that day, for the agents of the Bureau had by that
time left the ship with their four prisoners and the _Bergensfjord_
was out to sea. But Fate had nevertheless played Wedell a harsh
trick, for the processes of extradition were instantly put in
motion with what strange results will in a few moments be made
clear.
[Illustration: VON PAPEN AND ALBERT APPEAR AS UNNEUTRAL PLOTTERS]
[Illustration: This letter [of which the facsimiles are of the
first and last pages] was written by Wedell to Bernstorff to
justify his action in abandoning the work of gathering passports
for fraudulent use. The full text follows, in English. It is an
interesting document, not only because it reveals a lot of weak
human nature in the agents of “German efficiency” but also because
it definitely revealed Von Papen and Albert as principals in the
German plots as early as three months after the war started:
HOTEL ST. GEORGE Felix Fieger, Proprietor, Nyack-on-Hudson,
December 26, 1914. His Excellency The Imperial German Ambassador,
Count Von Bernstorff, Washington, D. C. Your Excellency: Allow me
most obediently to put before you the following facts: It seems
that an attempt has been made to produce the impression upon you
that I prematurely abandoned my post in New York. That is not
true.
I. My work was done. At my departure I left the service well
organized and worked out to its minutest details, in the hands
of my successor, Mr. Carl Ruroede, picked out by myself, and,
despite many warnings, still tarried for several days in New
York in order to give him the necessary final directions and in
order to hold in check the blackmailers thrown on my hands by the
German officers until after the passage of my travellers through
Gibraltar; in which I succeeded. Mr. Ruroede will testify to you
that without my suitable preliminary labors, in which I left no
conceivable means untried and in which I took not the slightest
consideration of my personal weal or woe, it would be impossible
for him, as well as for Mr. Von Papen, to forward officers and
“aspirants” in any number whatever, to Europe. This merit I lay
claim to and the occurrences of the last days have unfortunately
compelled me, out of sheer self-respect, to emphasize this to
your Excellency.
II. The motives which induced me to leave New York and which, to
my astonishment, were not communicated to you, are the following:
1. I knew that the State Department had, for three weeks,
withheld a passport application forged by me. Why?
2. Ten days before my departure I learnt from a telegram sent
me by Mr. Von Papen, which stirred me up very much, and further
through the omission of a cable, that Dr. Stark had fallen into
the hands of the English. That gentleman’s forged papers were
liable to come back any day and could, owing chiefly to his lack
of caution, easily be traced back to me.
3. Officers and aspirants of the class which I had to forward
over, namely the people, saddled me with a lot of criminals and
blackmailers, whose eventual revelations were liable to bring
about any day the explosion of the bomb.
4. Mr. Von Papen had repeatedly urgently ordered me to hide
myself.
5. Mr. Igel had told me I was taking the matter altogether too
lightly and ought to--for God’s sake--disappear.
6. My counsel, ... had advised me to hastily quit New York,
inasmuch as a local detective agency was ordered to go after the
passport forgeries.
7. It had become clear to me that eventual arrest might yet
injure the worthy undertakings and that my disappearance would
probably put a stop to all investigation in this direction.
How urgent it was for me to go away is shown by the fact that,
two days after my departure, detectives, who had followed up my
telephone calls, hunted up my wife’s harmless and unsuspecting
cousin in Brooklyn, and subjected her to an interrogatory.
Mr. Von Papen and Mr. Albert have told my wife that I forced
myself forward to do this work. That is not true. When I, in
Berlin, for the first time heard of this commission, I objected
to going and represented to the gentleman that my entire
livelihood which I had created for myself in America by six
years of labor was at stake therein. I have no other means,
and although Mr. Albert told my wife my practice was not worth
talking about, it sufficed, nevertheless, to decently support
myself and wife and to build my future on. I have finally, at the
suasion of Count Wedell, undertaken it, ready to sacrifice my
future and that of my wife. I have, in order to reach my goal,
despite infinite difficulties, destroyed everything that I built
up here for myself and my wife. I have perhaps sometimes been
awkward, but always full of good will and I now travel back to
Germany with the consciousness of having done my duty as well as
I understood it, and of having accomplished my task.
With expressions of the most exquisite consideration, I am, your
Excellency.
Very respectfully,
(Signed) HANS ADAM VON WEDELL.]
Now we may appropriately return to the conference between the
guileless stranger from Tokyo and the guileful agent of the Bureau
of Investigation, in another room. The guileless stranger from
Tokyo revealed what Ruroede would not disclose--and revealed it all
unconsciously. He talked so frankly with “young Ruroede’s father”
that he told several most important things. For one, Captain Von
Knorr declared that Captain Von Papen had sent him. Whereupon the
pretended Ruroede asked him whether the fact that he was expected
to assist Von Knorr back to Europe was known to the German Embassy
at Washington. To this Von Knorr replied:
[Illustration: THE CARD OF “THE GUILELESS STRANGER FROM TOKYO”]
“Of course. I just had a talk with Captain Von Papen right here in
New York.”
“Ruroede” still insisted on having better proof that Von Knorr came
directly from the Embassy, to which Von Knorr retorted that “Von
Papen has had sufficient dealings with you for you to know that any
one sent by him to you is all right.”
Finding himself dealing with a somewhat reluctant saviour, Von
Knorr adopted a conciliatory mood and slapped his broad hand
several times on “Ruroede’s” left breast, saying: “That chest ought
to have something”--meaning a decoration from Berlin.
After some verbal sparring, Von Knorr was allowed to drift off
the scene as innocently as he had entered it, and he has yet to
learn that his visit was in an office of American law and that his
dealings were with the officers of Justice.
But he left behind a legacy quite as valuable as his carefully
remembered spoken words. This legacy was the paper which he had
brought from Franz von Papen. This paper proved to be not a letter,
but rather a typewritten memorandum--though all doubt as to its
origin was removed by the innocent insistence of Von Knorr that he
had come with it from Von Papen’s hand.
[Illustration: THE OFFICIAL GERMAN PLOTTERS AT WASHINGTON
Above, Ambassador Count Johann von Bernstorff; left, Capt. Franz
von Papen, Military Attaché; right, Capt. Karl Boy-Ed, Naval
Attaché]
[Illustration: VON PAPEN BECOMES ACCESSORY TO A CRIME
Though this check was made out in favor of G. Amsinck & Co., the
German-American bankers of New York, the counterfoil bears the
notation “Traveling expense v W,” that is, “von Wedell.” This check
was sent him by Von Papen to enable him to escape after he had
forged signatures to two fraudulent passports and realized that he
was under surveillance--Von Papen thus becoming accessory after the
fact to a crime against American laws]
Two most important facts emerged ultimately from a study of this
innocent bit of paper. When Ruroede was arrested, among other
papers taken from his desk by the officers of the law were numerous
typewritten sheets containing lists of names of German officers,
their rank, and other facts about them. Ruroede never would admit
that these were from Von Papen, but that admission was made for him
by a far more trustworthy testimony than his own. This testimony
was an expert comparison, under a powerful magnifying glass of the
typewriting on these sheets and the typewriting on the Von Knorr
memorandum which had undoubtedly come from Von Papen. They were
beyond all questioning identical. The same typewriter had written
all. By this little microscopic test Von Papen and the other
ruthless underlings of Germany were first brought tangibly within
sight of their ultimate expulsion from this country, for crimes of
which the passport frauds were the least odious.
[Illustration: TWO OF RUROEDE’S VISITORS’ CREDENTIALS
These cards were presented by two German officers in search of
fraudulent passports. They were sent by Von Papen and Mudra (German
Consul at Philadelphia), who both frequently directed such officers
to Ruroede for this purpose]
The other pregnant fact about the Von Knorr memorandum was that the
eyes of Justice rested on the name of _Werner Horn_ and lingered
long enough to fix that name in memory. Here first swam into its
ken the man who tried to destroy the international bridge at
Vanceboro, Maine, and whose story is one of the most romantic and
adventurous of all the German plotters!
One last touch in this drama: A few moments ago we left Von
Wedell--ambitious, timorous Von Wedell--on the high seas bound for
Norway. But Fate was after him. Ruroede’s moment of weakness--his
moment of pique, when he swore he would not shoulder all this
bitterness alone--had set her on his trail. A cable message to
London, a wireless from the Admiralty, and then--this entry in the
logbook of the _Bergensfjord_ for Monday, January 11, 1915:
All male first and second class passengers were gathered in the
first-class dining saloon and their nationality inquired into.
About noon, the boarding officer of the Cruiser ---- (English)
went back and reported to his ship. About 0:45 P. M. he came
over with orders again to take off six German stowaways and two
suspected passengers. These passengers were according to ship’s
berth list as follows:
1. Rosato Sprio, Mexican, Destination Bergen, Cabin 71,
second-class....
Rosato Sprio admitted after close examination to be H. A. Wedell.
Claimed to be a citizen of the United States....
Dr. Rasmus Bjornstad claimed to be a Norwegian....
As both passengers apparently were travelling under false
pretense, the Captain did not feel justified to protest against
the detention of the two passengers. These were accordingly ...
taken off and put on board the Auxiliary Cruiser ----.
Unhappy Wedell! “The Cruiser ----” was a ship that never made port.
Wedell’s high connections in the German Foreign Office could not
save him from the activities of the high officials of the German
Admiralty. A U-boat fired a torpedo into “the Cruiser ----” and
sent her to the bottom with Rosato Sprio, _alias_ H. A. Wedell,
aboard.
Exeunt Wedell and Ruroede.
Enter Werner Horn.