Saboteurs

by Michael Dobbs

  Burger walked back to his hotel, trailed by the agents.3 Quirin and Heinck took a bus back uptown toward their lodging house, getting off at Broadway and Seventy-second Street. They were killing time. Before meeting Burger at the clothing store, they had visited a cinema to watch the latest newsreels, including one about the big New York at War parade the previous Sunday. They had no immediate plans, but thought vaguely about going to a beach or an amusement area such as Palisades Park, across the river in New Jersey, over the weekend.

  Heinck told Quirin he had a few purchases to make, but would be right along. He visited a drugstore, and then a delicatessen. Quirin continued walking up Amsterdam Avenue.

  The agents arrested Quirin first, at 4:30 p.m., bundling him into an FBI car and driving away at top speed. They apprehended Heinck a few minutes later as he was coming out of the delicatessen. Both men were taken to the federal courthouse in Lower Manhattan, where the FBI had its New York headquarters. There they were “processed” for arrest by being photographed, fingerprinted, and issued a set of prison clothes. They were then escorted to detention cells on the thirtieth floor of the building.

  Back at the Governor Clinton, Burger tried on the new sharkskin suit he had bought at Rogers Peet. He had just sat down to read the newspaper when Connelley and several other FBI agents barged in through the open door. The expression on his face was one of immense relief: he told the agents he had been waiting for them to show up ever since Dasch went to Washington. After he was led away, the agents began looking through his belongings. Their meticulous typewritten inventory included the following items:

  1 Leica camera #220033 and brown leather case.

  1 letter of recommendation of Wisconsin National Guard.

  1 lock of blonde hair.

  1 photograph of woman with blonde hair.

  1 pair light brown shoes 81⁄2C with shoetrees.

  1 leather pocket book in the inside of which appeared the following inscription: Bucyrus Erie Company Safety Contest, 1930, “ALWAYS BE CAREFUL.”4

  That evening, the three men were interrogated separately. Burger struck FBI agents as “particularly cooperative,” anxious to show that “he is 100% against Germany.”5 Heinck initially tried to conceal his visit with his friend Hermann Faje three nights earlier, but ended up confessing to everything. Quirin held out the longest, at first insisting he was a Portuguese farmhand named Richard Quintas. But his denials quickly broke down once he realized that the FBI already knew all about Operation Pastorius. When the agents showed him the vest the Coast Guard had found on Amagansett Beach, he admitted it belonged to him.

  His interrogators asked if he considered himself a “German agent.”6

  “Well, something like that.”

  “When you left Germany wasn’t it your intention to come to the United States and carry out your instructions?”

  “Yes, it was.”

  “Would you have carried out your instructions in the event you had not been apprehended?”

  “I might have.”

  Later, when shown the transcript of the interrogation for his signature, he added the words “I am not sure.”

  BACK IN Washington, in room 351 of the Mayflower Hotel, Dasch and Traynor had slept in late after their draining, fourteen-hour session of the day before. At 9:20, the inquisitor and the informant ordered breakfast from room service: orange juice, cereal, toast, and coffee. They did not leave the hotel until 11:10, stopping off at Hummel’s Restaurant to allow Dasch to down a quick scotch and soda on the way to FBI headquarters.7

  Traynor’s gentle treatment of his subject was beginning to pay off. After initially refusing to answer certain sensitive questions, Dasch was now providing information on all aspects of Operation Pastorius. He was eager to demonstrate his willingness to cooperate, hoping to be rewarded with an important role in the fight against Hitler. He told his interrogators he would do anything he could to shorten “this lousy war.” If he was allowed to direct propaganda operations against the Third Reich, he would rally millions of Germans to the Allied cause.8

  “Do you think I shall have the opportunity of meeting your superior, Mr. Ladd?” he asked Traynor, referring to the head of the FBI’s internal security division. “And Mr. Hoover perhaps?”

  Traynor was noncommittal. Anything was possible, but he would promise nothing.

  Dasch persisted. He wanted to meet the people in charge of American propaganda, to point out their errors. “I am sure they are making mistakes. I know this by listening to their propaganda. It’s weak.”

  Traynor just nodded.

  The more Dasch talked, the more “eloquent and oratorical” he became, FBI agents observed.9 His manners were “very polished, similar to those of a head waiter.” He spoke with a slight German accent, frequently using phrases like “by Christ” and “Christ sakes.” The agents noted the “snappy” way he wore his clothes and his peculiar habit of “placing his index finger along his nose or up the center of forehead while speaking.”

  HAVING DEFUSED the threat from the first group of saboteurs, the FBI now needed to focus on the others. Although Dasch obviously knew much less about Kerling’s group than about his own, he did provide some important leads. He had revealed Kerling’s true name on Friday afternoon, and the FBI was able to dig up its old files about his adventures on the yacht Lekala in 1939 when he tried to slip out of the country with several other Hitler supporters. On Saturday afternoon, Dasch gave Traynor a full description of Kerling—blond hair, good dresser, thirty-four or thirtyfive, worked mainly as a chauffeur in the United States, paid-up Bund member—and also revealed the names of Herbie Haupt and Hermann Neubauer.

  Haupt, Dasch told Traynor, was “a very shrewd boy,” the type “generally known in the United States as a drugstore cowboy.” 10 Dasch had helped Kappe recruit Haupt back in March because he thought he possessed the “necessary qualifications” for a sabotage mission. When Haupt came over from Japan on a German freighter, he had been awarded the Iron Cross, Second Class, for spotting a British steamer while at his lookout post. He was strong, street-smart, and could be “very dangerous.” But he also had a “romantic” streak, as demonstrated by his love of adventure and obsession with girls. He was a “clean-cut boy” who liked “flashy things,” such as a big silver ring with Indian signs that he had picked up in Mexico. Both Haupt and Neubauer were likely to go to Chicago, Dasch disclosed.

  Dasch was finally willing to reveal the place where he was to meet again with Kerling so they could begin their sabotage campaign. Before doing so, however, he wanted a promise to be allowed to “exercise some of my thoughts” about how to “grab those guys.”11 If the others suspected that he had given them away, not only his life might be in danger, but also the lives of his parents back in Germany. He asked Traynor to seal the understanding with a handshake.

  The request seemed fairly innocuous to Traynor, so he gave Dasch his hand. After the handshake, Dasch revealed the time and place of his scheduled meeting with Kerling: the grill of the Hotel Gibson in Cincinnati, between noon and two o’clock on July 4.

  The fourth of July was still two weeks away, however, and the FBI wanted to get on with its investigation. As Ladd went through the transcripts of Traynor’s interrogation of Dasch, he decided that Chicago should become the next focus of the FBI manhunt. That evening, he called the head of the Bureau’s Chicago office and ordered twenty-four-hour surveillance on all known relatives of both Haupt and Neubauer.

  “Assign your best agents to this case,” Ladd instructed. “This is one of the most important things the Bureau has done for years.” 12

  NAZI LEADERS had high hopes for Chicago. America’s second-largest city was one of the great centers of German immigration to the United States and German-American culture. One in five Chicagoans, seven hundred thousand people, could trace their ancestry back to the Fatherland. German journalists returning to Germany after Hitler’s declaration of war on the United States in December 1941 had depicted Chicago as t
he American city “most tired” of the war, and most receptive to German propaganda.

  These hopes were much exaggerated. It was true that prior to Pearl Harbor public opinion in the Midwest was more isolationist than on the East Coast, and less inclined to go to war against Nazi Germany. The Chicago Daily Tribune, which styled itself the “World’s Greatest Newspaper” under the eccentric Colonel Robert McCormick, had excoriated Roosevelt for attempting to involve the United States in yet another European conflict. But now that the nation was actually at war, its editorial policy had undergone a 180-degree turn. On Saturday morning, on Haupt’s first full day back in Chicago, the Tribune ran a front-page cartoon attacking Roosevelt and Churchill for not doing enough to defeat the Axis immediately. The cartoon was captioned “Too Little, Too Late.”13

  Even so, the government still had doubts about the loyalty of the German-American population in Chicago and elsewhere. A secret survey commissioned by the White House estimated that one in ten German-born Americans (as opposed to Americans of German origin) was disloyal to the United States. By this calculation, the saboteurs had some thirty thousand potential accomplices. The report also noted that the Bund had some twenty thousand members, that uniformed storm troopers had marched through the streets of large American cities, and that many German-American publications had become “vigorous advocates of Fascism.”14 In addition to outright Nazi sympathizers, there was another sizable group of German-Americans who could be classified as “opportunists ready to leap on the Hitler bandwagon . . . if it appears that the Axis is going to win the war.”

  As a community, the German-Americans were treated more kindly than Japanese-Americans, who were already being rounded up and sent to internment camps. They also fared better than in World War I, when jingoistic politicians demanded “100 percent Americanism” and German immigrants suffered from job discrimination and beatings. The anti-German sentiment was particularly strong in cities like Chicago, St. Louis, and Cincinnati that had a large German minority. By the end of the war, hundreds of German newspapers and periodicals had been banned and many states had passed legislation restricting German-language education and even the use of German books in school libraries. A campaign to rid the American language of German words resulted in sauerkraut becoming “liberty cabbage” and frankfurters being turned into “hot dogs.”

  While there was no comparable wave of anti-German hysteria in America in World War II, German-Americans were feeling an ever increasing burden of suspicion and mistrust by the spring of 1942. The newspapers were full of reports of Bund offices being closed down and leaders of German-American organizations being hauled in for questioning. “Chicago Bund Chief Admits Spy Charges,” declared the front-page headline in the Tribune on the morning of Saturday, June 20.

  Haupt’s parents were typical of the group labeled “opportunists” by the government, but who nonetheless thought of themselves as decent Americans. Their ties with Germany were more cultural than political. A soldier in the German army during World War I, Hans Haupt started a grocery business in Stettin in 1921, but had to close it during the left-wing political upheavals that wracked the country soon afterward. Unable to find work in Germany, he came to the United States in 1923, and worked as a bricklayer and contractor, becoming an American citizen in 1930. A passionate amateur singer, he belonged to various German music groups and cultural organizations in Chicago, and was also a member of the German war veterans association. He never joined the Bund.

  When Herbie reappeared in their lives after a year’s absence, Hans and Erna were caught between conflicting loyalties. They wanted to help their son, but they also worried he was up to no good. The elder Haupts tried to resolve this conflict of loyalties by insisting that Herbie register for the draft and report to the FBI first thing Monday morning to clear up questions about his status. If he refused to go to the FBI, Hans told his son, he would not be able to stay in their home.

  “Don’t you like me any more, Father?”15

  “Yes, Herbert, I like you, but do me this favor and do what I told you.”

  AFTER GETTING up late on Saturday morning, Herbie spent the rest of the day lounging around the house. In the evening, he decided he wanted to see the parents of Wolfgang Wergin, the friend who had accompanied him on his round-the-world adventures. Back in February, Herbie had suggested Wolfgang to Kappe as a possible recruit for Operation Pastorius. Wolfgang had gone to Berlin for an interview with Kappe, but showed no interest in a scheme he considered “idiotic.” He had seen the FBI’s successes in dealing with gangsters in Chicago in the thirties and was “in awe” of Hoover’s G-men. He thought that Herbie was likely to meet the same fate as John Dillinger and Baby Face Nelson. Wolfgang tried to talk his friend out of joining the sabotage mission, but Herbie said he could not take Germany anymore. There was nothing to eat and nothing to buy in the shops. Besides, he added confidently, he would not get caught.

  Previously, Wolfgang had always looked up to Herbie, his senior by two years. Herbie had always been the leader, Wolfgang the follower. But during their final meeting, at the home of Herbie’s grandmother near Stettin, their roles switched and Wolfgang found himself trying to comfort his friend. Six decades later, he would still have a vivid memory of that emotional night. “All of a sudden, he was the younger one, and I was the older one. Something overcame him, and he started crying. We were in the kitchen, and we were staying up late after everybody else had gone to bed. We didn’t go to bed, we just kept talking. He was terribly homesick.”16 Before saying goodbye, Wolfgang had asked Herbie to deliver a message to his parents.

  Now Herbie was back in Chicago, while his friend was headed for the Russian front, the graveyard of millions of young Germans. Knowing that the Wergins would be upset when they discovered that he had returned home without Wolfgang, Herbie asked his mother to find a pretext for calling on them after dinner.

  All three Haupts showed up at the Wergins’ around midnight. Wolfgang’s father, Otto, was out late, playing in a band at Haus Vaterland, a German-American social center. As he expected, Kate Wergin was “very much upset” that Wolfgang was still missing. Along with the message from her son—which amounted to little more than “I’m fine, I love you”— Herbie gave Mrs. Wergin a fifty-dollar bill from his money belt. He told her it was a present from Wolfgang. Considering the size of the gift and the fact that it was in dollars, which Wolfgang had no means of acquiring in Germany, this was an implausible story, but she accepted it gratefully: “It’s the first time I have ever seen such a large bill.”17

  When Otto Wergin finally returned home, around three in the morning, Herbie gave him an excited account of his adventures with Wolfgang in Mexico and Japan. He described how he had been awarded the Iron Cross after he and Wolfgang succeeded in running a British naval blockade in a German freighter. “Did Wolfgang get the medal too?” Wergin senior wanted to know. Herbie confirmed that he had.

  As the Haupts were leaving the Wergins’, Herbie remembered he had to be at his uncle’s house on Sunday morning, in order to receive a telephone call from Neubauer, who would soon be arriving in Chicago. His parents dropped him off at the Froehlings’ as dawn was breaking.

  HERBIE HAUPT spent the remainder of the night sharing a couch with a male cousin of the Froehlings who was visiting from Minneapolis. At eleven, he received a call from a very nervous Hermann Neubauer, who had just arrived in Chicago, and was staying at the LaSalle Hotel. They agreed to meet at 1:30 p.m. outside the Chicago Theater, one of the city’s best-known landmarks.

  At the theater, Haupt suggested they see a newly released movie, The Invaders, recommended by his aunt Lucille because of its uncanny similarity to his own adventures. It was showing a few blocks away at McVickers, another of the city’s great Jazz Age auditoriums. Starring Laurence Olivier and Leslie Howard, the movie was about six German submarine men who are stranded in Canada after their ship is destroyed by the Canadian air force. 18

  If Haupt and Neubauer were hoping fo
r a piece of upbeat escapism, or clues about how they could merge into American society, they were disappointed. For the next ninety minutes, they sat through a morality tale of good against evil, democracy against dictatorship, good Germans against bad Germans, in which the “invaders” were all killed, exposed, or defeated.

  Some of the dialogue sounded like the rants they had heard from Kappe at Quenz Lake. “You are the first Germans to set foot on Canadian soil,” the fictional U-boat captain told the six men who went ashore on a reconnaissance mission, thereby escaping the destruction of the submarine. “Today Europe, tomorrow the world. Heil Hitler.”

  Other characters poked fun at Nazi ways:

  FRENCH-CANADIAN TRAPPER [played by Laurence Olivier with an atro ciousFrench accent]: Do you really march around Berlin doing this? [Mimics Heil Hitler salute and Nazi goose step.] NAZI INVADER: Yes, we do.

  Far from helping the two real-life saboteurs feel more relaxed, the movie deepened their already strong sense of isolation and paranoia. One scene depicted the leader of an ethnic German community providing food and shelter to his compatriots from the U-boat while denouncing their Nazi ideology. Another showed the fictional invaders trapped in a crowd of civilians as a Royal Canadian Mountie read their descriptions over a loudspeaker. “Look closely at your neighbor,” the stern voice urged, as thousands of eyes bore into the faces of the fugitives. “Sooner or later, their nerves will crack and they will give themselves away.”

  After the movie, Haupt and Neubauer went to a restaurant next door for a meal, but soon felt uncomfortable. “Let’s get away from here,” said Haupt. “We may be watched by the FBI.”19 As they walked to Grant Park by the side of the lake, Neubauer said he was so nervous he was unable to sleep. He had to force himself to eat. “I don’t see how we are going to go through with this,” he murmured.