Psychological Sabotage.
Up to Dec. 7, 1941, a considerable body of American opinion felt that we were safe from attack behind the broad oceans of the Atlantic and the Pacific and that no harm could befall us if we minded our business in international affairs. It was also widely believed that the European tragedy of invasion and conquest was no concern of ours and that we could do business with the victors at the end of the war. These and similar beliefs were sedulously fostered by the very forces that were seeking to destroy us. They were a form of psychological sabotage, a part of the softening-up process which always preceded Nazi and Fascist aggression.
The work of undermining national morale, so as to isolate us from potential allies and leave us psychologically unprepared to defend ourselves, was carried on by a large number of paid German agents, headed by George Sylvester Viereck. Viereck was a paid propagandist for the German Kaiser during the first World War. His love for Germany again bloomed under the influence of Nazi dollars. He worked hard to make the Nazi despotism palatable to the American people. When the Nazis embarked on their career of conquest, he used his talents to spread the gospel of isolationism as well as anti-Roosevelt, anti-Semitic and anti-British propaganda. Viereck was extremely skillful in the use of highly placed American dupes to further his propaganda schemes. Congressmen, like the late Senator Lundeen, did not hesitate to use him as a ghost-writer for their speeches. Viereck also was able to use the franking privilege of a number of Congressmen, such as Hamilton Fish, to spread his propaganda through the mails. He even used George Hill, a clerk in Hamilton Fish's office, to assist him in the distribution of his literature. Viereck was the behind-the-scenes promoter of many pro-Axis and anti-British committees. American justice, however, finally caught up with him. He was sentenced to serve from two to six years in prison because of a violation of the Foreign Agents Registration Act.*
The law requiring foreign agents to register was invoked to punish other paid Nazi agents, such as Laura Ingalls, a well known aviatrix and prominent speaker for the America First Committee, and Frank B. Burch, an ex-Ohio legislator. Ralph Townsend, a member of the editorial board of the pro-Axis publication Scribner's Commentator, was sentenced to imprisonment for failing to register as a paid Japanese agent. A similar fate overtook Joseph Hilton Smyth, another propagandist for Japan, who received more than $125,000 from the Japanese government for the purchase of the publication 'The Living Age.' William Dudley Pelley, George W. Christians and Robert K. Noble are the more outstanding among 27 defeatists who have been sent to prison for sedition. Forty-six others are under indictment and awaiting trial on charges of sedition or other crimes impairing morale in Washington, New York, Chicago and San Francisco.
* Other Americans who followed the same propaganda line as Viereck and spread pro-Axis, anti-British, anti-Roosevelt and anti-Semitic propaganda were Elizabeth Dilling, Gerald B. Winrod, Court Asher and Prescott Dennett. They, together with twenty-four others, were indicted on charges of conspiracy to provoke revolt and disloyalty within the armed forces. This case is still pending. On Mar. 2, 1943, Viereck's conviction was reversed by the United States Supreme Court.
Espionage and the War Effort.
The sabotage of American strength was not limited to the psychological and ideological spheres. Long before Pearl Harbor the Axis governments were engaged in espionage and sabotage activities in this country on a large scale. They were after our defense plans and our military secrets. They wished to destroy the plants, machinery and equipment which we would use to produce war materials. They sought to cripple the 'Arsenal of Democracy' before it could get started. Nazi spies compiled an index of American industry to guide them in their sabotage efforts, which made it possible for them to obtain information about any American defense plant within a short time.
The FBI had arrested rings of German spies and saboteurs even before the outbreak of the war. Its skill in the field of counter-espionage was demonstrated when it planted one of its agents among these spies and saboteurs. This agent was placed in charge of a radio station which transmitted information to Germany. This enabled the FBI to doctor the information transmitted and at the same time to arrest and to prosecute successfully the spies who gathered the information. Frederick Joubert Duquesne and 32 co-agents of Nazi Germany were tried and sentenced in January to prison terms ranging up to twenty years. Kurt Ludwig and eight confederates were given similar sentences in March.
Submarine Landings of German Saboteurs.
None of the pre-war round-ups of spies and saboteurs, however, equal in drama or interest the story of the eight saboteurs landed by submarine on the Long Island and Florida coasts. These men, trained in German sabotage and spy schools, equipped with the latest devices for sabotage, and with $174,000 in cash, were to have been the leaders of an extensive campaign of sabotage and destruction designed to cripple our war production. The career of these eight saboteurs was short-lived, however. They were all arrested within a few days after their arrival in this country. They were promptly tried by a military tribunal, and six of the eight saboteurs were sentenced to death and executed. One saboteur received a sentence to life imprisonment and the other was sentenced to imprisonment for thirty years. One feature of the proceedings against these saboteurs was the habeas corpus writ brought before the Supreme Court to test the jurisdiction of the military tribunal. The Supreme Court upheld the power of the President to appoint the military court to try the eight saboteurs.
Punishment of Treason.
In making things difficult for spies and saboteurs, the FBI is using a technique which was highly successful in hunting gangsters and kidnappers. It goes after all persons who harbor or conceal spies and saboteurs or who give them aid and comfort. An illustration of this technique is to be found in the treason trials of Anthony Cramer in New York City and of Haupt, Wergin and Froehling, three naturalized American citizens living in Chicago. All these men were convicted of treason for assisting the eight saboteurs landed by submarine and were sentenced to death. The wives of the three Chicago men were sentenced to long terms of imprisonment. Charges against others for assisting and aiding spies and saboteurs are pending in different parts of the country. Max Stephan, a Detroit tavern keeper, was also tried for treason for his part in assisting a Nazi aviator to escape from a Canadian prison camp. He was likewise convicted and sentenced to death.
The extent to which the Nazis would go in introducing spies and saboteurs in this country is illustrated by the case of Herbart Karl Bahr. Bahr was an honor engineering student in this country who received a fellowship for post-graduate work in Germany. There he came under the influence of the Gestapo and was trained as a spy at their schools. He was sent to the United States on board the refugee ship Drottningholm, posing as a refugee. However, he had with him $1,500 of Gestapo money concealed in a cigar box, chemicals with which to manufacture invisible ink, and lists of Nazi agents in neutral countries to whom information which he was to collect could be transmitted. Bahr was convicted of being a Nazi spy and sentenced to thirty years imprisonment.
Although posing as a patriotic American organization, the German-American Bund has long been recognized as the spearhead of the Nazi fifth column in this country. This was demonstrated by a secret order issued to its members requiring them to evade military service under the Selective Service Act wherever possible. This order was the basis of a successful prosecution against twenty-four national and local leaders of the German-American Bund for conspiring to have Bund members refuse to obey the provisions of the Selective Service Act.
Pearl Harbor is a symbol of the success of the Japanese espionage system in this country; for the execution of this treacherous attack was made possible only by the exact information gathered by Japanese spies. Along with native Japanese and Japanese-Americans, the Japanese have made considerable use of White Russian Fascists as spies. Since the mass evacuation of the Japanese from the Pacific coast, they have had to depend to a considerable degree on the latter. One of the principal White Russian Fascist Japanese agents in this country was Anastase Andrewitch Vonsiatsky, who was a frequent visitor to Berlin, Rome and Tokyo, and who was in close contact with Fascist groups in this country. He was convicted of violating the Espionage Act and of divulging information to the German and Japanese governments, particularly information relating to the numbers, disposition, equipment, arms and morale of the Army, the location, size and equipment of the U.S. fleet, and other military establishments essential to the defense of the United States. Indicted along with Vonsiatsky were Wilhelm Kunze, former leader of the German-American Bund, Dr. Otto Willumeit, another Bundist, Rev. Kurt E. Molzahn, a Lutheran pastor from Philadelphia, and Dr. Wolfgang Ebell, whose house was a rendezvous for German and Japanese spies and saboteurs. All of the above-named defendants pleaded guilty to the charges against them, with the exception of Molzahn, who was convicted after a trial. The most damaging testimony against Molzahn was given by Father Pelypenko, a Ukrainian priest, who was supposedly working for Vonsiatsky and other spies but who was secretly transmitting information on their activities to Federal authorities.
The cases mentioned above are a few of the many prosecutions throughout the country directed against traitors, spies, saboteurs and seditionists. These prosecutions indicate that our defenses to the enemy within our gates have been strong and firm. In a summary of the results achieved during the first year after Pearl Harbor, Attorney General Biddle announced that 57 spies were convicted and 6 executed; 8 traitors have been convicted and 4 sentenced to death; 80saboteurs have been convicted and sentenced to prison; 26 seditionists have been convicted, and 46 persons await trial on similar charges.
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