Saboteurs

by Michael Dobbs

  There was little Haupt could do to help Neubauer. They agreed that any decision about Operation Pastorius would have to wait until after July 6, when Kerling arrived in Chicago, following his meeting with Dasch in Cincinnati. In the meantime, Haupt and Neubauer would meet again on Wednesday at 1 p.m., outside the Chicago Theater.

  Haupt spent the evening at the Froehling house, avoiding an FBI stake-out of his parents’ place at 2234 North Fremont Street.20 By the time he got home, it was nearly ten o’clock. After a wasted day outside the Haupt apartment, the G-men had left for the evening.

  EDDIE KERLING and Werner Thiel arrived in New York around noon on Sunday, about the time that Haupt and Neubauer were making arrangements to meet at the Chicago Theater. They had taken a roundabout route. From Jacksonville, they had traveled separately inland to Cincinnati because they believed that the FBI was keeping a much closer watch on direct trains up the East Coast. After meeting in Cincinnati on Saturday afternoon, they had taken the overnight train to New York.

  From New York’s Grand Central Terminal, they walked across the street to the Commodore Hotel, an ugly hulk named after the steamboat and railroad king Cornelius Vanderbilt.21 Among other attractions, the hotel boasted “the world’s most beautiful lobby,” which looked like a drawing room in the middle of the Amazon jungle, full of ferns and palm trees. Kerling registered under the name of Edward Kelly, while Thiel gave his name as William Thomas. Exhausted by the all-night train ride, they went up to their shared ninth-floor room, lay down on their beds, and immediately fell asleep. They did not awake until early evening.

  Of all the saboteurs, Kerling was the most enthusiastic Nazi. He professed to like Americans, but he was scathing about their fighting abilities. America, he felt, was a weak, deluded nation that had been tricked into going to war with Germany by “a small group of Jews.”22 Kerling expanded on these ideas in a letter to an American girlfriend, Miriam Preston, written two weeks before Pearl Harbor:

  To us it does not matter what Mr. Roosevelt intends to do. We are prepared for everything. You have no idea in America what your soldiers would have to put up with. I know America well. I know what you can put against us, but please believe me, Miriam, I feel sorry for the American soldier, for your brother, if he should have to fight against the German army. Russia had an army which had been trained for at least 10 years to fight us. Look what happened. I don’t underestimate the courage of the American boy by no means, but against tactics, training and invasion of the kind you have never seen—he is a helpless child. Miriam, we are in for a struggle for life or death. We know it— that is why our spirit can’t be beaten and why we are winning.23

  But now that he was actually back in New York, what most preoccupied Kerling was not Nazi Germany’s struggle for survival, but his exceptionally complicated personal situation. For the past ten years he had been married to a woman named Marie; they had worked together as a chauffeur-and-cook couple for wealthy Americans like Ely Culbertson, the contract bridge expert. But Marie was unable to bear children, and Kerling had a wandering eye. 24 He was a handsome man with a strong physique, heavy jaw, wavy brown hair parted in the center, and a boyish enthusiasm that struck some women as romantic. While in Florida, on the yacht Lekala, he had met a Miami waitress named Hedwig Engemann, who became his mistress.

  Marie Kerling did not object to this arrangement. She regarded her husband as a friend rather than a lover and, after his return to Germany in June 1940, she began seeing another man. She encouraged Eddie to divorce her and marry Hedy, so he could have children of his own. Kerling, however, was not so sure. He felt “carefree and content” when he was with Hedy, but he had belatedly come to realize that he loved his wife. She had a “heart of gold,” and he wanted to make things up with her. 25 The truth was he needed both Marie and Hedy.

  The man who could help him resolve this conundrum—or at least put him in touch with both women—was an old Bund comrade, Helmut Leiner. Leiner, who had worked as a gardener on Long Island, lived in the Queens neighborhood of Astoria. On Sunday evening, after he woke up from his nap, Kerling took a subway to Astoria with Thiel. Since Kerling did not want to be seen by Helmut’s parents, and risk embarrassing questions about how he got back from Germany, he sent Thiel on ahead to contact his friend. Thiel arranged for Kerling and Leiner to meet on the street.26

  Leiner was a sick man. He was recovering from a bad bout of tuberculosis, and had only been released from the hospital three days earlier. But he agreed to accompany Kerling and Thiel back to Manhattan, and have dinner with him at the Blue Ribbon, a German restaurant just off Times Square. After dinner, all three men went to the Tavern Inn, a few doors down the street, where they spent the next three hours downing a succession of Tom Collinses, gin and sour mix with ice and a splash of soda. Leiner gave Kerling an update on Marie, who was working as a cook for a wealthy family in Midtown, and Hedy, who was running a grocery store on Second Avenue. He promised to arrange meetings with both women.

  Kerling trusted Leiner completely. He trusted him so much that he had selected him as a possible point of contact with Dasch. Exactly one month earlier, on May 21, in the Abwehr laboratory in Berlin, Dasch had written Leiner’s name and address on a handkerchief in invisible ink, in case he needed to get in touch with Kerling in an emergency. Although Kerling had no means of knowing it, that handkerchief was now in the possession of the FBI.

  WHILE KERLING was looking for his old friend Leiner in Astoria, Dasch was having an early dinner with Duane Traynor at a Washington seafood restaurant called O’Donnells, a favorite haunt of FBI men. He was feeling “rather depressed,” he told Traynor. He feared that the U.S. government would not permit him to undertake his “main mission,” which was to aid the German people in overthrowing Hitler.27 If he could not accomplish this goal, he might as well be “shot as a traitor and a spy.” Otherwise, he would find a way to take his own life. The next day, Traynor wrote a memo analyzing the split personality of the saboteur-turned-informant.

  As an egomaniac, he likes to picture himself in two characters, one of George John Dasch and the other of George John Davis. George Davis is a stool pigeon, an informer and a traitor to the German government. [This] is the individual who is furnishing all the information in this case and who immediately reported his landing to the FBI in order that no sabotage would occur and no lives would be lost. On the other hand, George Dasch is the individual who is fighting for the German people, the true people of Germany who are opposed to the things that Hitler stands for. He believes these people to be in the majority in Germany at the present time but feels they are coerced into following Hitler’s methods and program. This is the individual who will take part in the reconstruction of Germany after the war.

  Dasch could be exasperating. Asked to describe the formulas for explosives that he had studied at Quenz Lake, he told Traynor he had not paid much attention. “If I like something, I learn it; if I don’t like it, I don’t learn it.” On the other hand, he continued to provide useful information that could be used to track down his fellow saboteurs. At first he could not remember the real name of the fourth member of Kerling’s group, who used the alias William Thomas, even though they had both traveled back to Germany together on the Tatuta Maru. Traynor tried to jog his memory by reading names beginning with “Th” from a telephone book, on the theory that the saboteurs used the same initials for their assumed name as for their real name. When he got to “Thiel,” Dasch stopped him.

  “Thiel! That’s his real name. Werner Thiel. If you look through the records of the Nazi Bund, you will find him.”28

  On Sunday evening, Dasch suddenly remembered the name of the “smelly” chemical that would bring out the secret writing on the handkerchief he had shown Traynor during their first meeting. “Ammonia,” he said excitedly. “I passed the handkerchief over a bottle of ammonia . . . It shows red until it dries. You read it slowly and then it goes away again. You have to do it slowly. Just pass it over ammonia water.”29r />
  By Monday morning, the FBI laboratory had deciphered four names and addresses, and concluded that the ink used for the secret writing was “undoubtedly phenolphthalein, a constituent of the most common laxatives.” 30 Traynor and Dasch were soon poring over photographic enlargements of the handkerchief, trying to figure what the cryptic words meant.

  “What the hell is ‘Bingo’?” Dasch wracked his brain or, as he affectionately called it, his “noodle.” “Now wait a minute. ‘Bingo’ is the name of this little kid Haupt. That is the name under which he is known in the German High Command.”31

  Next to “Bingo” was the name Walter Froehling, Haupt’s uncle and contact person. “This is to be used in case we decide at our headquarters to find a farm, a hideout where we put the boxes. This Walter Froehling is either a relation of his or a friend or something to do with the Bund.”

  On the next line, Dasch found the name Helmut Leiner, with an address in Astoria, Queens. “He is a very good friend of Kerling . . . We agreed that any time I lost track of this Kerling guy, I should always get in touch with Leiner. He would tell me where this Kerling is to be found.”

  By lunchtime, Traynor’s superiors had sent messages to FBI offices in New York and Chicago, ordering surveillance of everybody named on the handkerchief. In the meantime, Hoover prepared a memorandum for President Roosevelt reporting that the FBI had “apprehended all members of the group which landed on Long Island,” who were being held “secretly and incommunicado.”32 He emphasized his own personal role in cracking the case, even though he had not yet spoken to any of the saboteurs:

  I have taken detailed statements from each of the persons arrested and the story is a startling and shocking one. Long and extensive training is being given by the German authorities to specially selected men who in turn are being placed on board German submarines to be landed on the shores of the United States. The group which landed at Amagansett, Long Island, on June 13, 1942, was the first group to arrive in this country. The second group were landed approximately the same time on the coast of Florida. I expect to be able to have in custody all members of the second group. I am definitely informed that additional groups will be sent from Germany to the United States every six weeks to initiate a wave of terror within the United States by the commission of acts of sabotage against many of our key industries, factories, electric power systems and waterworks. I have been able to secure a list of these facilities that were to be included in the first acts of sabotage.

  What Hoover failed to mention in the memorandum was that far from being “apprehended,” the leader of the saboteurs had turned himself in to the FBI voluntarily after being dismissed initially as a “crank.” That was the kind of extraneous detail that would only serve to “embarrass” his beloved Bureau.

  THE FBI had been unable to find Herbie Haupt over the weekend, despite placing his parents’ home under surveillance. On Monday morning, Haupt made the Bureau’s job a lot easier.

  At his parents’ insistence, he registered for the draft. After visiting the local draft board and formally receiving a draft card, he took a taxi to the Chicago headquarters of the FBI. He told the receptionist he had just returned from Mexico and wanted to clear up questions regarding his draft status. The receptionist referred him to the complaint desk, where he explained that he had run away from home to avoid getting married.

  Haupt’s statement to the FBI was a mixture of truth, lies, and concealment. He omitted any mention of his trip to Germany, saying he had spent most of the last year in the mountains of southern Mexico living with Indians and prospecting for gold. His biggest problem was how to explain away the cable he had sent his parents from Japan while on the way to Germany. His mother had told FBI agents about the telegram the previous December, when they came looking for him, so he could hardly deny its existence. Instead he claimed that he himself had never been in Japan: the telegram had been sent by a friend acting on his behalf. He had wanted to convince his former girlfriend that he would not be returning home for a very long time. In order to deceive her, it had been necessary to deceive his parents as well.

  The FBI agent seemed to accept this explanation, asking merely if Haupt would fight for the United States if drafted. “I would rather not fight against the German people,” he replied coolly.33 “But if I have to go to war, I will go.” To Herbie’s relief, he was then permitted to leave. “We have no further interest in you,” the agent told him.

  In the meantime, Assistant FBI Director Connelley had arrived in Chicago, charged by Hoover with ensuring “proper coverage” of the friends and relatives of Haupt and Neubauer.34 Hoover was unhappy with the performance of the Chicago office and wanted Connelley to “straighten out the matter.” Connelley assigned more agents to watch the Haupt residence, and was soon rewarded: at 12:25 p.m., the agents reported “a man fitting the description of the subject get out of a Yellow taxi” and enter the house.35 Herbie had returned home following his visit to the FBI.

  Rotating teams of agents proceeded to follow him for the rest of the day, as he visited bars, old friends, and his former boss at Simpson Optical Company, where he had worked as an optician before going to Mexico. The agents were under instructions not to arrest Haupt: they hoped he would lead them to Neubauer and perhaps to other members of his group.

  ALTHOUGH HEDY ENGEMANN had not seen Kerling for over two years, her feelings toward him were as strong as ever. She had a vivid memory of their first meeting in Miami, at a time when he was being chased by the Coast Guard on suspicion of planning to sail his yacht Lekala to Germany illegally. A friend had arranged a double date, telling Hedy she had come across someone “very exciting.” They had spent the day “fooling around” onshore, and he had then taken her back to the Lekala for the night. It was a lot of fun.

  When Hedy discovered that Eddie was married, she was shocked, as if “the sky fell down on me.”36 She decided she never wanted to see him again. But he was very insistent, and they went out with each other for the next three months “because I loved him so and could not find the strength to leave.” As time went by, she decided it did not matter that he was married. She moved to New York, and Eddie insisted on introducing her to his wife. After he left for Europe, the two women became “very good friends as we both had the same heartache,” in Hedy’s phrase. Marie Kerling even encouraged Hedy to join her lover in Germany. Hedy also became friendly with many of Eddie’s friends from the Bund, including Helmut Leiner.

  On Monday afternoon, Leiner appeared at Hedy’s grocery store, and said he had a “big surprise” for her. He persuaded her to come with him to Central Park, where Eddie was waiting. As Hedy and Eddie fell into each other’s arms, Leiner discreetly excused himself. Hedy was “dumbfounded” to see her lover. Her eyes told her that Eddie was there before her: the engaging smile, the slender physique, the twinkling look in his eye. But she found it difficult to accept “the fact that he was back.” It was like living a dream.

  Initially, Kerling refused to tell Hedy how he got back from Germany, saying coyly, “Ask me no questions and I will tell you no lies.” 37 When she remarked that the only way he could have traveled across the Atlantic was by submarine, he smiled enigmatically. They talked for an hour, chatting about old friends as they walked hand in hand through the park. When Hedy finally said she had to get back to the grocery store on Second Avenue, Kerling invited her to join him and Leiner for dinner.

  They met around nine at a German steakhouse near the Commodore Hotel. After a drink or two, Eddie began to open up, and soon he was telling Hedy about the submarine trip. He described how they had to man the bilges and pump water, just like in the old days aboard the Lekala. He also told the story of their landing in a rubber dinghy.

  Speaking with his usual infectious enthusiasm, Kerling now proposed another adventure. He would buy a car and they would travel together to Cincinnati, Chicago, Florida. She was also enthusiastic about this idea, even though it would mean finding someone else to look after the grocery
store. She would do almost anything to be with him.

  They spent the rest of the evening in a Cuban nightclub, talking and drinking until well after midnight.

  CHAPTER TEN

  WIVES AND GIRLFRIENDS (JUNE 23–27)

  EDDIE KERLING woke up on Tuesday morning to read a small but alarming item in the New York Mirror gossip column. FBI agents, the newspaper reported, were “swarming through the Florida swamps because of stories that Nazi submarine crews in civilian clothes are at large in that state.” 1 Kerling showed the item to Thiel. Having just arrived from Florida, the two saboteurs naturally assumed that someone must have heard about their landing.

  “I think we had better forget the whole thing,” Kerling muttered.

  That afternoon, he met Leiner at Pennsylvania Station. They took a train across the river to New Jersey to look for the Lutheran pastor whose name Kerling had written down in invisible ink on a handkerchief as a useful contact in America. The expedition proved futile—Father Emil Krepper was evidently out of town—and Kerling and Leiner returned to Manhattan without accomplishing anything.

  They had dinner together at the Crossroads Inn on Times Square. Having arranged Kerling’s reunion with his mistress, Leiner agreed to act as the go-between to his wife. He called Marie Kerling from the restaurant, and suggested they get together later that evening, without telling her Eddie was in town. After some discussion about the best place to meet, they finally settled on Hedy Engemann’s grocery store around 9:15 p.m.

  When they finished dinner, Kerling and Leiner went their separate ways. The plan was for Leiner to bring Marie to a restaurant on the corner of Lexington and Forty-eighth Street. Before he could see his wife, Kerling had one other engagement. He had promised to meet Thiel and one of Thiel’s old Bund friends for drinks in a bar on Forty-fourth Street. Around 10:30, he would excuse himself and join Marie at the Brook Restaurant, four blocks north.