ABWEHR SECRET WIRELESS SERVICE.
Radio Networks of the Secret Radio Reporting Service.
The organizational structure shown in Figure 1 was reflected in the radio networks of the Secret Radio Reporting Service (Geheimer Funkmeldedienst), in the form of relatively rigid networks between the Abwehr offices within the Reich, in occupied territories, and in the wartime organizations, as well as in networks at the front that changed depending on the course of the war.
In addition to star-shaped radio links from the central offices to the field agents, there were also numerous cross-links between Abwehr offices, wartime organizations, and front-line reconnaissance units—wherever they were adjacent, subordinate, or connected through intelligence activity.
Almost every Abwehr office also had several branch offices and reporting centers in strategically important locations within its reporting area, both in the operational country and in neighboring countries.
All of this together formed the multi-layered, interconnected “spider web” of the Secret Radio Reporting Service, consisting of hundreds of radio links and spanning all Abwehr groups.
Responsibility for its functioning lay with Department II, Secret Radio Reporting Service, within Section I of the Abwehr.
This department (later a full group) was responsible for personnel recruitment and material supply throughout the entire area of the Secret Radio Reporting Service, as well as for the technical aspects and operation of the agent radio network.
The department’s structure, the establishment of internal Abwehr radio networks with the district Abwehr offices, and the establishment of The establishment of radio reporting centers (Funkmeldeköpfe) in the border-area military districts and the organization of a dedicated radio training program for Abwehr radio operators and prospective radio agents began with the intensified rearmament of the Wehrmacht starting in 1936.
After the outbreak of war, the expanding theaters of war required increasingly large Abwehr radio networks, which in turn demanded more and more Abwehr radio operators. However, these were not consolidated into a single organization, known as Signals Regiment 506 (Nachrichtenregiment 506), until toward the end of the war.
The special activities of Abwehr Section II (Sabotage and Subversion) required both mastery and application of the equipment and radio procedures of the Secret Radio Reporting Service (Geheimer Funkmeldedienst), as well as, during the more militarily conducted sabotage and reconnaissance missions, the organization and execution of military radio communication using Wehrmacht equipment.
For this reason, in 1940, as part of the development of the special-purpose units (Verbände z.b.V. 800) from the Construction and Training Company (Bau- und Lehrkompanie) into the Brandenburg Division, an independent signals battalion with three companies was established at the division’s home base in Brandenburg.
With the appearance of foreign shortwave transmitters (agent transmitters) after the start of the war, thus relatively late in time, a special department, III K (Radio Counterintelligence), was set up within Abwehr Section III (Counterespionage and Counterintelligence).
Shortly afterward, and as a result of the almost habitual organizational disputes, this unit was placed directly under the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (OKW, Armed Forces High Command) as an independent group designated OKW/WNV/Fu III Funkabwehr (Radio Defense).
One of the reasons for detaching it from the Amt Ausland/Abwehr (Foreign Affairs/Intelligence Office) was the improved ability to supply the Funkabwehr with direction-finding and monitoring equipment through the Army Signals Corps.
However, this very separation led to the further independence of the technical and operational radio functions of the Secret Radio Reporting Service that remained under the Amt Ausland/Abwehr.
Over the course of the war, radio operations in Abwehr Section III once again grew significantly, since the actual counterintelligence branch, III-F, entered into direct relations with enemy intelligence services through numerous radio games (Funkspiele), that is, the continued use of captured enemy radio lines for deception and intelligence purposes.
Below an overview of the organizational units of the Abwehr mentioned above, showing their respective areas of responsibility in the Secret Radio Reporting Service and in radio counterintelligence (Funkabwehr).
The organizational structure shown in Figure 1 was reflected in the radio networks of the Secret Radio Reporting Service (Geheimer Funkmeldedienst), in the form of relatively rigid networks between the Abwehr offices within the Reich, in occupied territories, and in the wartime organizations, as well as in networks at the front that changed depending on the course of the war.
In addition to star-shaped radio links from the central offices to the field agents, there were also numerous cross-links between Abwehr offices, wartime organizations, and front-line reconnaissance units—wherever they were adjacent, subordinate, or connected through intelligence activity.
Almost every Abwehr office also had several branch offices and reporting centers in strategically important locations within its reporting area, both in the operational country and in neighboring countries.
All of this together formed the multi-layered, interconnected “spider web” of the Secret Radio Reporting Service, consisting of hundreds of radio links and spanning all Abwehr groups.
Responsibility for its functioning lay with Department II, Secret Radio Reporting Service, within Section I of the Abwehr.
This department (later a full group) was responsible for personnel recruitment and material supply throughout the entire area of the Secret Radio Reporting Service, as well as for the technical aspects and operation of the agent radio network.
The department’s structure, the establishment of internal Abwehr radio networks with the district Abwehr offices, and the establishment of The establishment of radio reporting centers (Funkmeldeköpfe) in the border-area military districts and the organization of a dedicated radio training program for Abwehr radio operators and prospective radio agents began with the intensified rearmament of the Wehrmacht starting in 1936.
After the outbreak of war, the expanding theaters of war required increasingly large Abwehr radio networks, which in turn demanded more and more Abwehr radio operators. However, these were not consolidated into a single organization, known as Signals Regiment 506 (Nachrichtenregiment 506), until toward the end of the war.
The special activities of Abwehr Section II (Sabotage and Subversion) required both mastery and application of the equipment and radio procedures of the Secret Radio Reporting Service (Geheimer Funkmeldedienst), as well as, during the more militarily conducted sabotage and reconnaissance missions, the organization and execution of military radio communication using Wehrmacht equipment.
For this reason, in 1940, as part of the development of the special-purpose units (Verbände z.b.V. 800) from the Construction and Training Company (Bau- und Lehrkompanie) into the Brandenburg Division, an independent signals battalion with three companies was established at the division’s home base in Brandenburg.
With the appearance of foreign shortwave transmitters (agent transmitters) after the start of the war, thus relatively late in time, a special department, III K (Radio Counterintelligence), was set up within Abwehr Section III (Counterespionage and Counterintelligence).
Shortly afterward, and as a result of the almost habitual organizational disputes, this unit was placed directly under the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (OKW, Armed Forces High Command) as an independent group designated OKW/WNV/Fu III Funkabwehr (Radio Defense).
One of the reasons for detaching it from the Amt Ausland/Abwehr (Foreign Affairs/Intelligence Office) was the improved ability to supply the Funkabwehr with direction-finding and monitoring equipment through the Army Signals Corps.
However, this very separation led to the further independence of the technical and operational radio functions of the Secret Radio Reporting Service that remained under the Amt Ausland/Abwehr.
Over the course of the war, radio operations in Abwehr Section III once again grew significantly, since the actual counterintelligence branch, III-F, entered into direct relations with enemy intelligence services through numerous radio games (Funkspiele), that is, the continued use of captured enemy radio lines for deception and intelligence purposes.
Below an overview of the organizational units of the Abwehr mentioned above, showing their respective areas of responsibility in the Secret Radio Reporting Service and in radio counterintelligence (Funkabwehr).
Referat III-F, counterespionage. Oberst Rohleder.
Using radio games to infiltrate into the radio network of the enemy.
Joachim Rohleder (* 29. April 1892 in Stettin; † 5. Dezember 1973 im Taunus) war ein deutscher Offizier der Abwehr, zuletzt Oberst (ab 1. April 1941) im Zweiten Weltkrieg.
Rohleder wurde als Sohn des Stettiner Großkaufmanns und Handelsrichters Max Julius Rohleder und seiner Ehefrau Ottilie (geborene Huber) geboren und besuchte nach dem Besuch des Gymnasiums 1905/10 die Kadettenanstalt in Oranienstein. Anschließend wurde er mit Patent vom 1. Juni 1910 als Leutnant in das Leib-Grenadier-Regiment „König Friedrich Wilhelm III.“ (1. Brandenburgisches) Nr. 8 der Preußischen Armee in Frankfurt (Oder) überwiesen. Am Ersten Weltkrieg 1914/18 nahm er als Zug- und Kompanieführer sowie als Regimentsadjutant teil. Zuletzt hatte er den Dienstgrad eine Oberleutnants. Für seine Leistungen wurde er mit beiden Klassen des Eisernen Kreuzes, dem Verwundetenabzeichen in Schwarz und dem Mecklenburgischen Militärverdienstkreuz II. Klasse ausgezeichnet.
Nach Kriegsende und kurzer Tätigkeit im Grenzschutz bei Beuthen wurde Rohleder in die Vorläufige Reichswehr übernommen, diente im Reichswehr-Infanterie-Regiment 10 und kam dann in das Infanterie-Regiment 8 der Reichswehr. 1930 schied er aus der Reichswehr aus und war 1931/34 militärischer Berater und Instruktionsoffizier an der Kriegsakademie in Argentinien.
1935 wurde Rohleder als E-Offizier mit dem Rang eines Majors im Heer der Wehrmacht angestellt und unter dem Abteilungsleiter Franz Eccard von Bentivegni zunächst Hilfskraft, 1938 Leiter der Gruppe III F für Gegenspionage in der Amtsgruppe, später Amt Ausland/Abwehr, dem Nachrichtendienst der Wehrmacht. Gert Buchheit schreibt "Getrennt von der sonstigen III-Tätigkeit war III F gewissermaßen ein Geheimdienst für sich mit eigenen Agenten und eigenen Methoden. Aufgabengebiet: Gegenspionage gegenüber erkannten oder vermuteten gegnerischen militärischen Geheimdiensten und ihren Leitstellen, vor allem in deren eigenem Territorium und Einflussgebiet sowie im neutralen Ausland. Hier arbeitete also Geheimdienst unmittelbar gegen Geheimdienst. Während der geheime Melde- und Erkundungsdienst (Abwehr-Abteilung I) an die militärisch wichtigen Objekte heranging, um den gegnerischen Geheim- oder Abwehrdienst jedoch einen großen Bogen machte, versuchte III F bewusst in diesen einzudringen, dessen Organisation, Methoden, Pläne, Agenten, Nachrichtenwege und die mit ihm in Verbindung stehenden Verräter zu erkennen, zu bekämpfen und unschädlich zu machen sowie gelegentlich auch seine Agenten 'umzudrehen'. III F berichtete an Generalstab des Heeres/Fremde Heere, blieb jedoch unabhängig hinsichtlich Gesamtauswertung." "Die Überwachung der ausländischen diplomatischen Vertretungen in Berlin fiel auch in den Bereich des III F-Dienstes. Sie wurde durchgeführt durch den III F- Bearbeiter bei der Abwehrstelle des Wehrkreiskommandos in Berlin, Hptm. Woter. (...) Der III-F Dienst der Ast Berlin sorgte für den Einbau eines Mikrofons in das Arbeitszimmer des Militärattachés (...)." Während des Spanischen Bürgerkriegs war er als Leiter der Abwehr III der Legion Condor, Spionageabwehr, ein Jahr lang in Spanien tätig, wo er sich nach Aussage Bentivegnis sehr bewährte. Als Gruppenleiter III F im Amt Ausland/Abwehr hatte er u. a. 1943 den Hochverrat des Abteilungsleiters Hans Oster aufzuklären, doch wurden seine Ergebnisse zunächst von seinen Vorgesetzten Bentivegni und Canaris unterdrückt. Ab Frühjahr 1944 war er im Reichssicherheitshauptamt (RSHA) Amt IV E (Zuständigkeit: Fälle des Hoch- und Landesverrats) unter SS-Standartenführer Walter Huppenkothen tätig. Nach eigenen Aussagen gegenüber einer Sonderkommission sei er „1945 an die Front gegangen“.
Joachim Rohleder wurde am 12. Juni 1947 im Internierungslager 7 C.I.C. Eselsheide bei Paderborn von zwei Inspektoren der Schweizerischen Bundespolizei Freiburghaus und Hess über die Erkenntnisse des militärischen Geheimdienstes gegen die Schweiz im Krieg verhört.
Rohleder hat in einem Dokument, dass sich im Berlin Document Center befindet, am 6. August 1963 seine Mitgliedschaft in folgenden nationalsozialistischen Organisationen bestätigt: SS, SA, Propagandakompanie (PK), Rasse- und Siedlungshauptamt (RuSHA), Oberstes Parteigericht (OPG), Rückwanderungszentralstelle (PWZ) und Einwanderungszentralstelle (EWZ). Auf Betreiben des Polizeipräsidenten von Berlin wird Joachim Rohleder am 2. März 1965 in seiner Wohnung in Hamburg von einer Sonderkommission vernommen.
Nach 1945 wurde er stellvertretender Leiter der Generalvertretung München der Organisation Gehlen.
Aufgrund seiner hohen Bildung und Intelligenz war es Rohleder möglich, die von den verschiedenen Abwehrstellen in Deutschland und ganz Europa bei ihm einlaufenden Informationen über die Tätigkeit ausländischer Spionagenetze zu verknüpfen und Canaris zur Verfügung zu stellen. Als Offizier eines preußischen Elite-Regiments standen für ihn Pflichterfüllung und militärischer Gehorsam gegenüber seinen Vorgesetzten im Mittelpunkt. So war für ihn im Fall Hans Oster eine Umgehung seiner Vorgesetzten undenkbar.
Den Verlust seiner Heimatstadt Stettin nach 1945 konnte er ebenso wenig verkraften wie die aus seiner Sicht immer weiter nachlassende Begeisterung für eine nationale Gesinnung. Die letzten Lebensjahre verbrachte er zurückgezogen und – nach eigenen Worten – als „Fremdling unter den Menschen“.
Source: Wikipedia.
Referat III-K, wireless defence, Korvettenkapitän Schmolinske.
Hunting down and destroying wireless stations of enenmy agents.
From 1940 on as Group with OKW/WNV Fu III.
Otto Schmolinske (1.10.1895, Düsseldorf - 14.2.1985, Berlin) Teilnahme als Angehöriger der "Crew" 15 an der Skagerrak-Schlacht. 1918 als Marine-Ingenieurs-Aspirant entlassen. Geht zum Freikorps von Roden und von Loewenfeld, nimmt am 13.3.1920 am Kapp-Putsch teil. Ab 1923 Ingenieur bei der Lufthansa. 1928 als Angestellter in die Marineleitung übernommen. 1931 Lehrer für Elektro- und Funktechnik bei der Zentralstelle für Flugsicherung an der (militärischen) Flugschule Staaken bei Spandau. 1.10.1933 reaktiviert als Kapitänleutnant M.A.(E) und zugeteilt der Marineausbildung (Abtlg. A IV) im RWM. Gründet im Frühjahr 1934 die FWGM. Ab 1934 im OKM in der Abwehr (Abtlg. IVrn). Ab 1.10.1935 Korvettenkapitän M.A. (E) mit FT-A-Befähigung. April 1934 - Januar 1940 im OKW (Oberkommando der Wehrmacht, Abtlg. Ausland III, Ref. Ag WNV/Fu) in Berlin, wo er im Wehrmachtsführungsstab am Matthäuskirchenplatz die Abteilung Wehrmacht-Nachrichtenverbindungen - Funkwesen aufbaut. Ab 1.11.1937 Korvettenkapitän (Ing.) - Februar 1940 - August 1941 zum Wehrmachtsamt des RKM überstellt. Bis Februar 1942 K.M.V. Wilhelmshaven, zur Information. Bis Juni 1943 K.M.W. Brest, Direktor des Nachrichtenmittelressorts. Ab 1.7.1942 Kapitän z.S. (Ing.) Bis Januar 1944 Chef des Marine-Nachrichtenkommandos Atlantik, dann bis Ausgust 1944 detto in Paris, dann bis März 1945 detto in Gotenhafen. Im April 1945 Stellvertretender Kommandant des Marine-Arsenals Hamburg. Am 20.11.1945 entlassen. Lebte dann in Hamburg. Dort erkrankte er im Februar 1946 lebensbedrohlich an Diphterie. Dank ärztlicher Hilfe überstand er die Krankheit, litt aber bis ans Lebensende an den Folgeerscheinungen. Ende Oktober 1946 kehrte er zurück nach Berlin zur Familie in die Wohnung, die den Krieg überstanden hatte. Ehrenhalber engagierte er sich bis zuletzt im Verband Deutscher Soldaten.
Source: Dokufunk.
One thing the areas listed in the diagrame above had in common was that their “technical backbone” consisted of experienced shortwave radio amateurs. The knowledge and skills they had brought with them from civilian life in the design and construction of radio equipment, combined with their practical experience in shortwave radio operations, made them highly sought-after individuals—not only within the Abwehr.
Other intelligence groups within various Reich agencies that were also engaged in radio-technical applications should not go unmentioned. The foreign intelligence service of the Reich Main Security Office (RSHA), with Department VI, responsible for political and economic intelligence, had its own division for technical equipment, a radio center in Berlin-Wannsee, and an almost worldwide radio network with connections to agent groups in Africa, the Middle East, and South America, among other regions.
After the dissolution and division of the Office of Foreign Affairs/Abwehr, the long-range radio links of the former Abwehr Section III F were transferred to RSHA Department VI as Section Z. The newly established RSHA Department Mil took over the former Abwehr Departments I and II, along with their amateur radio–technical activities and the V-Man Regiment z.b.V. 1001 “Kurfürst.” Within the Wehrmacht’s chain of command remained the frontline reconnaissance units previously managed by the Office of Foreign Affairs/Abwehr, with an extensive radio network reaching down to numerous agent groups equipped with amateur radio devices.
The Foreign Office, through its Information Department III, also maintained a secret intelligence organization with corresponding communication facilities, and, of course, a radio network connecting to its diplomatic missions abroad. This network, centered around its large radio station in Beelitz, was in some cases also used by the Office of Foreign Affairs/Abwehr and the RSHA.
Long before the outbreak of war, one of the duties of the Order Police (ORPO) included the pursuit of illegal radio stations and, consequently, the detection and dismantling of enemy amateur radio transmitters. For this purpose, the main office of the ORPO operated so-called radio monitoring stations (Funkmeßstellen) equipped with both long- and short-range direction-finders.
Radio and communications intelligence, including cryptanalysis, was also conducted by the so-called Research Office (Forschungsamt) of the Reich Ministry of Aviation. These tasks required the cooperation of the German Reich Post Office, whose sovereign responsibilities included monitoring legal radio communications for compliance with licensing conditions and overseeing the detection and prosecution of illegal radio transmissions.
The central hub of the Secret Radio Communication Service was the radio station of the OKW Office of Foreign Affairs/Abwehr, which was established in 1936 under the cover name Army Construction Office (Heeresneubauamt) in a wooded area on Ruhlsdorfer Weg (between Berlin-Stahnsdorf and Ruhlsdorf).
This facility, also known as the OKW Branch Office Stahnsdorf, served not only as the central radio station of the Secret Radio Communication Service but was also responsible for the development and production of amateur radio equipment. The building, which, in addition to supply facilities, housed the radio center (receiving rooms, cipher room, dispatch room) and the amateur radio equipment production areas (laboratory, design office, administration and procurement, mechanical and electrical workshops, and storage for parts and finished equipment).
Transmitters, guard posts, and housing for the technical staff were located in auxiliary buildings, to which, over the course of the war, several additional accommodation barracks for the military personnel of the intelligence radio center were added. The lattice mast served, once completed, as an antenna support for a decimeter radio relay link to the new intelligence radio center in Belzig, which was occupied in 1942.
On the grounds of the OKW branch office in Stahnsdorf, various transmitting antennas were mounted on wooden and crank masts, while the receiving antennas consisted of simple long wires, one end of which was attached to the main building. As operating receivers, only the specially manufactured Siemens R-IV receivers were used in Stahnsdorf; these will be discussed in more detail in the section on the Hamburg-Wohldorf radio center.
The shortwave transmitters were housed in separate transmitter buildings and remotely keyed from the receiving stations. The variety of transmitter types was considerable: in addition to self-built transmitters designed as breadboard circuits, there were former ship and aircraft transmitters, Philips automatic transmitters with remotely adjustable preset frequencies, and a Lorenz transmitter Lo 40 K 39.
The initial antenna equipment included two W8JK directional beam antennas, one aligned north-south and one east-west. Later, various other antenna configurations were added for special long-distance connections. The author recalls having helped build a large antenna for the connection with the KO “Far East.”
Encryption and decryption of radio messages took place in the cipher room of the radio center. Transmission to the “Amt Ausland/Abwehr” (Foreign Office/Intelligence) at Tirpitzufer in Berlin was done in plaintext using two Hellschreiber devices via postal lines.
While in amateur radio operations a wide variety of codebooks with grid aids (templates and crossword-style keys) were used, internal Abwehr radio communications employed three 4-rotor Enigma machines in civilian versions—without plugboard but equipped with a crank and counter, to easily relocate specific positions within a message. In certain cases and for specific radio links, a 3-rotor Enigma in the army version (without crank and counter but with plugboard) was also used.
Towards the end of the war, in the innermost Abwehr radio network connecting the command centers and major intelligence offices, the newly developed SG-41 cipher machine was also employed. This device printed the plaintext and ciphertext simultaneously on two separate paper strips.
The increasing radio traffic within the Europe-wide network of the Secret Radio Communication Service, and with war organizations located partly at great distances, required additional antennas and operating rooms for personnel, transmitters, etc., which could no longer be accommodated in Stahnsdorf. For this reason, and due to increasing Allied bombing raids, construction of a new radio center in Belzig/Mark was planned in 1941 and occupied starting in 1942.
This facility consisted of a large operations building with the receiving stations and several residential and supply barracks. The many civilians visible in this photo are visitors on the occasion of the “Day of the Wehrmacht,” when the public was allowed to enter the outdoor premises and take photographs without restriction.
The transmitting center was built several kilometers away from the receiving headquarters. The shortwave transmitters installed there were of rack-mounted construction and had been developed and manufactured independently. They all consisted of a power supply unit, a two-stage driver transmitter using two RL12-P50 tubes, and a power amplifier stage with two RS383 tubes connected in parallel.
The antenna system included omnidirectional cage antennas, which hung vertically from wooden lattice masts with horizontal arms, and a large number of group dipole antennas for directional transmitting and receiving links, which were strung between steel lattice masts.
The military districts, Wehrkreise, located along Germany’s borders, each with its own Abwehrstelle, intelligence station, under the dual command of the Ic (Intelligence) General Staff officer of the respective Army Corps during peacetime, increasingly established so-called Meldestaffeln, reporting units, as part of rearmament. These units operated their own radio outposts, Meldeköpfe, in locations favorable for radio transmission. Both internal Abwehr radio communication and contact with field radio agents were handled by these Meldestaffeln.
As examples of such outposts, later referred to as radio reporting stations, Funkmeldeköpfe, like Eiserne Hand, Abwehrstelle XII, Wiesbaden and Meisheide, Abwehrstelle VI, Münster. Until the beginning of the Western Campaign in May 1940, the Abwehr offices in Wiesbaden, Münster, and Stuttgart, Abwehrstelle V, conducted reconnaissance missions primarily in Germany’s western neighboring countries.
The Meldestaffeln were also responsible for training agents in radio technology, radio communication, and cipher procedures, as well as instructing Wehrmacht radio operators in the equipment and communication methods of the Secret Radio Intelligence Service, Geheimer Funkmeldedienst.
There were many such radio outposts, but for long-range shortwave communication only a few were of major significance during World War II: the radio center Belzig, the large transmitting stations of Abwehrstellen X, Hamburg, and XVII, Vienna, and the radio centers of the regional headquarters East, Southeast, and West.
The area of responsibility of Abwehrstelle X in Hamburg, Knochenhauerstraße, included parts of Western and Northern Europe, England, Ireland, and the entire American continent. For these specialized and far-reaching communications, a radio center was established in summer 1939 under the cover name Domäne in an unoccupied villa at Kupferredder in Hamburg-Wohldorf.
Operations and receiving building Domäne, radio center Hamburg-Wohldorf.
Radio operations began with four receiving stations and one 40-watt Lorenz transmitter. The large property provided ample space for the necessary transmitting and receiving antennas. However, it soon became apparent that the close proximity of the transmitters caused keying interference in the receivers. Therefore, in 1940 the transmitters were relocated to a site in Diestelstraße, Hamburg-Ohlstedt, transmitting center Vorwerk, and the Domäne thereafter served as the operations and receiving headquarters. To the left and right of the building’s driveway stood barracks for the radio personnel and a permanently manned military guard post. A farmhouse opposite the Domäne housed the radio workshop.
As receiving antennas, which could supply several receivers simultaneously through broadband isolation amplifiers and an antenna switching panel, the Wohldorf site used five long-wire antennas, one cage antenna, and four rhombic antennas. For the latter, the directionality could be reversed by switching the feed and termination points.
Of the approximately 25 receiving positions in Hamburg-Wohldorf, most were used for overseas and intercontinental communication, while up to ten stations were reserved for European traffic. The Overseas Room, Reception Room I, was located on the first floor of the semicircular annex.
Various receiver models were used, like an SX-28 “Skyrider” by the American company Hallicrafters and also, KST receivers by Körting.
The KST was a German copy of the American HRO amateur radio receiver made by the National Company, equipped with German steel tubes. Band switching was done using plug-in coil boxes, inserted into the front lower section of the receiver. For the range 3.5–30 MHz, three coil boxes were required, stored in a separate case. Körting produced several hundred units of this receiver, and even after the outbreak of war, the dial mechanism, tuning capacitor unit, and coil boxes continued to be imported via Portugal for some time.
The European Room, Europasaal, comprised Reception Rooms II and III of the Domäne, where Siemens R-IV and Italian Ducati receivers were used. Like the KST, the R-IV required three coil boxes for the range 3.15–33 MHz, but these were inserted from the top rather than from the front. The advantage of this design was that the operator did not have to clear the workspace in front of the receiver to change bands.
All radio messages were encrypted and decrypted within the Domäne. In internal Abwehr radio communication, this was done using the Enigma cipher machines. Communication with Abwehrstelle X in the Knochenhauerstraße took place in plain text using Hellschreiber devices over leased postal lines.
The transmitting center Vorwerk, was newly established in 1940 on Diestelstraße in Hamburg-Ohlstedt, about 3.5 km from the Domäne. The transmitters installed there, were remotely operated via cables from the Domäne.
The available transmitting antennas included five rhombic antennas, one cage antenna, and five long-wire antennas.
Power was supplied by an emergency generator installed in a bombproof shelter.
In the transmitter room in Vorwerk were, placed on tables, Lorenz transmitters and Telefunken transmitters.
Nn the left side of the transmitter room stood the large Lorenz transmitters, numbers 10, 11, and 12. These were former ship transmitters from the cruiser Köln; in the back stood a Telefunken transmitter.
A Philips automatic shortwave transmitter, Transmitter No. 15, was installed in Vorwerk. This model was also used in other Abwehr (German military intelligence) radio centers.
The crew of this then highly secret Abwehr radio center typically consisted of 1 to 2 officers, 4 sergeants, 6 non-commissioned officers, and 50 radio operators from all three branches of the Wehrmacht (Army, Air Force, and Navy). Among them were up to 20 former amateur radio operators, to whom the extensive self-built setup and the successful operation of the often difficult agent radio communications were largely owed.
From Hamburg-Wohldorf, numerous radio lines were operated to its own outposts and field units, to higher and lower-level organizational units, to war organizations in neutral countries, and to many individual radio agents. At times, up to 150 agent radio (Afu) circuits were monitored, and other Abwehr organizations, overloaded or less well-equipped, tasked Hamburg with handling their radio communications.
With radio agents operating in England, contact was maintained in some cases until the end of the war, as was later revealed, these were all radio deception operations run by England under the code name “Double Cross,” involving around 120 double agents over time.
Radio traffic with North America continued until the sudden roundup on June 29, 1940, of the agents and radio operators who had long been under observation.
Up to that point, Germany had received valuable intelligence on military and economic matters, ship and convoy movements, and even information on Abwehr II operations.
Because of the imminent U.S. entry into the war and the growing importance of intelligence from the American continent, an existing Abwehr shortwave network in Central and South America was expanded. It not only handled communications from those regions but also served as a relay station for messages from North America.
Afterward, the United States also attempted to conduct radio deception operations using the captured agent radio equipment and communication records.
The Duquesne Spy Ring is the largest espionage case in the United States history that ended in convictions. A total of 33 members of a Nazi German espionage network, headed by Frederick "Fritz" Duquesne, were convicted after a lengthy investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). Of those indicted, 19 pleaded guilty. The remaining 14 were brought to jury trial in Federal District Court, Brooklyn, New York, on September 3, 1941; all were found guilty on December 13, 1941. On January 2, 1942, the group members were sentenced to serve a total of over 300 years in prison.
The agents who formed the Duquesne Ring were placed in key jobs in the United States to get information that could be used in the event of war and to carry out acts of sabotage: one opened a restaurant and used his position to get information from his customers; another worked on an airline so that he could report Allied ships that were crossing the Atlantic Ocean; others worked as delivery people as a cover for carrying secret messages.
William G. Sebold, who had been blackmailed into becoming a spy for Germany, became a double agent and helped the FBI gather evidence. For nearly two years, the FBI ran a shortwave radio station in New York for the ring. They learned what information Germany was sending its spies in the United States and controlled what was sent to Germany. Sebold's success as a counterespionage agent was demonstrated by the successful prosecution of the German agents.
One German spymaster later commented the ring's roundup delivered "the death blow" to their espionage efforts in the United States. FBI director J. Edgar Hoover called his concerted FBI swoop on Duquesne's ring the greatest spy roundup in U.S. history
FBI agents William Sebold (double-agent)
Duquesne in the office of Harry Sawyer (aka William Sebold), FBI, June 25, 1941
After the Duquesne Spy Ring convictions, Sebold was provided with a new identity and started a chicken farm in California.
Impoverished and delusional, he was committed to Napa State Hospital in 1965. Diagnosed with manic-depression, he died there of a heart attack five years later at 70. His life story as a double agent was first told in the 1943 book Passport to Treason: The Inside Story of Spies in America by Alan Hynd.
Special Agent Jim Ellsworth was assigned as Sebold's handler or body man, responsible for shadowing his every move during the 16-month investigation.
William Gustav Friedemann was a principal witness in the Duquesne case. He began working for the FBI as a fingerprint analyst in 1935 and later became an agent after identifying a crucial fingerprint in a kidnapping case.
After World War II, he was assigned to Puerto Rico, where he pinpointed the group behind the assassination attempt on President Harry Truman. Friedemann died of cancer on August 23, 1989, in Stillwater, Oklahoma.
Convicted members of Duquesne Spy Ring
Born in Cape Colony, South Africa, on September 21, 1877, and a naturalized citizen of the United States in 1913, Fritz Joubert Duquesne was a captain in the Second Boer War and later a colonel in the Abwehr, Germany's division of military intelligence.
Duquesne was captured and imprisoned three times by the British, once by the Portuguese, and once by the Americans in 1917, and each time he escaped. In World War I, he was a spy and ring leader for Germany and during this time he sabotaged British merchant ships in South America with concealed bombs and destroyed several.[8] Duquesne was also ordered to assassinate an American, Frederick Russell Burnham, Chief of Scouts for the British Army, but failed to do so.[10] He was known as "The man who killed Kitchener" since he claimed to have sabotaged and sunk HMS Hampshire, on which Lord Kitchener was en route to Russia in 1916.
In the spring of 1934, Duquesne became an intelligence officer for the Order of 76, an American pro-Nazi organization, and in January 1935 he began working for U.S. government's Works Progress Administration. Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, head of the Abwehr, knew Duquesne from his work in World War I and he instructed his new chief of operations in the U.S., Col. Nikolaus Ritter, to make contact. Ritter had been friends with Duquesne back in 1931 and the two spies reconnected in New York on December 3, 1937.
On February 8, 1940, Ritter sent Sebold, under the alias of Harry Sawyer, to New York and instructed him to set up a shortwave radio-transmitting station and to contact Duquesne, code-named DUNN.
Once the FBI discovered through Sebold that Duquesne was again in New York operating as a German spy, director J. Edgar Hoover provided a background briefing to President Franklin Roosevelt. FBI agent Raymond Newkirk, using the name Ray McManus, was now assigned to DUNN and he rented a room immediately above Duquesne's apartment near Central Park and used a hidden microphone to record Duquesne's conversations. But monitoring Duquesne's activities proved to be difficult. As Newkirk described it, "The Duke had been a spy all of his life and automatically used all of the tricks in the book to avoid anyone following him...He would take a local train, change to an express, change back to a local, go through a revolving door and keep going on right around, take an elevator up a floor, get off, walk back to the ground, and take off in a different entrance of the building."[9] Duquesne also informed Sebold that he was certain he was under surveillance, and he even confronted one FBI agent and demanded that he stop tracking him, a story confirmed by agent Newkirk.
In a letter to the Chemical Warfare Service in Washington, D.C., Duquesne requested information on a new gas mask. He identified himself as a "well-known, responsible and reputable writer and lecturer." At the bottom of the letter, he wrote, "Don't be concerned if this information is confidential, because it will be in the hands of a good, patriotic citizen." A short time later, the information he requested arrived in the mail and a week later it was being read by intelligence officers in Berlin.
Duquesne was found guilty of espionage and sentenced to 18 years in prison. He received a concurrent two-year sentence and was fined $2,000 for violating the Foreign Agents Registration Act. Duquesne served his sentence in Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary in Kansas, where he was mistreated and beaten by other inmates. In 1954, he was released due to ill health, having served fourteen years, and died indigent, at City Hospital on Welfare Island (now Roosevelt Island), New York City, on May 24, 1956, at the age of 78.
Born in Germany, Paul Bante served in the German Army during the First World War. In 1930 he came to the United States, where he was naturalized in 1938. Bante, a former member of the German American Bund, claimed that he was brought into contact with agent Paul Fehse because of his ties to Ignatz Theodor Griebl. Before he fled the United States for Germany, Griebl was accused of belonging to a Nazi spy ring along with Rumrich spy ring. Bante helped Fehse to obtain information about ships leaving for Great Britain loaded with war supplies. As a Gestapo agent, he was supposed to cause discontent amongst trade unionists. Sebold met Bante at the Little Casino Restaurant, which was frequently used by the ring's members. During one of these meetings, Bante talked about making a bomb detonator, after which he later gave dynamite and detonators to Sebold. Bante pleaded guilty to violating the Registration Act. He was sentenced to 18 months in prison and fined $1,000.
Max Blank came to the United States from Germany in 1928. While he never became a U.S. citizen, he'd been employed at a German library. Blank boasted to agent Sebold that he had been in the espionage business since 1936, but lost interest in recent years since payments from Germany had fallen off. Blank pleaded guilty to violating the Registration Act. He was sentenced 18 months in prison and fined $1,000.
In September 1934, German-born Heinrich Clausing came to the United States, where he became a naturalized citizen in 1938. Around 1938, Heinrich was recruited to find American automobile and aviation industry secrets that could be passed to Germany through the Duquesne Spy Ring. Later it was discovered that Heinrich was also the mysterious "Heinrich" who supplied the spy ring with aerial photographs.
After obtaining technical books relating to magnesium and aluminum alloys, Heine sent the materials to Heinrich Eilers. To ensure safe delivery of the books to Germany in case they did not reach Eilers, Heinrich indicated the return address on the package as the address of Lilly Stein.
Clausing pleaded guilty to espionage and was sentenced to 8 years in prison. He also received a two-year concurrent sentence and was fined $5,000 for violating of the Registration Act.
In 1934, Paul Fehse left Germany for the United States, where he was naturalized in 1938. Since emigrating, he'd been employed as a cook aboard ships sailing from the New York Harbor. Fehse was one of the leading forces in the spy ring. He arranged meetings, directed members’ activities, correlated information that had been developed, and arranged for its transmittal to Germany, chiefly through Sebold. Fehse, who was trained for espionage work in Hamburg, claimed he headed the Marine Division of the Nazi espionage system in the United States.
Having become nervous, Fehse made plans to leave the country. He obtained a position on the SS Siboney, which was scheduled to sail from Hoboken, New Jersey, for Lisbon, on March 29, 1941. He planned to desert ship in Lisbon and return to Germany. However, before he could leave, Fehse was arrested by the FBI. Upon his arrest, he admitted sending letters to Italy for transmittal to Germany, as well as reporting the movements of British ships. Fehse pleaded guilty to violating the Registration Act and was sentenced to one year and one day in prison. He later pleaded guilty to espionage and was sentenced to 15 years in prison.
Gustav Wilhelm Kärcher emigrated from Germany to the United States in 1923, and was naturalized in 1931. He served in the German Army during World War I, and was a former leader of the German American Bund in New York. During visits to Germany, Kärcher was seen wearing a German Army officer’s uniform. At the time of his arrest, he was engaged in designing power plants for a gas and electricity company in New York City. Kärcher was arrested with Paul Scholz, who'd just given Kärcher a table of call letters and frequencies for transmitting information to Germany by radio. After pleading guilty to violating the Registration Act, Kärcher was sentenced to 22 months in prison and fined $2,000.
Herman W. Lang had participated in the Beer Hall Putsch in 1923. He immigrated to the United States in 1927.
Until his arrest, machinist and draftsman Lang had been employed as an assembly inspector by the Carl L. Norden Corp., which manufactured the top secret Norden bombsight. In October 1937 he met Ritter and told him he had overnight access to classified drawings and used it to copy them in his kitchen at home while his family was asleep. He then hid the plans in a wooden casing for an umbrella, and, on January 9, 1938, personally handed the umbrella off to a German steward and secret courier on the ship SS Reliance bound for Bremen. For that he received $1500. However, he could not copy all the plans, and Ritter had to invite him to Germany in order to complete a model, where he was received by Hermann Göring himself.
The Norden bombsight had been considered a critical wartime instrument by the United States Army Air Forces, and American bombardiers were required to take an oath during their training stating that they would defend its secret with their own life, if needed. The Lotfernrohr 3 and the BZG 2 in 1942 used a similar set of gyroscopes that provided a stabilized platform for the bombardier to sight through, although the more complex interaction between the bombsight and autopilot was not used. Later in the war, Luftwaffe bombers used the Carl Zeiss Lotfernrohr 7, or Lotfe 7, which had an advanced mechanical system similar to the Norden bombsight, but was much simpler to operate and maintain.[citation needed] At one point, Sebold was ordered to contact Lang as it became known that the technology he had stolen from Norden was being used in German bombers. The Nazis offered to spirit him to safety in Germany, but Lang refused to leave his home in Ridgewood, Queens.
Upon conviction, Lang was sentenced to 18 years in prison on espionage charges and a concurrent two-year term under the Registration Act. He was released and deported to Germany in September 1950.
A native of Arkansas, Evelyn Clayton Lewis had been living with Duquesne in New York City. Lewis had expressed her anti-British and antisemitic feelings during her relationship with Duquesne. She was aware of his espionage activities and condoned them. While she was not active in obtaining information for Germany, she helped Duquesne prepare material for transmittal abroad. After pleading guilty, Lewis was sentenced to serve one year and one day in prison for violating the Registration Act.
Rene Emanuel Mezenen, a Frenchman, claimed U.S. citizenship through the naturalization of his father. Prior to his arrest, he was employed as a steward in the Pan American transatlantic clipper service.
The German Intelligence Service in Lisbon, Portugal, asked Mezenen to act as a courier, transmitting information between the United States and Portugal on his regular commercial aircraft trips. As a steward he was able to deliver documents from New York to Lisbon in 24 hours. He accepted this offer for financial gain. In the course of flights across the Atlantic, Mezenen reported his observance of convoys sailing for England. He also became involved in smuggling platinum from the United States to Portugal. When discussing his courier role with agent Sebold, Mezenen boasted that he hid the spy letters so well that if they were found it would have taken two to three weeks to repair the airplane.
After pleading guilty, Mezenen was sentenced to 8 years in prison for espionage. He received a concurrent two-year sentence for violating the Registration Act.
Having come to the United States from Germany in 1929, Carl Reuper became a citizen in 1936. Prior to his arrest, he served as an inspector for the Westinghouse Electric Company in Newark, New Jersey. Previously, he worked as a mechanic for the Air Associates Company in Bendix, New Jersey.
Reuper obtained photographs for Germany relating to national defense materials and construction, which he obtained from his employment. He arranged radio contact with Germany through the station established by Felix Jahnke. On one occasion, he conferred with Sebold regarding the latter's facilities for communicating with German authorities. After being convicted at trial, Reuper was sentenced to 16 years in prison on espionage charges and received a concurrent two-year sentence under the Registration Act.
Born in the Bronx, New York, Everett Minster Roeder was the son of a celebrated piano instructor, Carl Roeder. A child prodigy, when he was 15 years old he enrolled in engineering at Cornell University and there he met the brothers Edward and Elmer Sperry; however he dropped out of school when he was 18 and married his pregnant girlfriend. He was one of the first employees at the Sperry Gyroscope Company where he worked as an engineer and designer of confidential materials for the U.S. Army and Navy. In his job as a gyroscope expert working on U.S. military contracts, Roeder built machines such as tracking devices for long-range guns capable of hitting moving targets 10 mi (16 km) away, aircraft autopilot and blind-flying systems, ship stabilizers, and anti-aircraft search lights.
Sebold had delivered microphotograph instructions to Roeder, as ordered by German authorities. Roeder and Sebold met in public places and proceeded to spots where they could talk privately. In 1936, Roeder had visited Germany and was requested by German authorities to act as an espionage agent. Primarily due to monetary rewards he would receive, Roeder agreed.
Among the Sperry development secrets Roeder disclosed were the blueprints of the complete radio instrumentation of the new Glenn Martin bomber, classified drawings of range finders, blind-flying instruments, a bank-and-turn indicator, a navigator compass, a wiring diagram of the Lockheed Hudson bomber, and diagrams of the Hudson gun mountings. From Roeder the Abwehr also obtained the plans for an advanced automatic pilot device that was later used in Luftwaffe fighters and bombers. At the time of his arrest, Roeder had 16 guns in his Long Island home in New York.
Roeder pleaded guilty to espionage and was sentenced to 16 years in prison. In 1949, Roeder published his book, Formulas in plane triangles.
A German native, Paul Scholz went to the United States in 1926 but never attained citizenship. He had been employed in German book stores in New York City, where he disseminated Nazi propaganda.
Scholz had arranged for Josef Klein *) to construct the radio set used by Felix Jahnke and Axel Wheeler-Hill. At the time of his arrest, Scholz had just given Gustav Wilhelm Kaercher a list of radio call letters and frequencies. He also encouraged members of this spy ring to secure data for Germany and arranged contacts between various German agents.
After being convicted at trial, Scholz was sentenced to 16 years in prison for espionage and received a concurrent two-year sentence under the Registration Act. *) De drie levens van Josef Klein. Geschreven door Ulla Lenze, ISBN nr. 9 789493169111
George Gottlob Schuh, a native of Germany, went to the United States in 1923. He became a citizen in 1939 and was employed as a carpenter.
As a German agent, he sent information directly to the Gestapo in Hamburg from the United States. Schuh had provided Alfred Brokhoff information that Winston Churchill had arrived in the United States on HMS King George V. He also furnished information to Germany concerning the movement of ships carrying materials and supplies to Britain. Having pleaded guilty to violation of the Registration Act, Schuh received a sentence of 18 months in prison and a $1,000 fine.
Erwin Wilhelm Siegler went to the United States from Germany in 1929 and attained citizenship in 1936. He had served as chief butcher on the SS America (1940) until it was taken over by the U.S. Navy. A courier, Siegler brought microphotographic instructions to Sebold from German authorities on one occasion. He also had brought $2,900 from German contacts abroad to pay Lilly Stein, Duquesne, and Roeder for their services and to buy a bomb sight. He served the espionage group as an organizer and contact man, and he also obtained information about the movement of ships and military defense preparations at the Panama Canal. After being convicted at trial, Siegler was sentenced to 10 years in prison for espionage and a concurrent two-year term for violating the Registration Act.
Born in Germany, Oscar Richard Stabler went to the United States in 1923 and became a citizen in 1933. He had been employed primarily as a barber aboard transoceanic ships. In December 1940, British authorities in Bermuda found a map of Gibraltar in his possession. He was detained for a short period before being released. A close associate of Conradin Otto Dold, Stabler served as a courier, transmitting information between German agents in the United States and contacts abroad. Stabler was convicted and sentenced to five years in prison for espionage and a concurrent two-year term under the Registration Act.
Heinrich Stade went to the United States from Germany in 1922 and became a citizen in 1929. He had been a musician and publicity agent in New York. He told agent Sebold he had been in the Gestapo since 1936 and boasted that he knew everything in the spy business.
Stade had arranged for Paul Bante's contact with Sebold and had transmitted data to Germany regarding points of rendezvous for convoys carrying supplies to England.
Stade was arrested while playing in the orchestra at an inn on Long Island, New York. Following a guilty plea to violation of the Registration Act, Stade was fined $1,000 and received a 15-month prison sentence.
Born in Vienna, Lilly Barbara Carola Stein was a Jewish immigrant who had escaped in 1939 with the help of a U.S. diplomat in Vienna, Vice Consul Ogden Hammond Jr. She later met Hugo Sebold, the espionage instructor who had trained William Sebold (the two men were not related) in Hamburg, Germany. She enrolled in this school and was sent to the United States by way of Sweden in 1939.
In New York, she worked as an artist's model and was said to have moved in New York's social circles. As a German agent her mission was to find her targets at New York nightclubs, sleep with these men, and attempt to blackmail them or otherwise entice them to give up valuable secrets. One FBI agent described her as a "good-looking nymphomaniac". Stein was one of the people to whom Sebold had been instructed to deliver microphotograph instructions upon his arrival in the United States. She frequently met with Sebold to give him information for transmittal to Germany, and her address was used as a return address by other agents in mailing data for Germany.
Stein pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 10 years in prison for espionage and a concurrent two-year term for violating the Registration Act. After her release, she left for France where she found employment at a luxury resort near Strasbourg.
In 1931, Franz Joseph Stigler, left Germany for the United States, where he became a citizen in 1939. He had been employed as a crew member and chief baker aboard U.S. ships until his discharge from the SS America (1939) when the U.S. Navy converted that ship into USS West Point. His constant companion was Erwin Siegler, and they operated as couriers in transmitting information between the United States and German agents aboard. Stigler sought to recruit amateur radio operators in the United States as channels of communication to German radio stations. He had also observed and reported defense preparations in the Panama Canal Zone and had met with other German agents to advise them in their espionage pursuits. In January 1941, Stigler asked agent Sebold to radio Germany that Prime Minister Winston Churchill had arrived secretly in the U.S. on HMS King George V (41) with Lord Halifax. Upon conviction, Stigler was sentenced to serve 16 years in prison on espionage charges with two concurrent years for registration violations.
A seaman aboard the ships of the United States Lines since his arrival in the United States, Erich Strunck went to the United States from Germany in 1927. He became a naturalized citizen in 1935. As a courier, Strunck carried messages between German agents in the United States and Europe. He requested authority to steal the diplomatic bag of a British officer traveling aboard his ship and to dispose of the officer by pushing him overboard. Sebold convinced him that it would be too risky to do so. Strunck was convicted and sentenced to serve 10 years in prison on espionage charges. He also was sentenced to serve a two-year concurrent term under the Registration Act.
Leo Waalen was born in Danzig, Germany. He entered the United States by "jumping ship" about 1935. He was a painter for a small boat company which was constructing small craft for the U.S. Navy. Waalen gathered information about ships sailing for England. He also obtained a confidential booklet issued by the FBI which contained precautions to be taken by industrial plants to safeguard national defense materials from sabotage. He secured government contracts listing specifications for materials and equipment, as well as detailed sea charts of the United States Atlantic coastline.
In May 1941, the American cargo vessel SS Robin Moor was carrying nine officers, 29 crewmen, seven or eight passengers, and a commercial cargo from New York to Mozambique via South Africa, without a protective convoy. On 21 May, the ship was stopped by U-69 in the tropical Atlantic 750 mi (1,210 km; 650 nmi) west of the British-controlled port of Freetown, Sierra Leone. Although the Robin Moor was flying the flag of a neutral country, her mate was told by the U-boat crew that they had decided to "let us have it". After a brief period for the ship's crew and passengers to board her four lifeboats, the U-boat fired a torpedo and then shelled the vacated ship. Once the ship sank beneath the waves, the submarine's crew pulled up to Captain W.E. Myers' lifeboat, left him with four tins of ersatz bread and two tins of butter, and explained that the ship had been sunk because she was carrying supplies to Germany's enemy. In October 1941, federal prosecutors adduced testimony that Waalen, one of the fourteen accused men who had pleaded not guilty to all charges, had submitted the sailing date of the Robin Moor for radio transmission to Germany, five days before the ship began her final voyage. Following his conviction, Waalen was sentenced to 12 years in prison for espionage and a concurrent two-year term for violation of the Registration Act.
A German native, Adolf Henry August Walischewski had been a seaman since maturity. He became a naturalized citizen in 1935. Walischewski became connected with the German espionage system through Paul Fehse. His duties were confined to those of courier, carrying data from agents in the United States to contacts abroad. Upon conviction, Walischewski received a five-year prison sentence on espionage charges, as well as a two-year concurrent sentence under the Registration Act.
Else Weustenfeld arrived in the United States from Germany in 1927 and became a citizen 10 years later. From 1935 until her arrest, she was a secretary for a law firm representing the German Consulate in New York City.
Weustenfeld was thoroughly acquainted with the German espionage system and delivered funds to Duquesne which she had received from Lilly Stein, her close friend.
She lived in New York City with Hans W. Ritter, a principal in the German espionage system. His brother, Nickolaus Ritter, was the "Dr. Renken" who had enlisted Sebold as a German agent. In 1940, Weustenfeld visited Hans Ritter in Mexico, where he was serving as a paymaster for the German Intelligence Service. After pleading guilty, Else Weustenfeld was sentenced to five years' imprisonment on charge of espionage and two concurrent years on a charge of registration violations.
Axel Wheeler-Hill went to the United States in 1923 from his native Latvia. Between 1918 and 1922, he'd served in the Baltic Freikorps during the Latvian War of Independence.[18] He was naturalized as a citizen in 1929 and was employed as a truck driver.
Wheeler-Hill obtained information for Germany regarding ships sailing to Britain from New York Harbor. With Felix Jahnke, he enlisted the aid of Paul Scholz in building a radio set for sending coded messages to Germany.
Following conviction, Wheeler-Hill was sentenced to serve 15 years in prison for espionage and 2 concurrent years under the Registration Act.
Born in Germany, Bertram Wolfgang Zenzinger went to the United States in 1940 as a naturalized citizen of the Union of South Africa. His reported reason for coming to the United States was to study mechanical dentistry in Los Angeles, California.
In July 1940, Zenzinger received a pencil for preparing invisible messages for Germany in the mail from Siegler. He sent several letters to Germany through a mail drop in Sweden, outlining details of national defense materials.
Zenzinger was arrested by FBI agents on April 16, 1941. Pleading guilty, he was sentenced to 8 years in prison for espionage and 18 months in prison for Registration Act.
Liaisons to the Duquesne Spy Ring
Takeo Ezima discusses intelligence documents with Abwehr agent Harry Sawyer (FBI agent Sebold), 1941.
Lieutenant Commander Takeo Ezima of the Imperial Japanese Navy operated in New York as an engineer inspector using the name: E. Satoz; code name: KATO.
He arrived on the Heian Maru in Seattle in 1938. On October 19, 1940, Sebold received a radio message from Germany that CARR (Abwehr Agent Roeder) was to meet E. Satoz at a Japanese club in New York.
Ezima was filmed by the FBI while meeting with agent Sebold in New York, conclusive evidence of German-Japanese cooperation in espionage, in addition to meeting with Kanegoro Koike, Paymaster Commander of the Japanese Imperial Navy assigned to the Office of the Japanese Naval Inspector in New York. Ezima obtained a number of military materials from Duquesne, including ammunition, a drawing of a hydraulic unit with pressure switch A-5 of the Sperry Gyroscope, and an original drawing from the Lawrence Engineering and Research Corporation of a soundproofing installation, and he agreed to deliver materials to Germany via Japan. The British had made the Abwehr courier route from New York through Lisbon, Portugal difficult, so Ezima arranged an alternate route to the west coast with deliveries every two weeks on freighters destined for Japan.
As the FBI arrested Duquesne and his agents in New York in 1941, Ezima escaped to the west coast, boarded the Japanese freighter Kamakura Maru, and left for Tokyo. One historian states that Ezima was arrested for espionage in 1942 and sentenced to 15 years; however, U.S. Naval Intelligence documents state that "at the request [of] the State Department, Ezima was not prosecuted."
Oberstleutnant (Lieutenant colonel) Nikolaus Ritter led spy rings in the United States, Great Britain, and North Africa from 1936 to 1941. Ritter was born in Germany and had served as an officer in the First World War on the Western Front in France where he was twice wounded. He emigrated to New York in 1924, married an American, and returned to Germany in 1936 to join the Abwehr as Chief of Air Intelligence based in Hamburg operating under the code name: DR. RANTZAU.
He first met Fritz Duquesne in 1931, and the two spies reconnected in New York on December 3, 1937. Ritter also met Herman Lang while in New York, and he arranged for Lang to later go to Germany to help the Nazis finish their version of the top secret Norden bombsight. Ritter achieved several major successes with the Abwehr, most notably the Norden bombsight, in addition to an advanced aircraft auto-pilot from the Sperry Gyroscope Company, and also intelligence operations in North Africa in support of Field Marshal Erwin Rommel. But some of Ritter's recruits became double-agents who catastrophically exposed his spy rings.
Ritter recruited William Sebold who later joined the FBI which resulted in the arrest of the 33 Abwehr agents of the Duquesne Spy Ring. In Great Britain, he recruited Arthur Owens, code named JOHNNY, who became an agent for MI5 (British Intelligence) operating under the code name SNOW. Owens exposed so many Abwehr covert agents operating in Britain that by the end of the war MI5 had enlisted some 120 double agents. Although Ritter was never captured, it was the arrest of the Duquesne Spy Ring that ultimately resulted in Ritter's fall from the Abwehr and his reassignment in 1942 to air defenses in Germany for the remainder of the Second World War.
Source: Wikipedia.
Using radio games to infiltrate into the radio network of the enemy.
Joachim Rohleder (* 29. April 1892 in Stettin; † 5. Dezember 1973 im Taunus) war ein deutscher Offizier der Abwehr, zuletzt Oberst (ab 1. April 1941) im Zweiten Weltkrieg.
Rohleder wurde als Sohn des Stettiner Großkaufmanns und Handelsrichters Max Julius Rohleder und seiner Ehefrau Ottilie (geborene Huber) geboren und besuchte nach dem Besuch des Gymnasiums 1905/10 die Kadettenanstalt in Oranienstein. Anschließend wurde er mit Patent vom 1. Juni 1910 als Leutnant in das Leib-Grenadier-Regiment „König Friedrich Wilhelm III.“ (1. Brandenburgisches) Nr. 8 der Preußischen Armee in Frankfurt (Oder) überwiesen. Am Ersten Weltkrieg 1914/18 nahm er als Zug- und Kompanieführer sowie als Regimentsadjutant teil. Zuletzt hatte er den Dienstgrad eine Oberleutnants. Für seine Leistungen wurde er mit beiden Klassen des Eisernen Kreuzes, dem Verwundetenabzeichen in Schwarz und dem Mecklenburgischen Militärverdienstkreuz II. Klasse ausgezeichnet.
Nach Kriegsende und kurzer Tätigkeit im Grenzschutz bei Beuthen wurde Rohleder in die Vorläufige Reichswehr übernommen, diente im Reichswehr-Infanterie-Regiment 10 und kam dann in das Infanterie-Regiment 8 der Reichswehr. 1930 schied er aus der Reichswehr aus und war 1931/34 militärischer Berater und Instruktionsoffizier an der Kriegsakademie in Argentinien.
1935 wurde Rohleder als E-Offizier mit dem Rang eines Majors im Heer der Wehrmacht angestellt und unter dem Abteilungsleiter Franz Eccard von Bentivegni zunächst Hilfskraft, 1938 Leiter der Gruppe III F für Gegenspionage in der Amtsgruppe, später Amt Ausland/Abwehr, dem Nachrichtendienst der Wehrmacht. Gert Buchheit schreibt "Getrennt von der sonstigen III-Tätigkeit war III F gewissermaßen ein Geheimdienst für sich mit eigenen Agenten und eigenen Methoden. Aufgabengebiet: Gegenspionage gegenüber erkannten oder vermuteten gegnerischen militärischen Geheimdiensten und ihren Leitstellen, vor allem in deren eigenem Territorium und Einflussgebiet sowie im neutralen Ausland. Hier arbeitete also Geheimdienst unmittelbar gegen Geheimdienst. Während der geheime Melde- und Erkundungsdienst (Abwehr-Abteilung I) an die militärisch wichtigen Objekte heranging, um den gegnerischen Geheim- oder Abwehrdienst jedoch einen großen Bogen machte, versuchte III F bewusst in diesen einzudringen, dessen Organisation, Methoden, Pläne, Agenten, Nachrichtenwege und die mit ihm in Verbindung stehenden Verräter zu erkennen, zu bekämpfen und unschädlich zu machen sowie gelegentlich auch seine Agenten 'umzudrehen'. III F berichtete an Generalstab des Heeres/Fremde Heere, blieb jedoch unabhängig hinsichtlich Gesamtauswertung." "Die Überwachung der ausländischen diplomatischen Vertretungen in Berlin fiel auch in den Bereich des III F-Dienstes. Sie wurde durchgeführt durch den III F- Bearbeiter bei der Abwehrstelle des Wehrkreiskommandos in Berlin, Hptm. Woter. (...) Der III-F Dienst der Ast Berlin sorgte für den Einbau eines Mikrofons in das Arbeitszimmer des Militärattachés (...)." Während des Spanischen Bürgerkriegs war er als Leiter der Abwehr III der Legion Condor, Spionageabwehr, ein Jahr lang in Spanien tätig, wo er sich nach Aussage Bentivegnis sehr bewährte. Als Gruppenleiter III F im Amt Ausland/Abwehr hatte er u. a. 1943 den Hochverrat des Abteilungsleiters Hans Oster aufzuklären, doch wurden seine Ergebnisse zunächst von seinen Vorgesetzten Bentivegni und Canaris unterdrückt. Ab Frühjahr 1944 war er im Reichssicherheitshauptamt (RSHA) Amt IV E (Zuständigkeit: Fälle des Hoch- und Landesverrats) unter SS-Standartenführer Walter Huppenkothen tätig. Nach eigenen Aussagen gegenüber einer Sonderkommission sei er „1945 an die Front gegangen“.
Joachim Rohleder wurde am 12. Juni 1947 im Internierungslager 7 C.I.C. Eselsheide bei Paderborn von zwei Inspektoren der Schweizerischen Bundespolizei Freiburghaus und Hess über die Erkenntnisse des militärischen Geheimdienstes gegen die Schweiz im Krieg verhört.
Rohleder hat in einem Dokument, dass sich im Berlin Document Center befindet, am 6. August 1963 seine Mitgliedschaft in folgenden nationalsozialistischen Organisationen bestätigt: SS, SA, Propagandakompanie (PK), Rasse- und Siedlungshauptamt (RuSHA), Oberstes Parteigericht (OPG), Rückwanderungszentralstelle (PWZ) und Einwanderungszentralstelle (EWZ). Auf Betreiben des Polizeipräsidenten von Berlin wird Joachim Rohleder am 2. März 1965 in seiner Wohnung in Hamburg von einer Sonderkommission vernommen.
Nach 1945 wurde er stellvertretender Leiter der Generalvertretung München der Organisation Gehlen.
Aufgrund seiner hohen Bildung und Intelligenz war es Rohleder möglich, die von den verschiedenen Abwehrstellen in Deutschland und ganz Europa bei ihm einlaufenden Informationen über die Tätigkeit ausländischer Spionagenetze zu verknüpfen und Canaris zur Verfügung zu stellen. Als Offizier eines preußischen Elite-Regiments standen für ihn Pflichterfüllung und militärischer Gehorsam gegenüber seinen Vorgesetzten im Mittelpunkt. So war für ihn im Fall Hans Oster eine Umgehung seiner Vorgesetzten undenkbar.
Den Verlust seiner Heimatstadt Stettin nach 1945 konnte er ebenso wenig verkraften wie die aus seiner Sicht immer weiter nachlassende Begeisterung für eine nationale Gesinnung. Die letzten Lebensjahre verbrachte er zurückgezogen und – nach eigenen Worten – als „Fremdling unter den Menschen“.
Source: Wikipedia.
Referat III-K, wireless defence, Korvettenkapitän Schmolinske.
Hunting down and destroying wireless stations of enenmy agents.
From 1940 on as Group with OKW/WNV Fu III.
Otto Schmolinske (1.10.1895, Düsseldorf - 14.2.1985, Berlin) Teilnahme als Angehöriger der "Crew" 15 an der Skagerrak-Schlacht. 1918 als Marine-Ingenieurs-Aspirant entlassen. Geht zum Freikorps von Roden und von Loewenfeld, nimmt am 13.3.1920 am Kapp-Putsch teil. Ab 1923 Ingenieur bei der Lufthansa. 1928 als Angestellter in die Marineleitung übernommen. 1931 Lehrer für Elektro- und Funktechnik bei der Zentralstelle für Flugsicherung an der (militärischen) Flugschule Staaken bei Spandau. 1.10.1933 reaktiviert als Kapitänleutnant M.A.(E) und zugeteilt der Marineausbildung (Abtlg. A IV) im RWM. Gründet im Frühjahr 1934 die FWGM. Ab 1934 im OKM in der Abwehr (Abtlg. IVrn). Ab 1.10.1935 Korvettenkapitän M.A. (E) mit FT-A-Befähigung. April 1934 - Januar 1940 im OKW (Oberkommando der Wehrmacht, Abtlg. Ausland III, Ref. Ag WNV/Fu) in Berlin, wo er im Wehrmachtsführungsstab am Matthäuskirchenplatz die Abteilung Wehrmacht-Nachrichtenverbindungen - Funkwesen aufbaut. Ab 1.11.1937 Korvettenkapitän (Ing.) - Februar 1940 - August 1941 zum Wehrmachtsamt des RKM überstellt. Bis Februar 1942 K.M.V. Wilhelmshaven, zur Information. Bis Juni 1943 K.M.W. Brest, Direktor des Nachrichtenmittelressorts. Ab 1.7.1942 Kapitän z.S. (Ing.) Bis Januar 1944 Chef des Marine-Nachrichtenkommandos Atlantik, dann bis Ausgust 1944 detto in Paris, dann bis März 1945 detto in Gotenhafen. Im April 1945 Stellvertretender Kommandant des Marine-Arsenals Hamburg. Am 20.11.1945 entlassen. Lebte dann in Hamburg. Dort erkrankte er im Februar 1946 lebensbedrohlich an Diphterie. Dank ärztlicher Hilfe überstand er die Krankheit, litt aber bis ans Lebensende an den Folgeerscheinungen. Ende Oktober 1946 kehrte er zurück nach Berlin zur Familie in die Wohnung, die den Krieg überstanden hatte. Ehrenhalber engagierte er sich bis zuletzt im Verband Deutscher Soldaten.
Source: Dokufunk.
One thing the areas listed in the diagrame above had in common was that their “technical backbone” consisted of experienced shortwave radio amateurs. The knowledge and skills they had brought with them from civilian life in the design and construction of radio equipment, combined with their practical experience in shortwave radio operations, made them highly sought-after individuals—not only within the Abwehr.
Other intelligence groups within various Reich agencies that were also engaged in radio-technical applications should not go unmentioned. The foreign intelligence service of the Reich Main Security Office (RSHA), with Department VI, responsible for political and economic intelligence, had its own division for technical equipment, a radio center in Berlin-Wannsee, and an almost worldwide radio network with connections to agent groups in Africa, the Middle East, and South America, among other regions.
After the dissolution and division of the Office of Foreign Affairs/Abwehr, the long-range radio links of the former Abwehr Section III F were transferred to RSHA Department VI as Section Z. The newly established RSHA Department Mil took over the former Abwehr Departments I and II, along with their amateur radio–technical activities and the V-Man Regiment z.b.V. 1001 “Kurfürst.” Within the Wehrmacht’s chain of command remained the frontline reconnaissance units previously managed by the Office of Foreign Affairs/Abwehr, with an extensive radio network reaching down to numerous agent groups equipped with amateur radio devices.
The Foreign Office, through its Information Department III, also maintained a secret intelligence organization with corresponding communication facilities, and, of course, a radio network connecting to its diplomatic missions abroad. This network, centered around its large radio station in Beelitz, was in some cases also used by the Office of Foreign Affairs/Abwehr and the RSHA.
Long before the outbreak of war, one of the duties of the Order Police (ORPO) included the pursuit of illegal radio stations and, consequently, the detection and dismantling of enemy amateur radio transmitters. For this purpose, the main office of the ORPO operated so-called radio monitoring stations (Funkmeßstellen) equipped with both long- and short-range direction-finders.
Radio and communications intelligence, including cryptanalysis, was also conducted by the so-called Research Office (Forschungsamt) of the Reich Ministry of Aviation. These tasks required the cooperation of the German Reich Post Office, whose sovereign responsibilities included monitoring legal radio communications for compliance with licensing conditions and overseeing the detection and prosecution of illegal radio transmissions.
The central hub of the Secret Radio Communication Service was the radio station of the OKW Office of Foreign Affairs/Abwehr, which was established in 1936 under the cover name Army Construction Office (Heeresneubauamt) in a wooded area on Ruhlsdorfer Weg (between Berlin-Stahnsdorf and Ruhlsdorf).
This facility, also known as the OKW Branch Office Stahnsdorf, served not only as the central radio station of the Secret Radio Communication Service but was also responsible for the development and production of amateur radio equipment. The building, which, in addition to supply facilities, housed the radio center (receiving rooms, cipher room, dispatch room) and the amateur radio equipment production areas (laboratory, design office, administration and procurement, mechanical and electrical workshops, and storage for parts and finished equipment).
Transmitters, guard posts, and housing for the technical staff were located in auxiliary buildings, to which, over the course of the war, several additional accommodation barracks for the military personnel of the intelligence radio center were added. The lattice mast served, once completed, as an antenna support for a decimeter radio relay link to the new intelligence radio center in Belzig, which was occupied in 1942.
On the grounds of the OKW branch office in Stahnsdorf, various transmitting antennas were mounted on wooden and crank masts, while the receiving antennas consisted of simple long wires, one end of which was attached to the main building. As operating receivers, only the specially manufactured Siemens R-IV receivers were used in Stahnsdorf; these will be discussed in more detail in the section on the Hamburg-Wohldorf radio center.
The shortwave transmitters were housed in separate transmitter buildings and remotely keyed from the receiving stations. The variety of transmitter types was considerable: in addition to self-built transmitters designed as breadboard circuits, there were former ship and aircraft transmitters, Philips automatic transmitters with remotely adjustable preset frequencies, and a Lorenz transmitter Lo 40 K 39.
The initial antenna equipment included two W8JK directional beam antennas, one aligned north-south and one east-west. Later, various other antenna configurations were added for special long-distance connections. The author recalls having helped build a large antenna for the connection with the KO “Far East.”
Encryption and decryption of radio messages took place in the cipher room of the radio center. Transmission to the “Amt Ausland/Abwehr” (Foreign Office/Intelligence) at Tirpitzufer in Berlin was done in plaintext using two Hellschreiber devices via postal lines.
While in amateur radio operations a wide variety of codebooks with grid aids (templates and crossword-style keys) were used, internal Abwehr radio communications employed three 4-rotor Enigma machines in civilian versions—without plugboard but equipped with a crank and counter, to easily relocate specific positions within a message. In certain cases and for specific radio links, a 3-rotor Enigma in the army version (without crank and counter but with plugboard) was also used.
Towards the end of the war, in the innermost Abwehr radio network connecting the command centers and major intelligence offices, the newly developed SG-41 cipher machine was also employed. This device printed the plaintext and ciphertext simultaneously on two separate paper strips.
The increasing radio traffic within the Europe-wide network of the Secret Radio Communication Service, and with war organizations located partly at great distances, required additional antennas and operating rooms for personnel, transmitters, etc., which could no longer be accommodated in Stahnsdorf. For this reason, and due to increasing Allied bombing raids, construction of a new radio center in Belzig/Mark was planned in 1941 and occupied starting in 1942.
This facility consisted of a large operations building with the receiving stations and several residential and supply barracks. The many civilians visible in this photo are visitors on the occasion of the “Day of the Wehrmacht,” when the public was allowed to enter the outdoor premises and take photographs without restriction.
The transmitting center was built several kilometers away from the receiving headquarters. The shortwave transmitters installed there were of rack-mounted construction and had been developed and manufactured independently. They all consisted of a power supply unit, a two-stage driver transmitter using two RL12-P50 tubes, and a power amplifier stage with two RS383 tubes connected in parallel.
The antenna system included omnidirectional cage antennas, which hung vertically from wooden lattice masts with horizontal arms, and a large number of group dipole antennas for directional transmitting and receiving links, which were strung between steel lattice masts.
The military districts, Wehrkreise, located along Germany’s borders, each with its own Abwehrstelle, intelligence station, under the dual command of the Ic (Intelligence) General Staff officer of the respective Army Corps during peacetime, increasingly established so-called Meldestaffeln, reporting units, as part of rearmament. These units operated their own radio outposts, Meldeköpfe, in locations favorable for radio transmission. Both internal Abwehr radio communication and contact with field radio agents were handled by these Meldestaffeln.
As examples of such outposts, later referred to as radio reporting stations, Funkmeldeköpfe, like Eiserne Hand, Abwehrstelle XII, Wiesbaden and Meisheide, Abwehrstelle VI, Münster. Until the beginning of the Western Campaign in May 1940, the Abwehr offices in Wiesbaden, Münster, and Stuttgart, Abwehrstelle V, conducted reconnaissance missions primarily in Germany’s western neighboring countries.
The Meldestaffeln were also responsible for training agents in radio technology, radio communication, and cipher procedures, as well as instructing Wehrmacht radio operators in the equipment and communication methods of the Secret Radio Intelligence Service, Geheimer Funkmeldedienst.
There were many such radio outposts, but for long-range shortwave communication only a few were of major significance during World War II: the radio center Belzig, the large transmitting stations of Abwehrstellen X, Hamburg, and XVII, Vienna, and the radio centers of the regional headquarters East, Southeast, and West.
The area of responsibility of Abwehrstelle X in Hamburg, Knochenhauerstraße, included parts of Western and Northern Europe, England, Ireland, and the entire American continent. For these specialized and far-reaching communications, a radio center was established in summer 1939 under the cover name Domäne in an unoccupied villa at Kupferredder in Hamburg-Wohldorf.
Operations and receiving building Domäne, radio center Hamburg-Wohldorf.
Radio operations began with four receiving stations and one 40-watt Lorenz transmitter. The large property provided ample space for the necessary transmitting and receiving antennas. However, it soon became apparent that the close proximity of the transmitters caused keying interference in the receivers. Therefore, in 1940 the transmitters were relocated to a site in Diestelstraße, Hamburg-Ohlstedt, transmitting center Vorwerk, and the Domäne thereafter served as the operations and receiving headquarters. To the left and right of the building’s driveway stood barracks for the radio personnel and a permanently manned military guard post. A farmhouse opposite the Domäne housed the radio workshop.
As receiving antennas, which could supply several receivers simultaneously through broadband isolation amplifiers and an antenna switching panel, the Wohldorf site used five long-wire antennas, one cage antenna, and four rhombic antennas. For the latter, the directionality could be reversed by switching the feed and termination points.
Of the approximately 25 receiving positions in Hamburg-Wohldorf, most were used for overseas and intercontinental communication, while up to ten stations were reserved for European traffic. The Overseas Room, Reception Room I, was located on the first floor of the semicircular annex.
Various receiver models were used, like an SX-28 “Skyrider” by the American company Hallicrafters and also, KST receivers by Körting.
The KST was a German copy of the American HRO amateur radio receiver made by the National Company, equipped with German steel tubes. Band switching was done using plug-in coil boxes, inserted into the front lower section of the receiver. For the range 3.5–30 MHz, three coil boxes were required, stored in a separate case. Körting produced several hundred units of this receiver, and even after the outbreak of war, the dial mechanism, tuning capacitor unit, and coil boxes continued to be imported via Portugal for some time.
The European Room, Europasaal, comprised Reception Rooms II and III of the Domäne, where Siemens R-IV and Italian Ducati receivers were used. Like the KST, the R-IV required three coil boxes for the range 3.15–33 MHz, but these were inserted from the top rather than from the front. The advantage of this design was that the operator did not have to clear the workspace in front of the receiver to change bands.
All radio messages were encrypted and decrypted within the Domäne. In internal Abwehr radio communication, this was done using the Enigma cipher machines. Communication with Abwehrstelle X in the Knochenhauerstraße took place in plain text using Hellschreiber devices over leased postal lines.
The transmitting center Vorwerk, was newly established in 1940 on Diestelstraße in Hamburg-Ohlstedt, about 3.5 km from the Domäne. The transmitters installed there, were remotely operated via cables from the Domäne.
The available transmitting antennas included five rhombic antennas, one cage antenna, and five long-wire antennas.
Power was supplied by an emergency generator installed in a bombproof shelter.
In the transmitter room in Vorwerk were, placed on tables, Lorenz transmitters and Telefunken transmitters.
Nn the left side of the transmitter room stood the large Lorenz transmitters, numbers 10, 11, and 12. These were former ship transmitters from the cruiser Köln; in the back stood a Telefunken transmitter.
A Philips automatic shortwave transmitter, Transmitter No. 15, was installed in Vorwerk. This model was also used in other Abwehr (German military intelligence) radio centers.
The crew of this then highly secret Abwehr radio center typically consisted of 1 to 2 officers, 4 sergeants, 6 non-commissioned officers, and 50 radio operators from all three branches of the Wehrmacht (Army, Air Force, and Navy). Among them were up to 20 former amateur radio operators, to whom the extensive self-built setup and the successful operation of the often difficult agent radio communications were largely owed.
From Hamburg-Wohldorf, numerous radio lines were operated to its own outposts and field units, to higher and lower-level organizational units, to war organizations in neutral countries, and to many individual radio agents. At times, up to 150 agent radio (Afu) circuits were monitored, and other Abwehr organizations, overloaded or less well-equipped, tasked Hamburg with handling their radio communications.
With radio agents operating in England, contact was maintained in some cases until the end of the war, as was later revealed, these were all radio deception operations run by England under the code name “Double Cross,” involving around 120 double agents over time.
Radio traffic with North America continued until the sudden roundup on June 29, 1940, of the agents and radio operators who had long been under observation.
Up to that point, Germany had received valuable intelligence on military and economic matters, ship and convoy movements, and even information on Abwehr II operations.
Because of the imminent U.S. entry into the war and the growing importance of intelligence from the American continent, an existing Abwehr shortwave network in Central and South America was expanded. It not only handled communications from those regions but also served as a relay station for messages from North America.
Afterward, the United States also attempted to conduct radio deception operations using the captured agent radio equipment and communication records.
The Duquesne Spy Ring is the largest espionage case in the United States history that ended in convictions. A total of 33 members of a Nazi German espionage network, headed by Frederick "Fritz" Duquesne, were convicted after a lengthy investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). Of those indicted, 19 pleaded guilty. The remaining 14 were brought to jury trial in Federal District Court, Brooklyn, New York, on September 3, 1941; all were found guilty on December 13, 1941. On January 2, 1942, the group members were sentenced to serve a total of over 300 years in prison.
The agents who formed the Duquesne Ring were placed in key jobs in the United States to get information that could be used in the event of war and to carry out acts of sabotage: one opened a restaurant and used his position to get information from his customers; another worked on an airline so that he could report Allied ships that were crossing the Atlantic Ocean; others worked as delivery people as a cover for carrying secret messages.
William G. Sebold, who had been blackmailed into becoming a spy for Germany, became a double agent and helped the FBI gather evidence. For nearly two years, the FBI ran a shortwave radio station in New York for the ring. They learned what information Germany was sending its spies in the United States and controlled what was sent to Germany. Sebold's success as a counterespionage agent was demonstrated by the successful prosecution of the German agents.
One German spymaster later commented the ring's roundup delivered "the death blow" to their espionage efforts in the United States. FBI director J. Edgar Hoover called his concerted FBI swoop on Duquesne's ring the greatest spy roundup in U.S. history
FBI agents William Sebold (double-agent)
Duquesne in the office of Harry Sawyer (aka William Sebold), FBI, June 25, 1941
After the Duquesne Spy Ring convictions, Sebold was provided with a new identity and started a chicken farm in California.
Impoverished and delusional, he was committed to Napa State Hospital in 1965. Diagnosed with manic-depression, he died there of a heart attack five years later at 70. His life story as a double agent was first told in the 1943 book Passport to Treason: The Inside Story of Spies in America by Alan Hynd.
Special Agent Jim Ellsworth was assigned as Sebold's handler or body man, responsible for shadowing his every move during the 16-month investigation.
William Gustav Friedemann was a principal witness in the Duquesne case. He began working for the FBI as a fingerprint analyst in 1935 and later became an agent after identifying a crucial fingerprint in a kidnapping case.
After World War II, he was assigned to Puerto Rico, where he pinpointed the group behind the assassination attempt on President Harry Truman. Friedemann died of cancer on August 23, 1989, in Stillwater, Oklahoma.
Convicted members of Duquesne Spy Ring
Born in Cape Colony, South Africa, on September 21, 1877, and a naturalized citizen of the United States in 1913, Fritz Joubert Duquesne was a captain in the Second Boer War and later a colonel in the Abwehr, Germany's division of military intelligence.
Duquesne was captured and imprisoned three times by the British, once by the Portuguese, and once by the Americans in 1917, and each time he escaped. In World War I, he was a spy and ring leader for Germany and during this time he sabotaged British merchant ships in South America with concealed bombs and destroyed several.[8] Duquesne was also ordered to assassinate an American, Frederick Russell Burnham, Chief of Scouts for the British Army, but failed to do so.[10] He was known as "The man who killed Kitchener" since he claimed to have sabotaged and sunk HMS Hampshire, on which Lord Kitchener was en route to Russia in 1916.
In the spring of 1934, Duquesne became an intelligence officer for the Order of 76, an American pro-Nazi organization, and in January 1935 he began working for U.S. government's Works Progress Administration. Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, head of the Abwehr, knew Duquesne from his work in World War I and he instructed his new chief of operations in the U.S., Col. Nikolaus Ritter, to make contact. Ritter had been friends with Duquesne back in 1931 and the two spies reconnected in New York on December 3, 1937.
On February 8, 1940, Ritter sent Sebold, under the alias of Harry Sawyer, to New York and instructed him to set up a shortwave radio-transmitting station and to contact Duquesne, code-named DUNN.
Once the FBI discovered through Sebold that Duquesne was again in New York operating as a German spy, director J. Edgar Hoover provided a background briefing to President Franklin Roosevelt. FBI agent Raymond Newkirk, using the name Ray McManus, was now assigned to DUNN and he rented a room immediately above Duquesne's apartment near Central Park and used a hidden microphone to record Duquesne's conversations. But monitoring Duquesne's activities proved to be difficult. As Newkirk described it, "The Duke had been a spy all of his life and automatically used all of the tricks in the book to avoid anyone following him...He would take a local train, change to an express, change back to a local, go through a revolving door and keep going on right around, take an elevator up a floor, get off, walk back to the ground, and take off in a different entrance of the building."[9] Duquesne also informed Sebold that he was certain he was under surveillance, and he even confronted one FBI agent and demanded that he stop tracking him, a story confirmed by agent Newkirk.
In a letter to the Chemical Warfare Service in Washington, D.C., Duquesne requested information on a new gas mask. He identified himself as a "well-known, responsible and reputable writer and lecturer." At the bottom of the letter, he wrote, "Don't be concerned if this information is confidential, because it will be in the hands of a good, patriotic citizen." A short time later, the information he requested arrived in the mail and a week later it was being read by intelligence officers in Berlin.
Duquesne was found guilty of espionage and sentenced to 18 years in prison. He received a concurrent two-year sentence and was fined $2,000 for violating the Foreign Agents Registration Act. Duquesne served his sentence in Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary in Kansas, where he was mistreated and beaten by other inmates. In 1954, he was released due to ill health, having served fourteen years, and died indigent, at City Hospital on Welfare Island (now Roosevelt Island), New York City, on May 24, 1956, at the age of 78.
Born in Germany, Paul Bante served in the German Army during the First World War. In 1930 he came to the United States, where he was naturalized in 1938. Bante, a former member of the German American Bund, claimed that he was brought into contact with agent Paul Fehse because of his ties to Ignatz Theodor Griebl. Before he fled the United States for Germany, Griebl was accused of belonging to a Nazi spy ring along with Rumrich spy ring. Bante helped Fehse to obtain information about ships leaving for Great Britain loaded with war supplies. As a Gestapo agent, he was supposed to cause discontent amongst trade unionists. Sebold met Bante at the Little Casino Restaurant, which was frequently used by the ring's members. During one of these meetings, Bante talked about making a bomb detonator, after which he later gave dynamite and detonators to Sebold. Bante pleaded guilty to violating the Registration Act. He was sentenced to 18 months in prison and fined $1,000.
Max Blank came to the United States from Germany in 1928. While he never became a U.S. citizen, he'd been employed at a German library. Blank boasted to agent Sebold that he had been in the espionage business since 1936, but lost interest in recent years since payments from Germany had fallen off. Blank pleaded guilty to violating the Registration Act. He was sentenced 18 months in prison and fined $1,000.
In September 1934, German-born Heinrich Clausing came to the United States, where he became a naturalized citizen in 1938. Around 1938, Heinrich was recruited to find American automobile and aviation industry secrets that could be passed to Germany through the Duquesne Spy Ring. Later it was discovered that Heinrich was also the mysterious "Heinrich" who supplied the spy ring with aerial photographs.
After obtaining technical books relating to magnesium and aluminum alloys, Heine sent the materials to Heinrich Eilers. To ensure safe delivery of the books to Germany in case they did not reach Eilers, Heinrich indicated the return address on the package as the address of Lilly Stein.
Clausing pleaded guilty to espionage and was sentenced to 8 years in prison. He also received a two-year concurrent sentence and was fined $5,000 for violating of the Registration Act.
In 1934, Paul Fehse left Germany for the United States, where he was naturalized in 1938. Since emigrating, he'd been employed as a cook aboard ships sailing from the New York Harbor. Fehse was one of the leading forces in the spy ring. He arranged meetings, directed members’ activities, correlated information that had been developed, and arranged for its transmittal to Germany, chiefly through Sebold. Fehse, who was trained for espionage work in Hamburg, claimed he headed the Marine Division of the Nazi espionage system in the United States.
Having become nervous, Fehse made plans to leave the country. He obtained a position on the SS Siboney, which was scheduled to sail from Hoboken, New Jersey, for Lisbon, on March 29, 1941. He planned to desert ship in Lisbon and return to Germany. However, before he could leave, Fehse was arrested by the FBI. Upon his arrest, he admitted sending letters to Italy for transmittal to Germany, as well as reporting the movements of British ships. Fehse pleaded guilty to violating the Registration Act and was sentenced to one year and one day in prison. He later pleaded guilty to espionage and was sentenced to 15 years in prison.
Gustav Wilhelm Kärcher emigrated from Germany to the United States in 1923, and was naturalized in 1931. He served in the German Army during World War I, and was a former leader of the German American Bund in New York. During visits to Germany, Kärcher was seen wearing a German Army officer’s uniform. At the time of his arrest, he was engaged in designing power plants for a gas and electricity company in New York City. Kärcher was arrested with Paul Scholz, who'd just given Kärcher a table of call letters and frequencies for transmitting information to Germany by radio. After pleading guilty to violating the Registration Act, Kärcher was sentenced to 22 months in prison and fined $2,000.
Herman W. Lang had participated in the Beer Hall Putsch in 1923. He immigrated to the United States in 1927.
Until his arrest, machinist and draftsman Lang had been employed as an assembly inspector by the Carl L. Norden Corp., which manufactured the top secret Norden bombsight. In October 1937 he met Ritter and told him he had overnight access to classified drawings and used it to copy them in his kitchen at home while his family was asleep. He then hid the plans in a wooden casing for an umbrella, and, on January 9, 1938, personally handed the umbrella off to a German steward and secret courier on the ship SS Reliance bound for Bremen. For that he received $1500. However, he could not copy all the plans, and Ritter had to invite him to Germany in order to complete a model, where he was received by Hermann Göring himself.
The Norden bombsight had been considered a critical wartime instrument by the United States Army Air Forces, and American bombardiers were required to take an oath during their training stating that they would defend its secret with their own life, if needed. The Lotfernrohr 3 and the BZG 2 in 1942 used a similar set of gyroscopes that provided a stabilized platform for the bombardier to sight through, although the more complex interaction between the bombsight and autopilot was not used. Later in the war, Luftwaffe bombers used the Carl Zeiss Lotfernrohr 7, or Lotfe 7, which had an advanced mechanical system similar to the Norden bombsight, but was much simpler to operate and maintain.[citation needed] At one point, Sebold was ordered to contact Lang as it became known that the technology he had stolen from Norden was being used in German bombers. The Nazis offered to spirit him to safety in Germany, but Lang refused to leave his home in Ridgewood, Queens.
Upon conviction, Lang was sentenced to 18 years in prison on espionage charges and a concurrent two-year term under the Registration Act. He was released and deported to Germany in September 1950.
A native of Arkansas, Evelyn Clayton Lewis had been living with Duquesne in New York City. Lewis had expressed her anti-British and antisemitic feelings during her relationship with Duquesne. She was aware of his espionage activities and condoned them. While she was not active in obtaining information for Germany, she helped Duquesne prepare material for transmittal abroad. After pleading guilty, Lewis was sentenced to serve one year and one day in prison for violating the Registration Act.
Rene Emanuel Mezenen, a Frenchman, claimed U.S. citizenship through the naturalization of his father. Prior to his arrest, he was employed as a steward in the Pan American transatlantic clipper service.
The German Intelligence Service in Lisbon, Portugal, asked Mezenen to act as a courier, transmitting information between the United States and Portugal on his regular commercial aircraft trips. As a steward he was able to deliver documents from New York to Lisbon in 24 hours. He accepted this offer for financial gain. In the course of flights across the Atlantic, Mezenen reported his observance of convoys sailing for England. He also became involved in smuggling platinum from the United States to Portugal. When discussing his courier role with agent Sebold, Mezenen boasted that he hid the spy letters so well that if they were found it would have taken two to three weeks to repair the airplane.
After pleading guilty, Mezenen was sentenced to 8 years in prison for espionage. He received a concurrent two-year sentence for violating the Registration Act.
Having come to the United States from Germany in 1929, Carl Reuper became a citizen in 1936. Prior to his arrest, he served as an inspector for the Westinghouse Electric Company in Newark, New Jersey. Previously, he worked as a mechanic for the Air Associates Company in Bendix, New Jersey.
Reuper obtained photographs for Germany relating to national defense materials and construction, which he obtained from his employment. He arranged radio contact with Germany through the station established by Felix Jahnke. On one occasion, he conferred with Sebold regarding the latter's facilities for communicating with German authorities. After being convicted at trial, Reuper was sentenced to 16 years in prison on espionage charges and received a concurrent two-year sentence under the Registration Act.
Born in the Bronx, New York, Everett Minster Roeder was the son of a celebrated piano instructor, Carl Roeder. A child prodigy, when he was 15 years old he enrolled in engineering at Cornell University and there he met the brothers Edward and Elmer Sperry; however he dropped out of school when he was 18 and married his pregnant girlfriend. He was one of the first employees at the Sperry Gyroscope Company where he worked as an engineer and designer of confidential materials for the U.S. Army and Navy. In his job as a gyroscope expert working on U.S. military contracts, Roeder built machines such as tracking devices for long-range guns capable of hitting moving targets 10 mi (16 km) away, aircraft autopilot and blind-flying systems, ship stabilizers, and anti-aircraft search lights.
Sebold had delivered microphotograph instructions to Roeder, as ordered by German authorities. Roeder and Sebold met in public places and proceeded to spots where they could talk privately. In 1936, Roeder had visited Germany and was requested by German authorities to act as an espionage agent. Primarily due to monetary rewards he would receive, Roeder agreed.
Among the Sperry development secrets Roeder disclosed were the blueprints of the complete radio instrumentation of the new Glenn Martin bomber, classified drawings of range finders, blind-flying instruments, a bank-and-turn indicator, a navigator compass, a wiring diagram of the Lockheed Hudson bomber, and diagrams of the Hudson gun mountings. From Roeder the Abwehr also obtained the plans for an advanced automatic pilot device that was later used in Luftwaffe fighters and bombers. At the time of his arrest, Roeder had 16 guns in his Long Island home in New York.
Roeder pleaded guilty to espionage and was sentenced to 16 years in prison. In 1949, Roeder published his book, Formulas in plane triangles.
A German native, Paul Scholz went to the United States in 1926 but never attained citizenship. He had been employed in German book stores in New York City, where he disseminated Nazi propaganda.
Scholz had arranged for Josef Klein *) to construct the radio set used by Felix Jahnke and Axel Wheeler-Hill. At the time of his arrest, Scholz had just given Gustav Wilhelm Kaercher a list of radio call letters and frequencies. He also encouraged members of this spy ring to secure data for Germany and arranged contacts between various German agents.
After being convicted at trial, Scholz was sentenced to 16 years in prison for espionage and received a concurrent two-year sentence under the Registration Act. *) De drie levens van Josef Klein. Geschreven door Ulla Lenze, ISBN nr. 9 789493169111
George Gottlob Schuh, a native of Germany, went to the United States in 1923. He became a citizen in 1939 and was employed as a carpenter.
As a German agent, he sent information directly to the Gestapo in Hamburg from the United States. Schuh had provided Alfred Brokhoff information that Winston Churchill had arrived in the United States on HMS King George V. He also furnished information to Germany concerning the movement of ships carrying materials and supplies to Britain. Having pleaded guilty to violation of the Registration Act, Schuh received a sentence of 18 months in prison and a $1,000 fine.
Erwin Wilhelm Siegler went to the United States from Germany in 1929 and attained citizenship in 1936. He had served as chief butcher on the SS America (1940) until it was taken over by the U.S. Navy. A courier, Siegler brought microphotographic instructions to Sebold from German authorities on one occasion. He also had brought $2,900 from German contacts abroad to pay Lilly Stein, Duquesne, and Roeder for their services and to buy a bomb sight. He served the espionage group as an organizer and contact man, and he also obtained information about the movement of ships and military defense preparations at the Panama Canal. After being convicted at trial, Siegler was sentenced to 10 years in prison for espionage and a concurrent two-year term for violating the Registration Act.
Born in Germany, Oscar Richard Stabler went to the United States in 1923 and became a citizen in 1933. He had been employed primarily as a barber aboard transoceanic ships. In December 1940, British authorities in Bermuda found a map of Gibraltar in his possession. He was detained for a short period before being released. A close associate of Conradin Otto Dold, Stabler served as a courier, transmitting information between German agents in the United States and contacts abroad. Stabler was convicted and sentenced to five years in prison for espionage and a concurrent two-year term under the Registration Act.
Heinrich Stade went to the United States from Germany in 1922 and became a citizen in 1929. He had been a musician and publicity agent in New York. He told agent Sebold he had been in the Gestapo since 1936 and boasted that he knew everything in the spy business.
Stade had arranged for Paul Bante's contact with Sebold and had transmitted data to Germany regarding points of rendezvous for convoys carrying supplies to England.
Stade was arrested while playing in the orchestra at an inn on Long Island, New York. Following a guilty plea to violation of the Registration Act, Stade was fined $1,000 and received a 15-month prison sentence.
Born in Vienna, Lilly Barbara Carola Stein was a Jewish immigrant who had escaped in 1939 with the help of a U.S. diplomat in Vienna, Vice Consul Ogden Hammond Jr. She later met Hugo Sebold, the espionage instructor who had trained William Sebold (the two men were not related) in Hamburg, Germany. She enrolled in this school and was sent to the United States by way of Sweden in 1939.
In New York, she worked as an artist's model and was said to have moved in New York's social circles. As a German agent her mission was to find her targets at New York nightclubs, sleep with these men, and attempt to blackmail them or otherwise entice them to give up valuable secrets. One FBI agent described her as a "good-looking nymphomaniac". Stein was one of the people to whom Sebold had been instructed to deliver microphotograph instructions upon his arrival in the United States. She frequently met with Sebold to give him information for transmittal to Germany, and her address was used as a return address by other agents in mailing data for Germany.
Stein pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 10 years in prison for espionage and a concurrent two-year term for violating the Registration Act. After her release, she left for France where she found employment at a luxury resort near Strasbourg.
In 1931, Franz Joseph Stigler, left Germany for the United States, where he became a citizen in 1939. He had been employed as a crew member and chief baker aboard U.S. ships until his discharge from the SS America (1939) when the U.S. Navy converted that ship into USS West Point. His constant companion was Erwin Siegler, and they operated as couriers in transmitting information between the United States and German agents aboard. Stigler sought to recruit amateur radio operators in the United States as channels of communication to German radio stations. He had also observed and reported defense preparations in the Panama Canal Zone and had met with other German agents to advise them in their espionage pursuits. In January 1941, Stigler asked agent Sebold to radio Germany that Prime Minister Winston Churchill had arrived secretly in the U.S. on HMS King George V (41) with Lord Halifax. Upon conviction, Stigler was sentenced to serve 16 years in prison on espionage charges with two concurrent years for registration violations.
A seaman aboard the ships of the United States Lines since his arrival in the United States, Erich Strunck went to the United States from Germany in 1927. He became a naturalized citizen in 1935. As a courier, Strunck carried messages between German agents in the United States and Europe. He requested authority to steal the diplomatic bag of a British officer traveling aboard his ship and to dispose of the officer by pushing him overboard. Sebold convinced him that it would be too risky to do so. Strunck was convicted and sentenced to serve 10 years in prison on espionage charges. He also was sentenced to serve a two-year concurrent term under the Registration Act.
Leo Waalen was born in Danzig, Germany. He entered the United States by "jumping ship" about 1935. He was a painter for a small boat company which was constructing small craft for the U.S. Navy. Waalen gathered information about ships sailing for England. He also obtained a confidential booklet issued by the FBI which contained precautions to be taken by industrial plants to safeguard national defense materials from sabotage. He secured government contracts listing specifications for materials and equipment, as well as detailed sea charts of the United States Atlantic coastline.
In May 1941, the American cargo vessel SS Robin Moor was carrying nine officers, 29 crewmen, seven or eight passengers, and a commercial cargo from New York to Mozambique via South Africa, without a protective convoy. On 21 May, the ship was stopped by U-69 in the tropical Atlantic 750 mi (1,210 km; 650 nmi) west of the British-controlled port of Freetown, Sierra Leone. Although the Robin Moor was flying the flag of a neutral country, her mate was told by the U-boat crew that they had decided to "let us have it". After a brief period for the ship's crew and passengers to board her four lifeboats, the U-boat fired a torpedo and then shelled the vacated ship. Once the ship sank beneath the waves, the submarine's crew pulled up to Captain W.E. Myers' lifeboat, left him with four tins of ersatz bread and two tins of butter, and explained that the ship had been sunk because she was carrying supplies to Germany's enemy. In October 1941, federal prosecutors adduced testimony that Waalen, one of the fourteen accused men who had pleaded not guilty to all charges, had submitted the sailing date of the Robin Moor for radio transmission to Germany, five days before the ship began her final voyage. Following his conviction, Waalen was sentenced to 12 years in prison for espionage and a concurrent two-year term for violation of the Registration Act.
A German native, Adolf Henry August Walischewski had been a seaman since maturity. He became a naturalized citizen in 1935. Walischewski became connected with the German espionage system through Paul Fehse. His duties were confined to those of courier, carrying data from agents in the United States to contacts abroad. Upon conviction, Walischewski received a five-year prison sentence on espionage charges, as well as a two-year concurrent sentence under the Registration Act.
Else Weustenfeld arrived in the United States from Germany in 1927 and became a citizen 10 years later. From 1935 until her arrest, she was a secretary for a law firm representing the German Consulate in New York City.
Weustenfeld was thoroughly acquainted with the German espionage system and delivered funds to Duquesne which she had received from Lilly Stein, her close friend.
She lived in New York City with Hans W. Ritter, a principal in the German espionage system. His brother, Nickolaus Ritter, was the "Dr. Renken" who had enlisted Sebold as a German agent. In 1940, Weustenfeld visited Hans Ritter in Mexico, where he was serving as a paymaster for the German Intelligence Service. After pleading guilty, Else Weustenfeld was sentenced to five years' imprisonment on charge of espionage and two concurrent years on a charge of registration violations.
Axel Wheeler-Hill went to the United States in 1923 from his native Latvia. Between 1918 and 1922, he'd served in the Baltic Freikorps during the Latvian War of Independence.[18] He was naturalized as a citizen in 1929 and was employed as a truck driver.
Wheeler-Hill obtained information for Germany regarding ships sailing to Britain from New York Harbor. With Felix Jahnke, he enlisted the aid of Paul Scholz in building a radio set for sending coded messages to Germany.
Following conviction, Wheeler-Hill was sentenced to serve 15 years in prison for espionage and 2 concurrent years under the Registration Act.
Born in Germany, Bertram Wolfgang Zenzinger went to the United States in 1940 as a naturalized citizen of the Union of South Africa. His reported reason for coming to the United States was to study mechanical dentistry in Los Angeles, California.
In July 1940, Zenzinger received a pencil for preparing invisible messages for Germany in the mail from Siegler. He sent several letters to Germany through a mail drop in Sweden, outlining details of national defense materials.
Zenzinger was arrested by FBI agents on April 16, 1941. Pleading guilty, he was sentenced to 8 years in prison for espionage and 18 months in prison for Registration Act.
Liaisons to the Duquesne Spy Ring
Takeo Ezima discusses intelligence documents with Abwehr agent Harry Sawyer (FBI agent Sebold), 1941.
Lieutenant Commander Takeo Ezima of the Imperial Japanese Navy operated in New York as an engineer inspector using the name: E. Satoz; code name: KATO.
He arrived on the Heian Maru in Seattle in 1938. On October 19, 1940, Sebold received a radio message from Germany that CARR (Abwehr Agent Roeder) was to meet E. Satoz at a Japanese club in New York.
Ezima was filmed by the FBI while meeting with agent Sebold in New York, conclusive evidence of German-Japanese cooperation in espionage, in addition to meeting with Kanegoro Koike, Paymaster Commander of the Japanese Imperial Navy assigned to the Office of the Japanese Naval Inspector in New York. Ezima obtained a number of military materials from Duquesne, including ammunition, a drawing of a hydraulic unit with pressure switch A-5 of the Sperry Gyroscope, and an original drawing from the Lawrence Engineering and Research Corporation of a soundproofing installation, and he agreed to deliver materials to Germany via Japan. The British had made the Abwehr courier route from New York through Lisbon, Portugal difficult, so Ezima arranged an alternate route to the west coast with deliveries every two weeks on freighters destined for Japan.
As the FBI arrested Duquesne and his agents in New York in 1941, Ezima escaped to the west coast, boarded the Japanese freighter Kamakura Maru, and left for Tokyo. One historian states that Ezima was arrested for espionage in 1942 and sentenced to 15 years; however, U.S. Naval Intelligence documents state that "at the request [of] the State Department, Ezima was not prosecuted."
Oberstleutnant (Lieutenant colonel) Nikolaus Ritter led spy rings in the United States, Great Britain, and North Africa from 1936 to 1941. Ritter was born in Germany and had served as an officer in the First World War on the Western Front in France where he was twice wounded. He emigrated to New York in 1924, married an American, and returned to Germany in 1936 to join the Abwehr as Chief of Air Intelligence based in Hamburg operating under the code name: DR. RANTZAU.
He first met Fritz Duquesne in 1931, and the two spies reconnected in New York on December 3, 1937. Ritter also met Herman Lang while in New York, and he arranged for Lang to later go to Germany to help the Nazis finish their version of the top secret Norden bombsight. Ritter achieved several major successes with the Abwehr, most notably the Norden bombsight, in addition to an advanced aircraft auto-pilot from the Sperry Gyroscope Company, and also intelligence operations in North Africa in support of Field Marshal Erwin Rommel. But some of Ritter's recruits became double-agents who catastrophically exposed his spy rings.
Ritter recruited William Sebold who later joined the FBI which resulted in the arrest of the 33 Abwehr agents of the Duquesne Spy Ring. In Great Britain, he recruited Arthur Owens, code named JOHNNY, who became an agent for MI5 (British Intelligence) operating under the code name SNOW. Owens exposed so many Abwehr covert agents operating in Britain that by the end of the war MI5 had enlisted some 120 double agents. Although Ritter was never captured, it was the arrest of the Duquesne Spy Ring that ultimately resulted in Ritter's fall from the Abwehr and his reassignment in 1942 to air defenses in Germany for the remainder of the Second World War.
Source: Wikipedia.
SX-28.
KST.
HRO.
Abwehrstation Eiserne Hand, Wiesbaden.
To this end, a new radio center was established in the German Embassy in Mexico City, from which the so-called Bolivar Network was directed. A so-called Port Service (H-Dienst) monitored maritime traffic and sent corresponding reports from numerous Central and South American ports.
Important “Max” messages also came from Mexico City, not to be confused with the equally important messages from agent handler Klatt from the Eastern and Southeastern theaters of war.
Important “Max” messages also came from Mexico City, not to be confused with the equally important messages from agent handler Klatt from the Eastern and Southeastern theaters of war.
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