The German Secret Service in America 1914-1918 — John Shaqi
The German Secret Service in America 1914-1918Jones, John Price
History
The German Secret Service in America 1914-1918
Jones, John Price
World War, 1914-1918 -- Secret service -- Germany
Where did the money come from? The Hamburg-American Line, under
the ante-bellum contract, placed at Captain Boy-Ed's disposal three
payments of $500,000 each from the Deutsches Bank, Berlin; the
Deutsches Bank forwarded through Wessells, Kulenkampff & Co., credit
for $750,000 more. "I followed the instructions of Captain Boy-Ed,"
Kulenkampff testified. "He instructed me at different times to pay
over certain amounts either to banks or firms. I transferred $350,000
to the Wells-Fargo Nevada National Bank in San Francisco, $150,000 to
the North German Lloyd, then $63,000 to the North German Lloyd. The
balance of $160,000 I placed to the credit of the Deutsches Bank with
Gontard & Co., successors to my former firm. That was reduced to about
$57,000 by payments drawn at Captain Boy-Ed's request to the order of
the Hamburg-American Line."
The North German Lloyd was serving as the Captain's Pacific operative,
which accounts for the transfer of the funds to the West. (The same
line, through its Baltimore agent, Paul Hilken, was also coöperating
at this time, but not to an extent which brought the busy Hilken into
prominence as did his later connection with the merchant submarine,
_Deutschland_.) Following the course of the funds, federal agents
eventually uncovered the operations of Germans on the Pacific coast,
and secured the arrest and convictions of no less personages than the
consular staff in San Francisco.
The steamship _Sacramento_ left San Francisco with a water-line cargo
of supplies. A firm of customs brokers in San Francisco was given a
fund of $46,000 by the German consulate to purchase supplies for her;
a fictitious steamship company was organized to satisfy the customs
officials; on September 23 an additional $100,000 was paid by the
Germans for her cargo; a false valuation was placed on her cargo, and
she was cleared on October 3. Two days later Benno Klocke and Gustav
Traub, members of the crew, broke the wireless seals and got into
communication with the _Dresden_. Klocke usurped the position of master
of the vessel, and steered her to a rendezvous on November 8 with the
_Scharnhorst_, off Masafueros Island, in the South Pacific; six days
later she provisioned and coaled the German steamship _Baden_. She
reached Valparaiso empty. Captain Anderson said he could not help the
fact that her supplies were swung outboard and into the _Scharnhorst_
and _Dresden_.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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