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
Becker, working on the sunny deck of the _Friedrich der Grosse_, had
made numerous bomb cases, rolling sheet lead into a cylinder, and
inserting in the tube a cup-shaped aluminum partition. These containers
he turned over to Dr. Walter Scheele at his "New Jersey Agricultural
Company," where he filled one compartment with nitroglycerine, the
other with sulphuric acid. Scheele supplied the mechanics with sheet
lead for the purpose. The bombs were then sealed and packed in sand for
distribution to various German gathering places, such as, for example,
the Turn Verein in the Brooklyn Labor Lyceum. Wolpert appeared there
at a meeting one night and berated the Germans present for talking
too much and acting too little; he wanted results, he said. Eugene
Reister, the proprietor of the place, said that shortly afterward
Walter Uhde and one Klein (who died before the police reached him) had
taken away a bundle of bombs from the Turn Verein and had placed them
on the _Lusitania_, just before her last voyage, and added that Klein,
when he heard of the destruction of the ship, expressed regret that he
had done it. Karl Schimmel--the same who had negotiated for the Krag
rifles--said later to Reister: "I really put bombs on that boat, but I
don't believe that fellow Klein ever did."
Following Kleist's information, agents of the Department of Justice
and New York police inspected the _Friedrich der Grosse_, and found
quantities of chlorate of potash and other chemicals. They brought back
with them also Garbode (mentioned in the charge as "Karbade"), Paradis
and Praedel, fourth engineers on the ship, who had assisted in making
the bombs, and Carl Schmidt, the chief engineer. All of the group were
implicated in the plot to the complete satisfaction of a jury which
concluded their cases in May, 1917, by convicting them of "conspiracy
to destroy ships through the use of fire bombs placed thereon."
Kleist and Schmidt received sentences of two years each in Atlanta
Penitentiary and were each fined $5,000; Becker, Karbade, Praedel and
Paradis were fined $500 apiece and sentenced to six months in prison.
Dr. Scheele fled from justice, and was arrested in March, 1918, in
Havana. A liberal supply of vicious chemicals and explosives discovered
in his "New Jersey Agricultural Company" implicated him thoroughly, if
the evidence given by his fellows had not already done so. When he was
finally captured he faced two federal indictments: one with Steinberg
and von Igel for smuggling lubricating oil out of the country as
fertilizer, under false customs manifests; the other the somewhat more
criminal charge of bombing.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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