The German Spy in America / The Secret Plotting of German Spies in the United States and the Inside Story of the Sinking of the Lusitania

In the days before the Kaiser booted his spur through the treaties of Europe, you could observe, almost any afternoon, a faultlessly-attired man—well built, his big round head resting firmly on a powerful neck—sauntering down Connecticut Avenue, the Rotten Row or Fifth Avenue of Washington. Jauntily swinging his cane and puffing at his inevitable cigarette, he would bow gracefully in greeting the members of the capital’s smart set. He could be seen later at tea at the Chevy Chase Club, then among government officials and diplomats at the Metropolitan Club, or a guest at the Army and Navy Club. He was much desired at the most brilliant functions in New York in the winter, or at the resorts where, in the summer, the wealthiest and most exclusive Manhattanites gathered. One always found him graceful, suave, clever at repartee, effervescing natural humour—the object of admiration on the part of matchmaking mothers, and the reported seeker after an American heiress—but always mingling with the persons in official, diplomatic and navy circles who knew the innermost government secrets.

He was Germany’s Beau Brummel, Captain Karl Boy-Ed, the Kaiser’s naval attaché, seemingly more interested in the frills, foibles and gaieties of society than in the supremacy of the German Navy. Very much like an American in appearance, Oriental in his sense of luxury, and possessing the French quality of subtlety in rapid-fire wit, he lacked apparently every vestige of the much vaunted Teutonic efficiency. He would occasionally, however, drop out of the scenes of beauty and charm, travelling about the country, visiting warships, tramping over coast country, scrutinizing fortifications, or places where Uncle Sam would have coast defences, until finally it began to be whispered that Captain Boy-Ed knew as much about the American Navy and coast forts as did the naval officers themselves. Under the veneer of lightness and graceful ease, the naval attaché hid with the craft to which that Turkish part of his ancestry made him heir, the persistent methodical thoroughness of his German ancestry.

And, when the Kaiser set the dogs of war loose, Boy-Ed shunted aside the cloak of frivolity, disappeared almost entirely from festive gatherings, settled down by day to room 801, No. 11, Broadway, New York, receiving code messages as “Nordmann,” and by night to his suite in the German Club, where he delved into records, conferred with associates and elaborated plans for activities on the seven seas. From a hale, jolly fellow he became—as if by the shift of the magic wand of a Turkish sorcerer—a veritable machine, mind and body, working for the Kaiser. A man of great brain power, erudite, fertile in schemes, for long an aid to Admiral von Tirpitz, he assumed charge in America of all enterprises dealing with the naval phases of the Teutonic warfare in this country and in or near American waters. These were activities which, despite his boast: “They haven’t got any evidence against B. E.,” caused his dismissal from America by President Wilson.

BOY-ED’S CAREER

Born of a Turkish father and German mother—the latter, Ida Boy-Ed, a novelist much loved in Germany—he possessed an unusual combination of traits, a mingling of Oriental subtlety, the brutal frankness of the Prussian, and the artistic genius of his mother. He elected for the navy, and early displayed qualities that attracted von Tirpitz’s attention. The admiral took him up and made him one of his “Big Six,” young German officers who were admitted to the naval lord’s most secret councils and trained for just such executive work and such emergencies as the great war produced. Having both a literary and constructive ability, in addition to unusual qualities as a tactician and naval officer, he was selected by Grand Admiral von Tirpitz as his chief lieutenant, and was made the head of the news division. As such, he had charge of propaganda enlightening the German people and arousing a demand for a bigger navy. He prepared articles for the newspapers and compiled pamphlets arguing for many battleships, in all of which he cleverly instilled a distrust of England. Prior to each appropriation for an increase in the German fleet, Boy-Ed carried on a Press campaign designed to educate the public as to the urgent necessity for more Dreadnoughts and submarines. By this means, an appropriation equal to a hundred million dollars was obtained in 1910.

For five years, prior to his arrival in Washington in 1911 as the Kaiser’s naval representative, he served under von Tirpitz, making trips around the world, observing and working out the details of Germany’s plans for breaking Great Britain’s sea-power. Because of the work which he performed, the unusual ability which he displayed, and because Germany was seeking to surpass the naval power of the United States, then the second only to Great Britain, he was sent to this country. When he arrived here, he impressed Americans by his knowledge of America and American ideas. With ample tact and keen insight into American customs, he began immediately to make himself almost an American. Speaking English fluently and possessing an unusually attractive personality, he made himself extremely popular.

NAVAL STUDENT IN TIMES OF PEACE

His duties in peace times, naturally, were to study the American Navy and gain whatever facts he could about American war vessels, the personnel of the navy, the government’s plans for increasing the fleet’s power and building up coast defences; also to pick up whatever he could, openly or stealthily, about the secret plans of America in the use of her battle-fleet. When the war started, a thousand and one more tasks devolved upon him. As von Papen was in Mexico, he had for a time to look after the military attaché’s secret service, and, after being relieved of that, he devoted himself to the manifold details peculiar to naval intelligence. Like von Papen, he, too, had a staff of experts. They began, under his direction, delving into every phase of American naval activities, seeking information about the naval plans of the Allies, striving to exert their influence to prevent the shipment of arms and ammunition from this country. Boy-Ed’s work lay also in supervising the registration of naval reservists with the German consuls, providing for the return of as many as possible of them to the Fatherland, assigning spies to the country’s enemies, and collecting all naval information bearing upon the war.

WATCHING BRITISH VESSELS

Seated in his room 801, Captain Boy-Ed gathered a great mass of facts of value to Germany from enemy sources and from neutral nations. From his room, which was stacked with maps of the sea and steamer routes, he sent directions to his spies. He forwarded information about ships—English merchantmen and British warships—that could be utilized by the German Government in raids on Allied commerce. He also gave directions for provisioning the German raiders scouring the Seven Seas for enemy ships—an enterprise just as romantic—though in violation of American laws—as the spectacular dashes of the Karlsruhe, Emden and the Prince Eitel Friedrich.

Here was a project in which before the war and in preparation for it, the German Admiralty and the Hamburg-American Steamship Company participated; and after hostilities began, it was simply necessary for the captain through his staff of assistants or in person to issue orders. The Atlantic phase of the enterprise, its financing, its spectacular features and its illegality were presented to a Federal court in New York by Roger B. Wood, the Assistant United States Attorney, at the trial and conviction of several Hamburg-American Line officials: Dr. Karl Buenz, its general representative in America, George Koetter, supervising engineer, Adolf Hachmeister, purchasing agent, and Joseph Poeppinghaus, second officer and supercargo, on the charge of conspiring to obtain from the collectors of the ports false clearances for ships in connection with the coaling and provisioning of raiders. The Pacific phase of the scheme has been unearthed by United States District Attorney Preston in San Francisco.

SMUGGLING SUPPLIES TO RAIDERS

Two years before Germany sent a declaration of war to England, and just when a crisis in European affairs was impending, Dr. Karl Buenz, who never before had engaged in steamship business, came to New York as the American head of the Hamburg-American Line. Prior to that he had been a judge in Germany, a consul in Chicago and New York, and a minister to Mexico. One of the first things which came to his attention was the completion of a contract between the Admiralty Division of the German Government and the steamship company for the provisioning, during war, of German warships at sea from America as a base. Arrangement also was made for communication between these ships and the company by the Admiralty’s code. The documents dealing with this agreement were kept locked up in the German Embassy in Washington, and the Hamburg-American officials declined to produce them at the trial, “because in that agreement,” Prosecutor Wood asserted, “I venture to say the whole plan whereby false clearances should be obtained is worked out in detail.”

When Germany stood on the brink of war and England stood ready to pen her in by a blockade, the Admiralty Division sent its orders to make ready to provision the raiders. Dr. Buenz himself, on July 31, 1914—before the war—received a cable which he read, and then at once sent to the German Embassy for safe-keeping. Straightway Boy-Ed was in and out of Dr. Buenz’s office, giving directions as to the warships needing supplies and whither the provision ships should proceed by routes outside the regular freight lines. He kept urging upon Dr. Buenz the necessity of haste, and even before the German Government advanced the cash, the ships were chartered—others purchased—under bonds that guaranteed payment to the owners in the event of seizure. Twelve or more ships in all set forth from Atlantic ports, carrying coal and food supplies bought with Hamburg-American cash.

The steamship Berwind, which had been chartered and loaded in a hurry, was the first to sail. When some of the conspirators met in Dr. Buenz’s office, there was hesitancy as to who should apply for clearance papers—documents of which Dr. Buenz testified he knew nothing. They finally told G. B. Kulenkampf, a banker and exporter, that the Berwind was loaded with coal—she had coal and provisions—and told him to get the clearance papers. He did so, swearing to a false manifest, as he afterwards admitted. In getting such clearance papers, Germany’s agents aimed to prevent the Allies from learning about the supply ships. Germany desired, naturally, to carry on this work secretly in order to deceive her enemies and prevent her adversaries from knowing where the German cruisers were.

Such a ruse may be a legitimate trick in war, but the German Government or her agents had no right to use the American Government in such an enterprise. So men employed by the Hamburg-American Line went to the collector of the ports from which these ships sailed, making affidavits as to the cargo—generally false—and the destination for which they sailed—also false. On board these ships—the Berwind and the Lorenzo, sailing from New York presumably for Buenos Aires on August 5 and 6, 1914, respectively; the Thor from Newport News for Fray Bentos, Uruguay; the Heina from Philadelphia in August, for La Guayra; the Mowinckle, Nepos and others—the officials put supercargoes bearing secret instructions. These men had authority to give sailing orders to the captains once they were outside the three-mile limit. They knew that the ships were not bound for the ports designated, but to lonely spots on the high seas, where they would lie in wait for the arrival of the German cruisers, whose captains would receive the “tip” by wireless.

RISKY WORK FOR SKIPPERS

Very few of the supercargoes, however, accomplished their aims. The Berwind reached a point near Trinidad where Supercargo Poeppinghaus directed the ship to lie to. Presently five German ships, the Cap Trafalgar, Pontus, Elinor Woerman, Santa Lucia and Eber appeared, and after the task of transferring the supplies to them was begun, the British converted cruiser Carmania came up. A brisk fight ensued between the Carmania and the Cap Trafalgar, lasting for two hours, and ending when the German ship sank.

One representative of the Hamburg-American Line sought to use bribery to effect his purpose. One of the ships chartered was the Unita, in charge of Eno Olsen, a Canadian citizen of Norwegian birth. The German supercargo made a mistake in thinking that Olsen was friendly to Germany. When, however, the supercargo explained to him after they had got out to sea, what the purpose of the cruise was, Captain Olsen baulked.

“‘Nothing doing,’ I told the supercargo,” Captain Olsen testified, with a Norwegian twist to his pronunciation. “So the supercargo offered me $500 to change my course. ‘Nothing doing—nothing doing for a million dollars,’ I told him.

“The third day out he offered me $10,000. ‘Nothing doing.’ So,” concluded Captain Olsen with finality, “I showed him my citizenship paper. I said the Unita cleared for Cadiz; and to Cadiz she goes. After we got there I sold the cargo and looked up the British Consul.”

The provisions for each ship were ordered under directions from the Hamburg-American officials who eventually provided the money. The Hamburg-American Company received three payments of $500,000 each from the Deutsche Bank in Berlin. In addition, $750,000 was sent to Boy-Ed by exchange through Kulenkampf’s firm, Wessels, Kulenkampf & Company, from the Deutsche Bank, making $2,225,000 in all. Telling of the receipt of the money, Kulenkampf testified:

“Some time after that, Captain Boy-Ed came to me and asked if I had received money from Berlin. I said, ‘Yes,’ and he told me that it was for him. I asked him to obtain instructions, and a little later I was telephoned to hold the money at the disposal of Boy-Ed. I followed the instructions of Captain Boy-Ed. He instructed me at different times to pay over certain amounts, either to banks or to firms. I transferred $350,000 to the Nevada National Bank in San Francisco, $150,000 to the North German Lloyd, $63,000 to the North German Lloyd. That left a balance of approximately $160,000, which was placed to the credit of the Deutsche Bank with Gontard & Company, successors of my former firm. That amount was reduced to about $57,000 by payments drawn by Captain Boy-Ed’s request to the order of the Hamburg-American Steamship Company.”

MONEY SPENT FREELY

How part of the money was spent is shown by the following account of payments through the Hamburg-American Line:

But Boy-Ed’s supervision of supplies to the raiders covered both the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans. While the Hamburg-American took charge of handling the supplies in the North and South Atlantic, another German agency is accused of doing similar work on the Pacific. That accounts for Boy-Ed’s transfer of money to the West, where his cash also was used in the purchase of at least one ship. Boy-Ed’s funds, amounting to more than $600,000, have been traced to the Pacific. In following these payments it is important to observe how differently and more cleverly Boy-Ed handled his money than von Papen. Unlike the military attaché, he paid out little money by personal cheque; but he had accounts with various commercial firms to whom he gave orders for payments. Working with the ingenuity of an adept in covering up his tracks, he caused money in large amounts to be shifted from one bank to another, from one firm to another, through various cities until after myriad devious turnings and twisting it finally reached its destination. He used various commercial concerns as his bankers.

Out on the Pacific Coast, Boy-Ed employed members of the German consulate to distribute the money and supervise provisioning. Two indictments returned against Germans and others in San Francisco charge that an effort was made to employ that port as a “naval base” for provisioning the German raiders; that false manifests were filed for the succouring of merchantmen; that supplies were transferred to the German raiders. More than $150,000, it is specifically charged, was paid out for this purpose by the German consulate.

The outfitting of the steamships Sacramento, Olsen and Mahoney, Mazatlan and the barque Retriever are said to be charged to the defendants. One device employed in San Francisco Bay to outwit the Government officers watching for violations of the neutrality laws was to fill the Retriever with coal, and then announce that the vessel would be used for an expedition on the high seas to take cinema pictures of a stirring sea drama. But the officials were not hoodwinked. The steamer Sacramento, formerly the German-owned Alexandria, which, after the war started, was bought by the Northern and Southern Steamship Company and which flew the American flag, left port piled high with supplies of all sorts, including sauerkraut and beer, and reached Valparaiso, Chile, empty. All her supplies were transferred to German cruisers and a German supply ship at Masefuero Island, near the Chilean coast.

Captain Fred Jebsen, a lieutenant in the German naval reserve, took a cargo of coal south on his boat, the Mazatlan, for delivery at Guaymas, Sonora, Mexico. He transferred it to lighters, which carried it to the German cruiser Leipzig. Jebsen also is said to have planned to pilot a ship to India, and being frustrated, made his way in disguise to Germany, where he is reported to have been drowned by the sinking of a submarine. The Olsen and Mahoney, a steam schooner, was loaded with supplies, but after considerable controversy with customs officials, was unloaded. In the early days of the war, the cruisers Leipzig and Nürnberg lay off San Francisco. The Leipzig put to port for supplies which were granted in quantities permissible under international law. Efforts to supply still further quantities are alleged by the Government.

One of the picturesque incidents of the provisioning, which reveals how minutely Captain Boy-Ed looked after finances and sets forth other phases of his work on the high seas, as directed from No. 11, Broadway, is revealed in the piratical cruise of the good ship Gladstone, rechristened under German auspices Marina Quezada. Her owner, when she bobbed into the view of Captain Boy-Ed, was a Norwegian syndicate; but what money was behind that group it has not been possible to learn. Under the name of Gladstone, the ship had plied between Canada and Australia; but shortly after the outbreak of the war she put into Newport News. Then Captain Hans Suhren, a sturdy German formerly of the Pacific coast, appeared in New York, called upon Captain Boy-Ed, who took most kindly interest in him, and then departed for Newport News. Here he assumed charge of the Gladstone.

“I paid $280,000 in cash for her,” he told First Officer Bentzen. After making arrangements for his crew, he flitted back to New York, where he received messages in care of “Nordmann, Room 801, 11, Broadway, N. Y. C.” Meantime, in consultation with Captain Boy-Ed, the captain received instructions to erect a wireless plant on his ship—the equipment having already been shipped to the Marina Quezada—and to hire a wireless operator. Boy-Ed handed Suhren a German naval code book, gave him a map with routes marked out and sailing instructions that would take him to the South Seas, there to await German cruisers. Food supplies, ordered for a steamer which had been unable to sail, were waiting on the piers at Newport News and Captain Boy-Ed ordered them put on the Marina Quezada. Two cases of revolvers also were sent to the boat. In a like manner, it may be observed, ships on the Pacific had been equipped secretly with arms and wireless.

Again Suhren went back to his boat, kept the wireless operators busy, hurried the loading of the cargo, which was under the supervision of an employé of the North German Lloyd, and needing more money before sailing in December, 1914, he drew a draft for $1,000 on the Hamburg-American Line, wiring Hachmeister, the purchasing agent, to communicate with “Room 801, 11, Broadway,” the office of our friend Boy-Ed.

Prior to his departure, the skipper had difficulty with the registration of his ship. Though he insisted he owned her, a corporation in New York whose stockholders were Costa Ricans were laying claim to ownership, for they really christened her, and got provisional registration for her from the Costa Rican minister in Washington. It was necessary, however, in order for the ship to get permanent registration, to go to Port Limon, Costa Rica, and register there. So hauling down the Norwegian flag, that had fluttered over the ship as the Gladstone, Captain Suhren ran up the Costa Rican emblem. Then, having loaded his ship and having obtained false clearance papers stating his destination as Valparaiso, based upon a false manifest, sailed for Port Limon. But the Costa Rican authorities declined to give Suhren permanent papers, and, accordingly, being without authority to fly any flag and in such status not permitted under international law to leave port, Suhren was in a plight. He waited, however, until a heavy storm came up one night, then quietly slipping his anchor, he sped out into the high seas, a veritable pirate. Finally, as he neared Pernambuco, he ran up the Norwegian flag, put into port and got into such difficulties with the authorities that his ship was interned. His supplies never reached the raiders, and Boy-Ed, at No. 11, Broadway, learned from Suhren of another fiasco. Suhren is supposed to have been taken prisoner to Canada.

Had the Hamburg-American officials carried out their part of the enterprise by means of the false clearance papers—and the same applies to Boy-Ed—a guest of the nation and to others engaged in the project—they would have put the American Government in the position of officially endorsing their work of deceit and stealth. “Is it a nice thing,” asked Prosecutor Wood, “to have this Government endorse the lies of these defendants?”

Boy-Ed, furthermore, violated the clause of The Hague Conference of 1907, which says: “Belligerents are forbidden to use neutral ports and waters as a base of naval operation against their adversaries.”

QUEER WIRELESS CODES

Another operation that appealed to Captain Boy-Ed’s ingenuity was the use of the wireless to frustrate the enemy. He had given implicit instructions to Skipper Suhren in regard to the use of the wireless. Members of the crew of the Sacramento are accused of breaking the Government seal and using the radio plant. The Government officials also found such extensive misuse of the German-owned wireless plants in America that they were obliged either to close them down or take them over. The Sayville, Long Island, plant, finally was taken over and operated by the government.

CUTTING IN ON MESSAGES

But Boy-Ed delighted in circumventing the Federal authorities. A few instances have been published, but there remain hundreds of cases which the Federal radio inspectors have uncovered. To Chief Flynn of the Secret Service and Charles E. Apgar, an inventor, much credit is due for detecting one ingenious method used by Boy-Ed and others for sending out wireless messages. Apgar, an enthusiastic wireless operator, spent much time “listening in” to the messages sent every night from the wireless plants at Sayville, Long Island, to Germany. Finally he hit upon the scheme of recording the splash and splutter of the radio in a phonograph. After perfecting his device he began to “can” the Berlin messages—coming and going—every night. Then reeling off these messages on his phonograph, he would study again and again the dots and dashes of each word. He observed that messages had been repeated by the Sayville operator, that numbers were thrown in at intervals and finally that between words there were gaps of varying lengths—all means undoubtedly of sending messages in code—a new language of science invented by the Germans. Many messages were sent by Boy-Ed, himself. It was after a thorough study of these canned messages that the government began to operate the Sayville plant itself.

FRAUDULENT PASSPORTS

Like von Papen, Boy-Ed was under orders to send spies to the adversaries’ countries, to make arrangements for naval reservists to return to Germany, all of which required the use of fraudulent passports. While there have been charges that Germany had a factory for forging passports and while the New York World charged, at the time of Boy-Ed’s recall, that he had dealings with a gang of forgers and counterfeiters, who made passports, there is evidence that the naval attaché did pay money to German reservists, who procured passports fraudulently. One of these men was Richard Peter Stegler, a Prussian, thirty-three years old, who had served in the German Navy, and afterwards came to this country to start on his life work. Before the war he had applied for his first citizenship papers; but his name had not been removed from the German naval reserve list.

“After the war started,” says Stegler, a well-dressed young man with rather stern features, “I received orders to return home. I was told that everything was in readiness for me. I was assigned to the naval station at Cuxhaven. My uniform, my cap, my boots and my locker were all set aside for me, and I was told just where to go and what to do. But I could not get back at that time and I kept on with my work.”

Stegler then became a member of the German secret service in New York. “There is not a ship that leaves the harbour, not a cargo that is loaded or unloaded, but that some member of this secret organization watches and reports every detail,” he said afterwards. “All this information is transmitted in code to the German Government.” In January, 1915, if not earlier, Stegler was sent to Boy-Ed’s office, and there he received instructions to get a passport and make arrangements to go to England as a spy. Boy-Ed paid him $178, which he admits, but denies that it was to buy a passport. Stegler immediately got in touch with Gustave Cook and Richard Madden, of Hoboken, and made use of Madden’s birth certificate and citizenship in obtaining a passport from the American Government. Stegler has pleaded guilty to the charge and the two men were convicted of conspiracy in connection with the project. Stegler paid $100 for the document. Stegler, Cook and Madden each served a term on Blackwell’s Island.

“I was told to make the voyage to England on the Lusitania,” continued Stegler. “My instructions were as follows: ‘Stop at Liverpool, examine the Mersey River, obtain the names, exact locations and all possible information concerning warships around Liverpool, ascertain the amount of munitions of war being unloaded on the Liverpool docks from the United States, ascertain their ultimate destination, and obtain a detailed list of all the maritime ships in the harbour.’”

NEW YORK, THE CENTRE FOR SPIES

“I was to make constant, though guarded inquiries, of the location of the Dreadnought squadron which the Germans in New York understand was anchored somewhere near St. George’s Channel. I was to appear as an American citizen soliciting trade. Captain Boy-Ed advised me to get letters of introduction to business firms. He made arrangements so that I received such letters and in one letter were enclosed some rare stamps which were to be a proof to certain persons in England that I was working for the Germans.

“After having studied Liverpool, I was to go to London and make an investigation of the Thames and its shipping. From there, I was to proceed to Holland and work my way to the German border. While my passport did not include Germany, I was to give the captain of the nearest regiment a secret number which would indicate to him that I was a reservist on spy duty. By that means, I was to hurry to Eisendal, head of the secret service in Berlin.”

Stegler did not make the trip because his wife learned of the enterprise and begged him not to go. He also had been detected by Federal Agent Adams and was placed under arrest in February, 1915, shortly after he decided to stay at home. In his possession were all the letters and telegrams exchanged between him and Boy-Ed, none of which, however, said anything about passports. There was one telegram from “Winko,” who was Captain Boy-Ed’s servant.

LODY SENT TO DEATH

Stegler also said that he had been told that Boy-Ed previously had sent to England Karl Hans Lody, the German who in November, 1915, had been put to death as a spy in the Tower of London. Lody also had been in the navy, had served on the Kaiser’s yacht and then had come to this country and worked as an agent for the Hamburg-American Line, going from one place to another.

Still another man who had a fraudulent German passport was a German naval reservist, who had shipped as a hand on the freighter Evelyn carrying horses to Bermuda. On one trip that he took, practically all of the horses were poisoned and were lost. He, however, was arrested by Federal authorities on the charge of using the name of a dead man in order to get an American passport.

In passport matters and the handling of spies, Captain Boy-Ed was more acute and more subtle than his colleague, von Papen. Nevertheless, the Government officials succeeded in getting a clear outline of his activities. It seems quite likely that after the arrest of Ruroede in December, 1914, when suspicion was directed to von Papen as the superintendent of the passport bureau, the management thereof was switched to Boy-Ed. The exposure of Boy-Ed’s connection with Stegler made it necessary for the German Government to change its system once more.

Boy-Ed, as has been shown, had supervision of naval affairs and matters pertaining to the sea. He issued information to the Press bearing on Germany’s conduct of her naval warfare. He made pleas for an embargo on the export of arms and ammunition. He received from Count von Bernstorff all information which the Ambassador obtained bearing on that question, and, on one occasion, the Count sent him a list of the countries which had forbidden the export of war supplies.

The conviction throughout the country has been steadily growing, since the exposure of von Papen’s methods, that Boy-Ed was not an innocent associate of the military attaché. The Federal authorities, in fact, have unearthed a large amount of evidence to show active participation by Boy-Ed in these enterprises, for to him they simply were part of the war of Germany on her enemies. Colonel Roosevelt, who has made a special study of Germany’s crimes on neutral territories, has expressed the sentiment of Americans in a speech at the Academy of Music, Brooklyn, on January 30, 1916, in these words:

“The German and Austrian Governments through their accredited representatives in the embassies here have carried on a campaign of bomb and torch against our industries. The action our government should have taken in view of this campaign was not action against Dumba, von Papen and Boy-Ed, but the holding of the German and Austrian Governments themselves responsible for every munition plant that was blown up or damaged.”

The roll of Boy-Ed’s associates, as indicating his knowledge of plots of violence, is illuminating. He employed Paul Koenig for a series of secret activities. He was said to have known Captain Eno Bode, dock superintendent of the Hamburg-American Steamship Line in Hoboken, and Captain Otto Wolpert, another dock superintendent, both of whom, it is charged, were involved in a bond conspiracy.

Boy-Ed and von Papen, in many secret conferences on board the Vaterland in Hoboken, where they were sure of no eavesdroppers, developed details of their war on America and the campaign of violence on land and on sea to stop the carrying of munitions of war to England, France and Russia. Von Papen superintended the campaigns on land and projected his work upon the seas. The moment, however, the schemes, as papers found in von Igel’s possession prove, had anything to do with the sea, he consulted Boy-Ed.

One of the causes for the summary dismissal of both Boy-Ed and his confrère, von Papen, from America, was their schemes to involve this nation in a conflict with Mexico, to bring about American intervention in that country and thus prevent America’s supply of explosives and rifles from being used exclusively against Germany. Boy-Ed, prior to the war, had opposed the suggestion of intervention, but he changed his mind when he began to appreciate the fact that America in arms would take the powder, high explosives and rifles that Europe was buying. He always was a warm supporter of General Huerta, for, when von Papen was in Mexico, getting acquainted with Huerta, Boy-Ed, addressing his colleague there, wrote: “I was especially pleased by what you wrote about Huerta, the only strong man in Mexico. In my opinion, Admiral von Hintze was not quite right in his estimate of him. For Huerta can scarcely be such a drunken ruffian as Hintze often implies, if only because a chronic drunkard could hardly have kept so uncertain a position under such uncommonly difficult circumstances. I met a number of people in Mexico City who were in close touch with Huerta, and without exception they all spoke very highly of the President’s patriotism, capacity and energy.”

PLANNING WAR WITH THE UNITED STATES

Of Boy-Ed’s schemes to do his share in preparing, from a naval standpoint, for war between Germany and the United States, of the plots to create disorganization in the American seaports and to render the German merchantmen useless to Americans, much evidence has been gathered by Federal investigators. Of his methods in getting information secretly from the Navy Department and from battleships, of his placing spies, ready for any deed of daring, on the warships, a greater amount of information has been learned than ever will be made public by the Government. Suffice it to say precautions already have been taken against those schemes. All these formed the basis for the decision to hand Boy-Ed his passport. Summing up Boy-Ed’s work for the Kaiser in America, accordingly, we have his supervision of the shipment of supplies to the German raiders, his activities in fraudulent passports and his co-operation with Dr. Dumba. When President Wilson requested the Kaiser to recall his military and naval representatives, he made the announcement that his action was due to “their improper activities in military and naval affairs,” a double-barrelled assertion applying to both men.

Captain Boy-Ed, on his return home, received from the Kaiser the decoration of the Order of the Red Eagle, third class, with sword, in “recognition of his services in the United States.” He would undoubtedly, for “those services,” except for the immunity granted him as a member of a diplomat’s official family, be facing prison in the United States with Dr. Karl Buenz and other officials of the Kaiser’s own steamship line.