CHAPTER VI
CAPTAIN FRANZ VON RINTELEN, GERMAN ARCH-PLOTTER
When the German spy system was working smoothly and giving gleeful satisfaction to its builders, the War Staff in Berlin sent to America a masterly schemer who threw sand into the machinery. He was Franz von Rintelen, a finished product of the Prussian war-mould. He had been born with a supreme confidence in the conquering destiny of Germany. He had been trained for his work in that order of things and he had subordinated to the needs of the Empire, his business, wealth, brains, energy—yes, his very soul. He had been ordered here to undertake, with the aid of Germany’s agents, the enormous task of isolating commercial and financial America, as a base of war supplies, from Europe. In trying to accomplish his aim, he sought to wreck American institutions and to use the United States as a battlefield in a rear attack on the Allies.
Highly imaginative, keen of foresight, a master of detail, a superb organizer, and conscienceless in the execution of his plans, he seemed like a man so perfectly trained for the emergencies of war that under no circumstances would he lose his poise. And yet when put face to face with his own misjudgments and forced to take measures to retrieve himself, he lost the very quality which his training was meant to insure—a carefully calculating eye and a cool head. His strategic moves consequently proved to be ridiculous errors that led to his own confusion.
In a brief sojourn in America he moved in the shadows of mystery, employing the vast network of German spies, hiring Americans, using thugs and setting in motion manifold plans for gigantic enterprises that involved the entire governmental, industrial and financial organizations of the country. When he went away, his work unfinished, his aims unaccomplished and a large amount of money wasted, there remained a multitude of trails, isolated facts and incidents suggesting his activities. Seizing these clues, Federal agents under A. Bruce Bielaski and William M. Offley, began to dig up von Rintelen’s associates, to get their stories and to obtain proof of his doings—his letters and telegrams, his agents’ speeches and the instructions which they tried to carry out. Taking these facts, Raymond H. Sarfaty, then Assistant United States Attorney in New York, working with patience and skill, fitted the details together into a series of great mosaics—depicting conspiracy, fraud, purchases of strikes, bribery, perjury, forgery, sedition, almost treason. Those pictures show how hidden forces—Americans and Germans working in secret—during von Rintelen’s presence in this country, plotted to cause commotions in political, industrial and financial spheres, and all to aid Germany in derogation of our rights.
PICTURES OF VON RINTELEN
In every one of them, von Rintelen looms as the audacious plotter, man of mystery, user of a hundred aliases, supreme egotist, a vaunted aid to the Kaiser and a Teutonic Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. In one picture, you see him in exclusive homes on Fifth Avenue, a “mould of form”—scarcely thirty-eight years old, slim and upstanding, with stalwart shoulders, the bearing of an aristocrat, short stubborn hair, a moustache with a like independent twist, and greenish-grey eyes that sparkled defiance. He garbed himself in the cut of London’s most artistic tailors and selected the colours of his ties, his shirts and his socks with a view to perfect harmony. He was the “glass of fashion” on the tip-toe of courtesy, beguiling with his gallant quips and charming his hearers by his fascinating stories and comments.
Other pictures show him under an assumed name, in conference with conspirators. He might meet them secretly in offices, or in hotels, or he might pick them up in an automobile, whizzing along at full speed and handing gold to hirelings who for a price were ready to undertake some criminal job. He might be seen dining in one of Broadway’s most alluring cabarets, ordering the rarest of wines and boasting of his schemes to accomplish in America what would be equivalent to Germany’s capture of Paris.
VON RINTELEN’S VALUE
And who is this man? He is so important that when made a prisoner in England, the Kaiser offered to exchange for the nobleman any ten British prisoners that King George might select. He is so esteemed in Germany that large amounts of gold were placed at the disposal of Americans to go to England and by hook or crook effect his escape. Rumour has sought to make him a relative of the Hohenzollerns. Another report has put him down actually as the Duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin. But persons, who knew him well in Berlin, saw him in the United States and at the prison camp in England, say he is von Rintelen. He is said to be the son of a former member of the Kaiser’s Cabinet; but the German “Wer Ist’s” does not credit that man with a son. Still, von Rintelen married into one of the wealthiest families in Berlin, his wife being a member of the von Kaufmann family, and he had a commanding social position in Germany.
He is wealthy in his own name, his fortune being estimated at $15,000,000. He is a director of the Deutsche Bank and the National Bank für Deutschland. He is, or was, a member of the big financial group of Germany, and as such was one of the Emperor’s financial advisers. His knowledge and advisory sphere included England, the United States and Mexico; and of the financial and industrial resources of these countries he was supposed to have a broad and comprehensive knowledge. He had influence also because he was a friend of the Kaiser and a close associate of the Crown Prince.
A SECRET AGENT’S TRAINING
Von Rintelen’s work was cut out for him in his early youth. His qualifications were considered and he was assigned to studies in preparation for the tasks he gave promise of performing most efficiently. At the gymnasium and the university, he divided his time between economics and finance. In addition, he spent considerable time in the navy, finally became a Captain-Lieutenant, and as such qualified for the General Navy Staff. He, too, was one of von Tirpitz’s young men chosen for definite lines of naval secret service and financial campaigns that would be of value to the further development of the navy.
Finance may have been a mere cloak for the real nature of von Rintelen’s naval assignments abroad, or his secret service training may have been a necessary part of his training for a high place in the Teutonic financial world. Graduating from the university and finishing the prescribed part of his tutelage under von Tirpitz, he went to London where he obtained employment in a banking house. While there, he was learning not only finance, but he was a part of that branch of Germany’s spy system that radiated through banking institutions to the various concerns allied therewith. Under the guidance of wise heads in Berlin, he grasped far more facts about banking conditions than ever were suspected by his English associates.
Next he came to America. He entered the banking house of Ladenburg, Thalmann & Co., spending a short time there and then moving to other banking institutions, some of which were branches of English and Canadian banks. He obtained letters of introduction from big bankers to bankers scattered throughout the United States. He grew in knowledge, learned American banking methods, the connections of banks with big industries, and sought to make affiliations of benefit to German institutions. He served, meantime, as Germany’s naval representative at the exercises in commemoration of John Paul Jones. His entrance into New York’s society was paved for him through the German Embassy’s friends. He was a guest at social functions where only the most favoured were invited. He was accepted as a member of the New York Yacht Club. He was entertained at Newport. He made friends among the biggest men in New York; for he was attractive, a remarkable cosmopolite, extremely learned, versed in international questions, speaking English, French and Spanish fluently, and, above all, he was an inimitable raconteur. He showed himself at all times an ardent pro-German, arguing for a union of Germany and the United States in the event of war.
Through his wide acquaintanceship and innumerable avenues open to him, he gained information about America such as only the most favoured business men in America possess. He left this country finally saying he would go to Mexico to investigate conditions there, hoping that eventually he might be able to open Mexican and South American branches of a German bank. But before going, he had acquired insight not only into American banking connections with Canada, but also with Mexico. He knew the big financial groups interested in the development of the natural resources of those countries and he knew thoroughly America’s actual and industrial preparedness for war.
BACK TO GERMANY
So, returning to Berlin in 1909, he again took up his banking business and continued his close affiliation with von Tirpitz and the Big Navy crowd, setting forth the facts he obtained and making recommendations for the development of Germany’s secret service in America. He became more prominent socially than ever, making it a point to entertain Americans. When his American acquaintances turned up in Berlin, they invariably found von Rintelen a most cordial and extravagant host. He obtained introductions at court for some; and he introduced others to the Crown Prince. When the war started, Americans who besought von Rintelen for help in the exciting days, found him most obliging.
But before circumstances that brought von Rintelen to this country arose, he received several Americans. One was a wealthy American manufacturer who owns a large factory in France. Being on intimate terms with von Rintelen, he called upon him and explained how the plant had been closed down with the invasion of the Germans, causing a big financial loss. He appealed for von Rintelen’s intercession to have the concern continue business. He got von Rintelen’s promise of aid but returned to the United States before any definite action was taken as von Rintelen was too crafty to make any move before he was ready to ask his compensation.
Von Rintelen was ordered, in January, 1915, the General War Staff to come to America. It had become necessary to send a man here to buy supplies of copper, rubber and cotton and to take extensive precautionary measures against the Allies getting war munitions from America. He was scornful of American facilities for filling Allies’ orders and backed by the authority of the War Staff and a group of Berlin’s ablest bankers, he made arrangements for his trip. Knowing he must elude the English, he obtained the Swiss passport of his sister Emily V. Gasche, who was with her husband in Switzerland. He erased the “y” of Emily and had the passport altered in other ways to suit his needs, travelling as Emil V. Gasche, a Swiss citizen. As he bade goodbye to his wife and two little daughters, he talked arrogantly of a quick trip to America past English spies, promised big accomplishments for the Emperor and an early return home.
Von Rintelen, confident and daring, is said to have gone first to England. After gathering facts about the manufacture and importation of munitions of war and England’s method of increasing the supply, he disappeared suddenly and is believed to have gone to Norway. When he was on the high seas due to arrive in New York on April 3 he sent a wireless message to the American owner of the factory in France, asking an interview at the pier. Von Rintelen, acting at what was the time best suitable to himself, had succeeded in having the American’s factory opened. He wished, on landing, to give him this information and in return get help in the plans that he wished to put into effect. As the American did not go to the pier, the nobleman, always alert and suspicious, hired a detective who spent a week investigating. He finally met this man, told him in part the purpose of his trip to America, and used him as a means of getting introductions to men who would prove valuable to him.
JEKYLL AND HYDE
Herr von Rintelen, having dropped the guise of E. V. Gasche, immediately began to play Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Dr. Jekyll, visiting the Yacht Club, and calling upon wealthy friends, proved a more charming, more delightful von Rintelen than ever, meeting influential business men who were selling supplies to the Allies. He was presented to society matrons and débutantes, whom, by flattery and subtlety, he sought to use to further his purposes. To these, he was Herr von Rintelen in America on an important financial mission. But occasionally, he made wild boasts of plans. As a typical Mr. Hyde he sought information from von Bernstorff, von Papen, Boy-Ed, about the production of war supplies. Astounded by what he learned from them and corroborated from other sources, he began to realize how utterly he had misjudged America’s potential resources and what a blunder he had made in his statement to the General War Staff.
Within a brief time von Rintelen realized, with a vividness that chilled him, the capacity of America to hand war materials to the Allies and her rapidly increasing facilities to turn out still more ammunition and bullets. The facts which he obtained struck him with triple force because of the knowledge he had about the war moves. It is upon a basis of the supplies of munitions in the Allied countries, particularly Russia, as von Rintelen knew them, that his acts are best judged and upon this basis only can sane motives be assigned to the rash projects which he launched.
He understood these three striking facts thoroughly: (1) that the German drive on Paris had failed because in two months the Germans had used up ammunition they confidently expected to last a half a year; (2) that the English and French in the west could not take up the offensive because ammunition was not being turned out fast enough; and (3) that the Russian drive on Germany and Austria would soon fail for lack of arms and bullets.
In the winter and spring of 1915 the Russians had made a drive into Galicia and Austria, hurling the Austrians and Germans back. In May they had advanced victoriously through the first range of the Carpathian mountains. Meantime the German General Staff, as von Rintelen knew, was preparing for a big offensive against the Russians. The War Staff knew of Russia’s limited capacity to produce arms and ammunition, knew that during the winter with the port of Archangel closed by ice, her only source for new supplies lay in the single-track Siberian railway, bringing material from Japan. He realized that by spring the Russian resources would well nigh be exhausted, and that with the beginning of the projected Austro-German offensive the crucial necessity lay in shutting off supplies from Russia. He knew that England and France could not help her, and, therefore, the American source must be cut off absolutely. But spring had already come, ships were sailing for Archangel laden with American explosives, shells and cartridges.
A PLOTTER AT WORK
Von Rintelen, startled by his mistaken estimate of American industrial preparedness, and frantically determined that Russia’s supplies must be crippled, that the cargoes going to France and England must be held back, began mapping out his gigantic enterprises. These conditions were the big compelling motive; for von Rintelen’s reputation was at stake. The work for which he had been so carefully trained was bound to fail unless he acted quickly. Desperate measures were necessary. With that situation in view he exchanged many wireless communications with his superiors in Berlin—messages that looked like harmless expressions between his wife and himself in which the names of Americans who had been in Berlin were used both as code words and as means to impress upon the American censor their genuineness. He obtained as a result still greater authority than he had received on the eve of his departure from Germany.
In his quick fashion, he often boasted, and there is foundation for part of what he said, that he had been sent to America by the General Staff, backed by $50,000,000 to $100,000,000; that he was an agent plenipotentiary and extraordinary, ready to take any measure on land and sea to stop the making of munitions, and to halt their transportation at the factory or at the seaboard.
He mapped out a campaign, remarkable for detail, scope, recklessness and utter disregard of American laws. These plots proved von Rintelen, or the German General Staff, a master of thoroughness and ingenuity, for he took into consideration the psychology, the customs, habits, and reported weaknesses of Americans.
His schemes in brief were (1) the purchase of war materials for Germany as a means of inflating prices; (2) the fomenting of war between the United States and Mexico as a means of compelling the American Government to seize all available war munitions; (3) a campaign of publicity and the arousing of public sentiment to bring about an embargo on arms shipments; (4) strikes in American industries; and (5) a series of acts of violence against factories and munition-carrying vessels.
Von Rintelen rapidly mobilized his forces of money and men. He went first to the Trans-Atlantic Trust Company, where he was known by his right name and where he arranged his finances. Money was transferred from Berlin through the usual German channels—large corporations with German affiliations—and placed to his credit in various banking institutions. He deposited large amounts in the Trans-Atlantic Trust Company and large amounts, totalling millions, in other banks. He next rented an office on the eighth floor of the same building that housed the trust company and had a telephone running to it through the switchboard of the banking institution. He registered with the county clerk as the E. V. Gibbon Company, a purchaser of supplies, signing his name to the document as “Francis von Rintelen.”
Using the name of Fred Hansen, he received persons in that office. There he summoned to his help a part of the German espionage system. He did not hesitate to call upon any German for assistance, and thousands of willing workers were at his disposal. If he wished a naval reservist, he knew where to get him; if a member of the landsturm was needed for any detail, he was called. From Boy-Ed, he received data about the sailings of ships; from von Papen, facts about munition factories. He met Koenig and assigned numerous tasks to him, particularly the location of munition factories, their products and exports.
His first task, merely incidental in importance compared with his other aim, was the succouring of the Fatherland and the blocking of the Allies through purchases. He participated with influential Germans in the scheme of buying the leading munition factories. He attempted the running of the British blockade. Dr. Albert also was buying goods, but von Rintelen, working on a much larger scale, commensurate with his fertile imagination, and employing a staff of agents, took charge of the shipments of raw products and food. Carrying on these purchases through E. V. Gibbon Company, using the name of Gibbon and Hansen, he had as aid Captain Steinberg, a German naval officer. Through him, von Rintelen chartered ships, purchased materials, caused false manifests to be made for the cargoes, and arranged for shipment to Italy and the Scandinavian countries, whence they were trans-shipped.
IN THE MAZE
This officer, it is charged, had dealings with Dr. Walter T. Scheele, the alleged manufacturer of fire bombs, and arranged with him to mix lubricating oil, so urgently needed in Germany, with fertilizer, and ship the oil as “commercial fertilizer.” The oil was to be extracted by a chemical process in Germany. Von Rintelen, through Steinberg, importuned Dr. Scheele to ship munitions as farming implements, giving him $20,000 for that purpose. Dr. Scheele did bill the shipment as requested, but he did not lie because he shipped farming machinery, taking a fat commission. Again von Rintelen was hoodwinked. The officer, von Igel and Dr. Scheele have been indicted on a charge of conspiring to defraud the United States by false manifests.
“The British blockade,” von Rintelen used to boast with purring pride, “is a myth. I can send to Germany all the goods that I wish.”
So skilfully did he plan—he was a master of detail and a consummate artist in concealing his movements—and so many different aliases did he employ, that at first he attracted no attention, and after a time his doings were credited to a German Red Cross lecturer. Because of the German method of switching agents to cause confusion to the enemy’s spies, it is probable that some Red Cross agents did figure in the purchases. The investigations of the Federal authorities, however, have laid to von Rintelen the schemes carried on from April to June, 1915.
Von Rintelen boasted that he bought provisions, amounting to $2,000,000 a week, for shipment to Germany through Denmark. More than $25,000,000 was consumed by von Rintelen in his blockade-running, many of the boats being seized by British warships.
Von Rintelen also took a flier at the most elusive and puzzling diversions of war-brokers, namely the purchase of the 350,000 Krag-Jorgensen rifles which the United States Government had condemned just prior to the outbreak of the war. Around those rifles was centred more intrigue and deceitful scheming than was incited by almost any other single article connected with the war. Even after the Government had announced emphatically that they were not for sale, and President Wilson had told one banker: “You will get those rifles only over my dead body,” every belligerent tried to get them.
Von Rintelen heard that by bribing Government officials he could obtain the guns. He was stirred; for if an official would accept money for one thing, he could be influenced to do other things to help Germany. Sending out agents, he offered to purchase the rifles. He encountered a man who put a price of $17,826,000 on them, part of the amount being intended, von Rintelen was told, as bribes of several millions of dollars for Government officials.
Things looked bright to von Rintelen. “So close am I to the President,” said the agent who promised to deliver them, “that two days after you deposit the money in the bank you can dangle his grandchild on your knee.” But von Rintelen apparently came to realize that he was dealing with the secret agent of another government, who was laying a trap for him, and he quickly withdrew.
THE “LUSITANIA” GOES DOWN
Then the Lusitania was torpedoed. Americans who were connected with von Rintelen’s schemes to ship supplies to Denmark and to buy the Krags, became alarmed over the prospect of war with Germany. They cut off negotiations with him and fearing possible government investigations, they began to talk. Part of the activities of a mysterious German of the name of Meyer and Hansen reached both the Government officials and newspapers. A reporter on the New York Tribune who got a “tip” of the real facts and who hunted for von Rintelen, frightened the German agents from the office of the E. V. Gibbon Company. Steinberg skipped back to Germany disguised as a woman carrying a trunk full of reports showing the necessity of concerted action to prevent the Allies from getting American war materials.
Von Rintelen slipped away to an office in the Woolworth Building. On disclosing something of his schemes to men there, he was quickly ordered out. He moved to the offices, in the Liberty Tower, of Andrew M. Meloy, who had gone to Germany hoping to interest the German authorities in a scheme having the same purpose as von Rintelen’s. In Meloy’s office he posed as E. V. Gates—still retaining the initials of E. V. G. So effective was von Rintelen’s “getaway,” that he was reported to have gone abroad as a secretary. Those newspaper stories again gave von Rintelen cause to chuckle over his cleverness and his elusiveness, and encouraged him to still more reckless projects. He was reporting meantime to Berlin by means of apparently innocuous commercial messages sent by wireless, and also by cablegrams via England and Holland.
Von Rintelen, always scheming to prevent arms and ammunition from going to the Allies, reached into Mexico to use that country as another angle from which to harass the United States. He planned—and this project was a part of his vast campaign—to embroil Mexico and this country in war, or to cause such a jumble of revolutions within the Mexican borders that the United States would be compelled to intervene. He pictured this country in war with Mexico, a mobilization of the regular army and the militia, an assembling of the American fleet. That would require a large part of the output of the munition factories. The horses that were being shipped to the Allies, the arms, the clothing for soldiers, the shoes and the hundreds of other things which American factories were busily turning out, would be required for a large American army moving south of the Rio Grande.
STIRRING UP MEXICO
He seized, therefore, upon President Wilson’s opposition to General Huerta, and he planned to start a revolution in Mexico with the aim of returning Huerta to power and thus placing the United States in a position where it would be compelled to go into Mexico and restore order. The United States would not be in a position then to dictate terms for the settlement of the Lusitania controversy, would seize the war supplies going to the Allies, and, incidentally, would be hampered for the remainder of the European war.
Ensconced in Meloy’s office, von Rintelen had as his daily associate a man of his own age and of much the same appearance, tall, slender, splendidly dressed, namely, a Mexican of German ancestry and a banker of Parral. These two, who had known each other for years, met in New York. The banker was versed in Mexican affairs, and the young German-Mexican knew some of von Rintelen’s plans which had been set in operation before the latter’s arrival in America.
German agents had been sent to Barcelona, Spain, to confer with General Victoriano Huerta, former dictator of Mexico, and dazzle him with the prospect of returning to power. Von Rintelen appreciated keenly the fact that Huerta in Mexico virtually meant a declaration of war by the United States, and, therefore, he wanted to put him there.
Having coaxed the old warrior to the United States, von Rintelen got Boy-Ed and von Papen to map out Huerta’s plans. The two attachés, with von Rintelen standing, invisible, far in the background and pulling the strings, had many secret conferences in New York hotels, overheard by Federal agents. They developed the plans for Huerta’s dash into Mexico, and the uprising of Mexicans to support him. Von Rintelen, Boy-Ed and von Papen made trips along the Mexican border, arranged for the mobilization of Mexicans, for the storing of supplies and ammunition and for furnishing funds. Von Rintelen deposited in Cuban banks and in banks in Mexico City more than $800,000 for Huerta’s use. When the aged general, stealing away from New York, reached Texas, he was nipped, while attempting to jump the international border.
While the Huertista faction was amply financed, it was only one of seven groups, five of which were in Mexico, to which von Rintelen passed out money. Striving to stir up trouble and still more trouble for the United States, he poured gold upon gold into Mexico, hoping that President Wilson, nervous and harassed, would raise a big army for a march.
Next, as an English banker making a special study of Mexican railway securities, he called one day upon Villa’s representative in New York, and discussed the Mexican situation with him, and afterwards he sent money to Villa. He gave support to Carranza. He financed Zapata, and he started two other small revolutions in Mexico. He gave $350,000 to one agent who hurriedly left the country carrying the cash with him. He sent $400,000 travelling through devious channels to help one of the revolutionary parties; but that money was recovered by von Rintelen’s superiors after a most exciting scramble. The reckless agent is reported to have expended $10,000,000 in his Mexican enterprises, and airily he said he would spend $50,000,000 if necessary.