The Time Nazi Germany Sent Agents to Sabotage the US War Effort and Terrorize the Population
During WW2, as in WW1, the United States was once again transformed into an arsenal that furnished Germany’s enemies with prodigious amounts of materiel, munitions, and armaments. German intelligence personnel recalled how a few German agents had inflicted significant damage on US soil during WW1 with the Black Tom Island explosion, and decided to try for an encore.
The result was Operation Pistorius, a mission to sabotage the American war effort, and launch terror attacks against civilian targets to demoralize the population. Eight German residents who had lived in the US, including two US citizens, were recruited by Germany’s military intelligence, the Abwehr, and taught the arts of sabotage. Special emphasis was given to the use and manufacture of explosives. They were given a laundry list of targets, including hydroelectric plants, railroad passes, river locks, and bridges. They were also ordered to sow panic by setting off explosives in public places, targeting civilians.
After memorizing convincing background histories for the fake identities they would use in the US, the German agents were split into two teams of four, loaded into two U-boats, and sent to America. The first team landed in New York, 115 miles north of Manhattan, on June 12th, 1942. A Coastguardsman came upon them at the beach, but rather than kill him, the agents threatened him, then gave him $260 before catching a train to Manhattan. The Coastguardsman reported the encounter, and a manhunt ensued.
The other team landed in Florida four days later, and caught a train to the north. The two teams were to meet at a Cincinnati hotel on July 4th, to coordinate the launch of their sabotage campaigns. Before the second team had even landed, however, one of the first team’s agents, George Dasch, talked a fellow agent, Enrst Burger, into joining him in abandoning the mission and defecting. Dasch contacted the FBI, first by phone, then by traveling to Washington, DC and walking into FBI headquarters, demanding to speak to FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover.
With Dasch’s cooperation, all German agents were rounded up and arrested before they had a chance to cause any harm. J. Edgar Hoover took for himself and the FBI the credit for foiling the German plot. In reality, the plot unraveled not because of the FBI’s counterintelligence skills, but simply because one of the German agents got cold feet and snitched on his comrades.
Dasch and Burger were promised pardons and leniency by Hoover in exchange for their cooperation. They got a rude surprise, however, when they ended up alongside the other German agents before a military tribunal, tried on charges of spying, and violating the laws and Articles of War. All eight were found guilty and sentenced to death, but president Roosevelt commuted Burger’s sentence to life imprisonment, and Dasch’s to 30 years. The remaining six were executed by electric chair on August 8th, 1942.