Operation Pastorius, 1942
Operation Pastorius was conceived by the German High Command and Abwehr as a means of conducting coordinated sabotage operations against targets in the United States after American entry into World War II. Eight Germans were recruited for the operation, all of whom had lived in the United States or had traveled extensively there, and two of whom were United States citizens.
The Germans created deep and detailed backgrounds for each, trained them in the use of the tools of sabotage, and selected targets for them to destroy. All eight were subjected to the practice of immersion, in which they conversed only in English, read only English literature and periodicals, listened to English radio, and studied American mannerisms. Among the targets selected were railroad yards and critical sections of track which would be difficult to repair, locks crucial to navigation on the Ohio River, and several aluminum manufacturing plants.
The Germans were landed in the United States by U-boat in two groups, one on Long Island and the other in Florida. The two teams were scheduled to meet, after roundabout travel to dispel any possible trail, in Cincinnati Ohio on July 4. The plan was to coordinate the sabotage attacks at multiple points for greater effect.
When the Long Island team was detected shortly after landing by the US Coast Guard, one of the team members, George Dasch, convinced another member, Ernst Burger, to report the entire operation to the FBI. Initially the FBI was skeptical of the entire story, only the revelation of a large sum of US dollars in cash – provided by the Abwehr to fund the operations – were they convinced of the validity of the story. The remaining saboteurs were quickly rounded up.
By early August all eight of the German would be saboteurs were tried by a military tribunal – after President Roosevelt decided that a civilian court may not assign deep enough gravity to their potential crimes, none of which had been committed yet – and found guilty. All were sentenced to death as spies and six were executed by electrocution in the District of Columbia jail on August 8. FDR commuted the sentences of Dasch and Burger for revealing the plot, and President Truman released both in 1948 and deported them to Germany, where they were regarded as traitors.