12. Herbert Haupt was wanted by the FBI for draft evasion
Herbert Haupt was the youngest of the German agents, just 22 years of age at the time of Operation Pastorius. He had moved to the United States with his parents when he was five, and was raised in the Chicago area, working as an optician’s apprentice. Haupt traveled to Mexico at the outset of World War II, obtained a German passport at the German Embassy there, and used it to return to Germany. He had failed to register for the draft, as his age required, and he left behind a girlfriend of long standing, who had become pregnant. Her pregnancy may have been the reason for his flight to Mexico, though she later miscarried.
Haupt arrived in Chicago, reunited with his parents, and told them the whole story of why he was back in the United States, in possession of a large sum of cash (all of the saboteurs carried $4,000 in a money belt, and another $450 for immediate expenses. The leaders carried the rest of the money). Haupt used part of the money to buy a new car, and proposed to his girlfriend. He then went to the FBI office in Chicago. Haupt told them that he had been away at the time he was required to register and would contact his draft board. The FBI already had his name as one of the remaining German agents at large, but they accepted his explanation and let him go. When he left the office, he too was under surveillance.