Part 3

#12. Beginning with today, specific plans have been decided upon as to the best manner in which to keep newspapers and clippings dealing with the war and political subjects. Clippings that refer to D-Cases of this Bureau will continue to be placed in the private files, together with their respective reports. An exception to this particular rule may be made in the event that there are too many clippings at hand, in which case they may be bound together and kept separate, as is being done in the case of operation D-#332. Other clippings are to be mounted on cardboard, and the name of the newspaper and date typewritten thereon. Articles of interest that cover an entire page or more will not be clipped, but will be kept whole in a temporary folder in view of binding same later. This, also applies to copies which deal with matters on which reports have been rendered. (12-7-15)

Random Pages from “P. K.’s Little Black Book”]

Rule number 1 of the division stated:

“Beginning with Nov. 6 (1915) no blue copies are to be made of reports submitted in connection with D-Case 343, and the original reports will be sent to H. M. G. instead of the duplicates, as formerly.”

“H. M. G.” we learned from the key to special personages for whom the division was conducting investigations, was von Papen himself. Rule 2 reads:

“In order to accomplish better results in connection with D-Case 343, and to shorten the stay of the informing agent at the place of meeting, it has been decided to discontinue the former practice of dining with this agent prior to receiving his report. It will also be a rule to refrain from working on other matters until the informant in this case has been fully heard, and all data taken down in shorthand.”

The book revealed that in D-Case 343 Koenig’s alias was Woehler, and his agent’s name Schleindl. In his notes on operatives Koenig had written that “Friedrich Schleindl ... who was first known as Operative #51, and later as Agent C. O., beginning with October 21st will be called Agent B. I.” This enabled us to interpret a further regulation of the division, to this effect.

“Agent B. I. has been requested not to call again at the Central Office, this ruling to take effect immediately. Other arrangements will be made to meet him elsewhere. Whether or not the stenographer of the Central Office will continue to write reports covering D-Case 343 will be determined later.”

Rule 4 read:

“Supplementing Rule 2, it has been decided that I refrain from drinking beer or liquor with my supper prior to receiving Agent B. I., for the reason that I wish to be perfectly fresh and well prepared to receive his reports.”

And Rule 3 contained this passage:

“... great care is to be taken that operatives and agents of the Secret Service Division remain entirely unknown to members of the Central Office and other divisions. These regulations do not apply to D-Case 343, which has been handled since the beginning of July (1915) with the knowledge of employees not belonging to the Secret Service Division. Until more favorable arrangements can be made this practice may be continued.”

Here clearly was an unusually important case. The notes indicated that Koenig was receiving frequent reports of great value from this Schleindl, had been receiving them for at least five months, was reporting them to von Papen, and intended to safeguard his obtaining further information. When a German voluntarily forswears his beer, something serious is on foot.

Lieut. Barnitz, with Detectives Walsh and Fenelly, arrested Schleindl the same day we closed in on Koenig. In his pocket was a cablegram referring to Russian munitions. He was a German reservist, born in Bavaria. At the outbreak of war he was a clerk in the National City Bank of New York, and lived away up in the Bronx, and in the first reaction to war he reported at the German Consulate for duty. Months passed, and he had not been called upon, when one night he met a German who told him to report at the Hotel Manhattan to meet another German named Wagoner. “You’ll find him in the bar,” added his informant.

“Wagoner,” who was Paul Koenig himself, met the youth, and playing on his patriotism drew from him the information that he had access to many cablegrams to and from the Allied governments through the bank concerning the purchase and shipment of war supplies. Offering Schleindl a retainer of $25 a week, Koenig told him to steal from the files all such messages he could lay his hands on, together with copies of express-bills showing when the goods were delivered to the piers for shipment, all data relating to the prices paid, detailed descriptions of the purchases, and any other particulars which would help the German Government to complete its knowledge of what supplies America was shipping abroad. Schleindl grew quite enthusiastic in the work. Starting with light thefts, he gradually grew bolder, until he was in a position to steal documents night after night, take them to his appointment with Koenig, have them copied, and arrive at the Bank early enough the following morning to put them back where they belonged. Friday night was the regular appointment, but often messages of big shipments came in and he relayed the news at once to his chief. The extra $25 a week practically doubled his earning power, and made devotion to the Fatherland very attractive--so much so that he began to be afraid that Koenig, who was merely the receiving station for his reports, and who took no risks himself, would receive more than his share of credit. If there were any iron crosses to be given out, or any ribbons for foreign service, Schleindl felt that he had earned his, so he forwarded to his brother in Austria from time to time stenographic notes written in the Bavarian dialect which would be especially difficult of translation. In order to evade the censor he tore them into scraps and sifted them into the folds of newspapers which went unmolested through the British mail censors at Kirkwall. These scraps, pieced together and translated into reports, were forwarded by his brother to German officials.

Schleindl’s zeal had led him into other channels of German activity. At college in Germany he had had a friend named Alexander Dietrichens, later known variously as Willish, Sander, Glass, and Lizius--one of those Riga Russians of German parentage who have served Bolshevism so eminently in Russia. In 1915 Dietrichens was in America, and the two renewed their friendship. He said he was eager to serve the Fatherland, and that he only wanted to know who was supplying munitions to the Allies to start a campaign of destruction against them. He suggested the Du Pont factories at Wilmington, and asked the young bank clerk to come along. Schleindl, impressionable and emotional, had not the courage. He confessed to me that he wept at the thought, and that he asked Dietrichens whether any harm could come to him if the explosion killed anyone. “Very likely,” Dietrichens answered cheerfully. Schleindl then declined, but he helped the dynamiter to the extent of keeping an occasional bomb or a package of dynamite for him during the day in his locker or under his desk at the bank. The main cache where Dietrichens stored his explosives was near Tenafly, New Jersey, but when Schleindl and I visited it, in a deserted spot almost a mile from the nearest building, the shanty was empty.

Schleindl was tried, convicted and sentenced to an indeterminate term in the penitentiary, for the theft of documents. Koenig pleaded guilty to the charge, but sentence was suspended on him owing to the greater importance of the Welland charges.

The Schleindl and Dietrichens cases are only two examples of many to which the little black book gave clues. It suggested investigations into many others, for it was a real storehouse of names, and knowing Koenig’s close relationship with the highest German authorities in the United States, it contributed a large number of items to the bill of complaint against Germany which provoked the President’s Flag Day warning of 1916. Koenig’s mere mention of the name of “Horn” in D-Case 277 gave evidence of the German sponsorship of the attempt of Werner Horn to blow up the Vanceboro bridge in February, 1915; the name “Stahl” in D-Case 328 indicated by Koenig’s own hand that it was he who paid Gustave Stahl for the false affidavits that the _Lusitania_ had carried guns; the name “Kienzle” in D-Case 316 was the name of a man who was involved in trying to blow up vessels sailing for France and England; the name “Hammond” in D-Case 357 led to the disclosure that the Bureau of Investigation, although chiefly engaged in spying and destroying plots, sometimes ran other and more delicate errands for von Bernstorff.

Posing this time as “W. H. Becker” Koenig called on one J. C. Hammond, a writer and publicity man who had offices at 34th Street and Broadway. To Hammond he stated that from the standpoint of the Germans in America two newspapers were taking irritating and unfriendly attitudes. These were the _New York World_ and the _Providence Journal_. Both papers had taken, soon after the outbreak of war, definite stands on the American issues involved, and both pursued the subject in a typically thorough fashion, the Providence paper obtaining much of its information from sympathetic British sources, and the _World_ having an influential position politically which led it across the trail of what the newspaper men call “big stories.” The _Providence Journal_ in fact emerged from comparative obscurity during the early months of war with startling charges against German agents both here and abroad, supported by evidence which seemed incredible though of sound origin. These stories were republished widely through the country. It was undoubtedly having a powerful effect upon the public, for the country, dazed with the fact of war, was ready to take sides against the nation which was apparently guilty of the worst acts. Some of those charges were true, and although they seemed at that time so fantastic as to be almost impossible, the members of the German Embassy knew they were true and squirmed inwardly every time a fresh one burst out. The _World_ had a habit of not only spreading exciting news articles over its front page, but lending color to them by publishing photographs of supporting documents to prove their authenticity. So von Bernstorff and the attachés, after having tried to bring influence to bear in many subtle ways to curb the publications, called in Koenig, and he made his little pilgrimage to Hammond’s office.

He offered the publicity agent a large sum of money to find out what exposures the two papers had still in the ice-box, ready to release. Later, he increased this to a blanket offer of any sum which Hammond should name, provided the latter could induce the papers to turn over to him the articles and affidavits in their possession. The offer was not accepted. Hammond did not bite at the offer of a later reward of $100,000 which Koenig hung up to silence the publication of anti-German news in certain other large newspapers in the country, nor did he, as Koenig requested, go to England to visit Rintelen, to find out where Rintelen had left a trunk full of valuable papers when he fled the United States.

The name “Lewis” mentioned in the citation of another case in the little black book revealed a further variation of the services of the Secret Service Division. The United States owned a large quantity of Krag-Joergensen rifles for which in that year of peace it had no use, but which several foreign governments would have been glad to buy. Commercial bachelors who were looking for war brides all took turns paying court to the rifles, and all without success. Readers of the newspapers may recall a small tempest which raged around the alleged sale of the rifles, and the charges levelled at one after another German of the attempt to purchase. Each new charge was denied by its victim, and it finally developed that a Mrs. Selma Lewis had been involved in the negotiations, and was willing to pose as the purchaser. The “man behind” was Franz Rintelen, acting for the German Government, and the name “Lewis” here in Koenig’s notes, amplified by the full name and address of Mrs. Lewis in a small address book which we also captured, indicates that Koenig worked for Rintelen as well as the abler and more authentic members of the embassy of destruction which Germany kept in America.

I think I have made it clear that when the United States interned Paul Koenig it made prisoner one of the busiest men of the German spy system, and one of the strangest. He was physically powerful and mentally quick with a German sort of quickness. He had the most supreme self-confidence it has been my pleasure to meet, and that caused his downfall. If he had administered his bureau in a manner calculated to breed loyalty in his employees he would have been more successful, but he conceived his work as a one-man job, and made his subordinates goose-step to his tune. It is certain that had he not set down with such care every item which would be useful to the United States in unearthing his actions, no one can say how long they would have continued. Napoleon had his Waterloo, however, and Paul Koenig had his notebook, and with the same scrupulous foresight the indomitable “xxx” left that notebook where we would be most likely to find it.

It is a rare treat, aside from its now past informative value. And it contains one real mystery which the Westphalian himself can alone clear up. The page headed “Health Rules” reads as follows:

“#1. I have decided to refrain from chewing tobacco in the office as it disagrees with my health thereby interfering with my work. (12-1-15.)

“#2. I shall drink no more whiskey. (12-6.)”

Which leads one to believe that he saw the practical value of an exemplary life. But we must wait for him to explain the page headed “Health Table,” which reads:

“XI

“9-12-14-17-17-21-23-24-28-28.

“XII

“1-3-5-8-9-11-13-16.”

The “XI” is evidently November, of 1915, the “XII” December. What did he do on those dates so accurately mentioned? Did temptation lead him twice from the path on the 17th and 28th of November? If so, what could this temptation have been? Is it possible that the same conscience which made him typewrite his rules of conduct weakened, and then remorse turned about and forced him to set down his lapses from grace? Is it further possible that each of the dates cited means that Paul Koenig broke his brand new health rules ten times in November and eight times in December, and _chewed tobacco in office hours_?

We must wait in patience--some day his Westphalian conscience may answer.

III

PLAYING WITH FIRE

The business of crime prevention and detection depends largely on the confidence one man has in another. That is one reason why a “stool-pigeon” is an uncomfortable ally on a case. You can not be sure that a man who associates with criminals and is giving them away is not giving the case away at the same time. His gang hates him for squealing, his evidence is the evidence of a traitor, and he is a good person not to depend on. I make that point here because I have always tried to avoid using stool-pigeons, and because the story to follow will illustrate what can be accomplished by a dependable man.

The story really starts about twenty years ago. In the spring of 1900, an Italian from Paterson, N. J., Brescia by name, attended a meeting of anarchists in a house in Elizabeth Street, New York. The group was composed of two parties, one which we may call the progressives, and one the inactives. Brescia assailed the inactives, denounced them as cowards, and stirred up so much dissension that the meeting broke up for fear of a police raid, and several of the members retaliated at Brescia by accusing him of being a police spy. He sailed for Italy, and on July 29, in the little Lombardi town of Monza, murdered King Humbert the Good. When the news was cabled to America it was hailed with proper grief by the public and with great joy by the anarchists who had called Brescia a traitor. His execution, which followed swiftly, made him a martyr. So to do him honor, the group was named the Brescia Circle.

By 1914 the membership of the circle was nearly 600. A cosmopolitan lot: Italians, Russians, Russian Jews, Germans, Austrians, Spaniards and Americans, of both sexes. The leaders were agitators whose speaking ability had lifted them out of the ranks and who found an easier living by their wits than by their hands. The Bomb Squad knew something of their activities and habits, for the past history of anarchist cases linked up certain names in a pointed way. We knew their fondness for bombs, and the records of the police department contain many instances of anarchists inspired to violence by the inflammatory speeches of such agitators, as their idol, Francisco Ferrer, had preached violence in Spain. The outbreak of war in Europe, from which so many of the group had migrated to America, and the promise of social confusion which it held for them had stirred the Brescia Circle more than a little. The active members met regularly in the basement of a building at 301 East 106th Street, a shabby house in a shabby district east of the New York Central tracks. These meetings, which occurred usually on a Sunday, as many of the members were working during the week, were addressed by such notorious anarchists as Emma Goldman, Becky Edelson, Frank Mandese, Carlo Tresca and Pietro Allegra--names probably unfamiliar to the general public, but names with which the Police Department had “auld acquaintance.” Occasionally an editor of an anarchist newspaper in Lynn, Massachusetts, Gagliani by name, came to speak in the cellar, and Plunkett, Harry Kelly, and Alexander Berkman were usually to be found in the group.