By FRENCH STROTHER Illustrated Garden City     New York DOUBLEDAY PAGE & COMPANY 1918 COPYRIGHT, 1918, BY DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, INCLUDING THAT OF TRANSLATION INTO FOREIGN LANGUAGES, INCLUDING THE SCANDINAVIAN...

“Fighting Germany’s Spies” is published to bring home to the public in a detailed and convincing manner the character of the German activities in the United States. By courtesy of the Bureau of Investigation of the Department of Justice the facts and documents of this narrative have been verified....

Espionage has always been to Americans one of the hateful relics of an outworn political system of Europe from which America was fortunately free. We lived in an atmosphere not tainted with dynastic ambitions or internal oppression. We had no secret agents spying and plotting in other countries and were slow to suspect other countries of doing such things here. The war, however, disillusioned us. We found our soil to be infested with representatives of an unscrupulous Power which did not hesitat

When Carl Ruroede, the “genius” of the German passport frauds, came suddenly to earth in the hands of agents of the Department of Justice and unbosomed himself to the United States Assistant District Attorney in New York, he said sadly: “I thought I was going to get an Iron Cross; but what they ought to do is to pin a little tin stove on me.” The cold, strong hand of American justice wrung that very human cry from Ruroede, who was the central figure (though far from the most sinister or the most

The real mystery in the case of Werner Horn is this: Who was the man in Lower 3? (If he had only known——!) Because, except for this one missing fact, the story of Werner Horn is as clear as day. It is the story of a brave man, too honest to lie with a straight face, who was used by the villainous Von Bernstorff and Von Papen only after they had lied without a quiver, on at least three vital points, to him. He meant to fight the enemy of his country as a soldier fights, and they cynically sent hi

Robert Fay landed in New York on April 23, 1915. He landed in jail just six months and one day later—on October 24th. In those six months he slowly perfected one of the most infernal devices that ever emerged from the mind of man. He painfully had it manufactured piece by piece. With true German thoroughness he covered his trail at every point—excepting one. And five days after he had aroused suspicion at that point, he and his entire group of fellow conspirators were in jail. The agents of Amer

Out of the black picture of the German depravity in fighting this war have emerged four or five dramatic episodes that have stirred the imagination of the world and appealed to the romantic and chivalric instincts even of Germany’s enemies. The cruise of the Emden will always remain one of the glorious traditions of the sea. The knightly spirit of those German aviators who flew low over the bier of their fallen foe of the French cavalry of the clouds, and strewed flowers upon it, was in the spir

The case of James J. F. Archibald, war correspondent, is another sample of the Germans’ fatal gift for trusting a weak link in an otherwise ingenious and complete chain. Their “cleverness” was the cleverness of the cocky boy who thinks he can outwit any one. The sad ending of Archibald’s career, the ignominious exposure of his character as a messenger for the Germans, was simplicity itself. And the revelations contained in the messages he carried were most discreditable to the honour and the wis

One day in October, 1915, a good-looking young fellow wandered into the office of the United States Attorney at Detroit and inquired if the office was making any investigations into dynamite cases. His inquiry was odd enough of itself, but coupled with his personal appearance and his entirely unexpected arrival on the scene, it was doubly mysterious. Lewis J. Smith, as his name turned out to be, looked like a handsome, big, farmer’s boy who had come to town and made a little money. He was well d

Secrecy is, of course, the most important consideration in the German plots in this country. When Bernstorff wished to arrange with Berlin to give Bolo Pasha ten million francs to betray his country, he naturally did not write out his messages in plain English for every wireless station on both sides of the Atlantic to read them as they went through the air. He did, to be sure, write the messages in English, and they looked plain enough—and innocent enough—but they meant something very different

Franz Von Rintelen was the German tiger who missed his spring. He was the most powerful, the most dangerous, agent of the Kaiser in the United States: and to-day he nurses his hatred of us behind prison bars. But he did not retire to confinement until after our Government completed an extremely difficult and tedious investigation that was made necessary by his care in concealing the insidious work of propaganda and destruction in which he had engaged. Rintelen was a tiger in the implacable hatre

On going to war with the great masters of spy craft last year, the United States had only a handful of secret service men to guard its internal frontier. Within our borders were a million and a half men and youths who were enemy aliens. Not all of them hostile, it is true; but all potentially dangerous because great national organizations existed—even shooting societies—through which German influences might reach in a few hours or days. And in every centre of population there were captains and f

The German-Hindu plot to foment revolution in India is an international drama with touches of “Treasure Island” adventure in the South Seas. The characters include Zimmermann, many German agents in the United States (among them Bernstorff), some venal Americans, and a horde of Hindus—some of them ardent fanatics and some plain grafters. The climax produced several executions, one suicide, two cases of insanity, and a murder. The production cost the Germans more than a million dollars, and the ne

One day the Department of Justice in Washington received a brief code message, dated from Havana, saying that “Dr. Scheele” was coming home. The War Department also had received a code message; these started a little hum of activity. The messages gave a key to the possession of certain papers. Hurriedly a special agent of the Department of Justice was provided with a letter written in the cipher designated. The agent spoke German, looked German, and hastened to the home of an unsuspecting custod