Speaker 1: Welcome to you Stuff you should Know from house Stuff
Speaker 1: Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
Speaker 1: Josh Clark, There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, Jerry's over there.
Speaker 1: This is stuff you should know. So huge thanks right
Speaker 1: off the bat to everyone who came out for our
Speaker 1: Northeast plus one summer tour. Yes it was a pretty
Speaker 1: big success. Yeah, big thanks Boston and New York in
Speaker 1: Philadelphia and Durham in Washington, d c uh and look
Speaker 1: for us this fall, like early October in the Midwest,
Speaker 1: the Upper Midwest. Don't get excited yet. St. Louis not yet.
Speaker 1: But hopefully we're targeting Detroit, because boy, we're long overdue
Speaker 1: for Detroit. Yeah. I don't know how we're going to
Speaker 1: be received in Detroit. You're gonna love us, I hope.
Speaker 1: So I think we're looking at your cargo Detroit, maybe Cleveland, Minneapolisoliswaukee,
Speaker 1: in Milwaukee or Madison, We're not quite sure yet, so
Speaker 1: um maybe some advice wisconsinites. Yeah, and then everyone in
Speaker 1: each city will just say come here because I don't
Speaker 1: feel like driving a few hours. Uh So yeah, thanks
Speaker 1: for the support and look for us this fall. And
Speaker 1: did you thank squarespace. Yeah, did you think how stuff works? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Did you thank Jerry for the moral support? Sure? I
Speaker 1: think Jerry every day. It's part of my wake up routine. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm looking forward to going back on tour. It's fun.
Speaker 1: It is Okay, you read for this, I'm ready. We're
Speaker 1: gonna channel our stuff you missed in history class. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure if they've done this or not. Have
Speaker 1: you are you? I don't know? So, um, Chuck, I
Speaker 1: don't know if you know this one because it didn't
Speaker 1: come up in this article. But back in World War Two,
Speaker 1: did you know that the Japanese actually carried out main campaigns,
Speaker 1: two of them in Oregon? I didn't know that, Oh
Speaker 1: you did. I'm a bit of a buff and then insane. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean there's a lot of forgotten history or little
Speaker 1: known history that you read it in. Uh. Thank god
Speaker 1: for like the Internet, because someone will post an article
Speaker 1: and say, I bet you never knew this, and then
Speaker 1: you're like what, Yeah, that's pretty much the function of
Speaker 1: the internet that what you just describe, you know, So
Speaker 1: this one, I think I've learned about this from unsurprisingly
Speaker 1: Uncle John's bathroom reader years and years and years ago.
Speaker 1: But definitely not in this kind of detail. It turns out.
Speaker 1: Then in World War Two, in I believe in Armagansett,
Speaker 1: New York, which is on Long Island, and ponte Vedra Beach, Florida,
Speaker 1: which is just south of Jacksonville. UM, Nazi saboteurs landed.
Speaker 1: They invaded America. Pretty remarkable, it really is. What's even
Speaker 1: remarkable is how badly their operations went. Yeah, what's remarkable
Speaker 1: is well, not remarkable, what's uh. Thankfully they chose a
Speaker 1: bunch of dopes, um, half hearted dope, half hearted dopes
Speaker 1: who I don't know if they didn't do their research.
Speaker 1: We'll get into how they picked these these shmos. But
Speaker 1: it didn't go so well. But if they had to
Speaker 1: pick them like the right guys, it might have been
Speaker 1: a whole different story. Oh yeah, totally in this war
Speaker 1: and and the FBI, especially Jager Hoover, really lucked out
Speaker 1: that these guys were half hearted dope. Well not if
Speaker 1: you ask him. No, it was just you might as
Speaker 1: well have worn a cape around the office, you know,
Speaker 1: well he may have. And little else. So um, back
Speaker 1: in World War two, even before World War tour, before
Speaker 1: the US centered the Second World War Hitler had this
Speaker 1: great fantasy of sending New York City up in flames,
Speaker 1: Like he really wanted to just destroy New York and
Speaker 1: Verna von Broun, the guy who helped get America to
Speaker 1: the Moon, was working on a rocket program that could
Speaker 1: strike uh, the United States from Europe. That was one
Speaker 1: thing never fully realized, um, because the war came to
Speaker 1: an end before they could develop the right kind of missile.
Speaker 1: But they were working on it, and they were also
Speaker 1: working on long range bombers. They could fly out of
Speaker 1: Europe all the way to america'ss coast and bomb. Apparently
Speaker 1: hit they used to literally sit around and watch like
Speaker 1: film footage of cities burning and like fantasizes about New
Speaker 1: York City. Crazy. Yeah, well he was pretty crazy, um.
Speaker 1: But he finally realized that, like, if he was going
Speaker 1: to get New York, the best, most efficient, most at
Speaker 1: hand way to do that was to send saboteurs into
Speaker 1: the United States to infiltrate and do New York themselves.
Speaker 1: That's right, you know, terrorists essentially. Well, yeah, the only
Speaker 1: thing that kept him from being considered full fledged just
Speaker 1: straight up terrorists is because we were formally at war
Speaker 1: with this country. So they were they were considered officially
Speaker 1: spies and unofficially saboteurs. Yes, Uh should we shout out
Speaker 1: the articles here? Yes, let's right off the bat. I read, well,
Speaker 1: I read a few. I read one on uh damned interesting,
Speaker 1: which was good. Uh. There was one you sent called
Speaker 1: world War two German saboteurs invade America in nineteen two. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that was on history Net. History Net, and I feel
Speaker 1: like there was one more. There was a Spiegel article.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, that's one o UM called Operation past Storious
Speaker 1: Hitler's unfulfilled dream of the New York in flames poor.
Speaker 1: I know his dreams failed. So, uh, World War two
Speaker 1: hadn't been raging for long for the U S when
Speaker 1: this happened. It was right after uh Paul Harbor was bombed,
Speaker 1: and Hitler said, you know what, they think they're over there,
Speaker 1: They're a long way from us, so they probably feel
Speaker 1: pretty pretty safe. So let me undermine that and let
Speaker 1: me devise this plan um. And it was originally going
Speaker 1: to be a wave of saboteurs like every you know,
Speaker 1: four to six weeks. They were going to be sending
Speaker 1: in small teams of of terrorist slash spies to wreak
Speaker 1: havoc on the US, and uh, thankfully it didn't work
Speaker 1: out that way, so it was kind of scrapped. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the the obver I think that's how you pronounce that
Speaker 1: you're the one who knows German, Is that right? Yeah?
Speaker 1: So that was the the basically the sabotage unit of
Speaker 1: the German Military Intelligence Corps. And these guys had kind
Speaker 1: of perfected their craft with explosives and terrorism and and
Speaker 1: um all that jazz in your Pean theaters already in
Speaker 1: the war. And so they set up a school, a
Speaker 1: terrorist school, which supposedly these guys were trained in like
Speaker 1: jiu jitsu as well as explosives and stuff like that.
Speaker 1: And I'll bet it looked a lot like um, enter
Speaker 1: the Dragon in there, but with Germans, you know. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I wonder if they were training kung fu school on
Speaker 1: an island somewhere, but this is in the woods. I
Speaker 1: wonder if they in the Black forest perhaps. I wonder
Speaker 1: if they were trained in pe knuckle and movie watching
Speaker 1: and car buying I think that, and rolling over and
Speaker 1: singing like a canary. So the the app there um
Speaker 1: selected a man. His name was Walter Capp Or is
Speaker 1: that Cappy Walter cop what Walter Capp, who was a pudgy,
Speaker 1: bull necked man as described in the history article, and
Speaker 1: the reason that they selected him to head up this operation,
Speaker 1: which Cap came to um nickname is Operation Pastorious, which
Speaker 1: was named after Francis Daniel past Story is one of
Speaker 1: the early German immigrants to the United States who arrived
Speaker 1: in Philadelphia in three The reason they selected Cap for
Speaker 1: this operation was because he had lived in America for
Speaker 1: twelve years already, so he was he was he understood America,
Speaker 1: how it functioned, what targets should be struck, that kind
Speaker 1: of stuff. And they said, select your teams, and so
Speaker 1: he put a donkey on the wall and got a
Speaker 1: tale with a little pin on it. Right now. What
Speaker 1: he did was he did some research and he went
Speaker 1: through the records of something called the Austlin Institute, and
Speaker 1: they were big on getting Germans back to Germany ones
Speaker 1: that had emigrated to the United States workout, yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: So specifically the ones who were looking he was looking
Speaker 1: for ones who had been in the United States in
Speaker 1: this case, and a lot of these people have been
Speaker 1: in what was called the Boon or is it the
Speaker 1: bund uh I would say it's a booned, the American booned,
Speaker 1: which was like the basically the Nazi sympathizers in the
Speaker 1: United States, and they would set up little shops all
Speaker 1: over the country. Yeah, and they would speak out against
Speaker 1: UM Franklin Roosevelt or UM speak in favor of fascism.
Speaker 1: And apparently they managed to get twenty thousand people at
Speaker 1: a rally at Madison Square Garden once by holding a
Speaker 1: Knicks game. Pretty much. I don't think the Knicks could
Speaker 1: even get twenty people would come out to Madison Square. Um,
Speaker 1: but they were so unpredictable and radical here in the
Speaker 1: United States that even the Nazi Party officially distanced itself
Speaker 1: from these guys officially. Unofficially they recruited from their ranks
Speaker 1: specifically for Operation Pastorious. Yeah. So what he uh? He
Speaker 1: found some some blue collar dudes, um. All but two
Speaker 1: of them had been Nazi Party members, which was a
Speaker 1: good start. Ford dropped off right off the bat, and
Speaker 1: that left him with what would be U eight dudes,
Speaker 1: which they divided up into two teams of four, one
Speaker 1: leader on each side and three dopes below them, with
Speaker 1: with cap at the head of the whole thing. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Even though he didn't come over to the United States
Speaker 1: for the operation. He was just sort of running the
Speaker 1: training initially. Yeah, and he was watching him do jiu jitsu.
Speaker 1: I guess so you're in the hilarious Germans. I don't
Speaker 1: think so. It just seems a little like, you know,
Speaker 1: neighborhood ninja camp kind of stuff. You know. Well, they
Speaker 1: had to train in some sort of hand to hand combat. No,
Speaker 1: they're saboteurs. They're not. They don't need to know that
Speaker 1: they're not. They're supposed to know how to blow up
Speaker 1: a bridge. Yeah, but what if they it caught in
Speaker 1: the middle. I gotta like turn and run away jiu
Speaker 1: jitsu somebody down. Now, you just run if you're a saboteur. Well,
Speaker 1: that's some foreshadow right there. So I hear the players
Speaker 1: on on one on Team one, we'll call it Team
Speaker 1: um Nights. How about that? That one? Sure? On Team Minds,
Speaker 1: you had the leader George John Dosh and he was
Speaker 1: thirty nine. He was the oldest guy and uh thirty nine,
Speaker 1: and he was picked because he was um. He was
Speaker 1: a smooth talker, and he was apparently just seemed very American,
Speaker 1: which was you're gonna stick some Germans over there to
Speaker 1: to be saboteurs. It's probably good if they can pass
Speaker 1: themselves off as just regular good German Americans. Right. Plus
Speaker 1: also you have the added benefit of not having to
Speaker 1: teach them to speak colloquial English. Sure. Um, and they
Speaker 1: already know the terrain, they know the culture. Where's Coney Island?
Speaker 1: Vant the hotdog exactly? Yeah, so they were all good, right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: was that count Dracula? Uh No, that was that was
Speaker 1: my German saboteur. So that's why they went with the
Speaker 1: guys who had already spent time in America. Plus they
Speaker 1: it also showed, um, a pretty significant loyalty to your homeland,
Speaker 1: the fatherland in this case, where when war breaks out,
Speaker 1: you go back to where the war is being fought supported. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. So they're like selecting from
Speaker 1: the Ostlands Institute roles of emigrants who were also boond members.
Speaker 1: It seemed like a just to knock it out of
Speaker 1: the park group of guys. Yeah, so um, uh josh,
Speaker 1: he was. He actually did, like he said, served in
Speaker 1: the German Army in World War One, came to America,
Speaker 1: worked as a waiter, and then in nineteen thirty nine said,
Speaker 1: you know what duty calls, I'm going back home. Um.
Speaker 1: The second guy on the first team, Ernest Peter Berger.
Speaker 1: He was supposedly a smart guy, and he had an
Speaker 1: interesting story because he was he had long been a Nazi,
Speaker 1: since they said, as you know, as long as Hitler
Speaker 1: himself had been a Nazi. Yeah, he was part of
Speaker 1: the beer hall push. Yeah, he was what you call
Speaker 1: a what's the early adopter. He was Nazis, he really was.
Speaker 1: And he he actually had fled Germany for the United
Speaker 1: States because he was afraid he was going to get
Speaker 1: brought up on brawling charges. That's right. He like to fight. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And he stayed there for about six years and then
Speaker 1: worked as a machinist in the Midwest, even joined the
Speaker 1: National Guard, the U. S National Guard, and um became
Speaker 1: an American citizen yep. And then he went back after
Speaker 1: Hitler game power, right, Well, he went back mainly because
Speaker 1: of the Great Depression, because the right yeah, but I
Speaker 1: mean it coincided. But he was like, yeah, this place
Speaker 1: stinks now yeah, and Hitler's in power, I'm gonna go
Speaker 1: become a brown shirt and rough up people on the street,
Speaker 1: which is what he did. Pretty much because he really
Speaker 1: did love to fight. And um, the brown Shirts were
Speaker 1: purged in the Night of the Long Knives by Hitler
Speaker 1: and his cronies and um Burger was it was Burger right? Yeah.
Speaker 1: He he managed to not be killed during that purge. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so he was working with his buddy um Ernst Room
Speaker 1: of the Stormtroopers like serious business, right, Rome was actually
Speaker 1: killed during the perch Oh yeah, they put apparently they
Speaker 1: put a pistol in his cell with him and gave
Speaker 1: him ten minutes to kill himself. And he said, if
Speaker 1: if you want me dead, Adolph's gonna have to do
Speaker 1: it himself. And they came back and he was staying
Speaker 1: there right, and Hitler is like, what is going on here? Um,
Speaker 1: and the guy was standing there with the shirt off,
Speaker 1: with his chest bear to him. Yeah, supposedly, and they
Speaker 1: just shot him in the chess point blank and the
Speaker 1: head of the Brown Shirts went down. So that didn't
Speaker 1: work out for him, No, but Burger did survive this, Yeah,
Speaker 1: he did survive and went off to college. But then
Speaker 1: he wrote a a paper about the Gestapo that was
Speaker 1: not too favorable and he got sent to a concentration
Speaker 1: camp for his efforts for seventeen months, right, and then
Speaker 1: when he was released, they said you can come out,
Speaker 1: but you have to go off with the army. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they harassed his wife. It was I don't know that
Speaker 1: he was the best pick, right, think we've antagonized, thrown
Speaker 1: in prison and then forced into the army. We also
Speaker 1: killed his boss, harassed his wife. Will trust him as
Speaker 1: a savage as a team of one of eight, So
Speaker 1: Burger is the right hand man to Dash's team on
Speaker 1: Team Team mites E I n Z E I n Z.
Speaker 1: And then there were other There were two other dudes,
Speaker 1: Heinrich Henk, right, it's a great name, and Richard queerin Yes,
Speaker 1: And they were a couple of machinists who, um, we're
Speaker 1: a couple of machinists. They've been in America for a
Speaker 1: while back, and we're selected for this team. Yeah. Basically
Speaker 1: they went back to Germany started working at Volkswagen and um,
Speaker 1: you know, I guess we're probably eager to leap on
Speaker 1: h top secret job like this. It's probably appealing to
Speaker 1: these guys, you know. So that was Team Ice. We'll
Speaker 1: talk about teams right after this. So Chuck tell us
Speaker 1: about the smiling faces on Team survive well, Josh teams
Speaker 1: FY was led by a man named Edward Curling or
Speaker 1: Edward I guess who is I take it as the
Speaker 1: only competent person in this entire mission. Yeah, he seemed
Speaker 1: like it, right, kind of a little more than the rest.
Speaker 1: Comparatively speaking, he seemed like a criminal genius. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: a good point. Um. So he was also one of
Speaker 1: had gone to American to work, married a German woman
Speaker 1: there and then they worked together as butler, butler and
Speaker 1: cook for a little while, and then he said, you
Speaker 1: know what, I don't like you anymore. I think I
Speaker 1: want an American woman. So he did that and then, uh,
Speaker 1: when the war broke out, he tried to sail to Germany. Right,
Speaker 1: So I'm not sure if he was a mastermind either.
Speaker 1: Another thing about it, well, he showed a lot of initiative. Well,
Speaker 1: good point, and he was turned back by the um
Speaker 1: the coast Guard. But he finally made it to Germany
Speaker 1: UM in nineteen forty and he ended up working at
Speaker 1: the Ministry of Propaganda. Yeah, I guess, huh yeah, sure.
Speaker 1: And when he tried to um sail to Germany that
Speaker 1: one time, he actually had a guy with him named Um,
Speaker 1: was it Herbert new Bauer. I believe that was a
Speaker 1: new Bauer on his boat. Yeah, he was on that crew,
Speaker 1: and so he would have been turned back as well. So, um,
Speaker 1: he was a natural fit, right, and each other and
Speaker 1: Curling actually recommended Herman new Bauer uh to be part
Speaker 1: of the team. He's like, he can hoist a sail. Yeah,
Speaker 1: what else do you need? That he was in the
Speaker 1: boone who cares that was the youngest member of his
Speaker 1: crew at twenty two? Was Herbert helped? And um, he
Speaker 1: moved to the U S when he was just five
Speaker 1: years old. And so I don't know that he was
Speaker 1: a great choice because he was practically American. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: you know he was also not so smart, or put
Speaker 1: it this way, experienced. He was not experienced, right, A
Speaker 1: little a little green, a little wet behind the ears. Um.
Speaker 1: And then the last guy, Werner Thiel, he surprised surprise
Speaker 1: as a member of the boond and he was working
Speaker 1: in a war plant. So just this weird hodgepodge rag
Speaker 1: tag group of guys were selected. Only two people out
Speaker 1: of the whole original twelve or had been in the military.
Speaker 1: This sounds like a movie in the making, but it
Speaker 1: just if it would have had a great third act,
Speaker 1: it probably would already be a movie. Oh yeah, you
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying. Yeah, it is lack a third act.
Speaker 1: I imagine like when if someone had tried to develop this,
Speaker 1: like this sounds great so far, it's going great, and
Speaker 1: then that's how it ends. Yeah, shel fit. Yeah. Um.
Speaker 1: So these guys are put together. They're sent to the
Speaker 1: over school to learn jiu jitsu, and the old guy,
Speaker 1: George Josh is like low kick low kick, Oh my hip,
Speaker 1: yeah you know. Yeah. They were also studying like explosive
Speaker 1: techniques and wiring, not just explosive jiu jitsu technique, but
Speaker 1: real explosive wiring, detonation timers, all of this stuff. They
Speaker 1: got to go on field trips to um power plants
Speaker 1: and bridges and canals and see like where the weak
Speaker 1: points were um and all of this took place over
Speaker 1: an intensive eighteen days of training. That's it. They got
Speaker 1: eighteen days of training. Yeah, and apparently Josh, the leader
Speaker 1: of Team Inns, wasn't even I read one account this
Speaker 1: said he basically kind of snoozed through most of it,
Speaker 1: which would go on to explain a few things later
Speaker 1: it's hilarious. Eighteen days and you can't even stay awake
Speaker 1: to learn how to blow something up. Seriously. Um, all right, one,
Speaker 1: they were given their assignment, um, and these were I
Speaker 1: mean this was pretty smart. The assignments were. They had
Speaker 1: a good they had a good plan in place. Small
Speaker 1: teams of dudes. Uh Dash's team was assigned to destroy
Speaker 1: quite a few things. Um, hydro electric plants at Niagara Falls,
Speaker 1: the Aluminum Company of America factory in Illinois, Tennessee, New
Speaker 1: York three plants, and the Philadelphia Sault Company's cryolite plant,
Speaker 1: which apparently supplies raw materials for aluminum. Right. And the
Speaker 1: reason they want wanted to go after aluminium was because
Speaker 1: aluminum production in the United States the output was greater
Speaker 1: than all of Europe's both sides access and or no,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry. All of the access is aluminum production put together.
Speaker 1: And aluminium is a very very valuable thing. During war
Speaker 1: you used to make air craft frames. You use it
Speaker 1: to make um, the interiors of ships. Apparently you use
Speaker 1: it for everything from like m R. E's, like the
Speaker 1: field ration tink hands or well not tin cans, aluminum
Speaker 1: can but all of this stuff comes in handy. And
Speaker 1: if you can sure pin wheels like the good ones,
Speaker 1: if you um put those man, you can cut your
Speaker 1: finger off with one of those things. Uh. If you
Speaker 1: can cripple aluminum production, you can put a serious thing
Speaker 1: in the wartime effort. Yeah, it was. It was a
Speaker 1: smart play. Um. And then they are also told to
Speaker 1: bomb um locks on the Ohio River between Louisville, Kentucky
Speaker 1: and Pittsburgh. Yes, so disrupting transportation that would have been
Speaker 1: a huge deal. They would just strap a bomb to
Speaker 1: a pack mule that was supposed to be pulling a
Speaker 1: boat along the canal and kaboom. So that's team mines. Yeah,
Speaker 1: team spy curling steam. They said, all right, you guys,
Speaker 1: we want you to concentrate on railroad because we saw
Speaker 1: during the American Civil War destroying railroads is a great
Speaker 1: way to cripple and army. Um they blew. And I
Speaker 1: don't think that's where they got the idea. You know,
Speaker 1: it's long been a wartime thing to destroy railroads. I
Speaker 1: see Pennsylvania Railroad station at Newark. Uh, the Horseshoe Bend
Speaker 1: section of railroad track near Altoona, Pennsylvania, Chesapeake and Ohio
Speaker 1: railroad parts of it, the New York Central Railroads, Hell
Speaker 1: Gate Bridge locks and canals in St. Louis, Cincinnati, Ohio,
Speaker 1: and the water supply system of New York. Right. And
Speaker 1: they were also told to carry out acts of general
Speaker 1: terrorism to scare people in general, bombing Jewish own department stores, UM,
Speaker 1: locker rooms at UM train stations, just basically just foment
Speaker 1: like real fear and make Americans feel like, wow, America
Speaker 1: is being struck. Yeah, we're vulnerable. Um. And so the
Speaker 1: guy said, okay, let's do this, and they they they
Speaker 1: shipped out on two different subs from Lorient, France. U
Speaker 1: boats Baby, this is Germany, Yeah, okay, U boats. Um.
Speaker 1: They left on U five eighty four in U two
Speaker 1: oh two and um they had each team had four boxes,
Speaker 1: three of like dynamite and other explosives, and then a
Speaker 1: fourth box of things like timers and UM detonators and
Speaker 1: wiring and all that stuff. Sausages sure, just in case
Speaker 1: they got a little hungry on the trip. Yeah it
Speaker 1: was Germans after all. They also had a lot of
Speaker 1: money and roughly about a million dollars today UM. At
Speaker 1: the time each group had fifty grand and they needed
Speaker 1: this to travel and to live and to bribe people
Speaker 1: and pay folks off right in cash. So they had
Speaker 1: and what's equal to about a million dollars today in
Speaker 1: cash on them and nothing greater than a fifty bill.
Speaker 1: That's a lot of money, like physically a lot of money.
Speaker 1: Each member was given nine thousand five of which it
Speaker 1: was his very funny like team leader is going to
Speaker 1: hold onto this and you can keep for yourself and
Speaker 1: your money belt and only carry like four fifty in
Speaker 1: your pocket, and um, that should be enough dough to
Speaker 1: carry out this plan was the idea, yep, and then
Speaker 1: the uh. The team leaders also got handkerchiefs that had
Speaker 1: um the names and addresses and things of contacts in
Speaker 1: invisible ink written on them. Yeah. So this is like
Speaker 1: a bona fide spy, yes, bionage terrorism operation. Again, great
Speaker 1: movie in the making so far, so the m And
Speaker 1: again I think you said before that like Hitler was
Speaker 1: planning on sending several waves or wave after wave. Apparently
Speaker 1: the schedule was every six weeks they were going to
Speaker 1: send one, one or two teams to the United States. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I got, I mean it was a really smart and
Speaker 1: scary plan. Um, because catching you know, a tiny team
Speaker 1: of four guys who can assimilate as Americans, um or
Speaker 1: at least good German Americans. That's that's tough to catch.
Speaker 1: So chuck you uh two O two, which actually left
Speaker 1: two days after you. Eight four showed up off like
Speaker 1: fifty yards off the shoreline of Long Island and just
Speaker 1: frightening the thing about. Yeah, there was a German U
Speaker 1: boat fifty yards off of the shore of Long Island.
Speaker 1: UM on June twelve, showed up about eight in the
Speaker 1: evening and it belches out its cargo of um box
Speaker 1: of explosives and saboteurs, and the dudes um as they're
Speaker 1: rowing to shore, they put they were wearing like German
Speaker 1: military uniforms. Yeah. I didn't fully and this didn't make
Speaker 1: a ton of sense to me. Oh well, if you
Speaker 1: were caught in playing was behind enemy lines. The rules
Speaker 1: of war state that you can be shot on site,
Speaker 1: but if you're caught as a German marine prisoner of
Speaker 1: war and you have to be, that was taking a chance.
Speaker 1: I would addressed as an American. No, I mean, like
Speaker 1: I think that was smart. Yeah, I don't know. I
Speaker 1: would have addressed. I would have tried to assimilate, not
Speaker 1: been like, I'm a German marine, You're you're supposed to
Speaker 1: take me hostage, right, But I think it would be yeah,
Speaker 1: come on, let's go, I'm taking you hostage, whereas if
Speaker 1: the guy had been like, you're a spy, I am
Speaker 1: allowed to kill you right here and now. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: just I don't know. I don't agree with that one,
Speaker 1: but hey, everyone has their own rules when it comes
Speaker 1: to saboteuring. So sabotaging, right, yes, sabotaging. I was just
Speaker 1: kidding anyway, And I've learned recently that that was of um,
Speaker 1: that's that words of recent providence. Did you know that,
Speaker 1: like it didn't come into use until the beginning of
Speaker 1: the twentieth century. That makes sense. I would have thought
Speaker 1: it was a fairly old word. Yeah, nope. Did we
Speaker 1: just think of sabotage or do we just start calling
Speaker 1: it that? Like? Did they not used to sabotage back
Speaker 1: in the day. Yeah, I think they just started calling
Speaker 1: it that. Okay, So, um, the so this is Dash's
Speaker 1: team team since team mines, and they show up on
Speaker 1: the shore and they're wearing again German military uniforms, which
Speaker 1: they took off really quickly, very quickly. Yeah, once they
Speaker 1: saw that. You know, Okay, we made it. Yeah, the
Speaker 1: operation has begun. They changed, right, Yeah, they changed clothes
Speaker 1: and they started uh I guess they put on there
Speaker 1: I love New York shirts and they started digging big
Speaker 1: holes in the beach to to bury these munitions so
Speaker 1: they could come back as needed when they wanted to
Speaker 1: blow something new up. Yes, they can't just carry that
Speaker 1: stuff around, No, and they needed to just stash everything
Speaker 1: and go and cool out and make sure that no
Speaker 1: one was like onto him or anything like that, and
Speaker 1: then come back and get it, like you said, as
Speaker 1: they need. Yeah. The plan was to meet up for
Speaker 1: the two teams to meet up in Cincinnati on July four,
Speaker 1: UM for a baseball game. That is what I'm imagining. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the Reds versus the Braves. I don't know where the
Speaker 1: Braves were then, probably Milwaukee, sure, Okay, I don't think
Speaker 1: they moved to Atlanta until the sixties. Yeah, but I
Speaker 1: was trying to think of Boston, but they were that
Speaker 1: was long before so um. The team in inst was
Speaker 1: it was changing. They just landed. They were in the
Speaker 1: midst of changing when they were discovered by coast guardsman. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Well one of them was that Josh climbed over a
Speaker 1: dune and while the other guys were still bearing and
Speaker 1: changing uh their clothes, and he walked up and there
Speaker 1: was a coast guard dude, John Cullen, standing right there,
Speaker 1: and he was like, hey, what you're doing, basically, and
Speaker 1: the guy was like, oh, nothing and uh he uh.
Speaker 1: He apparently was kind of handling things when comes over
Speaker 1: and Burger thought that so the team Inns had been
Speaker 1: rowed to shore by two German sailors, and I guess
Speaker 1: Burger lost track of the German sailors and assume that
Speaker 1: they were still there and that for some reason it
Speaker 1: was only Josh four guys plus the two right. And
Speaker 1: then Josh had climbed over the dune to talk to
Speaker 1: one of the sailors. So Burger comes up and asks
Speaker 1: the question in German, and the coastguardsman, John Cullen, is like,
Speaker 1: why are you speaking German? We're at war with Germany.
Speaker 1: What's going on? And at that point Josh tells Burger
Speaker 1: to get Yeah. He said, you fool, go back to
Speaker 1: the others. And the guy was like, what others? Wait
Speaker 1: a minute, And so Josh's story was that they were
Speaker 1: um fisherman stranded Fisherman and before he got really suspicious, Cullen,
Speaker 1: the guy from the Coastguard said, well, if you guys
Speaker 1: are Shannon Fisherman's yeah, we have a Coastguard like house
Speaker 1: party house up the beach. We just ordered some pizza.
Speaker 1: Come with me. You guys can eat some pizza and
Speaker 1: um chill out. And Josh is like, well, uh, we
Speaker 1: don't have any idea on us. Yeah, we don't fishing
Speaker 1: permits either. We don't want to get in trouble. And
Speaker 1: I was like, well, you're telling a guy from the
Speaker 1: coast guy that, so you're in trouble first of all,
Speaker 1: but secondly that strikes me as weird. About that time,
Speaker 1: Burger comes up asked his question in German, and Josh
Speaker 1: sees the writing on the wall and tells Um tells Colin, well,
Speaker 1: he says, do you have a mother and Colin says yes,
Speaker 1: And he goes do you have a father? Says yes,
Speaker 1: and Dash says, well, then I wouldn't want to kill you,
Speaker 1: So how about I give you some money you can
Speaker 1: forget that this ever happened. And he tries to give
Speaker 1: him a hundred bucks and Colin says nope, yeah, he
Speaker 1: says no, thank you, um, and he said He ends
Speaker 1: up giving him two hundred and sixty dollars and Colin
Speaker 1: basically realize that something was going down and I just
Speaker 1: needed just take this money and act like I'm down
Speaker 1: with the take and get out of here. So so
Speaker 1: he does, so he does. He's scaddles and then oh
Speaker 1: but not before this is very key piece. Actually, Josh
Speaker 1: grabbed his flashlight before he left and shined it on
Speaker 1: his own face and said, you will be meeting me
Speaker 1: in East Hampton sometime soon. Do you know who I am?
Speaker 1: And then guy was like, no, I don't know who
Speaker 1: you are. And he said my name is George John Davis,
Speaker 1: which was a lie. Uh well, it was his real
Speaker 1: alias for the mission though, so like he actually gave
Speaker 1: him his real alias, and he said what's your name?
Speaker 1: And um, Colin said Frank Collins, which was a lie.
Speaker 1: Which was a lie. Pretty quick thinking and um, basically
Speaker 1: he scrambled back and Josh came back over and was like,
Speaker 1: little seeing there, guys, I totally took care of it.
Speaker 1: Should not be a big deal. Don't even worry about
Speaker 1: paying the guy two sixty. Yeah, we're good. Yeah, So
Speaker 1: everybody finished bearing these boxes, which they did, and um
Speaker 1: Colin ran off and went and grabbed some of his
Speaker 1: fellow Coast guardsmen. By the time they got back, Team
Speaker 1: Science had left a train. But apparently, and this is
Speaker 1: another thing, so the U boat that dropped off Team
Speaker 1: Acience had grounded itself on a sandbar and was sitting
Speaker 1: there like trying to get back out to sea because
Speaker 1: Dawn was just rocked back and forth in your chair?
Speaker 1: Was that that's what it looked, was that the method
Speaker 1: in there? Yeah, it just moved right exactly. And finally
Speaker 1: the tide came in just enough for them to dislodge
Speaker 1: themselves and go back out of seat, just in time.
Speaker 1: But apparently um Colon and the other Coast Guards wanh
Speaker 1: it came back, caught sight of this U boat heading
Speaker 1: back out to sea. Not good, right, No German U
Speaker 1: boat off the coast of Long Island just ran into
Speaker 1: some guys who are speaking German and tried to pay
Speaker 1: you off. And then now all of a sudden, in
Speaker 1: the moonlight, you can see the ghostly outlines of four
Speaker 1: freshly dug holes in the sand. Let's see what's in there. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I wonder if um i couldn't find. I saw that
Speaker 1: about the boat being stuck, but I couldn't find if
Speaker 1: that was like, if they could have gotten away, you know,
Speaker 1: it could have all changed. They may not have been
Speaker 1: that suspicious. I think that Collen was suspicious. Yeah, he
Speaker 1: was definitely coming back, but seeing the U boat was
Speaker 1: just icing on the cake exactly. Okay, so the other
Speaker 1: dudes had hop date. Well, they dug up the holes
Speaker 1: and they found the stuff and said, okay, um, this
Speaker 1: is a huge deal. Yeah, we just found a trove
Speaker 1: of explosives in German military uniforms buried on the beach,
Speaker 1: like sixty miles from New York. Yeah, so Toots sweet.
Speaker 1: By ten twenty three that morning, those boxes were in
Speaker 1: the office of New York City Police Captain John Bayliss,
Speaker 1: who then promptly got in touch with the FBI, and
Speaker 1: by noon that day, thirteen hours after they had arrived,
Speaker 1: the FBI had all that stuff in custody, and j
Speaker 1: Edgar Hoover said, there's a to get a blackout on
Speaker 1: the news, so these guys don't get wise to this,
Speaker 1: and we need to get the largest man hunting FBI
Speaker 1: history underway. And they did, and we will explore that
Speaker 1: and all the ways the FBI got some lucky breaks
Speaker 1: on this right after these messages. All right, so Team Science,
Speaker 1: let's recap here. They are in Manhattan. They go shopping
Speaker 1: at Macy's. Of course. Yeah, we got a lot of cash.
Speaker 1: All they had with them was the clothes the civilian,
Speaker 1: the clothes they brought and all that cash. Yeah, that
Speaker 1: was it. Everything else is buried back to the beach,
Speaker 1: but is now an FBI custody unbeknownst to these guys.
Speaker 1: That's right. So they go shopping at Macy's. They split
Speaker 1: into they said, let's split up into pairs, because that
Speaker 1: makes sense. Uh, Kieran and uh he checked into the
Speaker 1: hotel Martinique ssh and Burger I went to the Governor
Speaker 1: Clinton hotel Governor Bill Clinton, and uh, I don't think so.
Speaker 1: And um, unless he was named after the hotel, Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: I never know. That's why he always wanted to be governor.
Speaker 1: And so apparently, um, Josh and Burger met. He summoned
Speaker 1: Burger to his hotel room up on a tall floor
Speaker 1: and opened the window and said, I've got a plan
Speaker 1: and I'm gonna tell you about it, and if you're
Speaker 1: on board, you're on board. But if you're not, then
Speaker 1: one of us is leaving through the door. One of
Speaker 1: us is leaving through the window. He basically threw down
Speaker 1: the gauntlet Burg to Burger, I wow, I didn't realize that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And so Burger he basically said, I would like to
Speaker 1: turn and sabbothe tour, sabotage the sabotage, and go against Germany.
Speaker 1: And because America is kind of great. So Josh was
Speaker 1: going to kill Burger if Burger can go along with it.
Speaker 1: That's what he said. And apparently Burger had the choice
Speaker 1: to like, or you can you can defeat you and
Speaker 1: throw you out the window where you can triumph and
Speaker 1: be the living victor. Yeah. So I think Burger was
Speaker 1: just on board. And they said that in this article
Speaker 1: that um Josh probably was telling the truth that he was.
Speaker 1: He was really this was his idea from the beginning.
Speaker 1: So here's the here's the question. Like, historically speaking, Josh
Speaker 1: has been uh seen as a genuine betrayer of this mission. Sure,
Speaker 1: but when he became a genuine betrayer of the mission
Speaker 1: is is issue? Still? According to this history and that article,
Speaker 1: either he he knew it before they even landed, and
Speaker 1: that that is why he showed his face and gave
Speaker 1: his real alias to John Colin on the beach, which
Speaker 1: makes sense, or his encounter with John Colin on the
Speaker 1: beach rattled him enough that he was like, this is
Speaker 1: never gonna work. We're already we're already dead in the water.
Speaker 1: That's a quick turn. So now I'm going to go
Speaker 1: ahead and betray it. Yeah. I say that he was
Speaker 1: in on it from the beginning. That's what that's my feeling,
Speaker 1: because he was in sicycle. Just I don't know, it
Speaker 1: seems like a really quick like they just land on
Speaker 1: the beach. Five minutes later he meets a guy and
Speaker 1: he's like, wait a minute, it's off. I'm gonna betray Germany.
Speaker 1: It just seemed I don't know, a little too hasty.
Speaker 1: Well maybe he had nerves of spaghetti. Yeah, cook spaghetti.
Speaker 1: Even so, uh, he says, here's the plan, the on
Speaker 1: Monday burger. Yeah, he said, on Monday, I'm gonna go
Speaker 1: to the head. They closed the window by now I
Speaker 1: think said they went to dinner and everything was good,
Speaker 1: and he said, I'm gonna go to Uh, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: go to Washington meet with j Edgar Hoover. That should
Speaker 1: be pretty easy to get that meeting. The man himself, Yeah,
Speaker 1: here he wears nothing but a caper on the office,
Speaker 1: and he said, you go back to the other two
Speaker 1: guys and just sort of occupied them for a little
Speaker 1: while while I'm going to d C and requesting a
Speaker 1: meeting with the FBI. The head of the FBI, um
Speaker 1: so Burger, says do this. Josh says, okay. It's Sunday,
Speaker 1: and Josh doesn't make his way to d C until
Speaker 1: Thursday morning. Instead, he goes so remember he was a
Speaker 1: waiter in America. Well, he called. He called the FBI first,
Speaker 1: at least right and the reason why he called first
Speaker 1: he was a little worried because apparently back in UM
Speaker 1: in a training camp in the woods, cop Falter Cop
Speaker 1: had said, you guys don't need to worry, we have
Speaker 1: a man on the inside of the FBI. So Um,
Speaker 1: Josh was worried that if he called, or if he
Speaker 1: just showed up at FBI headquarters he talked to that
Speaker 1: one guy right out of all the FBI guys, he
Speaker 1: would have that that level of bad luck, which, from
Speaker 1: what I understand, that was something that was a good
Speaker 1: concern for her to have um. So he called the
Speaker 1: New York Bureau first and said, I'm a German dude,
Speaker 1: I've got information for Jacker Hoover. Tell him I'm coming.
Speaker 1: And then he hung up, and he went to a
Speaker 1: club for waiters and then played pinuckle for like two
Speaker 1: straight days. Yeah, I get I think he was probably gambling.
Speaker 1: That's what I think too, because if I'm not mistaken
Speaker 1: with the math, he ended up with more money than
Speaker 1: he came with. Yeah, so he wentn't gambled with sabotage money.
Speaker 1: I think. So, Man, that guy is some serious. He's
Speaker 1: pretty awesome. Uh So, eventually he said, all right, I
Speaker 1: gotta go to Washington. This peanuckle game has dried up.
Speaker 1: So he hopped on the Sella Express for Washington, which
Speaker 1: I highly recommend. By the way, man, train travel is awesome.
Speaker 1: Regional train travel is a delight, such a delight, And
Speaker 1: especially from Boston to New York. You just right along
Speaker 1: the coastline there and it's just lovely. It is lovely.
Speaker 1: Sailboats and cape cod houses on points, lobster rolls. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's nice, good stuff. All right. So Josh has arrived
Speaker 1: by train finally. By this point, team spy has landed. Yeah,
Speaker 1: show up in Florida and they're like, let's do this
Speaker 1: for real. And I imagine Pontevedra Beach in three It
Speaker 1: was a pretty low key scenario for sure, you know, yeah,
Speaker 1: I would think so. So they are twenty five miles
Speaker 1: south of Jacksonville. They bury their crates, no sweat, hop
Speaker 1: on a bus, go to Jacksonville. Um. They split up
Speaker 1: from that point to went to Cincinnati too, went to Chicago. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and like I mean, there was no must There wasn't
Speaker 1: like any no one was calling the FBI like they
Speaker 1: were in it to win it basically. Yeah, why they
Speaker 1: should have done Team I should have done their recond beforehand.
Speaker 1: The U boat should have not pulled up next to
Speaker 1: a Coastguard station first of all. That would have been
Speaker 1: one thing. Yeah, because that Coastguard station was like half
Speaker 1: a mile away. Yeah, it was there. All right, maybe
Speaker 1: they're bad until so, uh Josh gets to d C,
Speaker 1: checks into the Mayflower Hotel. Yeah, this is the same
Speaker 1: day that Caroling's group lands in Pontevedra. It's a big day,
Speaker 1: huge day. Uh, And he in d C said all right,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna call the FBI again because you gotta meet
Speaker 1: with Hoover, and he reached out to a Dwayne Trainer,
Speaker 1: and of course, Trainer says, you know, this is probably
Speaker 1: not a legitimate call. We get these kind of weird
Speaker 1: calls all the time, but just in case, um, let's
Speaker 1: go pick him up. Yeah, let's let's see what's going on.
Speaker 1: It's a slow day at headquarters. Yeah exactly. So they
Speaker 1: go and pick up the German and they bring him
Speaker 1: to the Justice Department, and Dash said that he was
Speaker 1: basically bounced from agent to agent every He's kind of
Speaker 1: a hot potato on nobody wanted to deal with him,
Speaker 1: And finally he convinced these guys enough to end up
Speaker 1: in the office of Mickey Ladd, who was running the
Speaker 1: man hunt for the spies, and the head of the
Speaker 1: Spies was now sitting in his office, Yeah, telling him
Speaker 1: he's the head of the spies, and he still didn't
Speaker 1: quite believe him until Dash said, oh, yeah, well here,
Speaker 1: let me show you this and dumped out dollars on
Speaker 1: Lad's desk and Lads said, I'm so pleased you came
Speaker 1: in today. Come with me. Yeah, so, Josh, here's here's
Speaker 1: his idea. Is I want to talk to Hoover himself,
Speaker 1: because I'm gonna be a hero and I might even
Speaker 1: get like a medal of honor out of this, right,
Speaker 1: Like maybe Jagger will have me over to his house
Speaker 1: for dinner. Who knows what could come of this. Take
Speaker 1: your tape parade, They threw those all the time back then.
Speaker 1: Um so they the FBI gets them talking. He does
Speaker 1: get to meet Hoover briefly, but um, a couple of
Speaker 1: other agents take his deposition, which lasts for thirteen hours.
Speaker 1: Before he finished, he had told them about Burger and
Speaker 1: where Burger was, and they went and picked up Burger. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he like, while he was still telling him the story,
Speaker 1: they were already on Burger's hotel staking him out. Yep,
Speaker 1: so they before they picked up Burger, they were staking
Speaker 1: him out, like you said. And they watched Burger go
Speaker 1: meet Karen and Hink and so they just arrested all
Speaker 1: three of them, and all all of a sudden, they
Speaker 1: had team in custody within like a day of um
Speaker 1: dash walking in the FBI headquarters. It didn't go so
Speaker 1: well for team I No, so when when the team
Speaker 1: leader betrays you, like, yeah, you're you're in trouble. Your
Speaker 1: toast so on June twenty two, Hoover wrote to f
Speaker 1: d R and said, you know what, sir, we've we've
Speaker 1: caught all the members of this group that landed on
Speaker 1: Long Island. Pretty great, huh and we are awesome. Um.
Speaker 1: He didn't mention that the guy turned himself in and
Speaker 1: told him where everyone was, and uh so FDR was
Speaker 1: just thought that Hoover had done like a bang up
Speaker 1: job basically, and he's like, wait, way to go, way
Speaker 1: to do your job exactly. He lied pretty much, so
Speaker 1: um Dash had no real leads or anything about team,
Speaker 1: but he did have a handkerchief that had contacts on
Speaker 1: invisible inc. And surprisingly he hadn't blown his nose in
Speaker 1: it at this point, but he and remember how you
Speaker 1: were supposed to get the invisible ink to become visible. Luckily,
Speaker 1: the FBI had a crack team of lab Tex on
Speaker 1: this thing and they figured it out. And now all
Speaker 1: of a sudden they had the names and addresses of
Speaker 1: all of the German contexts for these teams right there
Speaker 1: in their hands, thanks to Josh Right. So they were
Speaker 1: all obviously staked out, just waiting on Team Heights or
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, Team Spy to meet up with these people, right,
Speaker 1: which they did. But first teams FI did some other
Speaker 1: weird stuff like Herbert hopped. He was in Chicago, where
Speaker 1: again he had lived since he was five, and Holpe
Speaker 1: decided that he would buy a Pontiac car. Yea, yeah.
Speaker 1: He went to his parents house, told his dad everything. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I had his dad buy in the car. Yep, and um,
Speaker 1: he proposed to his girlfriend. He remember he had left
Speaker 1: during the war and he was an able bodied man
Speaker 1: over age eighteen, and so the local draft board um
Speaker 1: wanted to know where he was. So he dropped by
Speaker 1: FBI headquarters to clear up his draft problem. Says I'm back. Sorry,
Speaker 1: I've already registered with my local draft board. No need
Speaker 1: to track me anymore. I'm just an all American boy.
Speaker 1: And um the FBI was like, yeah, sure, thank you
Speaker 1: for coming by, and then tailed them on the way out,
Speaker 1: and then he led them to at least one other
Speaker 1: team member, right yeah. And while this was going on,
Speaker 1: Curling and verner Thiel went to New York UM and
Speaker 1: met up with a friend named Helmet Lena because they
Speaker 1: wanted to have sex with a lady, and so Lena
Speaker 1: hooked him up with the mis his mistress said here,
Speaker 1: have sex with her, and he said great, thanks, and
Speaker 1: he ended up traveling with that woman. Curling did and
Speaker 1: within a couple of days after Dash surrendered. Um, they
Speaker 1: spotted Curling because they were trailing him at a bar
Speaker 1: where he met with Deal, and they arrested both of
Speaker 1: those guys. Right, So two down on team Spy about help,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, three down at this point. Right, Hope was
Speaker 1: taken down in Chicago. The only one left at this
Speaker 1: point was Herman new Bauer. Right, and new Bauer spent
Speaker 1: his time in was it in New York? Uh? I
Speaker 1: think he was in chick Okay, you're probably right. Um,
Speaker 1: he just went to the movies over and over again.
Speaker 1: That's what he did. He was apparently lonely, so he
Speaker 1: sought out some friends of his wife, whom he hadn't
Speaker 1: really met before. Umthing told him everything. He gave him
Speaker 1: his money for safekeeping, but kept enough to go to
Speaker 1: the movies a bunch. So basically he kept a dollar right,
Speaker 1: and um, okay, dollar fifty and h then he um
Speaker 1: was I think he just come back from the movies
Speaker 1: when the FBI picked him up. Right, So Dash remember
Speaker 1: is sure that like he's going to be feted as
Speaker 1: a herero that Jaker Hoover is probably like thinking about
Speaker 1: him right then, he's just like basically like Ralphie in
Speaker 1: a Christmas story, just daydreaming about like how he's going
Speaker 1: to be carried around on everyone's shoulders. He probably should
Speaker 1: have been so, I mean, he's the reason why this
Speaker 1: went south because he said, you know what, I'm siding
Speaker 1: with America. The thing is Hoover. He didn't care Jager Hoover.
Speaker 1: Not only did he not care, Hoover was taking the
Speaker 1: credit for all of this unraveled, right. He couldn't let
Speaker 1: Josh be known as this guy who had come and
Speaker 1: um given him this whole thing on a platter, or
Speaker 1: else Hoover would look like an idiot, and Josh might
Speaker 1: very well have been hailed as at least a slimy
Speaker 1: collaborators rather than a criminal. After everybody was rounded up,
Speaker 1: the FBI arrested Josh, and Josh must have been quite
Speaker 1: surprised by this. Well, yeah, they arrested him, but they said, hey,
Speaker 1: just go along with this. You'll get a full presidential
Speaker 1: pardon after six months. Sort of play along with the arrest,
Speaker 1: and he was like, Okay, I see so put me
Speaker 1: in the jail with the other guys so they don't
Speaker 1: know yeah exactly. It was like, yeah, sure, well, because
Speaker 1: that job with Hooper's planned to keep it all quiet
Speaker 1: still exactly was working out great for Hoover, it didn't
Speaker 1: work out great for Josh or the others. Chuck No.
Speaker 1: So um FDR wanted to make sure that he could
Speaker 1: get the death penalty and that this could be kept quiet.
Speaker 1: So he as he formed a military tribunal to try
Speaker 1: these guys, and it was the first one since um
Speaker 1: Lincoln had been assassinated. It was a big deal. So
Speaker 1: the prosecutor was Attorney General Francis Biddle, chief defense was
Speaker 1: Colonel Kenneth Royal Um. They defense argued initially for a
Speaker 1: civilian trial that was quickly scrapped and they said, no,
Speaker 1: we're going to move forward with the tribunal and held
Speaker 1: the trial out the Justice Department in Washington during the
Speaker 1: month of July nine and basically said, we know the
Speaker 1: whole there's not going to be much of a trial, fellas,
Speaker 1: we know everything because you told us everything. You are
Speaker 1: coming here to sabotage and blow up our junk and
Speaker 1: you're in big trouble. Right, And the prosecutors sought the
Speaker 1: death penalty as expected. Um, but it was up to
Speaker 1: FDR to decide when and where, and to do that
Speaker 1: he had to have a transcript of the trial. And
Speaker 1: when he got this transcript of the trial, he it
Speaker 1: became obvious that Hoover hadn't really done anything. Yeah. Appinently
Speaker 1: FDR never called him out on it in public, No,
Speaker 1: which was a nice thing to do, I guess, because
Speaker 1: that would have just been further embarrassment for like the
Speaker 1: whole country, you know. So they kept that quiet, but
Speaker 1: at this point it was news all over the country.
Speaker 1: They weren't keeping it quiet with a press, uh. And
Speaker 1: the American public was way in favor of the death penalty.
Speaker 1: In fact, there was an open letter published in one
Speaker 1: newspaper calling for them to be fed to Gargantua, the
Speaker 1: guerrilla at the Wringling Brothers circuit, because that's fair to
Speaker 1: Gargantua too, Yeah, eat those Germans. Well. Instead, they electrocuted
Speaker 1: six of them on August eight of the District jail
Speaker 1: in Washington, d C. That's right, um, including Herbert Hout
Speaker 1: who was just like, I just wanted up Pontiac, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I just wanted to see my parents. Right, Burger and
Speaker 1: Uh and Josh were spared the death penalty because they
Speaker 1: basically had a hard time proving in court that they
Speaker 1: didn't you know, fully intend to betray the operation. Yeah, exactly,
Speaker 1: So they did not get electrocuted. Um. They were sentenced
Speaker 1: Burger too hard labor for the rest of his life,
Speaker 1: and Josh was given thirty years. But President Truman commuted
Speaker 1: their sentences, released them and deported them, had them shipped
Speaker 1: to UM West Germany. West Berlin said don't come back, Nope,
Speaker 1: get out, and the other guys were buried in a
Speaker 1: potter's field by the way and outside Washington, Yes, which
Speaker 1: is now UM the d C Municipal Water treatment plant
Speaker 1: where they were buried. Yeah, just right now. They're part
Speaker 1: of the system, I guess Um. And so Josh and
Speaker 1: Burger go back to Germany and Burger starts like feeding
Speaker 1: the media Um the story basically five years later and
Speaker 1: blames Right and blames Josh for the deaths of these
Speaker 1: other six German patriots who were saboteurs. Right and Josh
Speaker 1: Um tried to publicly clear himself through he first saw
Speaker 1: to pardon in America so that he could come back.
Speaker 1: He really wanted to get that Germany, Yeah, I can imagine, um,
Speaker 1: and Uh America said, no, we're not going to do that.
Speaker 1: We're not going to pardon you. We're still mad at you.
Speaker 1: Germany said, we're mad at you too, and so he
Speaker 1: just kind of faded out of the public spotlight. Ye.
Speaker 1: He he ended up dying in nineteen at the age
Speaker 1: of eighty nine, and I didn't see any follow up
Speaker 1: or Burger for Burger. I think he wasn't quite as
Speaker 1: vilified as Doosh was, right for sure. But that was
Speaker 1: not the last time the Germans sent saboteurs ashore. There
Speaker 1: was at least one other ill fated attempt in another
Speaker 1: German submarine. These are expensive boats. Many, they are really
Speaker 1: taking a massive risk to drop off a couple of saboteurs.
Speaker 1: But they did it again off off of Maine in
Speaker 1: a snowstorm, and two uh former American residents German Americans, um,
Speaker 1: we're we're sent off under the main coast in a snowstorm.
Speaker 1: They were seen by a local boy scout using a
Speaker 1: compass during the snowstorm on the side of the road,
Speaker 1: and the boy scout was suspicious, so he traced their
Speaker 1: tracks all the way back to the shoreline when they
Speaker 1: come out of nowhere and he's like, I'm going to
Speaker 1: call the police. So the scouts actually called these guy. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's pretty cool. What's ironic is one of these German
Speaker 1: American saboteurs was a boy scout himself, so it's like
Speaker 1: boy scout on boy scout tattling um. And they got
Speaker 1: picked up immediately, and as far as everybody knows, that's
Speaker 1: the last time Germany ever tried that. Yeah. I think
Speaker 1: the idea was that hitler Um. It's like this, this
Speaker 1: is embarrassing. Yeah, let's just focus on the rocket program. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we can't keep sending guys to the United States who
Speaker 1: immediately get there and start doing stupid things giving themselves up.
Speaker 1: Go and see mom and Dad seeing the movies playing
Speaker 1: p knockle. So that's it. That's the story of the
Speaker 1: time the Nazis invaded Florida and New York and Maine. Uh.
Speaker 1: If you want to know more about that, check out
Speaker 1: history Net, check out damn interesting, check out all sorts
Speaker 1: of stuff. Yes, just search it. You'll find all sorts
Speaker 1: of cool things on it. I would not look for
Speaker 1: the movie coming soon into a theater near you know,
Speaker 1: the third act non existent? Not really, No, it's just
Speaker 1: kind of a let down. Yeah, that end with a
Speaker 1: bang hands with Germany being mad at them in America too.
Speaker 1: Uh let's see. I think I said Germany's mad, which
Speaker 1: means it's time for listener, ma'am. I'm gonna call this
Speaker 1: a cute our cutest youngest fan and it includes an
Speaker 1: audio clip. Hey, guys, did you hear this? Yes, it's
Speaker 1: pretty great. My son, Archer is two and a half
Speaker 1: years old, Just two and a half. We listened to
Speaker 1: podcasts together while I rock him to sleep at naptime
Speaker 1: and bedtime. Anytime he's tired, he says, Mommy, let's go
Speaker 1: Archer's room and listen to podcast. I usually rotate between
Speaker 1: Stuff you Should Know and other house stuff works podcasts.
Speaker 1: He's never seemed to have a preference until about two
Speaker 1: weeks ago when I put another podcast on. He said, no, Mommy,
Speaker 1: not that podcast, just stuff you know, the red one. Uh.
Speaker 1: You guys are his favorite, which is fine with me.
Speaker 1: And I've even to attach the voice recording of him
Speaker 1: requesting your podcast. It was not rehearsed, find you, It's
Speaker 1: just me asking him before his naptime today. That is
Speaker 1: from Shawna and Shawna it was permission to hear from Archer.
Speaker 1: So let's go ahead and play that clip right now. Okay,
Speaker 1: are you ready to take a nap? Yeah? Do you
Speaker 1: want to listen to a podcast? Okay? Which podcast? Stuff
Speaker 1: Stuff you should Know? Okay, ah, wow, pretty cute, Holy cow,
Speaker 1: kid knows his stuff. Unbelievable, So Archer, if you can
Speaker 1: understand what's going on here, a boy, the sound coming
Speaker 1: out of the speakers. We know you don't have four memories,
Speaker 1: but hopefully this episode will be a documentation. That's right, Archer,
Speaker 1: So good luck in life. You're off to a great start,
Speaker 1: and now take your nap a little buddy nice. Well,
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Speaker 1: kid loves stuff you should know? We love hearing that, right,
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