Nazi Saboteurs or scapegoats?

[Cd.]

http://www.thislife.org/

The Facts Don't Matter. In 1942, George Dasch, pictured, led a team of eight Nazi saboteurs who landed on the beach on Long Island with plans to blow up factories up and down the Eastern seaboard. They were arrested by the FBI, and found guilty of war crimes in a military tribunal. The FBI claimed to have broken the spy ring and foiled the plot on its own. In fact, the FBI only became aware of it when Dasch went to FBI headquarters and turned himself and the others in. And though all the men were found guilty, one of them might not have been a spy at all, just an unlucky kid in the wrong place at the wrong time. How this case became a Supreme Court precedent, Ex Parte Quirin, used to justify current administration policies on detaining enemy combatants, despite the problems in the original case. The facts don't matter, this week. Broadcast the weekend of March 12-14 in most places, or available here via RealAudio next week.

Did anyone else listen to "This American Life" on NPR Radio? Yesterday's program was spellbinding!

A group of Americans were recruited to sabatage US industries. Their real intentions, as they stated was to return to the United States. They were tried by a secret military court. 8 men were captured. 1 was given a life sentence, one to 30 years and six to death. All sentences were carried out immediately. The sentences were upheld by the United States Supreme court.


http://www.stephen-stratford.co.uk/dasch.htm


George Dasch & The Nazi Saboteurs
Shortly after midnight on the morning of June 13, 1942, four men landed on a beach near Amagansett, Long Island, New York, from a German submarine, clad in German uniforms and bringing ashore enough explosives, primers, and incendiaries to support an expected two-year career in the sabotage of American defence-related production. On June 17, 1942, a similar group landed on Ponte Vedra Beach, near Jacksonville, Florida, equipped for a similar career in industrial disruption.

The purpose of the invasions was to strike a major blow for Germany by bringing the violence of war to our home ground through destruction of America's ability to manufacture vital equipment and supplies and transport them to the battlegrounds of Europe; to strike fear into the American civilian population, and diminish the resolve of the United States to overcome our enemies.

By June 27, 1942, all eight saboteurs had been arrested without having accomplished one act of destruction. Tried before a Military Commission, they were found guilty. One was sentenced to life imprisonment, another to thirty years, and six received the death penalty, which was carried out within a few days.

The magnitude of the euphoric expectation of the Nazi war machine may be judged by the fact that, in addition to the large amount of material brought ashore by the saboteurs, they were given $175,200 in United States currency to finance their activities. On apprehension, a total of $174,588 was recovered by the FBI -- the only positive accomplishment of eight trained saboteurs in those two weeks was the expenditure of $612 for clothing, meals, lodging, and travel, as well as a bribe of $260.

So shaken was the German intelligence service that no similar sabotage attempt was ever again made. The German naval high command did not again allow a valuable submarine to be risked for a sabotage mission.

On September 1, 1939, World War II opened in Europe with the invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany. The United States remained neutral until drawn into the world conflict by the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour on December 7, 1941. War was declared against Japan by the United States on December 8, 1941; and, on the 11th, Germany and Italy declared war against the United States.

During the early months of the war, the major contributions of the United States to oppose the Nazi war machine involved industrial production, equipment, and supplies furnished to those forces actively defending themselves against the German armed forces. That industrial effort was strong enough to generate frustration, perhaps indignation, among the Nazi high command; and the order was given, allegedly by Hitler himself, to mount a serious effort to reduce American production.

German intelligence settled on sabotage as the most effective means of diminishing our input. In active charge of the project was Lieutenant Walter Kappe, attached to Abwehr-2 (Intelligence 2) who had spent some years in the United States prior to the war and had been active in the German-American Bund and other efforts in the United States to propagandise and win adherents for Nazism among German Americans and German immigrants in America. Kappe was also an official of the Ausland Institute, which, prior to the war, organised Germans abroad into the Nationalsozialistiche Deutshe Arbeiterpartei, the NSDAP or Nazi Party, and during the conflict, Ausland kept track of and in touch with persons in Germany who had returned from abroad. Kappe's responsibility concerned those who had returned from the United States.

See link for rest of story.