August 14, 2024 • 61 mins
In tonight's episode: a strange, twisting tale of hidden history. While most people these days associate the Nazi party with the horrors of World War II, Nazis were active far before that time. Join Ben and Matt as they delve into the story of two vast conspiracies: the Nazi plan to infiltrate American government, business and academia, versus the US plan to stop them. At the center of this bizarre story: Leon G. Turrou. To some, he saved the country. To others, he came all too close to bungling the job.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn this stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of iHeart Radio.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt.
Our colleague Noel is on an adventure, but will be
back very soon.
Speaker 3 (00:30):
They call me Bed. We're joined as always with our
super producer Paul, mission controlled decads. Most importantly, you are you.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
You are here.
Speaker 3 (00:39):
That makes this the stuff they don't want you to know.
This is thinking about this earlier, Matt. This is an
episode about more than one conspiracy. In fact, I would
argue we could call this a story of conflicting dual conspiracies,
both true, both set against one another in a fundamental
(01:02):
shadow war. And we were going to record this episode earlier.
I'm glad we took some time on it because key
to this tale is larger than life, immensely controversial figure
to some folks. He's a hero to others, and we'll
(01:23):
get to those others. In specific, he is a bungler
who nearly risked the safety of America entire Now, question,
had you heard of this guy before we started researching.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
Him only from film school in this movie that came
out in nineteen thirty nine that we're going to talk about.
That's the only reason I knew anything about this story.
It is a weird time in US history often, I think,
at least in my personal experience, when we think about
the United States and spying, there's a hyper focus on
(01:59):
the United States versus the Soviet Union. This is a
time before the Cold War spying days and games. It's
interesting to take your mind to the nineteen twenties and
thinking about spying.
Speaker 3 (02:14):
Yeah, it's also the interwar period is something that doesn't
get a ton of examination in a lot of American
public schools. And as we'll see, there's a reason you
could argue some of this history is hidden. Tonight's episode
is the story of a guy. We're gonna call it
Leon G. Truro. We'll call him a Nazi hunter because
(02:38):
he was. But maybe before we begin we make a
little note about pronunciation, because it's sort of all over
the place with his last name.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
Yeah, if you watch the trailer for the movie we're
going to be talking about in a moment, well, I
guess should we just say what the movie is. It's
titled Confessions of a Nazi Spy. It was released in
May nineteen thirty nine. And in that movie they say
this person's name, and they say Leon George ureau Turo. Oh.
(03:11):
But then if you look online at other people who
were talking about this person, you're often going to here.
At least I heard Teru. I think it was maybe
a Scottish gentleman who said it that way.
Speaker 3 (03:22):
And then yeah, and then we can't discount the presence
of the Transatlantic accent. A lot of historians that I've
been reading or hearing I have said terurou. The spelling
is t u r r ou. We are going to
possibly slide in and out of different pronunciations. But be assured,
(03:43):
fellow conspiracy realist, we're talking about the same guy to
some a hero again to others, A real Paul beat
me here and I hate the curse so early in
the show. But a real's.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
Super intense liar about all things.
Speaker 3 (04:03):
Right, So let's let's dive into Leon. And to tell
the story of Leon, we have to learn the story
of the Nazis. Here are the facts, all right. Luckily,
today in the modern US, for most people, for the
(04:25):
vast majority of people in the West as well. Calling
someone a Nazi is a serious insult. It's it's such
a it's so universally identified as a bad thing that
it's a cliche. The Internet has rules about it too, right,
there's that tendency. There's this argument that at some point
(04:49):
in political discourse someone will call someone else inevitably a Nazi.
Speaker 2 (04:54):
Yeah, it's the worst thing you can call somebody, because
they are history's enemies, right, the enemy number one of
history is the Nazis. But it really does go way
way way back before the Nazi Party is ever established.
You can you can trace it all the way back
to eighteen forty one to a guy named Friedrich list As,
(05:14):
a dude who just talked about expansionism basically and economic control,
like the Germany basically should have a lot more of
both of those things, blood and soil mm hmm. And
go through criminal biology with Franz von Liszt and I mean,
just you can keep you can go way back with
basically the ideologies that formed into this thing called the
(05:36):
German Workers Party or DAP.
Speaker 3 (05:39):
Yeah, the German Workers Party can be considered the demo
mixtape of what we call the Nazi Party today and
the Nazi Party today is most closely associated with Germany
in World War Two for obvious and horrific reasons. But
as you said, Matt, the roots of the party are
much much older. You could look at the Nazi Party
(06:03):
as understood today as more of a distillation of some
ideology that was already well established in that part of
the world for some time. Like at length, what we
call the Nazi Party, or the demo tape of it was,
as you said, the German Workers Party co founded by
(06:24):
a locksmith who's a guy named Anton Drexler co founded
this with three or four other guys on January fifth,
nineteen nineteen. So this is just after the armistice that
ended the First World War. Germany is in a very
bad way as a result of the agreements that ended
(06:44):
the war, and Drexler is what we will call a
far right figure at this point, he's kind of no
offense to us. In his early days, he's kind of
podcaster level, and so he's holding these local media the
salons you will call them in Europe, and he has
(07:04):
people over to talk about ideas. They're all people who
are kind of echoe chamber. He's not inviting dissenting views
into this mix enters a guy named Adolf Hitler. It's
on September twelfth, nineteen nineteen, and Adolf Hitler is there
ostensibly as just an interested civilian to learn more from
(07:28):
a self taught economist named Gottfried Fader, and Gottfried Fader's
kind of a pill. The subject of his lecture is
breaking the slavery of financial interest, which is kind of
a dog whistle for a lot of anti Jewish sentiment. However,
Hitler is already participating in a conspiracy at this point.
(07:52):
He is there not really as a civilian, that's his cover. Instead,
he has been assigned by the German Art Army to
monitor potential political agitators, which I think is funny as
we as we see how things go on. Anyway, Hitler
does something you probably shouldn't do in his position with
(08:15):
the army at that time. He sticks out well, yeah.
Speaker 2 (08:19):
He gives a big old public speech in October of
nineteen nineteen, and a pre arranged public speaking engagement, let's say,
immediately as a member of the DAP, just like right
after going to the first one.
Speaker 3 (08:35):
Right, yeah, And in that first meeting, the October speech,
you're mentioning comes from this September twelfth meeting, because in
there he starts arguing loudly with a professor in the
crowd who is raising objections to some of the economic
(08:57):
concepts of feder and Hitler super impresses the DAP audience
because he's passionate, he's vehement, he's got this electric energy,
and he impresses everybody so much that the guy we
mentioned earlier, Anton Drexler, comes to Hitler and says, Hey,
I dig your vibe. I wrote this pamphlet it's called
(09:19):
My Political Awakening. I think you should join up with us.
You know, thanks for coming to the meeting. You should
come to more, and you should talk about the things
that you mentioned in this meeting. Hitler at this point
feels he has found kindred spirits and the rest, as
they say, is history. In this case, terrible, terrible history.
Speaker 2 (09:41):
Just for a little more historical context here, we have
to mention what happened to the Weimar Republic's economy and
post a World War One. Yeah, yeah, post World War One,
post revolution, post everything going on in Germany. In nineteen
twenty two, hyperil inflation hit. It's really hard, and then
as it goes in towards nineteen. In nineteen twenty three,
(10:04):
they had hyperinflation. And just to really understand that we're.
Speaker 3 (10:08):
Talking of the wheelbarrow story, maybe.
Speaker 2 (10:10):
Well it's not even the story. Just to give the numbers,
Imagine that your US dollar come compared to what's another
curzy a pound British pound. Imagine that six hundred dollars
equals one pound, and then imagine within months that becomes
(10:30):
two thousand US dollars equal one pound, then ten thousand,
then forty thousand, then one hundred and fifty thousand, then
three point five million, then ten million, then sixty million
US dollars equals one pound. Imagine that internal existential political
crisis that that would cause, right within a within a country,
(10:51):
within an individual, within systems, within groups and parties. That
is the kind of crisis that it creates real intense
change because something's got to change right right. And you
combine that with in nineteen thirty one, so like that's
in nineteen twenty two to twenty three, combine that in
(11:13):
nineteen thirty one, you've got five point six million unemployed
people that should be working in Germany. And you put
those things together and you can just really see where
if there's a strong enough order that has some ideology
backing the words that they're saying, you can create a
movement pretty easily because you just need some way out.
Speaker 3 (11:36):
Yeah, is it okay if I tell the Wilbarrow story. Yeah, yeah,
my favorite examples. So this is a a it is
a bit embellished. But the way that one of the
best ways to understand this from a human level is
that people at this time hyperinflation is a thing that
still happens in the modern age. Look at Zimbabwe, look
(11:57):
at Venezuela when it hits Germany. Due to again the
conclusion and the agreements of World War One, people would
end up having to take wheelbarrows of their local currency
to a place, and when they went to a store,
(12:18):
they would try to purchase things as early as possible
because by the conclusion of that business day the money
would literally be worthless. So, you know, you hear horror
stories about the Great Depression in the United States and
runs on banks. There were runs on bakeries, there were
runs on cobblers, there were runs on anyone doing business.
(12:39):
People were trying to move the currency. Was a very
desperate time and desperation has ever been fertile soil for fascism.
So this, and I appreciate you mentioning this, This is
context in which these horrific things can occur. You know.
There is also the I wouldn't say revision is his,
(13:00):
but there's a valid alternative history observation here which is
quite common in academia, that says, if it weren't specifically
an Adolph, it would have been someone else because the
public was so ready for someone to say there is
(13:20):
a better way. Also in a shameless plog, please check
out Let's Start a coup. The Smedley Butler story is
very similar to that, because the US comes a lot
closer to fascism than any of us or any textbook
editors would like you to think.
Speaker 2 (13:37):
Yeah, and if we're to know, to believe all of
the information from Leon G. Tourou, then that fascism was
moving throughout the United States even in this time in
in the nineteen twenties.
Speaker 3 (13:51):
And we've explored Nazi conspiracies at length in stuff they
don't want you to know. Thankfully, most folks today are
aware of the atrocities wrought by Nazi nax's powers and
to be fair also aware of other horrors committed by allies, right,
like the invasion of Russian forces and of course the
(14:12):
deployment of nuclear weaponry on the US part. However, there
is a lot of hidden history out there, still conspiracies
that aren't as well known even as we record tonight
in twenty twenty four. Enter Leon George Tourou original name
Leon George Tuovoski born September fourteenth, eighteen ninety five in Cobram, Poland,
(14:37):
which was then part of the Russian Empire. But his
parents weren't Russian, right, they were French and Polish.
Speaker 2 (14:43):
Oh sure, Yeah. His father died before he was even born,
and his mother then passed away early in his life,
so he was well at least. Again, it's tough, so
is this his official biography, because the guy told so
many stories about his origins. There were there are all
of these. There are all these tales that he would tell,
(15:03):
and the first one that you would hear from him
often was I'm an orphan, right, But I don't know.
It's tough with this guy because I've read other stories
where maybe he wasn't actually an orphan, and he did
have family early on that we're not dead. But according
to let's say, the official story, his dad died a
(15:23):
story from the FBI. Yeah, even from the FBI. But
he was telling everybody stories, even the FBI. Yeah, I
don't know. It's a little weird, but his according to
the official story, his dad died six months before his
birth and his mother passed away early in his life. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (15:37):
And with with those caveats, which are nice foreshadowing, we'll
say that again. The official accepted biography after this guy's
death is that, because spoiler he's dead, is that he
was adopted by a wealthy tradesman or merchants, basically a
traveling guy who's doing well for himself, and as a result,
(16:00):
young Leon spent most of his own childhood moving through
different countries, and when he reaches the age of eighteen,
he relocates to the United States and he gets a
job as a translator for the New York Times because
he has a command of multiple languages. Again with a
(16:22):
lot of caveats. Tureau serves in the French Army from
nineteen sixteen to nineteen twenty. He fights on the Eastern Front.
He is engaged with German forces at some point and
he does take an injury, we don't know the extent
of the injury, and we do.
Speaker 2 (16:40):
Get in there. It's weird though, because their story. I
just I don't want to poke holes in any of this. Man.
It's just weird to know that he also told stories
that he fought in a different area during the war,
and that injury that we're talking about, that's a bit mysterious,
was like it was refuted by several other people, like, oh,
(17:00):
that's not actually what the injury was from. And then
he told other people a story about getting injured in
a different way.
Speaker 3 (17:07):
So the one thing we do know for sure is
that he was hired by the FBI after an interview
with j Edgar Hoover, and according again to most of
the official sources, he got the co sign to be
hired despite lacking the normal qualifications that would typically be
(17:31):
required of most prospective FBI agents. You know what I mean,
like college in addition to military service or things like that. Right,
they have a checklist of stuff, their version of a
background check. Right, And he works for the Bureau for
about ten years. Matt, do you want to talk about
(17:52):
the various claims of things he was involved in over
that rough decade.
Speaker 2 (17:58):
Well, I'm not really sure about that stuff. I just
want to point out that I think this guy walking
into JEdgar Hoover's office and having a conversation, I do
think in there somewhere is the telling of Terureu to Hoover. Hey,
I am a shadow. Nobody knows the actual facts about
my life. Nobody knows who I am. Nobody knows anything
(18:20):
about me. I can do things basically for you and
for the Bureau that other people can't because I'm literally
a shadow.
Speaker 3 (18:29):
And tabula ross a blank slate. Yeah, and I mean
we have to remember this is before the CIA is,
So maybe that's why I went to the FBI instead.
We know that he received an assignment, and well, like
you can read about involvement with pretty Roy Floyd or Lindberg,
(18:50):
baby kidnapping, investigation of the Kansas City Union Station, murders,
and investigations into crashes and things like that. That's what
occurred in this sort of montage period of that decade.
But tonight's episode is not about that. Tonight's episode is
(19:10):
about the assignment that would change his life and perhaps
alter the course or actually provably in my opinion, at
least alter the course of US history. Far before World
War II, in the interwar period, the American forces, the
American public, and government alike were contemplating a blanket neutrality policy,
(19:34):
what we'll call isolationism. And during that time, the Nazi
Party was conspiring to infiltrate US soil, to capture the
heart's minds and ultimately, hopefully the military of the American public,
and so agent Tourou was given an enormous, dangerous task.
Everyone feared a new war was on the way, was
(19:55):
all over the press. But his bosses and the FBI
told him terrible secret. Leon They said, the Nazis are
already here. Here's where it gets crazy.
Speaker 2 (20:14):
Matt.
Speaker 3 (20:14):
I really appreciate what you pointed out about some of
the missing context here, because a lot of modern Americans,
and again textbooks don't like to admit this, but eugenics
and Nazi like ideology and actual Nazi sympathizers existed in
the US since the nineteen twenties, and when Hitler rose
(20:35):
to power officially in nineteen thirty three, those groups just
got larger, right, They just sort of gained momentum domino
or snowball effect style.
Speaker 2 (20:44):
Yeah, back in eighteen fifty six when an essay on
the inequity of the races was written. It wasn't just
you know, in German and people in Germany reading that.
There were Americans reading that book. There were people all
of the planet reading that book and probably having thoughts
altered and changed. And some of the viral thinking is
(21:07):
seeping in all across the planet. And you know, concepts
of fighting for again the working people, that's an old
concept and it has really nothing to do with fascism.
It really is like a puzzle getting put together with
very specific pieces, right, that form this thing that becomes Nazism.
Speaker 3 (21:33):
Yeah, again, it's Nazism is combining a lot of pre
existing prejudices, right, and one of the there are a
couple of factors that we need to outline here for
that context. Yes, the racism is not just based in Germany, obviously,
(21:54):
it's not just based in the US. Obviously. It hacks
a universal psychological desire, which is one I think I'm great?
B Why am I not as great as I feel like?
Speaker 2 (22:09):
Right? See?
Speaker 3 (22:10):
What can tell me that I am somehow inherently better
than other people? And this is something that you see
leveraged all the time by bad faith actors. The country,
the US had and has a large German American population,
and at this time a lot of people are you know,
first or second generation German Americans, and they still have
(22:32):
family abroad, so they are not necessarily green with the
current political powers of a Germany. But they're also saying, hey,
don't dunk on these folks too hard, because I'm from there,
or I know those folks, I'm related to them, and
the US government in theory very much in theory protects
(22:55):
free speech. Groups like the German American Bund b U
and d RISE they openly support specific Nazi ideology along
with you know, the symbols and the flags and the marching.
And to be clear, a lot of these groups, especially
the more militant ones, were similar to what we might
call the QAnon movement of today, right minus the online presence.
(23:19):
QAnon's largely started as nonline thing, similar to a tea
party or whatever kind of extremist ideology you want to
put in the overall German American community. At least again,
to be sure, according to the historians I read, they
didn't really vibe with this group. They were like, hey,
we moved you know, we just want a good economy,
(23:41):
We want our kids to have a better opportunity at life.
And the Nazi American groups, for the most part, they
add little actual connection to the Nazi Party in Germany
what our pal laur and Vocobama would call the actual
facts German Nazis. But still even with that, they were fanboys.
(24:05):
They wanted to bend American politics closer to Nazi ideals,
particularly fascism and anti semitism. And a lot of Americans,
German American or not, we're kind of squigged out by
this because they thought, what if there might be a
German fifth column? And this was a fear that just
(24:28):
translated from earlier fears about communism, right, a secret cabal
of communists that were out to take over the hearts
and minds of America. Even though, to be one hundred
percent transparent, none of the Nazi American groups were down
with communism. It was a big part of their speeches,
(24:50):
like the best way to be anti communists. That's how
they started, because you know, they try to normalize things.
They're like, hey, you hate communists, right, America? And they say, yeah,
we hate communists And they say, well, we hate them too,
And the best way to fight communism is Nazi stuff.
Speaker 2 (25:08):
Yeah, fascism strong strong people that come through and just
tell you what is and what's good and what's bad exactly.
Speaker 3 (25:17):
And you know this is not the dunk on anybody's
personal perspective or experience. It's an understandable thing if we
exercise empathy. Plus, the US is a country where people
are then, as now in theory, legally allowed to shoot
their mouths off about all sorts of wacka do ideas, right,
(25:38):
I personally like seeing some crazy guy with a megaphone
on a street corner. The concept is, so long as
you're not calling for violence nor harming people, you're theoretically
good to go, as long as they're just homegrown dissonance
and propagandists. But the question is, what if there were
(25:59):
actual wolves operating amid the sympathizer sheep. In nineteen thirty eight,
Hoover and the FBI, their fears were confirmed. This is
where we discover the first conspiracy, which is again adapted
into a movie that you can easily view on either
Archive dot Org or Amazon Today or Turner Classic Movies
(26:22):
or TCO.
Speaker 2 (26:24):
Yeah, and the information contained in that movie is based
on a screenplay which is based on some articles that Touro.
Speaker 3 (26:33):
Was based on, a book based on the articles.
Speaker 2 (26:36):
Yes, based on a well, yes, well there. According to TCM,
the screenplay itself is based on the articles themselves, rather
than even the book. So it was it was articles
that were told by Torow to this guy named David G. Whittles,
who was working for the New York Post in nineteen
(26:56):
thirty eight, in nineteen thirty nine. So it's that, you know,
this is a story that Leon told or mister Trureau
told to somebody else and then it got turned into
the story, right. I think that's just important to remember
because it's I don't know, it's it's probably a lot
of it is probably correct, but it is one person's viewpoint,
(27:18):
and this person tends to, at least according to a
lot of people that knew him, didn't always say the truth.
So it's like, okay, so here is, as you said,
how this whole thing begins. It's February nineteen thirty eight.
The police in New York City arrest this guy. His
names Quinta Gustav Maria rumrick On behalf of the Army
(27:42):
and the State Department they arrest this guy because the
Army in the State Department are like, this guy's bad.
The State Department received a tip from British intelligence claiming
that this person was impersonating the Secretary of State in
order to obtain thirty five blank US passport.
Speaker 3 (28:00):
Why what an interesting question. Let's bring him in and
ask he's impersonating the Secretary at the State of at
the time is a guy named Cordel Hole, and Cordell
Hole obviously no longer the Secretary of State. However, it
sounds crazy ambitious right now for anybody who's tried to
get a passport with their own real identity in the
(28:23):
modern day. Rumbrick knew enough about the processes and mechanisms
of the US government to do some social engineering or
attempt it. However, as we'll see, Rumrick had an ego disease.
He was maybe a little bit well, let's say it
(28:46):
this way. He's a crafty character, he's ambitious, he's more
than a little taken with himself. He's a naturalized citizen.
He was a US Army sergeant till he deserted, and
he's a textbook example. I would just argue of a
guy who fancied himself destined for greater things, As any
(29:07):
investigator can tell you, small people with big egos or
a gift when it comes to busting a crime ring.
And so you can see this in the articles and
the book and the film which we'll talk about all
three of those towards the end where we get to
the Leon question here. But in all of those depictions
(29:30):
or descriptions or narratives, when common throat we see is
that Rumrick or the characters based on Rumrick are easily
manipulated by flattery. So the interrogators are saying, oh, wow,
you're a mastermind, you know. I mean, look, I interview
a lot of criminals, but you're different, So surely you'll
(29:52):
have a better lie than that or something like this.
And so Raman ultimately agrees to confess this part is true.
This is not the smoking mirrors nor the adaptations. He says, well,
you know, I'm not actually just a regular Joe, a
regular naturalized citizen and deserter. I am acting on behalf
of Nazi agents the abver Germany's foreign intelligence service at
(30:17):
the time. And he says further, you fools, German agents
have worked since late nineteen twenties to penetrate, to infiltrate industry, government,
and academia in the United States. And then he said, look,
I'll tell you my story. Because he liked talking about himself.
(30:37):
He said, I'll give you the names of ten to
fifteen spies that are currently working for Nazi Germany as
part of this infiltration operation. And I'll tell you some
of the stuff we already found, which is interesting.
Speaker 2 (30:52):
Oh yeah, and there's a clip in the movie that
I guess we could play. Yeah, why not? This is
this is a movie from the thirties. Let's play this clip.
Speaker 4 (31:03):
I am one of thousand stationed in every part of
the United States to steal the secrets of your national defense.
There are spies stationed in all of the Navy yards
in Brooklyn, Philadelphia, and Newport News. There are Nazi agents
in the aeroplane and munition factories at Bristol.
Speaker 2 (31:21):
Question, they're everywhere, The spies are everywhere. Did he say.
Speaker 3 (31:25):
Newport News, Newport News, Virginia. Right, that's a place, Yeah,
Newport News, Virginia.
Speaker 2 (31:32):
Oh okay, I did not know. I thought I was
looking at a publication or a paper when I when
I heard Newport News.
Speaker 3 (31:39):
Yeah, so that's the adaptation. Going back to Rumrick in
his interrogations, he does say they were able to already
have stolen top secret US technology codes prototype of a
code breaking machine, not Enigma, importantly, that's a different one,
(32:00):
that's different realm of cryptography. And they also got data
about communication structures and the latest US fighter planes. So
they leave the interrogation room with US folks and go
to a very intense series of meetings and community cayse.
This is a classic bad news but not the worst
(32:22):
news situation. The State Department, the FBI, and the War
Department are in what corporate America would call a healthy
discussion about the next steps, which for all us non
corporate folks out there means that they were yelling over
each other and they were super pissed. And one of
(32:43):
the most pissed people is the legendarily non paranoid J
Edgar Hoover.
Speaker 2 (32:49):
Yeah, yeah, Well Hoover immediately looked at it and just said, guys,
I don't have enough control over this. This thing is compromised,
for sure. There's way too many in this pot. I
don't want I don't even want to touch it.
Speaker 3 (33:04):
I wonder if it was even about control for him
as much as as much as it might have been
about just quality standards. I mean, you're probably right on both.
But but he, as you said, he noted that the
case was already compromised. Right, This guy by this time
(33:27):
is already ah off his office top hat, you know
what top hats. But he's off his top hat about
communist infiltration. He's he's thinking, you know, if you don't
work directly for me, I can't trust you. And to him,
the State Department, in the War Department may all be
already be riddled with foreign agents, but the War Department
(33:52):
insists that this is the FBI's job. And the War
Department at this time has a lot of juice because
the world is increasingly starting to They've gone from worrying
about a new World war to increasingly assuming that it's
going to happen. The poop is on the way to
the fan, the cars about the swerve and hit the tree.
(34:15):
So despite all the objections and ardent objections they were
the task of tackling the spy ring falls to the FBI.
This is the beginning of our second conspiracy. It's a
counter conspiracy, and from the jump, everybody in the FBI says, well,
if you work for us, you understand, you're aware of
(34:37):
our boss Hoover. You know that we have to keep
this stuff super secret, no chasing publicity. And this is
where we enter to Row at this point. He's an
experienced special agent and he's the kind of guy who,
on paper is a perfect fit for this operation.
Speaker 2 (34:56):
Yeah, so they said, hey, this is your assignment, dude,
get out there, get it done. So they take all
the information they got from Rumrick right. Then they go
and interview other people who were apparently a part of
this whole group. Who's this next person, doctor Iganskribbel.
Speaker 3 (35:16):
Yeah, he had already been identified as the head of
the US German intelligence ring. He's probably the smartest. He's
one of the most fortunate of the German spies. He
functions in a big way as a recruiter, so's it's
like a multi level marketing scheme. He's recruiting people, they're
(35:38):
recruiting other people, and he is. He is successfully arrested,
the good doctor. Weirdly enough, he makes bail and surprise,
as soon as he makes bail, he skips down. He's
off to Europe. He's not coming back, you know, And
it seems that Toro is realizing, despite Rumrick's claims, he
(36:01):
himself is more a minor operator. He's a minor cog,
you know what I mean. He's not James Bond, this guy,
but he is a lot like a jukebox in that
once you put a quarter in him, the guy, I'll
sing And he starts breaking down the operation as far
as he knows it. He talks about folks like Johanna Hoffman,
(36:22):
who serves as a go between for Rumrick's contacts in Germany,
a guy named Carl Schluter, and he says, this Carl
guy Schlooter is also contacting other spies in America. Our pal,
Johanna Hoffmann gets a lot of mail, and that's something
(36:43):
that Hoover and the boys can look into.
Speaker 2 (36:45):
Yeah, reading people's mail, listening to people's calls, dode all
of it. What was the title. There's a Time magazine
article on this and it is titled Snoop, Look and listen.
They're all about that.
Speaker 3 (36:58):
Oh yeah, yeah, library records, postal records, and according to Rumrick,
before he was captured, he was using the code name Crown.
We can't even get into agent Sex, which is another
alleged thing is so nuts. So Rumrick, under his operator
named Crown, would email letters to a Scottish woman named
(37:22):
Jesse Jordan, who was also a spy for German foreign intelligence,
and he, in his correspondence mentions a plan for German
secret service agents to overpower actually to mug an American
Army colonel in Manhattan at the Hotel McAlpin, and they
(37:44):
were going to mug him to steal East Coast defense
plans for the US in the situation of war, because
again a war has not started yet, and the agents
will take the plans.
Speaker 2 (37:55):
Yeah, that's the concept, right, But having the defense plans
for an entire seaboard of a country, if maybe your
navy was going to roll up, would be a nice
thing to have. It makes a lot of sense strategically, right, right.
Speaker 3 (38:13):
And then afterwards, you know, you want to eliminate the hand, right.
So the idea was, after they knock this guy out
and steal his stuff, they'll try to do a stitch
up job to blame vague communist forces or no communist affiliates,
which you know it's happened before, and it does work
(38:36):
when you pull it off. But these investigations that Touro
is doing. They work as sort of a daisy chain
and gaming connections. If this, then what so you find
one snake in the grass, you wiggle it a little,
you manipulate it to revealing others And to be fair
Toerna's team were closing in on spies. But why did
(38:59):
the FBI itself later refer to him as a bungler.
You can go to the actual FBI archive and I
know not all the writing is super compelling, but they
have a lot of good articles to be like, they
do have some really good stuff. And what article is
called a bite out of history Spies Spies Lost, Lessons Learned,
(39:22):
And the FBI writes the FBI has some serious beef
with Leon because they say that he kind of screwed
the pooch on the whole thing.
Speaker 2 (39:36):
Well, yeh. He would interview people who were telling him
and everybody who's interviewing them, Hi, I'm a spy. How
are you nice to meet you? I'm a spy, and
then you know, and here are all my activities I
was doing as a spy. And then Turo comes through
at the end of every interview and says, okay, hey,
thank you so much. For all that information. You've been
extremely helpful. Now you're gonna have to say all of
(39:59):
this again, and you're going to testify before a grand jury. Cool,
and guess what most of those spies did.
Speaker 3 (40:07):
They left, yeah, post as soon as they were out
of the room. They were booking a taxi to a port,
and they were gone, and then they were alerting other
people in their network. The FBI specifically says this quote
is a verbatim quote. After each interview, Toro told the
spies that they need to testify before a grand jury,
(40:27):
and most fled the country to avoid prosecution. Makes soon ass,
I mean, yeah, soon as And they shouldn't have even
let they shouldn't even let that doctor out on bail.
I was crazy. He also, fun fact, was one of
the first FBI investigations to employ polygraphs, which are you know,
(40:48):
junk science. But that's important because most of the later
cases in these conflicting conspiracies ultimately depended upon the statements
of spies themselves without a ton of corroborating evidence, because again,
the war hadn't happened yet, so it's tough to you know, like,
if you have the plans for defense on the East Coast,
(41:12):
and this is all over the press at the time.
If you have the plans for defense on the East Coast,
and a successful operation leverages those plans, then it's a
lot easier to convict people because you know, something actionable occurred.
Speaker 2 (41:26):
Yeah, but now you're being invaded by another country, right,
So you're in a whole other situation. And are you
even going to be able to convict somebody if you
can't stop an invasion? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (41:41):
So this is again bad news, but not the worst
news situation untill you know, it does.
Speaker 2 (41:47):
Get worse, and it will right after this break.
Speaker 3 (41:56):
And we've returned. This became the FBI's for major international
spy case right in there. There had been spies busted
before the creation of the FBI. There have been other operations,
but nothing of this magnitude. Eighteen people are indicted. The
trial is going to be held in Manhattan Federal Court.
(42:20):
The judge is John C. Knox. It's October fourteenth, nineteen
thirty eight when they start selecting the jury. And I'm
sure there was a lot of prejudice there, right, How
many German Americans got to be those twelve lucky people,
no wonder I'm going to say not many and October
(42:41):
fourteenth is when Rumrick pleads guilty. Fast forward just a
little bit December second, nineteen thirty eight, less than a
year before the beginning of World War two. These cases
go to trial. At least the case is for the
people who were apprehended and didn't imediately flee down as
(43:01):
soon as they were given the chance.
Speaker 2 (43:04):
Yeah, there are three individuals, Johanna Hoffmann, Otto Hermann, Voss
and Eric Glasser GLA Sr. They were all found guilty
of espionage through this trial.
Speaker 3 (43:17):
Yeah, and Gunther Rumrick is found guilty as well, but
he gets a reduced sentence because he turns Stooley. So
the spies all serve between two to six years each. Again,
our buddy doctor Grebel has successfully fled the country in
nineteen thirty eight. As a funny story. In nineteen thirty eight,
(43:39):
depending on who you ask, Tureau is fired for breaking
the FBI the FBI oath right or the understood the
implicit assumption of secrecy because he's leaked stories to the press.
He's publicized a lot of stuff. He's the one who
pitched writing articles for the papers. And the one version
(44:05):
I heard to that earlier point about multiple versions. One
version I heard was that our buddy Leon resigned to
write his book, so he sent his own resignation proactively
to the FBI.
Speaker 2 (44:18):
But he didn't say, hey, I'm going to go write
a book to like anybody official, right, he just.
Speaker 3 (44:25):
Put in his resignation, but word got around, And that's
another version of this. The other if he's by fur
Kate and formed back. Then the conclusion of the funny
version of it is that j Agar Hoover finds out
this guy's resigning and then finds out why, and Jay
Edgar Hoover is furious, is consumed with wrath, and he says,
(44:49):
I reject your resignation, jerk, You're fired. No resigning for
you. You don't get it. It's like the opposite version of
you can't fire me, I quit. And the problem was
that there was serious damage here, and the damage reverberated. However,
Touro still had to go to trial right of these suspects,
(45:12):
and when he was on trial, he got accused of
being a huge publicity hound, like, oh, you weren't really
protecting America. You wanted to become famous, you wanted money, power, respect,
You tampered with witnesses. They even said that he took
a bribe from doctor Greebel, which we couldn't prove, but
(45:36):
he was accused of it, and that goes to the
court of public opinion. It is true though he did
end up writing those newspaper articles he wrote Nazi Spies
in America. According to some sources, those articles directly got
adapted to a film. According to other sources, that book
got adapted to a film, which is.
Speaker 2 (45:56):
Either way, it's money right right, He.
Speaker 3 (45:59):
Did get paid for it, which goes to ethical concerns.
In Matt off Air, you were saying, the title of
the film as it's known today is Confessions of a
Nazi Spy, again freely available. It's very interesting look at
society of the time. It is propagandistic itself because it's
Hollywood's first explicitly anti Nazi kind of film of this caliber.
(46:27):
But you also said you have the original working title.
Speaker 2 (46:31):
Oh, there are several working titles, but one of them
that you can find on TCM if you check it out,
is Storm Over America. Storm was coming back in nineteen
thirty eight. Then it's funny in the trailer they say
it was our duty to make this film and it's
(46:51):
your American privilege to see it. And then it was
chosen as Best Picture of the Year by the National
Board of Review in nineteen thirty nine.
Speaker 3 (47:00):
Yeah, I knew that part. This is I mean, this
is it was successful.
Speaker 2 (47:05):
There's no way around it.
Speaker 3 (47:07):
It was very successful. But I think we could argue
the film is more successful than the actual operation on
the rum Rick spy ring because, due too, in big
part to Ro's investigation methods, four times as many spies
escaped as were captured. So it's kind of like trying
(47:32):
to It's kind of like trying to pick up rice
with a fork.
Speaker 2 (47:37):
Yeah that has not been cooked right, uncompressed?
Speaker 3 (47:41):
Yes, yes, yes, yes, And I mean the other thing is,
you know, I was wondering if we mentioned this. This
is not the end of Leon's professional or personal life.
He was involved in a lot of other situations. You
would think this would be such a black marker to
merit on somebody's career that you're just out right you
(48:02):
retire in exile or obscurity, you start an EMU farm
or something. But he got hired by Eisenhower.
Speaker 2 (48:11):
Nice career move.
Speaker 3 (48:13):
Yeah, he rounded up thirty five thousand or he helped
in an operation round up thirty five thousand suspected Nazi
war criminals. He got a bronze star. He wrote another book,
and I haven't read this one. It's called Where My
Shadow Falls? In nineteen forty nine.
Speaker 2 (48:30):
I told you he's in the shadows.
Speaker 3 (48:33):
Where does his shadow fall? Oh? He works for a billionaire.
He works for Jean Paul Getty. And then he just
hangs around Paris for most of the rest of his life,
and he becomes like a popular dude on the street.
They call him the American Mayor, not an official title.
Speaker 2 (48:50):
Yes, a man of mystery, right there.
Speaker 3 (48:53):
An American Mayor, and he does. We do know that
he passes away in December tenthnineteen eighty six. And that
number is fascinating because these stories I don't know about you, man,
These stories often feel so constrained to a distinct time
in history. Nineteen eighty six. It's pretty nuts. A lot
(49:17):
of people listening were around when that guy was alive.
Speaker 2 (49:21):
It's weird to think about, but it does make me.
I don't know. When I think about his life overall,
I think about the allegations of him making up a
lot of stuff about himself. It does make me wonder,
I don't know, back in the day, like the vetting
process for an individual human and trying to check records,
(49:42):
you really did have to go off of word of mouth,
often like an employer if you're checking references or something,
or I don't know, parents, family friends, teachers, professors like
you just had to listen to what other people had
to say about somebody and trust that that was true.
Speaker 3 (49:59):
A other Daisy chain investigation kept shaking the trees, I mean,
and I love that point because then it also shows
us why a lot of people had collegiate backgrounds, right,
why a lot of State department and intelligence agencies pull
from what we would consider upper Aeschlot or IVY IVY
(50:21):
League schools. Right, there is a pre formed community.
Speaker 2 (50:25):
Exactly, and everybody can say, oh, yeah, I know that person.
I remember they've told me this or that. Yeah, that's
what they told me.
Speaker 3 (50:34):
His secret frat name is Finicky Jenkins. Oh dear, Oh okay,
he checks out. I mean, but that's also a weakness
in those organizations, you know. That's why the Cambridge spy
ring was able to exist at all. I think it's
because of that inherent class system, as well as, to
your point, the very difficult task of vetting people. It's
(50:57):
a little bit easier now, or depending on what side
of the fence you're on, it's a lot more difficult
to be a bit of a con artist. They the FBI,
going back to the original article, they say that this
guy's background just did not prepare him to do espionage,
and that when he leaked information about the case, he
(51:19):
violated everything an FBI agent is supposed to do. And
we've talked about this before. You know, whenever you read
an article, especially in high level US media, about an
official speaking on condition of anonymity, that was that was
greenlit like four ways the sundown, you know, before somebody
(51:41):
said yeah, i'll speak anonymously.
Speaker 2 (51:44):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (51:45):
There's like tons of conversations they have to have with
their bosses. Somebody probably checks with another agency and says, hey,
are you cool with us talking trash about Taran? And
they're like yeah, but don't don't use your real name.
And they're like, oh, okay, I'm going to go as
my frat name, Finicky Jenkins. And they're like, well, just okay,
in that case, don't use a name at all.
Speaker 2 (52:07):
That's pretty honny. It is interesting how there's so much
to be made about Roumrick getting coins put into him
and then singing right, But that is pretty much what
Turou did because he was so excited to tell people
about what he had done. M all right, see some
commonalities here, agreed.
Speaker 3 (52:29):
Sometimes people become the monsters they hunt right or acquire
their attributes. And I think that's a fantastic point because
we also see it was an earlier It was an
earlier conversation we're having about the the professor or the
(52:49):
academic who was in charge of Hannibal Lecter in Silence
of the Lambs, both the novels and the film adaptations.
His main concern was publicity, right, and success, And you
could argue, I think you could argue with a lot
of validity, that's Roe's at least partially doing this stuff.
(53:10):
I mean, when he leaks information, is he trying to
shake the tree, rouse some more operatives, or as the
FBI very very heavily implies, was he just trying to
get attention and money and center himself as a hero.
I don't know if those things are mutually exclusive, to
be honest, because sometimes people believe their own bs.
Speaker 2 (53:31):
Yeah, I think that's quite often the case. But I wonder,
I wonder how you would Okay, let's game it out.
You do come out with this information, you leak it
to the New York Post, and wait, how does that
shake the tree? How would that not cause anybody who is,
you know, engaging in spying behaviors? Why would they come forward?
Speaker 4 (53:56):
Ah?
Speaker 3 (53:56):
It would only work if you already have strong suspicion
or understanding of them. So if you already know their
established patterns and correspondence, and you leak something like that,
and the next thing you do is watch them and
see how, if and how they alter that behavior pattern.
Speaker 2 (54:16):
Because so if you suspect somebody of being a spy,
you you give in this case, real information and just
see how they react.
Speaker 3 (54:25):
Right, Like I hypothetically or just thought experiment way to
do it. Let's say there were let's say you and
Paul and I had pretty solid intel. We had arrested
our Rumrick or whatever, and we had a pretty good
(54:49):
understanding of five other spies in the Atlanta metro area, right,
and we knew their names, we knew enough about them
to monitor or them, and then we let slide in
you know, the Atlanta Journal or Constitution under condition of
anonymity or whatever, that we suspect there are more spies
(55:10):
in the Atlanta area, and then we would just keep
those five people on twenty four to seven surveillance to
see who runs for the airport first, and we would
meet them there.
Speaker 2 (55:21):
That's that's really interesting, and I think that theoretically you
would work for those five particular people. The larger effect,
and maybe that's what the FBI was criticizing. The larger
effect is that the rest of the network, because you're
you're going after a small nest, basically, the rest of
the network just says, Okay, we're out couple.
Speaker 3 (55:40):
Of eyes ghosts. Yeah, and you got to let the
you got to cauterize the wound, right, so burn those
other five.
Speaker 2 (55:48):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (55:48):
It's kind of like, this is why I'm putting it
in there to be fair. But this is why I
remain suspicious of the purity of Thuro's motives, because it
reminds me of the idea of leaking information for greater
advantage or forward progress on an operation like this. It
reminds me a lot of very specific moves in fighting
(56:12):
games like Yoshimitsu. For anybody familiar with. Techan has a
move where he can stab himself and it does a
lot of damage to him. But if his opponent is
in a position that doesn't often happen, where they're standing
directly behind them, then it's a big win. But that
position usually doesn't happen, is the issue. That's why it's
(56:33):
a special move.
Speaker 2 (56:34):
Why did he get a sword? Baffled me when Yoshimitzu
got a sword right?
Speaker 3 (56:40):
Oh, and everybody else is pretty much hand to hands.
Speaker 2 (56:42):
Yeah, go on, well what's up with that?
Speaker 3 (56:45):
In the new Tech? And they have oh, a guy
who is I guess his background is a spy as well.
He for some reason has a knife and a gun.
Speaker 2 (56:53):
Oh in a suit.
Speaker 3 (56:54):
Yeah, it doesn't seem fair.
Speaker 2 (56:56):
And they got a bear in the mix.
Speaker 3 (56:57):
Come on, yeah, they had a bear in the mix.
Do you think you could fight a panda bear? Like,
not a bear bear, but a panda bear.
Speaker 2 (57:04):
Probably not.
Speaker 3 (57:05):
I don't feel like I would ever. They seem so
non agro. I feel like if I was holding bamboo,
a panda bear might get angry at me or like
snatch for.
Speaker 2 (57:19):
The Yeah, I just want them, yeah, come on, man,
give me some pamboo.
Speaker 3 (57:23):
Yeah, yeah, it's more like that Dave Chappelle character than
it is like nagro thing. But yeah, you're right, I
never thought about that. Yoshiminsu has a sword. Huh. Story
for another day. What is the most overpowered fighting game
character in your opinion, because I think we both played
a lot of fighting games.
Speaker 2 (57:44):
Oh, I don't know, overpowered. Uh, probably saying Gief. I'm
just playing.
Speaker 1 (57:52):
That's funny.
Speaker 3 (57:52):
Yeah, yeah, I don't know. You tell us, folks, conspiracy.
iHeartRadio dot com. We do have to say. I guess
there's there is silver lining. There's this history and I've
been reading Rodrie Jeffrey Jones Jeffries Jones, who wrote a
book called the FBI a History and several other articles,
and Jeffries Jones argues that because of the flaws in
(58:17):
this spy ring case do pretty much entirely to Row,
the US embarked on a better counter espionage program like
it went up to Franklin D. Roosevelt, president at the time,
and he said, you know, his fancy version of holy smokes,
this is terrible. We have to make sure this doesn't
(58:41):
happen again. And so in a way this informs a
lot of the co intel pro stuff. We see later
a lot of the sweeping surveillance laws that come into
play the s Stellar Wind, Stellar Wind, there we go,
five eyes to watch them all? You know, I don't know, man.
It seems like, perhaps, at least in part, because of
(59:04):
these conflicting conspiracies, the US government has gone down gone
down a potentially dark path, breaking or bending the laws
of their own country multiple times, up to and including
murder in service of a greater good. I mean, is
there a balance to be struck? And if so, what
(59:26):
is it?
Speaker 2 (59:26):
That's a great question. Why don't you let us know
what you think about it? You can reach us all
over the place on YouTube and on x on what
was the other one? Facebook? We are conspiracy stuff. On
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Speaker 3 (59:42):
Show and if you're not, if you're not sipping the
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(01:00:04):
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(01:00:25):
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Take us to the edge of.
Speaker 2 (01:00:37):
The rabbit hole.
Speaker 3 (01:00:38):
We will do the rest. Drop us a line at
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Speaker 2 (01:00:43):
Are conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com. Stuff they Don't Want
(01:01:06):
you to Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more
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From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
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Speaker 2 (00:24):
Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt.
Our colleague Noel is on an adventure, but will be
back very soon.
Speaker 3 (00:30):
They call me Bed. We're joined as always with our
super producer Paul, mission controlled decads. Most importantly, you are you.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
You are here.
Speaker 3 (00:39):
That makes this the stuff they don't want you to know.
This is thinking about this earlier, Matt. This is an
episode about more than one conspiracy. In fact, I would
argue we could call this a story of conflicting dual conspiracies,
both true, both set against one another in a fundamental
(01:02):
shadow war. And we were going to record this episode earlier.
I'm glad we took some time on it because key
to this tale is larger than life, immensely controversial figure
to some folks. He's a hero to others, and we'll
(01:23):
get to those others. In specific, he is a bungler
who nearly risked the safety of America entire Now, question,
had you heard of this guy before we started researching.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
Him only from film school in this movie that came
out in nineteen thirty nine that we're going to talk about.
That's the only reason I knew anything about this story.
It is a weird time in US history often, I think,
at least in my personal experience, when we think about
the United States and spying, there's a hyper focus on
(01:59):
the United States versus the Soviet Union. This is a
time before the Cold War spying days and games. It's
interesting to take your mind to the nineteen twenties and
thinking about spying.
Speaker 3 (02:14):
Yeah, it's also the interwar period is something that doesn't
get a ton of examination in a lot of American
public schools. And as we'll see, there's a reason you
could argue some of this history is hidden. Tonight's episode
is the story of a guy. We're gonna call it
Leon G. Truro. We'll call him a Nazi hunter because
(02:38):
he was. But maybe before we begin we make a
little note about pronunciation, because it's sort of all over
the place with his last name.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
Yeah, if you watch the trailer for the movie we're
going to be talking about in a moment, well, I
guess should we just say what the movie is. It's
titled Confessions of a Nazi Spy. It was released in
May nineteen thirty nine. And in that movie they say
this person's name, and they say Leon George ureau Turo. Oh.
(03:11):
But then if you look online at other people who
were talking about this person, you're often going to here.
At least I heard Teru. I think it was maybe
a Scottish gentleman who said it that way.
Speaker 3 (03:22):
And then yeah, and then we can't discount the presence
of the Transatlantic accent. A lot of historians that I've
been reading or hearing I have said terurou. The spelling
is t u r r ou. We are going to
possibly slide in and out of different pronunciations. But be assured,
(03:43):
fellow conspiracy realist, we're talking about the same guy to
some a hero again to others, A real Paul beat
me here and I hate the curse so early in
the show. But a real's.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
Super intense liar about all things.
Speaker 3 (04:03):
Right, So let's let's dive into Leon. And to tell
the story of Leon, we have to learn the story
of the Nazis. Here are the facts, all right. Luckily,
today in the modern US, for most people, for the
(04:25):
vast majority of people in the West as well. Calling
someone a Nazi is a serious insult. It's it's such
a it's so universally identified as a bad thing that
it's a cliche. The Internet has rules about it too, right,
there's that tendency. There's this argument that at some point
(04:49):
in political discourse someone will call someone else inevitably a Nazi.
Speaker 2 (04:54):
Yeah, it's the worst thing you can call somebody, because
they are history's enemies, right, the enemy number one of
history is the Nazis. But it really does go way
way way back before the Nazi Party is ever established.
You can you can trace it all the way back
to eighteen forty one to a guy named Friedrich list As,
(05:14):
a dude who just talked about expansionism basically and economic control,
like the Germany basically should have a lot more of
both of those things, blood and soil mm hmm. And
go through criminal biology with Franz von Liszt and I mean,
just you can keep you can go way back with
basically the ideologies that formed into this thing called the
(05:36):
German Workers Party or DAP.
Speaker 3 (05:39):
Yeah, the German Workers Party can be considered the demo
mixtape of what we call the Nazi Party today and
the Nazi Party today is most closely associated with Germany
in World War Two for obvious and horrific reasons. But
as you said, Matt, the roots of the party are
much much older. You could look at the Nazi Party
(06:03):
as understood today as more of a distillation of some
ideology that was already well established in that part of
the world for some time. Like at length, what we
call the Nazi Party, or the demo tape of it was,
as you said, the German Workers Party co founded by
(06:24):
a locksmith who's a guy named Anton Drexler co founded
this with three or four other guys on January fifth,
nineteen nineteen. So this is just after the armistice that
ended the First World War. Germany is in a very
bad way as a result of the agreements that ended
(06:44):
the war, and Drexler is what we will call a
far right figure at this point, he's kind of no
offense to us. In his early days, he's kind of
podcaster level, and so he's holding these local media the
salons you will call them in Europe, and he has
(07:04):
people over to talk about ideas. They're all people who
are kind of echoe chamber. He's not inviting dissenting views
into this mix enters a guy named Adolf Hitler. It's
on September twelfth, nineteen nineteen, and Adolf Hitler is there
ostensibly as just an interested civilian to learn more from
(07:28):
a self taught economist named Gottfried Fader, and Gottfried Fader's
kind of a pill. The subject of his lecture is
breaking the slavery of financial interest, which is kind of
a dog whistle for a lot of anti Jewish sentiment. However,
Hitler is already participating in a conspiracy at this point.
(07:52):
He is there not really as a civilian, that's his cover. Instead,
he has been assigned by the German Art Army to
monitor potential political agitators, which I think is funny as
we as we see how things go on. Anyway, Hitler
does something you probably shouldn't do in his position with
(08:15):
the army at that time. He sticks out well, yeah.
Speaker 2 (08:19):
He gives a big old public speech in October of
nineteen nineteen, and a pre arranged public speaking engagement, let's say,
immediately as a member of the DAP, just like right
after going to the first one.
Speaker 3 (08:35):
Right, yeah, And in that first meeting, the October speech,
you're mentioning comes from this September twelfth meeting, because in
there he starts arguing loudly with a professor in the
crowd who is raising objections to some of the economic
(08:57):
concepts of feder and Hitler super impresses the DAP audience
because he's passionate, he's vehement, he's got this electric energy,
and he impresses everybody so much that the guy we
mentioned earlier, Anton Drexler, comes to Hitler and says, Hey,
I dig your vibe. I wrote this pamphlet it's called
(09:19):
My Political Awakening. I think you should join up with us.
You know, thanks for coming to the meeting. You should
come to more, and you should talk about the things
that you mentioned in this meeting. Hitler at this point
feels he has found kindred spirits and the rest, as
they say, is history. In this case, terrible, terrible history.
Speaker 2 (09:41):
Just for a little more historical context here, we have
to mention what happened to the Weimar Republic's economy and
post a World War One. Yeah, yeah, post World War One,
post revolution, post everything going on in Germany. In nineteen
twenty two, hyperil inflation hit. It's really hard, and then
as it goes in towards nineteen. In nineteen twenty three,
(10:04):
they had hyperinflation. And just to really understand that we're.
Speaker 3 (10:08):
Talking of the wheelbarrow story, maybe.
Speaker 2 (10:10):
Well it's not even the story. Just to give the numbers,
Imagine that your US dollar come compared to what's another
curzy a pound British pound. Imagine that six hundred dollars
equals one pound, and then imagine within months that becomes
(10:30):
two thousand US dollars equal one pound, then ten thousand,
then forty thousand, then one hundred and fifty thousand, then
three point five million, then ten million, then sixty million
US dollars equals one pound. Imagine that internal existential political
crisis that that would cause, right within a within a country,
(10:51):
within an individual, within systems, within groups and parties. That
is the kind of crisis that it creates real intense
change because something's got to change right right. And you
combine that with in nineteen thirty one, so like that's
in nineteen twenty two to twenty three, combine that in
(11:13):
nineteen thirty one, you've got five point six million unemployed
people that should be working in Germany. And you put
those things together and you can just really see where
if there's a strong enough order that has some ideology
backing the words that they're saying, you can create a
movement pretty easily because you just need some way out.
Speaker 3 (11:36):
Yeah, is it okay if I tell the Wilbarrow story. Yeah, yeah,
my favorite examples. So this is a a it is
a bit embellished. But the way that one of the
best ways to understand this from a human level is
that people at this time hyperinflation is a thing that
still happens in the modern age. Look at Zimbabwe, look
(11:57):
at Venezuela when it hits Germany. Due to again the
conclusion and the agreements of World War One, people would
end up having to take wheelbarrows of their local currency
to a place, and when they went to a store,
(12:18):
they would try to purchase things as early as possible
because by the conclusion of that business day the money
would literally be worthless. So, you know, you hear horror
stories about the Great Depression in the United States and
runs on banks. There were runs on bakeries, there were
runs on cobblers, there were runs on anyone doing business.
(12:39):
People were trying to move the currency. Was a very
desperate time and desperation has ever been fertile soil for fascism.
So this, and I appreciate you mentioning this, This is
context in which these horrific things can occur. You know.
There is also the I wouldn't say revision is his,
(13:00):
but there's a valid alternative history observation here which is
quite common in academia, that says, if it weren't specifically
an Adolph, it would have been someone else because the
public was so ready for someone to say there is
(13:20):
a better way. Also in a shameless plog, please check
out Let's Start a coup. The Smedley Butler story is
very similar to that, because the US comes a lot
closer to fascism than any of us or any textbook
editors would like you to think.
Speaker 2 (13:37):
Yeah, and if we're to know, to believe all of
the information from Leon G. Tourou, then that fascism was
moving throughout the United States even in this time in
in the nineteen twenties.
Speaker 3 (13:51):
And we've explored Nazi conspiracies at length in stuff they
don't want you to know. Thankfully, most folks today are
aware of the atrocities wrought by Nazi nax's powers and
to be fair also aware of other horrors committed by allies, right,
like the invasion of Russian forces and of course the
(14:12):
deployment of nuclear weaponry on the US part. However, there
is a lot of hidden history out there, still conspiracies
that aren't as well known even as we record tonight
in twenty twenty four. Enter Leon George Tourou original name
Leon George Tuovoski born September fourteenth, eighteen ninety five in Cobram, Poland,
(14:37):
which was then part of the Russian Empire. But his
parents weren't Russian, right, they were French and Polish.
Speaker 2 (14:43):
Oh sure, Yeah. His father died before he was even born,
and his mother then passed away early in his life,
so he was well at least. Again, it's tough, so
is this his official biography, because the guy told so
many stories about his origins. There were there are all
of these. There are all these tales that he would tell,
(15:03):
and the first one that you would hear from him
often was I'm an orphan, right, But I don't know.
It's tough with this guy because I've read other stories
where maybe he wasn't actually an orphan, and he did
have family early on that we're not dead. But according
to let's say, the official story, his dad died a
(15:23):
story from the FBI. Yeah, even from the FBI. But
he was telling everybody stories, even the FBI. Yeah, I
don't know. It's a little weird, but his according to
the official story, his dad died six months before his
birth and his mother passed away early in his life. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (15:37):
And with with those caveats, which are nice foreshadowing, we'll
say that again. The official accepted biography after this guy's
death is that, because spoiler he's dead, is that he
was adopted by a wealthy tradesman or merchants, basically a
traveling guy who's doing well for himself, and as a result,
(16:00):
young Leon spent most of his own childhood moving through
different countries, and when he reaches the age of eighteen,
he relocates to the United States and he gets a
job as a translator for the New York Times because
he has a command of multiple languages. Again with a
(16:22):
lot of caveats. Tureau serves in the French Army from
nineteen sixteen to nineteen twenty. He fights on the Eastern Front.
He is engaged with German forces at some point and
he does take an injury, we don't know the extent
of the injury, and we do.
Speaker 2 (16:40):
Get in there. It's weird though, because their story. I
just I don't want to poke holes in any of this. Man.
It's just weird to know that he also told stories
that he fought in a different area during the war,
and that injury that we're talking about, that's a bit mysterious,
was like it was refuted by several other people, like, oh,
(17:00):
that's not actually what the injury was from. And then
he told other people a story about getting injured in
a different way.
Speaker 3 (17:07):
So the one thing we do know for sure is
that he was hired by the FBI after an interview
with j Edgar Hoover, and according again to most of
the official sources, he got the co sign to be
hired despite lacking the normal qualifications that would typically be
(17:31):
required of most prospective FBI agents. You know what I mean,
like college in addition to military service or things like that. Right,
they have a checklist of stuff, their version of a
background check. Right, And he works for the Bureau for
about ten years. Matt, do you want to talk about
(17:52):
the various claims of things he was involved in over
that rough decade.
Speaker 2 (17:58):
Well, I'm not really sure about that stuff. I just
want to point out that I think this guy walking
into JEdgar Hoover's office and having a conversation, I do
think in there somewhere is the telling of Terureu to Hoover. Hey,
I am a shadow. Nobody knows the actual facts about
my life. Nobody knows who I am. Nobody knows anything
(18:20):
about me. I can do things basically for you and
for the Bureau that other people can't because I'm literally
a shadow.
Speaker 3 (18:29):
And tabula ross a blank slate. Yeah, and I mean
we have to remember this is before the CIA is,
So maybe that's why I went to the FBI instead.
We know that he received an assignment, and well, like
you can read about involvement with pretty Roy Floyd or Lindberg,
(18:50):
baby kidnapping, investigation of the Kansas City Union Station, murders,
and investigations into crashes and things like that. That's what
occurred in this sort of montage period of that decade.
But tonight's episode is not about that. Tonight's episode is
(19:10):
about the assignment that would change his life and perhaps
alter the course or actually provably in my opinion, at
least alter the course of US history. Far before World
War II, in the interwar period, the American forces, the
American public, and government alike were contemplating a blanket neutrality policy,
(19:34):
what we'll call isolationism. And during that time, the Nazi
Party was conspiring to infiltrate US soil, to capture the
heart's minds and ultimately, hopefully the military of the American public,
and so agent Tourou was given an enormous, dangerous task.
Everyone feared a new war was on the way, was
(19:55):
all over the press. But his bosses and the FBI
told him terrible secret. Leon They said, the Nazis are
already here. Here's where it gets crazy.
Speaker 2 (20:14):
Matt.
Speaker 3 (20:14):
I really appreciate what you pointed out about some of
the missing context here, because a lot of modern Americans,
and again textbooks don't like to admit this, but eugenics
and Nazi like ideology and actual Nazi sympathizers existed in
the US since the nineteen twenties, and when Hitler rose
(20:35):
to power officially in nineteen thirty three, those groups just
got larger, right, They just sort of gained momentum domino
or snowball effect style.
Speaker 2 (20:44):
Yeah, back in eighteen fifty six when an essay on
the inequity of the races was written. It wasn't just
you know, in German and people in Germany reading that.
There were Americans reading that book. There were people all
of the planet reading that book and probably having thoughts
altered and changed. And some of the viral thinking is
(21:07):
seeping in all across the planet. And you know, concepts
of fighting for again the working people, that's an old
concept and it has really nothing to do with fascism.
It really is like a puzzle getting put together with
very specific pieces, right, that form this thing that becomes Nazism.
Speaker 3 (21:33):
Yeah, again, it's Nazism is combining a lot of pre
existing prejudices, right, and one of the there are a
couple of factors that we need to outline here for
that context. Yes, the racism is not just based in Germany, obviously,
(21:54):
it's not just based in the US. Obviously. It hacks
a universal psychological desire, which is one I think I'm great?
B Why am I not as great as I feel like?
Speaker 2 (22:09):
Right? See?
Speaker 3 (22:10):
What can tell me that I am somehow inherently better
than other people? And this is something that you see
leveraged all the time by bad faith actors. The country,
the US had and has a large German American population,
and at this time a lot of people are you know,
first or second generation German Americans, and they still have
(22:32):
family abroad, so they are not necessarily green with the
current political powers of a Germany. But they're also saying, hey,
don't dunk on these folks too hard, because I'm from there,
or I know those folks, I'm related to them, and
the US government in theory very much in theory protects
(22:55):
free speech. Groups like the German American Bund b U
and d RISE they openly support specific Nazi ideology along
with you know, the symbols and the flags and the marching.
And to be clear, a lot of these groups, especially
the more militant ones, were similar to what we might
call the QAnon movement of today, right minus the online presence.
(23:19):
QAnon's largely started as nonline thing, similar to a tea
party or whatever kind of extremist ideology you want to
put in the overall German American community. At least again,
to be sure, according to the historians I read, they
didn't really vibe with this group. They were like, hey,
we moved you know, we just want a good economy,
(23:41):
We want our kids to have a better opportunity at life.
And the Nazi American groups, for the most part, they
add little actual connection to the Nazi Party in Germany
what our pal laur and Vocobama would call the actual
facts German Nazis. But still even with that, they were fanboys.
(24:05):
They wanted to bend American politics closer to Nazi ideals,
particularly fascism and anti semitism. And a lot of Americans,
German American or not, we're kind of squigged out by
this because they thought, what if there might be a
German fifth column? And this was a fear that just
(24:28):
translated from earlier fears about communism, right, a secret cabal
of communists that were out to take over the hearts
and minds of America. Even though, to be one hundred
percent transparent, none of the Nazi American groups were down
with communism. It was a big part of their speeches,
(24:50):
like the best way to be anti communists. That's how
they started, because you know, they try to normalize things.
They're like, hey, you hate communists, right, America? And they say, yeah,
we hate communists And they say, well, we hate them too,
And the best way to fight communism is Nazi stuff.
Speaker 2 (25:08):
Yeah, fascism strong strong people that come through and just
tell you what is and what's good and what's bad exactly.
Speaker 3 (25:17):
And you know this is not the dunk on anybody's
personal perspective or experience. It's an understandable thing if we
exercise empathy. Plus, the US is a country where people
are then, as now in theory, legally allowed to shoot
their mouths off about all sorts of wacka do ideas, right,
(25:38):
I personally like seeing some crazy guy with a megaphone
on a street corner. The concept is, so long as
you're not calling for violence nor harming people, you're theoretically
good to go, as long as they're just homegrown dissonance
and propagandists. But the question is, what if there were
(25:59):
actual wolves operating amid the sympathizer sheep. In nineteen thirty eight,
Hoover and the FBI, their fears were confirmed. This is
where we discover the first conspiracy, which is again adapted
into a movie that you can easily view on either
Archive dot Org or Amazon Today or Turner Classic Movies
(26:22):
or TCO.
Speaker 2 (26:24):
Yeah, and the information contained in that movie is based
on a screenplay which is based on some articles that Touro.
Speaker 3 (26:33):
Was based on, a book based on the articles.
Speaker 2 (26:36):
Yes, based on a well, yes, well there. According to TCM,
the screenplay itself is based on the articles themselves, rather
than even the book. So it was it was articles
that were told by Torow to this guy named David G. Whittles,
who was working for the New York Post in nineteen
(26:56):
thirty eight, in nineteen thirty nine. So it's that, you know,
this is a story that Leon told or mister Trureau
told to somebody else and then it got turned into
the story, right. I think that's just important to remember
because it's I don't know, it's it's probably a lot
of it is probably correct, but it is one person's viewpoint,
(27:18):
and this person tends to, at least according to a
lot of people that knew him, didn't always say the truth.
So it's like, okay, so here is, as you said,
how this whole thing begins. It's February nineteen thirty eight.
The police in New York City arrest this guy. His
names Quinta Gustav Maria rumrick On behalf of the Army
(27:42):
and the State Department they arrest this guy because the
Army in the State Department are like, this guy's bad.
The State Department received a tip from British intelligence claiming
that this person was impersonating the Secretary of State in
order to obtain thirty five blank US passport.
Speaker 3 (28:00):
Why what an interesting question. Let's bring him in and
ask he's impersonating the Secretary at the State of at
the time is a guy named Cordel Hole, and Cordell
Hole obviously no longer the Secretary of State. However, it
sounds crazy ambitious right now for anybody who's tried to
get a passport with their own real identity in the
(28:23):
modern day. Rumbrick knew enough about the processes and mechanisms
of the US government to do some social engineering or
attempt it. However, as we'll see, Rumrick had an ego disease.
He was maybe a little bit well, let's say it
(28:46):
this way. He's a crafty character, he's ambitious, he's more
than a little taken with himself. He's a naturalized citizen.
He was a US Army sergeant till he deserted, and
he's a textbook example. I would just argue of a
guy who fancied himself destined for greater things, As any
(29:07):
investigator can tell you, small people with big egos or
a gift when it comes to busting a crime ring.
And so you can see this in the articles and
the book and the film which we'll talk about all
three of those towards the end where we get to
the Leon question here. But in all of those depictions
(29:30):
or descriptions or narratives, when common throat we see is
that Rumrick or the characters based on Rumrick are easily
manipulated by flattery. So the interrogators are saying, oh, wow,
you're a mastermind, you know. I mean, look, I interview
a lot of criminals, but you're different, So surely you'll
(29:52):
have a better lie than that or something like this.
And so Raman ultimately agrees to confess this part is true.
This is not the smoking mirrors nor the adaptations. He says, well,
you know, I'm not actually just a regular Joe, a
regular naturalized citizen and deserter. I am acting on behalf
of Nazi agents the abver Germany's foreign intelligence service at
(30:17):
the time. And he says further, you fools, German agents
have worked since late nineteen twenties to penetrate, to infiltrate industry, government,
and academia in the United States. And then he said, look,
I'll tell you my story. Because he liked talking about himself.
(30:37):
He said, I'll give you the names of ten to
fifteen spies that are currently working for Nazi Germany as
part of this infiltration operation. And I'll tell you some
of the stuff we already found, which is interesting.
Speaker 2 (30:52):
Oh yeah, and there's a clip in the movie that
I guess we could play. Yeah, why not? This is
this is a movie from the thirties. Let's play this clip.
Speaker 4 (31:03):
I am one of thousand stationed in every part of
the United States to steal the secrets of your national defense.
There are spies stationed in all of the Navy yards
in Brooklyn, Philadelphia, and Newport News. There are Nazi agents
in the aeroplane and munition factories at Bristol.
Speaker 2 (31:21):
Question, they're everywhere, The spies are everywhere. Did he say.
Speaker 3 (31:25):
Newport News, Newport News, Virginia. Right, that's a place, Yeah,
Newport News, Virginia.
Speaker 2 (31:32):
Oh okay, I did not know. I thought I was
looking at a publication or a paper when I when
I heard Newport News.
Speaker 3 (31:39):
Yeah, so that's the adaptation. Going back to Rumrick in
his interrogations, he does say they were able to already
have stolen top secret US technology codes prototype of a
code breaking machine, not Enigma, importantly, that's a different one,
(32:00):
that's different realm of cryptography. And they also got data
about communication structures and the latest US fighter planes. So
they leave the interrogation room with US folks and go
to a very intense series of meetings and community cayse.
This is a classic bad news but not the worst
(32:22):
news situation. The State Department, the FBI, and the War
Department are in what corporate America would call a healthy
discussion about the next steps, which for all us non
corporate folks out there means that they were yelling over
each other and they were super pissed. And one of
(32:43):
the most pissed people is the legendarily non paranoid J
Edgar Hoover.
Speaker 2 (32:49):
Yeah, yeah, Well Hoover immediately looked at it and just said, guys,
I don't have enough control over this. This thing is compromised,
for sure. There's way too many in this pot. I
don't want I don't even want to touch it.
Speaker 3 (33:04):
I wonder if it was even about control for him
as much as as much as it might have been
about just quality standards. I mean, you're probably right on both.
But but he, as you said, he noted that the
case was already compromised. Right, This guy by this time
(33:27):
is already ah off his office top hat, you know
what top hats. But he's off his top hat about
communist infiltration. He's he's thinking, you know, if you don't
work directly for me, I can't trust you. And to him,
the State Department, in the War Department may all be
already be riddled with foreign agents, but the War Department
(33:52):
insists that this is the FBI's job. And the War
Department at this time has a lot of juice because
the world is increasingly starting to They've gone from worrying
about a new World war to increasingly assuming that it's
going to happen. The poop is on the way to
the fan, the cars about the swerve and hit the tree.
(34:15):
So despite all the objections and ardent objections they were
the task of tackling the spy ring falls to the FBI.
This is the beginning of our second conspiracy. It's a
counter conspiracy, and from the jump, everybody in the FBI says, well,
if you work for us, you understand, you're aware of
(34:37):
our boss Hoover. You know that we have to keep
this stuff super secret, no chasing publicity. And this is
where we enter to Row at this point. He's an
experienced special agent and he's the kind of guy who,
on paper is a perfect fit for this operation.
Speaker 2 (34:56):
Yeah, so they said, hey, this is your assignment, dude,
get out there, get it done. So they take all
the information they got from Rumrick right. Then they go
and interview other people who were apparently a part of
this whole group. Who's this next person, doctor Iganskribbel.
Speaker 3 (35:16):
Yeah, he had already been identified as the head of
the US German intelligence ring. He's probably the smartest. He's
one of the most fortunate of the German spies. He
functions in a big way as a recruiter, so's it's
like a multi level marketing scheme. He's recruiting people, they're
(35:38):
recruiting other people, and he is. He is successfully arrested,
the good doctor. Weirdly enough, he makes bail and surprise,
as soon as he makes bail, he skips down. He's
off to Europe. He's not coming back, you know, And
it seems that Toro is realizing, despite Rumrick's claims, he
(36:01):
himself is more a minor operator. He's a minor cog,
you know what I mean. He's not James Bond, this guy,
but he is a lot like a jukebox in that
once you put a quarter in him, the guy, I'll
sing And he starts breaking down the operation as far
as he knows it. He talks about folks like Johanna Hoffman,
(36:22):
who serves as a go between for Rumrick's contacts in Germany,
a guy named Carl Schluter, and he says, this Carl
guy Schlooter is also contacting other spies in America. Our pal,
Johanna Hoffmann gets a lot of mail, and that's something
(36:43):
that Hoover and the boys can look into.
Speaker 2 (36:45):
Yeah, reading people's mail, listening to people's calls, dode all
of it. What was the title. There's a Time magazine
article on this and it is titled Snoop, Look and listen.
They're all about that.
Speaker 3 (36:58):
Oh yeah, yeah, library records, postal records, and according to Rumrick,
before he was captured, he was using the code name Crown.
We can't even get into agent Sex, which is another
alleged thing is so nuts. So Rumrick, under his operator
named Crown, would email letters to a Scottish woman named
(37:22):
Jesse Jordan, who was also a spy for German foreign intelligence,
and he, in his correspondence mentions a plan for German
secret service agents to overpower actually to mug an American
Army colonel in Manhattan at the Hotel McAlpin, and they
(37:44):
were going to mug him to steal East Coast defense
plans for the US in the situation of war, because
again a war has not started yet, and the agents
will take the plans.
Speaker 2 (37:55):
Yeah, that's the concept, right, But having the defense plans
for an entire seaboard of a country, if maybe your
navy was going to roll up, would be a nice
thing to have. It makes a lot of sense strategically, right, right.
Speaker 3 (38:13):
And then afterwards, you know, you want to eliminate the hand, right.
So the idea was, after they knock this guy out
and steal his stuff, they'll try to do a stitch
up job to blame vague communist forces or no communist affiliates,
which you know it's happened before, and it does work
(38:36):
when you pull it off. But these investigations that Touro
is doing. They work as sort of a daisy chain
and gaming connections. If this, then what so you find
one snake in the grass, you wiggle it a little,
you manipulate it to revealing others And to be fair
Toerna's team were closing in on spies. But why did
(38:59):
the FBI itself later refer to him as a bungler.
You can go to the actual FBI archive and I
know not all the writing is super compelling, but they
have a lot of good articles to be like, they
do have some really good stuff. And what article is
called a bite out of history Spies Spies Lost, Lessons Learned,
(39:22):
And the FBI writes the FBI has some serious beef
with Leon because they say that he kind of screwed
the pooch on the whole thing.
Speaker 2 (39:36):
Well, yeh. He would interview people who were telling him
and everybody who's interviewing them, Hi, I'm a spy. How
are you nice to meet you? I'm a spy, and
then you know, and here are all my activities I
was doing as a spy. And then Turo comes through
at the end of every interview and says, okay, hey,
thank you so much. For all that information. You've been
extremely helpful. Now you're gonna have to say all of
(39:59):
this again, and you're going to testify before a grand jury. Cool,
and guess what most of those spies did.
Speaker 3 (40:07):
They left, yeah, post as soon as they were out
of the room. They were booking a taxi to a port,
and they were gone, and then they were alerting other
people in their network. The FBI specifically says this quote
is a verbatim quote. After each interview, Toro told the
spies that they need to testify before a grand jury,
(40:27):
and most fled the country to avoid prosecution. Makes soon ass,
I mean, yeah, soon as And they shouldn't have even
let they shouldn't even let that doctor out on bail.
I was crazy. He also, fun fact, was one of
the first FBI investigations to employ polygraphs, which are you know,
(40:48):
junk science. But that's important because most of the later
cases in these conflicting conspiracies ultimately depended upon the statements
of spies themselves without a ton of corroborating evidence, because again,
the war hadn't happened yet, so it's tough to you know, like,
if you have the plans for defense on the East Coast,
(41:12):
and this is all over the press at the time.
If you have the plans for defense on the East Coast,
and a successful operation leverages those plans, then it's a
lot easier to convict people because you know, something actionable occurred.
Speaker 2 (41:26):
Yeah, but now you're being invaded by another country, right,
So you're in a whole other situation. And are you
even going to be able to convict somebody if you
can't stop an invasion? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (41:41):
So this is again bad news, but not the worst
news situation untill you know, it does.
Speaker 2 (41:47):
Get worse, and it will right after this break.
Speaker 3 (41:56):
And we've returned. This became the FBI's for major international
spy case right in there. There had been spies busted
before the creation of the FBI. There have been other operations,
but nothing of this magnitude. Eighteen people are indicted. The
trial is going to be held in Manhattan Federal Court.
(42:20):
The judge is John C. Knox. It's October fourteenth, nineteen
thirty eight when they start selecting the jury. And I'm
sure there was a lot of prejudice there, right, How
many German Americans got to be those twelve lucky people,
no wonder I'm going to say not many and October
(42:41):
fourteenth is when Rumrick pleads guilty. Fast forward just a
little bit December second, nineteen thirty eight, less than a
year before the beginning of World War two. These cases
go to trial. At least the case is for the
people who were apprehended and didn't imediately flee down as
(43:01):
soon as they were given the chance.
Speaker 2 (43:04):
Yeah, there are three individuals, Johanna Hoffmann, Otto Hermann, Voss
and Eric Glasser GLA Sr. They were all found guilty
of espionage through this trial.
Speaker 3 (43:17):
Yeah, and Gunther Rumrick is found guilty as well, but
he gets a reduced sentence because he turns Stooley. So
the spies all serve between two to six years each. Again,
our buddy doctor Grebel has successfully fled the country in
nineteen thirty eight. As a funny story. In nineteen thirty eight,
(43:39):
depending on who you ask, Tureau is fired for breaking
the FBI the FBI oath right or the understood the
implicit assumption of secrecy because he's leaked stories to the press.
He's publicized a lot of stuff. He's the one who
pitched writing articles for the papers. And the one version
(44:05):
I heard to that earlier point about multiple versions. One
version I heard was that our buddy Leon resigned to
write his book, so he sent his own resignation proactively
to the FBI.
Speaker 2 (44:18):
But he didn't say, hey, I'm going to go write
a book to like anybody official, right, he just.
Speaker 3 (44:25):
Put in his resignation, but word got around, And that's
another version of this. The other if he's by fur
Kate and formed back. Then the conclusion of the funny
version of it is that j Agar Hoover finds out
this guy's resigning and then finds out why, and Jay
Edgar Hoover is furious, is consumed with wrath, and he says,
(44:49):
I reject your resignation, jerk, You're fired. No resigning for
you. You don't get it. It's like the opposite version of
you can't fire me, I quit. And the problem was
that there was serious damage here, and the damage reverberated. However,
Touro still had to go to trial right of these suspects,
(45:12):
and when he was on trial, he got accused of
being a huge publicity hound, like, oh, you weren't really
protecting America. You wanted to become famous, you wanted money, power, respect,
You tampered with witnesses. They even said that he took
a bribe from doctor Greebel, which we couldn't prove, but
(45:36):
he was accused of it, and that goes to the
court of public opinion. It is true though he did
end up writing those newspaper articles he wrote Nazi Spies
in America. According to some sources, those articles directly got
adapted to a film. According to other sources, that book
got adapted to a film, which is.
Speaker 2 (45:56):
Either way, it's money right right, He.
Speaker 3 (45:59):
Did get paid for it, which goes to ethical concerns.
In Matt off Air, you were saying, the title of
the film as it's known today is Confessions of a
Nazi Spy, again freely available. It's very interesting look at
society of the time. It is propagandistic itself because it's
Hollywood's first explicitly anti Nazi kind of film of this caliber.
(46:27):
But you also said you have the original working title.
Speaker 2 (46:31):
Oh, there are several working titles, but one of them
that you can find on TCM if you check it out,
is Storm Over America. Storm was coming back in nineteen
thirty eight. Then it's funny in the trailer they say
it was our duty to make this film and it's
(46:51):
your American privilege to see it. And then it was
chosen as Best Picture of the Year by the National
Board of Review in nineteen thirty nine.
Speaker 3 (47:00):
Yeah, I knew that part. This is I mean, this
is it was successful.
Speaker 2 (47:05):
There's no way around it.
Speaker 3 (47:07):
It was very successful. But I think we could argue
the film is more successful than the actual operation on
the rum Rick spy ring because, due too, in big
part to Ro's investigation methods, four times as many spies
escaped as were captured. So it's kind of like trying
(47:32):
to It's kind of like trying to pick up rice
with a fork.
Speaker 2 (47:37):
Yeah that has not been cooked right, uncompressed?
Speaker 3 (47:41):
Yes, yes, yes, yes, And I mean the other thing is,
you know, I was wondering if we mentioned this. This
is not the end of Leon's professional or personal life.
He was involved in a lot of other situations. You
would think this would be such a black marker to
merit on somebody's career that you're just out right you
(48:02):
retire in exile or obscurity, you start an EMU farm
or something. But he got hired by Eisenhower.
Speaker 2 (48:11):
Nice career move.
Speaker 3 (48:13):
Yeah, he rounded up thirty five thousand or he helped
in an operation round up thirty five thousand suspected Nazi
war criminals. He got a bronze star. He wrote another book,
and I haven't read this one. It's called Where My
Shadow Falls? In nineteen forty nine.
Speaker 2 (48:30):
I told you he's in the shadows.
Speaker 3 (48:33):
Where does his shadow fall? Oh? He works for a billionaire.
He works for Jean Paul Getty. And then he just
hangs around Paris for most of the rest of his life,
and he becomes like a popular dude on the street.
They call him the American Mayor, not an official title.
Speaker 2 (48:50):
Yes, a man of mystery, right there.
Speaker 3 (48:53):
An American Mayor, and he does. We do know that
he passes away in December tenthnineteen eighty six. And that
number is fascinating because these stories I don't know about you, man,
These stories often feel so constrained to a distinct time
in history. Nineteen eighty six. It's pretty nuts. A lot
(49:17):
of people listening were around when that guy was alive.
Speaker 2 (49:21):
It's weird to think about, but it does make me.
I don't know. When I think about his life overall,
I think about the allegations of him making up a
lot of stuff about himself. It does make me wonder,
I don't know, back in the day, like the vetting
process for an individual human and trying to check records,
(49:42):
you really did have to go off of word of mouth,
often like an employer if you're checking references or something,
or I don't know, parents, family friends, teachers, professors like
you just had to listen to what other people had
to say about somebody and trust that that was true.
Speaker 3 (49:59):
A other Daisy chain investigation kept shaking the trees, I mean,
and I love that point because then it also shows
us why a lot of people had collegiate backgrounds, right,
why a lot of State department and intelligence agencies pull
from what we would consider upper Aeschlot or IVY IVY
(50:21):
League schools. Right, there is a pre formed community.
Speaker 2 (50:25):
Exactly, and everybody can say, oh, yeah, I know that person.
I remember they've told me this or that. Yeah, that's
what they told me.
Speaker 3 (50:34):
His secret frat name is Finicky Jenkins. Oh dear, Oh okay,
he checks out. I mean, but that's also a weakness
in those organizations, you know. That's why the Cambridge spy
ring was able to exist at all. I think it's
because of that inherent class system, as well as, to
your point, the very difficult task of vetting people. It's
(50:57):
a little bit easier now, or depending on what side
of the fence you're on, it's a lot more difficult
to be a bit of a con artist. They the FBI,
going back to the original article, they say that this
guy's background just did not prepare him to do espionage,
and that when he leaked information about the case, he
(51:19):
violated everything an FBI agent is supposed to do. And
we've talked about this before. You know, whenever you read
an article, especially in high level US media, about an
official speaking on condition of anonymity, that was that was
greenlit like four ways the sundown, you know, before somebody
(51:41):
said yeah, i'll speak anonymously.
Speaker 2 (51:44):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (51:45):
There's like tons of conversations they have to have with
their bosses. Somebody probably checks with another agency and says, hey,
are you cool with us talking trash about Taran? And
they're like yeah, but don't don't use your real name.
And they're like, oh, okay, I'm going to go as
my frat name, Finicky Jenkins. And they're like, well, just okay,
in that case, don't use a name at all.
Speaker 2 (52:07):
That's pretty honny. It is interesting how there's so much
to be made about Roumrick getting coins put into him
and then singing right, But that is pretty much what
Turou did because he was so excited to tell people
about what he had done. M all right, see some
commonalities here, agreed.
Speaker 3 (52:29):
Sometimes people become the monsters they hunt right or acquire
their attributes. And I think that's a fantastic point because
we also see it was an earlier It was an
earlier conversation we're having about the the professor or the
(52:49):
academic who was in charge of Hannibal Lecter in Silence
of the Lambs, both the novels and the film adaptations.
His main concern was publicity, right, and success, And you
could argue, I think you could argue with a lot
of validity, that's Roe's at least partially doing this stuff.
(53:10):
I mean, when he leaks information, is he trying to
shake the tree, rouse some more operatives, or as the
FBI very very heavily implies, was he just trying to
get attention and money and center himself as a hero.
I don't know if those things are mutually exclusive, to
be honest, because sometimes people believe their own bs.
Speaker 2 (53:31):
Yeah, I think that's quite often the case. But I wonder,
I wonder how you would Okay, let's game it out.
You do come out with this information, you leak it
to the New York Post, and wait, how does that
shake the tree? How would that not cause anybody who is,
you know, engaging in spying behaviors? Why would they come forward?
Speaker 4 (53:56):
Ah?
Speaker 3 (53:56):
It would only work if you already have strong suspicion
or understanding of them. So if you already know their
established patterns and correspondence, and you leak something like that,
and the next thing you do is watch them and
see how, if and how they alter that behavior pattern.
Speaker 2 (54:16):
Because so if you suspect somebody of being a spy,
you you give in this case, real information and just
see how they react.
Speaker 3 (54:25):
Right, Like I hypothetically or just thought experiment way to
do it. Let's say there were let's say you and
Paul and I had pretty solid intel. We had arrested
our Rumrick or whatever, and we had a pretty good
(54:49):
understanding of five other spies in the Atlanta metro area, right,
and we knew their names, we knew enough about them
to monitor or them, and then we let slide in
you know, the Atlanta Journal or Constitution under condition of
anonymity or whatever, that we suspect there are more spies
(55:10):
in the Atlanta area, and then we would just keep
those five people on twenty four to seven surveillance to
see who runs for the airport first, and we would
meet them there.
Speaker 2 (55:21):
That's that's really interesting, and I think that theoretically you
would work for those five particular people. The larger effect,
and maybe that's what the FBI was criticizing. The larger
effect is that the rest of the network, because you're
you're going after a small nest, basically, the rest of
the network just says, Okay, we're out couple.
Speaker 3 (55:40):
Of eyes ghosts. Yeah, and you got to let the
you got to cauterize the wound, right, so burn those
other five.
Speaker 2 (55:48):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (55:48):
It's kind of like, this is why I'm putting it
in there to be fair. But this is why I
remain suspicious of the purity of Thuro's motives, because it
reminds me of the idea of leaking information for greater
advantage or forward progress on an operation like this. It
reminds me a lot of very specific moves in fighting
(56:12):
games like Yoshimitsu. For anybody familiar with. Techan has a
move where he can stab himself and it does a
lot of damage to him. But if his opponent is
in a position that doesn't often happen, where they're standing
directly behind them, then it's a big win. But that
position usually doesn't happen, is the issue. That's why it's
(56:33):
a special move.
Speaker 2 (56:34):
Why did he get a sword? Baffled me when Yoshimitzu
got a sword right?
Speaker 3 (56:40):
Oh, and everybody else is pretty much hand to hands.
Speaker 2 (56:42):
Yeah, go on, well what's up with that?
Speaker 3 (56:45):
In the new Tech? And they have oh, a guy
who is I guess his background is a spy as well.
He for some reason has a knife and a gun.
Speaker 2 (56:53):
Oh in a suit.
Speaker 3 (56:54):
Yeah, it doesn't seem fair.
Speaker 2 (56:56):
And they got a bear in the mix.
Speaker 3 (56:57):
Come on, yeah, they had a bear in the mix.
Do you think you could fight a panda bear? Like,
not a bear bear, but a panda bear.
Speaker 2 (57:04):
Probably not.
Speaker 3 (57:05):
I don't feel like I would ever. They seem so
non agro. I feel like if I was holding bamboo,
a panda bear might get angry at me or like
snatch for.
Speaker 2 (57:19):
The Yeah, I just want them, yeah, come on, man,
give me some pamboo.
Speaker 3 (57:23):
Yeah, yeah, it's more like that Dave Chappelle character than
it is like nagro thing. But yeah, you're right, I
never thought about that. Yoshiminsu has a sword. Huh. Story
for another day. What is the most overpowered fighting game
character in your opinion, because I think we both played
a lot of fighting games.
Speaker 2 (57:44):
Oh, I don't know, overpowered. Uh, probably saying Gief. I'm
just playing.
Speaker 1 (57:52):
That's funny.
Speaker 3 (57:52):
Yeah, yeah, I don't know. You tell us, folks, conspiracy.
iHeartRadio dot com. We do have to say. I guess
there's there is silver lining. There's this history and I've
been reading Rodrie Jeffrey Jones Jeffries Jones, who wrote a
book called the FBI a History and several other articles,
and Jeffries Jones argues that because of the flaws in
(58:17):
this spy ring case do pretty much entirely to Row,
the US embarked on a better counter espionage program like
it went up to Franklin D. Roosevelt, president at the time,
and he said, you know, his fancy version of holy smokes,
this is terrible. We have to make sure this doesn't
(58:41):
happen again. And so in a way this informs a
lot of the co intel pro stuff. We see later
a lot of the sweeping surveillance laws that come into
play the s Stellar Wind, Stellar Wind, there we go,
five eyes to watch them all? You know, I don't know, man.
It seems like, perhaps, at least in part, because of
(59:04):
these conflicting conspiracies, the US government has gone down gone
down a potentially dark path, breaking or bending the laws
of their own country multiple times, up to and including
murder in service of a greater good. I mean, is
there a balance to be struck? And if so, what
(59:26):
is it?
Speaker 2 (59:26):
That's a great question. Why don't you let us know
what you think about it? You can reach us all
over the place on YouTube and on x on what
was the other one? Facebook? We are conspiracy stuff. On
Instagram and TikTok we are conspiracy stuff.
Speaker 3 (59:42):
Show and if you're not, if you're not sipping the
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Go nuts. We love New leads for shows. We love reactions.
We also like just some nice things, like the anonymous
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Most importantly, give yourself a cool name nickname moniker. Let
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Take us to the edge of.
Speaker 2 (01:00:37):
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Speaker 3 (01:00:38):
We will do the rest. Drop us a line at
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Speaker 2 (01:00:43):
Are conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com. Stuff they Don't Want
(01:01:06):
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