Selects: The Time Nazis Invaded Florida

During World War II, Nazis invaded the United States with saboteurs bent on fomenting chaos. Three times. Learn all about it in this classic episode.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, everybody, it's me Josh, and for this week's Select,
I've decided it's time for a rousing bout of goofy
history with our twenty fifteen episode on the Nazis who
invaded the United States during World War Two. I won't
give anything away, but suffice to say it's the kind
of topic that records itself. So relax. Let me give
you a quick shoulder up there, very nice and enjoy

(00:23):
this classic stuff you should know at Welcome to Stuff
you should know, a production of iHeartRadio. Hey, and welcome
to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles w Chuck Bryant,

(00:43):
Jerry's over there. This is stuff you should no. Okay,
ready for this. I'm ready. We're gonna channel our stuff
you missed in history class. Yeah. I'm not sure if
they've done this or not. Have you are you? I
don't know, So, Chuck, I don't know if you know

(01:06):
this one because it didn't come up in this article.
But back in World War Two, did you know that
the Japanese actually carried out bombing campaigns, two of them
in Oregon? I didn't know that, Oh you did. I'm
a bit of a buff and that insane. Yeah. I
mean there's a lot of forgotten history or a little
known history that you read it in. Thank God for

(01:28):
like the Internet, because someone will post an article and say,
I bet you never knew this, yeah, and then you're like, what, Yeah,
that's pretty much the function of the Internet what you
just describe, you know. Sure, So this one, I think
I've learned about this from unsurprisingly Uncle John's Bathroom Reader
years and years and years ago. Oh yeah, but definitely

(01:48):
not in this kind of detail. It turns out that
in World War Two, in nineteen forty two, I believe
in Armagansett, New York, which is on Long Island, and
ponte Vedra Beach, Florida, which is just south of Jacksonville. Yeah. Um,
Nazi saboteurs landed, they invaded America. Yeah, pretty remarkable, it

(02:12):
really is. What's even more remarkable is how badly their
operations went. Yeah. What's remarkable is well, not remarkable, what's uh.
Thankfully they chose a bunch of dopes, um, half hearted dope,
half hearted dopes who I don't know if they didn't

(02:32):
do their research. We'll get into how they picked these
these schmows. Yeah, but um, it didn't go so well,
I really did. But if they had to pick them
like the right guys, it might have been a whole
different story. Oh yeah, totally in this war and the FBI,
especially Jager Hoover, really lucked out that these guys were
half hearted dope. Well not if you ask him. No,

(02:55):
it was just you might as well have worn a
cape around the office. Yeah, you know, well he may
have a little else. So back in World War two,
even before World War Tour, before the US centered the
Second World War, Hitler had this great fantasy of sending
New York City up in flames, like he really wanted

(03:18):
to just destroy New York. And Werner von Braun, the
guy who helped get America to the Moon, was working
on a rocket program that could strike the United States
from Europe. That was one thing never fully realized because
the war came to an end before they could develop

(03:38):
the right kind of missile. But they were working on it, yea.
And they were also working on long range bombers they
could fly out of Europe all the way to America's
east coast and bomb. Yeah. Apparently Hitler used to literally
sit around and watch like film footage of cities burning
and like fantasizes about New York City. Crazy. Yeah, well
he was pretty crazy, sure, but he finally realized that, like,

(04:02):
if he was going to get New York, the best,
most efficient, most at hand way to do that was
to send saboteurs into the United States to infiltrate and
do New York themselves. That's right, you know, terrorists essentially. Well, yeah,
the only thing that kept him from being considered full
fledge just straight up terrorists is because we were formally

(04:25):
at war with this country. So yeah, they were. They
were considered officially spies and unofficially saboteurs. Yes. Uh, should
we shout out the articles here? Yes, let's right off
the bat. I read, well, I read a few. I
read one on Damned Interesting, which was good. There was

(04:45):
one you sent called World War two German saboteurs invade
America in nineteen forty two. Yeah, that was on history Net.
History Net, and I feel like there was one more.
There was a Der Spiegel article. Oh yeah, that's one
of um called Operation from Pastorious Hitler's unfulfilled dream of
the New York in flames. Yeah, poor Hitler, I know

(05:07):
his dreams failed. So uh, World War two hadn't been
raging for long for the US when this happened. It
was right after Pearl Harbor was bombed, and Hitler said,
you know what, they think they're over there, They're a
long way from us, so they probably feel pretty pretty safe.
So let me undermine that and let me devise this plan.

(05:31):
And it was originally going to be a wave of
saboteurs like every you know, four to six weeks. They
were going to be sending in small teams of terrorists
slash spies to wreak havoc on the US, and thankfully
it didn't work out that way, so it was kind
of scrapped. Yeah, the the ob fair, I think that's

(05:52):
how you pronounce it. You're the one who knows German
up fair, Is that right? Yeah? So that was the
UM the basically the sabotage unit of the German Military
Intelligence Corps. And these guys had kind of perfected their
craft with explosives and terrorism and all that jazz, yeah,
in European theaters already in the war. And so they

(06:16):
set up a school, a terrorist school, which supposedly these
guys were trained in like jiu jitsu as well as explosives,
and stuff like that. Yeah, and I'll bet it looked
a lot like um enter the dragon in there, but
with Germans, you know. Yeah. I wonder if they were
training kung fu school on an island somewhere, but this

(06:36):
is in the woods. I wonder if they in the
Black forest perhaps, Yeah, I wonder if they were trained
in pinuckle and movie watching and car buying. I think
that just came naturally and rolling over and singing like
a canary. So the ab there selected a man. His
name was Walter Kapp or is that Cappy? Walter Kopp

(06:58):
what Walter Kapp, who was a pudgy, bull necked man
has described in the history article and the reason that
they selected him to head up this operation, which Cap
came to nickname his Operation Pastorius, which is named after
Francis Daniel Pastorius, one of the early German immigrants to
the United States who arrived in Philadelphia in sixteen eighty three.

(07:21):
The reason they selected Cap for this operation was because
he had lived in America for twelve years already, so
he was was he understood America, how it functioned, what
targets should be struck, that kind of stuff, And they said,
select your teams yeah, and so he put a donkey

(07:41):
on the wall and got a tale with a little
pin on it. Right. Now, what he did was he
did some research and he went through the records of
something called the Auslin Institute. Yea, and they were big
on getting Germans back to Germany, right, ones that had
emigrated to the United States work out. Yeah, okay, So
specifically the ones who were looking he was looking for

(08:02):
ones who had been in the United States, yeah, in
this case, and a lot of these people had been
in what was called the boond or is it the
bund I would say, it's a booned, the American boond,
which is like the basically the Nazi sympathizers in the
United States, right, And they would set up little shops
all over the country. Yeah, and they would speak out

(08:24):
against m. Franklin Roosevelt or speak in favor of fascism.
And apparently they managed to get twenty thousand people at
a rally at Madison Square Garden once by holding a
Knicks game. Pretty much, I don't think the Knicks could
even get twenty thousand people that come out in Madison Square.
But they were so unpredictable and radical here in the

(08:48):
United states that even the Nazi Party officially distanced itself
from these guys. Yeah, officially. Unofficially they recruited from their
ranks specifically for Operation Pestorious. Yeah, so what he found
some some blue collar dudes. All but two of them
had been Nazi Party members, which was a good start.

(09:09):
Ford dropped off right off the bat, and that left
him with what would be eight dudes, which they divided
up into two teams of four, one leader on each
side and the three dopes below them, with Cap at
the head of the whole thing. Yeah, even though he
didn't come over to the United States for the operation,
he was just sort of running the training initially. Yeah,

(09:31):
and he was watching him do jiu jitsu, I guess.
So so here in the hilarious Germans doing jiu jitsu
in that really I don't think so. It just seems
a little like, you know, neighborhood ninja camp kind of stuff.
You know, Well, they had to train in some sort
of hand to hand combat. Now they're saboteurs. They're not.

(09:54):
They don't need to know that they're not. They're supposed
to know how to blow up a bridge. Yeah, but
what if like it caught in the middle, they got
to like turn and run away jiu jitsu somebody down. Now,
you just run if you're a saboteur. Well that's some
foreshadowing right there. So I hear the players on one
on Team one, we'll call it Team US. How about that?

(10:14):
Is that one? Sure? Okay? On Team eints, you had
the leader, George John Dash and he was thirty nine.
He was the oldest guy and he I know, thirty nine,
and he was picked because he was he was a
smooth talker, and he was apparently just seemed very American,
which was if you're gonna stick some Germans over there

(10:34):
to to be saboteurs, it's probably good if they can
pass themselves off as just regular good German Americans. Right.
Plus also you have the added benefit of not having
to teach them to speak colloquial English. Sure, um, and
they already know the terrain, they know the culture. Where's
Coney Island? Right? Ivanta hotdog? Exactly? Yeah? So they were

(10:56):
all good, right? Yeah? Was that Count Dracula? Oh no,
that was that was my German sabatur. So that's why
they went with the guys who had already spent time
in America. Plus they it also showed, um, a pretty
significant loyalty to your homeland, the fatherland in this case. Yeah,

(11:16):
where when war breaks out, you go back to where
the war is being fought. Sure supported, Yeah, you know
what I mean. Yeah, so they're like selecting from the
Ostlands Institute roles of emigrants who were also boond members.
It seemed like a a just a knock it out
of the park group of guys. Yeah. So, um, josh,

(11:38):
he was. He actually did, like you said, served in
the German Army in World War One, came to America,
worked as a waiter, and then in nineteen thirty nine said,
you know what duty calls, I'm going back home. The
second guy on the first team, Ernest peter Berger. He
was supposedly a smart guy, and he had an interesting
story because he was he had long been a Nazi,

(12:01):
since they said, as you know, as long as Hitler
himself had been a Nazi. Yeah, he was part of
the beer hall push. Yeah, he was a what you
call as early adopter. He was a Nazism. Yeah, he
really was. And he actually had fled Germany for the
United States because he was afraid he was gonna get
brought up on brawling charges. That's right. He liked to fight. Yeah,

(12:23):
And he stayed there for about six years and then
worked as a machinist in the Midwest, even joined the
National Guard, the US National Guard, yeah, and became an
American citizen yep. And then he went back after Hitler
game power. Right. Well, he went back mainly because of
the Great Depression, because oh is that right? Yeah, but
I mean it coincided. But he was like, yeah, this

(12:44):
place stinks now, yeah, and Hitler's in power, I'm gonna
go become a brown Shirt and rough up people on
the street, which is what he did pretty much because
he really did love to fight. And the brown Shirts
were purged in the Night of the Long Knives by
Hitler and his cronies. Yeah, and um Burger was it
was Burger right. Yeah. He managed to not be killed

(13:11):
during that purge. Yeah. So he was working with his
buddy um Ernst room of the Stormtroopers like serious business. Right.
Rome was actually killed during the purge. Oh yeah, they
put apparently they put a pistol in his cell with
him and gave him ten minutes to kill himself. Yeah,
and he said, if if you want me dead, Adolph's

(13:33):
gonna have to do it himself. And they came back
and he was staying there, right, and Hitler's like, what
is going on here? Um? And the guy was standing
there with the shirt off, with his chest beard to him.
Yeah supposedly, and they just shot him in the chess
point blank. Yeah. And the head of the brown shoots
went down. So that didn't work out for him, No,

(13:53):
But Burger did survive this. Yeah, he did survive and
went off to college. But then he wrote a a
paper about the Gestapo that was not too favorable and
he got sent to a concentration camp for his efforts
for seventeen months. Right, And then when he was released,
they said you can come out, but you have to
go off with the army. Yeah, they harassed his wife.

(14:15):
It was I don't know that he was the best
pick right now that I think we've antagonized, yea, put
thrown in prison and then forced into the army. Sure
we also killed his boss, Yeah, harassed his wife. We'll
trust him as a sabbitude as a team of one
of eight, right, so Burger is the right hand man

(14:36):
to dash his team on team team mites e I
n z e I n z okay, and then there
were other There were two other dudes, Heinrich heink right,
it's a great name, and Richard queerin Yes, And they
were a couple of machinists who, um, were a couple
of machinists. They've been in America for a while, came

(14:59):
back and and we're selected for this team. Yeah. Basically
they went back to Germany started working at Volkswagen and um,
you know, I guess we're probably eager to leap on
a top secret job like this. It's probably appealing to
these guys, you know. So that was Team ICE. We'll
talk about Team It's yeah, right after this, you know,

(15:37):
so Chuck tell us about the smiling faces on TEAMSVI, well, Josh.
Teams FY was led by a man named Edward Curling
or Edward. I guess who is I take it as
the only competent person in this entire mission. Yeah, he
seemed like it, right, kind of a little more than
the rest. Yeah, comparatively speaking, he seemed like a criminal genius. Yeah,

(16:01):
that's a good point. So he was also one of
had gone to America in nineteen twenty nine to work,
married a German woman there and then they worked together
as butler butler and cook for a little while, and
then he said, you know what, I don't like you anymore.
I think I wanted an American woman. So he did that,
and then when the war broke out, he tried to

(16:22):
sail to Germany. Right, So I'm not sure if he
was a mastermind either, now that they think about it. Well,
he showed a lot of initiative. Well, good point, and
he was turned back by the coast Guard. But he
finally made it to Germany in nineteen forty and he
ended up working at the Ministry of Propaganda. Yeah, I
guess with Girdels huh. Yeah, sure. And when he tried

(16:45):
to sail to Germany that one time, he actually had
a guy with him named um, was it Hermbert new Bauer.
I believe I was a new Bauer on his boat. Yeah,
he was on that crew, and so he would have
been turned back as well. So he was a natural fit, right,
and he knew each other and Curling actually recommended Herman

(17:07):
Neubauer to be part of the team. He's like, he
can hoist a sail. Yeah, what else do you need
to know? He was in the boond who Cares that
was the youngest member of his crew at twenty two
was Herbert helped and he moved to the US when
he was just five years old. And so I don't
know that he was a great choice because he was

(17:28):
practically American. Yeah, and you know he was also not
so smart, or put it this way, experienced. He was
not experienced, right, A little, a little green, a little
wept behind the ears. And then the last guy, Werner Thiele,
he surprised surprise as a member of the boond and

(17:49):
he was working in a war plant. So just this
weird hodgepodge rag tag group of guys were selected. Only
two people well out of the whole original twelve or
had been in the military. Yeah, this sounds like a
movie in the making. Oh yeah, but it just if
it would have had a great third act, it probably

(18:10):
would already be a movie. Oh yeah, you know what
I'm saying. Yeah, it is lacking a third act. I
imagine like when if someone had tried to develop this
or like, this sounds great so far, it's going great,
and then oh that's how it ends. Yeah, shelf it. Yeah,
so these guys are put together, they're sent to the
obver school, Yeah, to learn jiu jitsu, and the oldest guy,

(18:32):
George Dash is like low kick, low kick, oh my hip,
yeah you know. Yeah. They were also studying like explosive
techniques and right wiring, not just explosive jiu jitsu technique, right,
but real explosive right yeah, wiring, detonation timers, all of
this stuff. They got to go on field trips to
power plants and bridges and canals and see like where

(18:56):
the weak points were. And all of this took place
over an intensive eighteen days of training. That's it. They
got eighteen days of training. Yeah, and apparently Josh, the
leader of Team EZ, wasn't even I read one account
this said he basically kind of snoozed through most of it,
which would go on to explain a few things later.
It's hilarious. Yeah, eighteen days and you can't even stay

(19:17):
awake to learn how to blow something up. Seriously, all right.
On May twenty third, they were given their assignment and
these were I mean, this was pretty smart. The assignments were.
They had a good they had a good plan in place,
small teams of dudes. Josh's team was assigned to destroy
quite a few things hydroelectric plants at Niagara Falls makes sense.

(19:42):
The Aluminum Company of America, the factory in Illinois, Tennessee,
New York. Yeah, three plants, and the Philadelphia Sault Company's
crylite plant, which apparently supplies raw materials for aluminum. Right.
And the reason they wanted to go after aluminum was
because aluminum production in the United States, that output was
greater than all of Europe's both sides access hands or no,

(20:05):
I'm sorry. All of the axis is aluminum production put together.
And aluminium is a very very valuable thing. During war.
You used to make aircraft frames. You use it to
make the interiors of ships. Apparently you use it for
everything from like MRIs like the field ration, tin hands

(20:26):
or well not tin cans, aluminum can. Yeah, but all
of the stuff comes in handy and wheels. If you
can sure pinwheels like the good ones. Yeah, if you
put those, man, you can cut your finger off with
one of those things. Yeah. If you can cripple aluminum production,
you can put a serious thing in the wartime effort. Yeah,
it was. It was a smart play. And then they

(20:46):
are also told to bomb locks on the Ohio River
between Louisville Kentucky and Pittsburgh. Yes, so disrupting transportation, sure,
that would have been a huge deal. They would just
strap a bomb a pack mule that was supposed to
be pulling a boat along the canal and kaboom. So
that's team mines. Yeah, team spy curling steam. They said,

(21:11):
all right, you guys, we want you to concentrate on
railroads because we saw during the American Civil War destroying
railroads is a great way to crippling army. Sure, they blew.
And I don't think that's where they got the idea.
You know, it's long been a wartime thing to destroy railroads.
I see Pennsylvania Railroad station at Newark, right, the Horseshoe

(21:34):
Bend section of railroad track near Altoona, Pennsylvania, Chesapeake and
Ohio Railroad parts of it, the New York Central Railroads,
hell Gate Bridge locks and canals, and Saint Louis Cincinnati, Ohio,
and the water supply system of New York right. And
they were also told to carry out acts of general
terrorism to scare people in general. Yeah, bombing Jewish own

(21:58):
department stores, UM locker rooms at um train stations, just
basically just foment like real fear and make Americans feel like, wow,
America is being struck. Yeah, we're vulnerable, right, um. And
so the guy said, okay, let's do this, and they
they they shipped out on two different subs from Lorient France.

(22:22):
U boats baby, this is Germany. Yeah, okayts U boats yeah. Um.
They left on U five eighty four and U two
O two and um they had each team had four boxes,
three of like dynamite and other explosives, and then a
fourth box of things like timers and um, detonators and

(22:46):
wiring and all that stuff. Sausages sure, just in case
they got a little hungry on the trail. Yeah, it
was Germans after all. They also had a lot of money,
roughly about a million dollars today um. At the time,
each group had fifty grand and they needed this to
travel and to live and to bribe people and pay

(23:06):
folks off, right in cash. So they had yeah, what's
equal to about a million dollars today in cash on
them in nothing greater than a fifty dollar bill. It's
a lot of money, yeah, like physically a lot of money.
Each member was given nine thousand and five of which
which is very funny. Like team leader is going to
hold on to this and you can keep for yourself

(23:27):
and your money belt and only carry like four hundred
and fifty in your pocket, and that should be enough
dough to carry out this plan, was the idea. Yep.
And then the team leaders also got handkerchiefs. Yeah, that
had the names and addresses and things of contacts invisible
ink written on them. Yeah. So this is like a

(23:50):
bona fide spy. Yespionage terrorism operation. Again, great movie in
the making so far. Yep. So the and again I
think you said before that like Hitler was planning on
sending several waves or wave after wave. Apparently the schedule
was every six weeks they were going to send one,
one or two teams to the United States. Yeah, I got.

(24:12):
I mean it was a really smart and scary plane
because catching, you know, a tiny team of four guys
who can assimilate as Americans or at least good German Americans,
that's that's tough to catch. Yes, So Chuck, Yes, you
two O two, which actually left two days after U

(24:34):
five eighty four showed up off like fifty yards off
the shoreline of Long Island and just frightening the thing about. Yeah,
there was a German U boat fifty yards off of
the shore of Long Island on June twelfth, nineteen forty two.
It showed up about eight in the evening and it

(24:56):
belches out its cargo of box of explode sieves and saboteurs,
and the dudes um as they're rowing to shore, they
put they were wearing like German military uniforms. Yeah, I
didn't fully and this didn't make a ton of sense
to me. Oh well, if you were caught in playing
clothes behind enemy lines, the rules of war state that

(25:16):
you can be shot on site, but if you're caught
as a German marine, you're a prisoner of war and
you have to be That was taking a chance. I
would addressed as an American. No, I mean, like, I
think that was smart. Yeah, I don't know. I would
have addressed. I would have tried to assimilate, not been like,
I'm a German marine. You're supposed to take me hostage, right,

(25:40):
But I think, yeah, come on, let's go, I'm taking
you hostage. Whereas if the guy had been like, you're
a spy, I am allowed to kill you right here
and now. Yeah, I just I don't know. I don't
agree with that one, but hey, everyone has their own
rules when it comes to saboteuring. Okay, so sabotaging, right, yes, sabotaging.

(26:03):
That was just kidding anyway, And I've learned recently that
that was of m that's that words of recent providence.
Did you know that, like it didn't come into use
until the beginning of like the twentieth century. That makes sense.
I would have thought it was a fairly old word. Yeah, nope.
Did we just think of sabotage or did we just
start calling it that? Like, did they not use to

(26:23):
sabotage back in the day. Yeah, I think they just
started calling it that. Okay. So um, so this is
Dash's team Teams Team mines and they show up on
the shore and they're wearing again German military uniforms, which
they took off really quickly, very quickly. Yeah. Once they
saw that, you know, okay, we made it. Yeah, the

(26:45):
operation has begun. They changed right, Yeah, they changed clothes
and they started, uh I guess they put on there
I love New York shirts and they started digging big
holes in the beach to bury these munitions so they
could come back as needed when they wanted to blow
something new up. Yes, they can't just carry that stuff around, no,

(27:06):
and they needed to just stash everything and go and
cool out and make sure that no one was like
onto him or anything like that, and then come back
and get it, like you said, as they needed. Yeah.
The plan was to meet up for the two teams
to meet up in Cincinnati on July fourth for a
baseball game, is what I'm imagining. Yeah, yeah, the Reds
versus the Braves. I don't know where the Braves were then,

(27:29):
probably Milwaukee, sure, Okay, I don't think they moved to
Atlanta until the sixties. Yeah, but I was trying to
think of Boston, but they were that was long before
so the team in inst was changing. They just landed. Yeah,
they were in the midst of changing when they were
discovered by a coast guardsman. Yeah. Well one of them

(27:51):
was that Josh climbed over a dune and while the
other guys were still bearing and changing their clothes, and
he walked up and there was a coast guard dude,
John Cullen, standing right there, and he was like, hey,
what you're doing right basically, and the guy was like, oh, nothing, yeah,
and uh he apparently was kind of handling things when

(28:13):
Burger comes over, and Burger thought that so the team
inz had been rowed to shore by two German sailors,
and I guess Burger lost track of the German sailors
and assume that they were still there, and that for
some reason it was only Dash four guys plus the
two right, and that Josh had climbed over the dune
to talk to one of the sailors. Yeah. So Burger

(28:35):
comes up and asks a question in Germany, and the
coast guardsman, John Cullen, is like, why are you speaking German?
We're at war with Germany. What's going on? Yeah, And
at that point Josh tells Burger to get out. Yeah,
he said, you fool, go back to the others, right,
And the guy was why, like what others? Wait a minute,

(28:57):
And so Dash's story was that they were fisherman, stranded fisherman. Yeah,
And before he got really suspicious clan, the guy from
the coastguard said, well, if you guys are stranded fisherman,
that's my job. We have a Coastguard like house, party
house right up the beach. We just ordered some pizza.
Come with me, you guys can eat some pizza and

(29:19):
chill out, and Josh is like, well, uh, we don't
have any idea on us. Yeah, we don't fishing permits either, right,
we don't want to get in trouble. I was like, well,
you're telling a guy from the Coastguard that, so you're
in trouble first of all, but secondly that strikes me
as weird. About that time, Burger comes up, asks his
question in German, and Josh sees the riding on the

(29:40):
wall and tells Um tells Collen, well, he says, do
you have a mother? And Colin says yes. He goes
do you have a father? Says yes, and Dash says, well,
then I wouldn't want to kill you. Yeah, so how
about I give you some money you can forget that
this ever happened. And he tries to give him a
hundred bucks and Colin said nope. Yeah, he says no,

(30:01):
thank you, and he said He ends up giving him
two hundred and sixty dollars and Cullin basically realized that
something was going down and I just need to just
take this money and act like I'm down with the
take and get out of here. So he does. So
he does. He scaddles and then oh, but not before

(30:23):
this is very key piece. Actually, oh yeah, Josh grabbed
his flashlight before he left and shined it on his
own face and said, you will be meeting me in
East Hampton sometime soon. Do you know who I am?
And then guy was like, no, I don't know who
you are. And he said my name is George John Davis,
which was a lie. Well it was his real alias

(30:44):
for the mission though, so like he actually gave him
his real alias, and he said what's your name? And
Cullin said Frank Collins, which was a lie. Which was
a lie. Pretty quick thinking and um, basically he scrambled
back and Josh came back over and was like little
seeing their guys, I totally took care of it, right,
should not be a big deal. Don't even worry about

(31:05):
pay the guy two hundred and sixty bucks. Yeah, we're good. Yeah,
So everybody finished bearing these boxes, which they did, and
um Colin ran off and went and grabbed some of
his fellow coastguardsmen. By the time they got back, Team
Ice had left. Yeah, they wentn't caught a train, but
apparently and this is another thing, so the U boat
that dropped off. Team Ice had grounded itself on a

(31:28):
sand bar and was sitting there like trying to get
back out to sea because Dawn was just rocked back
and forth in your chair? Was that that's what it looked,
was that the method they had all the guys in there. Yeah,
it just moved to the right, right exactly. Yeah, And
finally the tide came in just enough for them to
dislodge themselves and go back out to sea, just in time.
But apparently um Colon and the other coastguardsman who came

(31:52):
back caught sight of this U boat heading back out
to sea. Yeah not good, right, Yeah, No German U
boat off the host to Long Island just ran into
some guys who are speaking German and tried to pay
you off. And then now all of a sudden, in
the moonlight, you can see the ghostly outlines of four
freshly dug holes in the sand. Yeah, let's see what's

(32:13):
in there. Yeah. I wonder if um I couldn't find
I saw that about the boat being stuck, but I
couldn't find if that was like, if they could have
gotten away, you know, it could have all changed. They
might not have been that suspicious I think that Cullen
was he was on it appropriately suspicious. Yeah, he was
definitely coming back, but seeing the U boat was just
icing on the cake exactly. Okay, so the other dudes

(32:35):
had hopped date. Well, they dug up the holes and
they found the stuff and said, okay, this is a
huge deal. Yeah, we just found a trove of explosives
in German military uniforms buried on the beach like sixty
miles from New York. Yeah, so toot sweet. By ten
twenty three that morning, those boxes were in the office

(32:58):
of New York City Police Captain John Bayliss, who then
promptly got in touch with the FBI, and by noon
that day, thirteen hours after they had arrived, the FBI
had all that stuff in custody, and Jay Edgar Hoover said,
there's a we need to get a blackout on the
news so these guys don't get wise to this, and
we need to get the largest man hunt in FBI

(33:19):
history underway. And they did, and we will explore that
and all the ways the FBI got some lucky breaks
on this. Right after these messages, you know, all right,

(33:45):
so Team iience, let's recap here. They are in Manhattan. Yeah,
they go shopping at Macy's. Of course. Yeah, we've got
a lot of cash. All they had with them was
the clothes the civilian, the clothes they brought and all
that cash. Yeah, that was it. Everything else is buried
back in the beach, but is now an FBI custody
unbeknownst to these guys. That's right. So they go shopping
at Macy's. They split into They said, let's split up

(34:07):
into pairs, because that makes sense. Kieran and Hank checked
into the hotel Martinique Dash and Burger I went to
the Governor Clinton hotel Governor Bill Clinton, and I don't
think so. And unless he was named after the hotel,
oh yeah, never know. That's why he always wanted to
be governor. So apparently, um Dosh and Burger met. He

(34:32):
summoned Burger to his hotel room up on a tall
floor and opened the window and said, I've got a
plan and I'm going to tell you about it. And
if you're on board, you're on board. But if you're not,
then one of us is leaving through the door. One
of us is leaving through the window. He basically threw
down the gauntlet to Burger to Burger, I, oh wow,

(34:53):
I didn't realize that. Yeah, And so Burger he basically said,
I would like to turn and sabboteur sabotage the sabotage
right and go against Germany and because America is kind
of great. So Dash was going to kill Burger if

(35:14):
Burger didn't go along with it. That's what he said.
And apparently Burger had the choice too, like or you
can you can defeat you and throw you out the window,
or you can triumph and be the living victor. Yeah.
So I think Burger was just on board. And they
said that in this article that um Dash probably was
telling the truth that he was. He was really this

(35:35):
was his idea from the beginning. So here's the here's
the question. Like, historically speaking, Dash has been seen as
a genuine betrayer of this mission. Sure, but when he
became a genuine betrayer of the mission is issues still
according to this history and that article, either he knew

(35:58):
it before they even landed, yeah, and that that is
why he showed his face and gave his real alias
to right John Colin on the beach, which makes sense,
or his encounter with John Cullin on the beach rattled
him enough that he was like, this is never gonna work.
We're already We're already dead in the water. That's a
quick turn. So now I'm going to go ahead and
betray it. Yeah, I say that he was in on

(36:20):
it from the beginning. That's what that's my feeling, because
he was snoozing in spy school. Just I don't know,
it seems like a really quick like they just land
on the beach. Five minutes later he meets a guy
and he's like, wait a minute, it's off. I'm gonna
betray Germany. Right, it just seemed I don't know, a
little too hasty. Well, maybe he had nerves of spaghetti. Yeah,
cooked spaghetti. Even so, he says, here's the plan. On Monday,

(36:44):
dash to burger Yeah, he said, on Monday, I'm gonna
go to the head. They closed the window by now, yeah,
I think. So they went to dinner and everything was good,
and he said, I'm gonna go to Uh, I'm gonna
go to Washington meet with j Edgar Hoover. That should
be pretty easy to get that meeting the man himself. Yeah,
I hear. He wears nothing about a caper on the
office and he said, you go back to the other
two guys and just sort of occupy them for a
little while while I'm going to DC and requesting a

(37:07):
meeting with the FBI, the head of the FBI. Right,
So Burger says, let's do this. Josh says, okay, it's Sunday,
and Josh doesn't make his way to DC until Thursday morning. Yes,
instead he goes So remember he was a waiter in America. Well,
he called. He called the FBI first, at least, right,

(37:29):
And the reason why he called firsts he was a
little worried because apparently back in a training camp in
the woods, cop Falter Cop had said, you guys don't
need to worry, we have a man on the inside
of the FBI. So Josh was worried that if he called,
or if he just showed up at FBI headquarters he

(37:49):
talked to that one guy right out of all the
FBI guys, he would have that level of bad luck, which,
from what I understand, that was something that was a
good concern for her to have. So he called the
New York Bureau first and said, I'm a German dude,
I've got information for Jake Er Hoover tell him I'm coming,
and then he hung up and he went to a

(38:09):
club four waiters and then played pinuckle for like two
straight days. Yeah, I get I think he was probably gambling.
That's what I think too, because if I'm not mistaken
with the math, he ended up with more money than
he came with. Really, yeah, so he went and gambled
with sabotage money. I think so, man, that guy is
some serious colonies. He's pretty awesome. So eventually he said,

(38:33):
all right, I gotta go to Washington. This peinuckle game
has dried up. So he hopped on the Acela Express
for Washington, Sure, which I highly recommend. By the way, man,
train travel is awesome. Regional train travel is a delight,
such a delight, And especially from Boston to New York.

(38:53):
You just ride along the coastline there and it's just lovely.
It is lovely. Sailboats and cape cold houses right on points,
lobster rolls. Yeah, it's nice, good stuff. All right. So
Josh has arrived by train. Finally by this point, Team
Spy has landed, right. Yeah. They show up in Florida

(39:15):
and they're like, let's do this for real. And I
imagine ponto Vedra Beach in nineteen forty three. It was
a pretty low key scenario for sure, you know, yeah,
I would think so. So they are twenty five miles
south of Jacksonville. They bury their crates, no sweat, hop
on a bus, go to Jacksonville. They split up from
that point too, went to Cincinnati. Two went to Chicago. Yeah,

(39:36):
and like I mean, they were no must There wasn't
like any no one was calling the FBI like they
were in it to win it basically. Yeah, why they
should have done Team Ice should have done their recon beforehand.
The U boat should have not pulled up next to
a Coastguard station first of all. That would have been
one thing. Yeah, because that Coastguard station was like half
a mile away. Yeah it was there, all right, maybe

(39:59):
that bad intel. So Josh gets to d C, checks
into the Mayflower Hotel. Yeah, this is the same day
that Caroling's group lands in Pontevedra. It's a big day,
huge day, okay. And he in DC said all right,
I'm gonna call the FBI again because you gotta meet
with Hoover. And he reached out to a Dwayne Trainer,

(40:20):
and of course Trainer says, you know, this is probably
not a legitimate call. We get these kind of weird
calls all the time, but just in case, let's go
pick him up. Yeah, let's let's see what's going on.
It's a slow day at headquarters. Yeah exactly. So they
go and pick up the German and they bring him
to the Justice Department, and Dash said that he was

(40:40):
basically bounced from agent to agent, every who's kind of
a hot potato, nobody wanting to deal with him, And
finally he convinced these guys enough to end up in
the office of Mickey Ladd, who was running the man
hunt for the spies, and the head of the Spies

(41:01):
was now sitting in his office, Yeah, telling him he's
the head of the spies, and he still didn't quite
believe him until Dash said, oh yeah, well here, let
me show you this and dumped out eighty four thousand
dollars on Lad's desk, and Lad said, I'm so pleased
you came in today, right, come with me? Yeah, So, Josh,

(41:22):
here's here's his idea. Is I want to talk to
Hoover himself because I'm going to be a hero and
I might even get like a Medal of Honor out
of this, right, Like, maybe Jager will have me over
to his house for dinner. Yeah, who knows what could
come of this? Take your tape parade, They threw those
all the time back then. Yeah, so they the FBI

(41:43):
gets him talking. He does get to meet Hoover briefly, sure,
but a couple of other agents take his deposition, which
lasts for thirteen hours. Yeah, before he finished, he had
told them about Burger and where Burger was, and they
went and picked up Burger. Yeah, he like, while he
was still telling him the story, they were already on
at Burger's hotel staking him out. Yep. So they before

(42:04):
they picked up Burger, they were staking him out, like
you said. And they watched Burger go meet Kieran and
Hink and so they just arrested all three of them
in all all of a sudden, they had team in
custody within like a day of um dash walking into
FBI headquarters. It didn't go so well for Team Ice. No, no,
so when the team leader betrays you, yeah, like yeah,

(42:27):
you're you're in trouble, your toast. So on June twenty second,
Hoover wrote to FDR and said you know what's her.
We've we've caught all the members of this group that
landed on Long Island. Pretty great, huh, and we are awesome. Um.
He didn't mention that the guy turned himself in and
told him where everyone was, right, and so FDR was

(42:48):
just thought that Hoover had done like a bang up job. Basically,
he's like, wait, way to go, way to do your
job exactly. He'd lied pretty much. So um, Dash had
no real leads or anything about teams. Yeah, but he
did have a handkerchief that had contacts on invisible ink,

(43:09):
and surprisingly he hadn't blown his nose in it right
at this point, but he couldn't remember how you were
supposed to get the invisible ink to become visible. No. Luckily,
the FBI had a crack team of lab techs on
this thing, and they figured it out. And now all
of a sudden they had the names and addresses of
all of the German contacts for these teams right there

(43:30):
in their hands, thanks to Dash. Yeah. Right, so they
were all obviously staked out just waiting on Team HENS
or I'm sorry, Teams VY to meet up with these people, right,
which they did. But first teams FI did some other
weird stuff like Herbert hopped. He was in Chicago, where
again he'd lived since he was five, and Holpe decided

(43:52):
that he would buy a Pontiac car. Yeah. Yeah, he
went to his parents' house, right, I told his dad everything. Yeah,
had his dad buy him the car? Yep. And he
proposed to his girlfriend. He remember he had left during
the war and he was an able bodied man over
age eighteen. Yeah, And so the local draft board wanted

(44:13):
to know where he was. So he drops by FBI
headquarters to clear up his draft problem. Says, I'm back. Sorry,
I've already registered with my local draft board. No need
to track me anymore. I'm just an all American boy. Yeah,
And the FBI was like, yeah, sure, thank you for
coming by, right, and then tailed them on the way out. Yeah.

(44:34):
And then he led them to at least one other
team member, right. Yeah. And while this was going on,
Curling and Werner Thiel went to New York and met
up with a friend named Helmet Lena because they wanted
to have sex with a lady. And so Lina hooked
him up with his mistress, said here, have sex with her,

(44:57):
and he said great, thanks, and he ended up traveling
with that woman. Curling did, and within a couple of
days after Dash surrendered. Um, they spotted Curling because they
were trailing him at a bar where he met with
Thel and they rested both of those guys. Right, So
two down on team spy her about helped. I'm sorry,

(45:20):
three down at this point, right, Holped was taken down
in Chicago. Yeah, the only one left at this point
was Herman neubaua right, And Neubauer spent his time in
was it in New York? I think he was in Chicaga. Okay,
you're probably right. Um, he just went to the movies
over and over again. Yep, that's what he did. He

(45:41):
was apparently lonely, so he sought out some friends of
his wife, whom he hadn't really met before. Yea, he
told them everything, told him everything. He gave him his
money for safe keeping, unbelievable, but kept enough to go
to the movies a bunch. So basically he kept a
dollar right and dollar fifty. Yeah, and then he was

(46:04):
I think he'd just come back from the movies when
the FBI picked him up. Right, yep, So Dash, remember
is sure that like he's going to be feted as
a hero that Jay ger Hoover is probably like thinking
about him right then. Yeah, he's just like basically like
Ralphie in a Christmas story, just daydreaming about like how

(46:25):
he's going to be carried around on everyone's shoulders. He
probably should have been so, I mean, he's the reason
why this went south, because he said, you know what
I'm trying, I'm siding with America. Sure, the thing is Hoover.
He didn't care Jay ger Hoover. Not only did he
not care, Hoover was taking the credit for all of
this unraveled. See to bury this right, he couldn't let

(46:45):
Josh be known as this guy who would come and
given him this whole thing on a platter, or else
Hoover would look like an idiot, and Josh might very
well have been hailed as at least a slimy collaborate
rather than a criminal. Yeah, after everybody was rounded up,
the FBI arrested Josh, and Josh must have been quite

(47:06):
surprised by this. Well, yeah, they arrested him, but they said, hey,
just go along with us. You'll get a full presidential
pardon after six months. Just sort of play along with
the arrest and he was like, oh, okay, I see,
so put me in the jail with the other guys
so they don't know, yeah exactly. And it was like, yeah, sure,
Well because that jibe with Hoover's plan to keep it

(47:26):
all quiet. Still exact I was working out great for Hoover.
It didn't work out great for Josh or the others.
Chuck No. So Fdr wanted to make sure that he
could get the death penalty and that this could be
kept quiet. So he formed a military tribunal to try
these guys. And it was the first one since Lincoln

(47:49):
had been assassinated. Yeah, it was a big deal. So
the prosecutor was Attorney General Francis Biddle, chief defense was
Colonel Kenneth Royal. They defense argued initially for a civilian
trial that was quickly scrapped and they said, no, we're
going to move forward with a tribunal and held the
trial out the Justice Department in Washington during the month

(48:11):
of July nineteen forty two and basically said, we know
the whole there's not going to be much of a trial, Fellas,
we know everything because you told us everything exactly. You
are coming here to sabotage and blow up our junk
and you're in big trouble, right, And the prosecutors sought
the death penalty, as expected, but it was up to

(48:32):
FDR to decide when and where, and to do that,
he had to have a transcript of the trial. And
when he got this transcript of the trial, it became
obvious that Hoover hadn't really done anything. Yeah. Appinently FDR
never called him out on it in public, No, which
was a nice thing to do, I guess, I guess,
because that would have just been further embarrassment for like

(48:53):
the whole country, you know. Yeah, So they kept that quiet,
but at this point it was news all over the country.
They weren't keeping a quiet with a press, and the
American public was way in favor of the death penalty.
In fact, there was an open letter published in one
newspaper calling for them to be fed to Gargantua, the
guerrilla at the Ringling Brothers circus, because that's fair to

(49:16):
Gargantua too, Yeah, eat those Germans. Well. Instead, they electrocuted
six of them on August eighth of the District Jail
in Washington, DC. That's right, including Kurbert Hout, who was
just like, I just wanted Upontiac. Yeah, I just wanted
to see my parents. Right. Burger and Dash were spared

(49:39):
the death penalty because they basically had a hard time
proving in court that they didn't you know, fully intend
to betray the operation. Yeah, exactly right. So they did
not get electrocuted. They were sentenced Burger to hard labor
for the rest of his life and Dash was given
thirty years. But President Truman commuted their sentence, released them

(50:01):
and deported them, had them shipped to um West, Germany. Yeah,
West Berlin said, don't come back, Nope, get out. And
the other guys were buried in a potter's field by
the way and outside Washington, Yes, which is now the
DC Municipal Water Treatment plant. Oh really yeah where they
were buried. Yeah, just right now. They're part of the system,

(50:24):
I guess. And so Dash and Burger go back to
Germany and Burger starts like feeding the media the story
is basically five years later and blame right and blames
Josh for the deaths of these other six German patriots
or who were saboteurs. Right, and dash Um tried to

(50:46):
publicly clear himself. He first sawt to pardon in America
so that he could come back. Yeah, he really wanted
to get out of Germany. Yeah, I can imagine. And
America said, no, we're not going to do that. We're
not going to pardon you. We're still mad at you.
Germany said we're mad at you too, and so he
just kind of faded out of the public spotlight. Yep.

(51:08):
He ended up dying in nineteen ninety two at the
age of eighty nine. And I didn't see any follow
up for Burger. For Burger, I think he wasn't quite
as vilified as Josh was, right for sure. But that
was not the last time the Germans sent saboteurs ashore.
There was at least one other ill fated attempt in

(51:30):
nineteen forty four, another German submarine. These are expensive boats, man, Yeah,
they are really taking a massive risk to drop off
a couple of saboteurs. But they did it again off
of Maine, YEP in a snowstorm, and two former American

(51:50):
residents German Americans were sent off under the main coast
in a snowstorm. They were seen by a local boy
scout using a compass during the snowstorm on the side
of the road, and the boy scout was suspicious, so
he traced their tracks all the way back to the
shoreline when they come out of nowhere, and he's like,

(52:11):
I'm going to call the police. So they scouts actually
call these guys. Yeah, that's pretty cool. What's ironic is
one of these German American saboteurs was a boy scout himself,
so it was like boy scout on boy scout tattling
wow um, and they got picked up immediately, and as
far as everybody knows, that's the last time Germany ever
tried that. Yeah. I think the idea was that Hitler Um.

(52:35):
It was like this, this is embarrassing. Yeah, let's just
focus on the rocket program. Yeah, we can't keep sending
guys to the United States who immediately get there and
start doing stupid things, right, giving themselves up, Yeah, going
to see mom and dad, seeing him movies, Yeah, Yeah,
playing p knuckle. So that's it. That's the story of
the time the Nazis invaded Florida and New York and Maine.

(52:59):
If you want to know more about that, check out
history Net, check out damn Interesting, check out all sorts
of stuff. Yes, just search it. You'll find all sorts
of cool things on it. I would not look for
the movie coming soon to a theater near you. No,
the third act non existent? No, not really, No, it's
just kind of a letdown. Yeah that an end with
a bang. No ends with Germany being mad at them

(53:20):
in America too. Let's see. I think I said Germany's mad.
It just means it's time for listener mail. I'm gonna
call this a cute our cutest youngest fan and it
includes an audio clip. Yeah, hey guys, did you hear this? Yes,
it's pretty great. Yea. My son, Archer is two and

(53:42):
a half years old, just two and a half. We
listen to podcasts together while I rock him to sleep
at naptime and bedtime. Anytime he's tired, he says, Mommy,
let's go Archer's room and listen to podcast. I usually
rotate between Stuff you Should Know and other house stuff
works a podcast. He's never seemed to have a prefer
until about two weeks ago when I put another podcast on.

(54:04):
He said, no, Mommy, not that podcast, just stuff you know,
the red one. You guys are his favorite, which is
fine with me, and I have even attached the voice
recording of him requesting your podcast. It was not rehearsed,
find you, It's just me asking him before his nap
time today. That is from Shauna, and Shauna gave us

(54:24):
permission to hear from Archer. So let's go ahead and
play that clip right now. Okay, are you ready to
take a nap? Yeah? I want? Do you want to
listen to a podcast? Law? Okay? Which podcast? Stuff? Yeah? Okay?
Ah wow, pretty cute, holy cow kid knows his stuff unbelievable,

(54:50):
So Archer, if you can understand what's going on here
about the sound coming out of the speakers. We know
you don't have four memories, but hopefully this EPISOD so
we'll be a documentation with it. That's right, Archer, So
good luck in life. You are off to a great start.
And now I'll take your nap a little buddy. Nice. Well,
if you want to share with us how your cute

(55:11):
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(55:32):
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