A PLOTTER AT WORK
Von Rintelen, startled by his mistaken estimate of American industrial preparedness, and frantically determined that Russia’s supplies must be crippled, that the cargoes going to France and England must be held back, began mapping out his gigantic enterprises. These conditions were the big compelling motive; for von Rintelen’s reputation was at stake. The work for which he had been so carefully trained was bound to fail unless he acted quickly. Desperate measures were necessary. With that situation in view he exchanged many wireless communications with his superiors in Berlin—messages that looked like harmless expressions between his wife and himself in which the names of Americans who had been in Berlin were used both as code words and as means to impress upon the American censor their genuineness. He obtained as a result still greater authority than he had received on the eve of his departure from Germany.
In his quick fashion, he often boasted, and there is foundation for part of what he said, that he had been sent to America by the General Staff, backed by $50,000,000 to $100,000,000; that he was an agent plenipotentiary and extraordinary, ready to take any measure on land and sea to stop the making of munitions, and to halt their transportation at the factory or at the seaboard.
He mapped out a campaign, remarkable for detail, scope, recklessness and utter disregard of American laws. These plots proved von Rintelen, or the German General Staff, a master of thoroughness and ingenuity, for he took into consideration the psychology, the customs, habits, and reported weaknesses of Americans.
His schemes in brief were (1) the purchase of war materials for Germany as a means of inflating prices; (2) the fomenting of war between the United States and Mexico as a means of compelling the American Government to seize all available war munitions; (3) a campaign of publicity and the arousing of public sentiment to bring about an embargo on arms shipments; (4) strikes in American industries; and (5) a series of acts of violence against factories and munition-carrying vessels.
Von Rintelen rapidly mobilized his forces of money and men. He went first to the Trans-Atlantic Trust Company, where he was known by his right name and where he arranged his finances. Money was transferred from Berlin through the usual German channels—large corporations with German affiliations—and placed to his credit in various banking institutions. He deposited large amounts in the Trans-Atlantic Trust Company and large amounts, totalling millions, in other banks. He next rented an office on the eighth floor of the same building that housed the trust company and had a telephone running to it through the switchboard of the banking institution. He registered with the county clerk as the E. V. Gibbon Company, a purchaser of supplies, signing his name to the document as “Francis von Rintelen.”
Using the name of Fred Hansen, he received persons in that office. There he summoned to his help a part of the German espionage system. He did not hesitate to call upon any German for assistance, and thousands of willing workers were at his disposal. If he wished a naval reservist, he knew where to get him; if a member of the landsturm was needed for any detail, he was called. From Boy-Ed, he received data about the sailings of ships; from von Papen, facts about munition factories. He met Koenig and assigned numerous tasks to him, particularly the location of munition factories, their products and exports.
His first task, merely incidental in importance compared with his other aim, was the succouring of the Fatherland and the blocking of the Allies through purchases. He participated with influential Germans in the scheme of buying the leading munition factories. He attempted the running of the British blockade. Dr. Albert also was buying goods, but von Rintelen, working on a much larger scale, commensurate with his fertile imagination, and employing a staff of agents, took charge of the shipments of raw products and food. Carrying on these purchases through E. V. Gibbon Company, using the name of Gibbon and Hansen, he had as aid Captain Steinberg, a German naval officer. Through him, von Rintelen chartered ships, purchased materials, caused false manifests to be made for the cargoes, and arranged for shipment to Italy and the Scandinavian countries, whence they were trans-shipped.