FRAUDULENT PASSPORTS
Like von Papen, Boy-Ed was under orders to send spies to the adversaries’ countries, to make arrangements for naval reservists to return to Germany, all of which required the use of fraudulent passports. While there have been charges that Germany had a factory for forging passports and while the New York World charged, at the time of Boy-Ed’s recall, that he had dealings with a gang of forgers and counterfeiters, who made passports, there is evidence that the naval attaché did pay money to German reservists, who procured passports fraudulently. One of these men was Richard Peter Stegler, a Prussian, thirty-three years old, who had served in the German Navy, and afterwards came to this country to start on his life work. Before the war he had applied for his first citizenship papers; but his name had not been removed from the German naval reserve list.
“After the war started,” says Stegler, a well-dressed young man with rather stern features, “I received orders to return home. I was told that everything was in readiness for me. I was assigned to the naval station at Cuxhaven. My uniform, my cap, my boots and my locker were all set aside for me, and I was told just where to go and what to do. But I could not get back at that time and I kept on with my work.”
Stegler then became a member of the German secret service in New York. “There is not a ship that leaves the harbour, not a cargo that is loaded or unloaded, but that some member of this secret organization watches and reports every detail,” he said afterwards. “All this information is transmitted in code to the German Government.” In January, 1915, if not earlier, Stegler was sent to Boy-Ed’s office, and there he received instructions to get a passport and make arrangements to go to England as a spy. Boy-Ed paid him $178, which he admits, but denies that it was to buy a passport. Stegler immediately got in touch with Gustave Cook and Richard Madden, of Hoboken, and made use of Madden’s birth certificate and citizenship in obtaining a passport from the American Government. Stegler has pleaded guilty to the charge and the two men were convicted of conspiracy in connection with the project. Stegler paid $100 for the document. Stegler, Cook and Madden each served a term on Blackwell’s Island.
“I was told to make the voyage to England on the Lusitania,” continued Stegler. “My instructions were as follows: ‘Stop at Liverpool, examine the Mersey River, obtain the names, exact locations and all possible information concerning warships around Liverpool, ascertain the amount of munitions of war being unloaded on the Liverpool docks from the United States, ascertain their ultimate destination, and obtain a detailed list of all the maritime ships in the harbour.’”