Mobilizing destroying agents—The plotters in Hoboken—Von Kleist's arrest and confession—The Kirk Oswald trial—Further explosions—The Arabic—Robert Fay—His arrest—The ship plots decrease.
The reader will recall a circular quoted in Chapter VIII, and issued November 18, 1914, from German Naval Headquarters, mobilizing all destroying agents in harbors overseas.
On January 3, 1915, there was an explosion on board the munitions ship Orton, lying in Erie Basin, a part of New York harbor. On February 6 a bomb was found in the cargo of the Hannington. On February 27 the Carlton caught fire at sea. On April 20 two bombs were found in the cargo of the Lord Erne. One week later the same discovery was made in the hold of the Devon City. All of which accounts for the following charge:
"George D. Barnitz, being duly sworn, deposes and says ... on information and belief that on the first day of January, 1915, and on every day thereafter down to and including the 13th day of April, 1916, the defendants Walter T. Scheele, Charles von Kleist, Otto Wolpert, Ernst Becker, (Charles) Karbade, the first name Charles being fictitious, the true first name of defendant being unknown, (Frederick) Praedel ... (Wilhelm) Paradis ... Eno Bode and Carl Schmidt ... did unlawfully, feloniously and corruptly conspire ... to manufacture bombs filled with chemicals and explosives and to place said bombs ... upon vessels belonging to others and laden with moneys, goods and merchandise...."
Ninety-one German ships were confined to American harbors by the activities of the British fleet, ranging from the Neptun, of 197 tons, in San Francisco Bay, to the Vaterland, of 54,000 tons, the largest vessel on the seven seas, tied up to accrue barnacles at her Hoboken pier, and later, as the Leviathan, to transport American troops to France. Every one of the ninety-one ships was a nest of German agents. Only a moderate watch was kept on their crews, and there were many restless men among them. Every man aboard was liable to command from Captain Boy-Ed, for the German merchant marine was part of the formal naval organization. The interned sailors found shortly that they could be of distinct service to their country without stirring from their ships.
Not far from the North German Lloyd piers in Hoboken lived Captain Charles von Kleist, 67 years old, a chemist and former German army officer. One day there came to him one who spoke the German tongue and who said he came from Wolf von Igel, in von Papen's office. Those were good credentials, especially since the gentleman was inquiring on von Igel's behalf whether Kleist needed any money in the work he was doing. The polite caller returned a few days later with another man, who spoke no German. Von Kleist asked whether he was also from the Fatherland, and was told no, but "we have to use all kinds of people in our business—that's how we fool these Yankees!" Von Kleist laughed heartily, and wagged his head, and went out in the garden and dug up a bomb-case and showed the visitors how it had been made. The visitors were Detectives Barth and Barnitz.
They assured Kleist that von Igel wanted to know precisely what he and his associates were doing, so no money might be paid to the wrong parties. The aged captain wrote out a memorandum of his activities, which he signed, and the detectives proposed a trip to Coney Island as an evidence of good faith, so the three had a pleasant afternoon at the Hotel Shelburne, and the officers then suggested: "Let's go up and see the chief." "Chief" to von Kleist meant von Igel; he agreed, and was taken gently into the arms of the chief of detectives.
He implicated, as he sat there answering questions, Captain Eno Bode, pier superintendent of the Hamburg-American Line, Captain Otto Wolpert, pier superintendent of the Atlas Line, and Ernst Becker, an electrician on the North German Lloyd liner Friedrich der Grosse, tied up at Hoboken. The other conspirators were induced to come to New York, and were arrested at once. Bode and Wolpert, powerful bullies of Paul Koenig's own stamp, proved defiant in the extreme. Becker, knowing no word of English, was pathetically courteous and ready to answer. But it remained for von Kleist to supply the narrative.
Becker, working on the sunny deck of the Friedrich der Grosse, had made numerous bomb cases, rolling sheet lead into a cylinder, and inserting in the tube a cup-shaped aluminum partition. These containers he turned over to Dr. Walter Scheele at his "New Jersey Agricultural Company," where he filled one compartment with nitroglycerine, the other with sulphuric acid. Scheele supplied the mechanics with sheet lead for the purpose. The bombs were then sealed and packed in sand for distribution to various German gathering places, such as, for example, the Turn Verein in the Brooklyn Labor Lyceum. Wolpert appeared there at a meeting one night and berated the Germans present for talking too much and acting too little; he wanted results, he said. Eugene Reister, the proprietor of the place, said that shortly afterward Walter Uhde and one Klein (who died before the police reached him) had taken away a bundle of bombs from the Turn Verein and had placed them on the Lusitania, just before her last voyage, and added that Klein, when he heard of the destruction of the ship, expressed regret that he had done it. Karl Schimmel—the same who had negotiated for the Krag rifles—said later to Reister: "I really put bombs on that boat, but I don't believe that fellow Klein ever did."
Following Kleist's information, agents of the Department of Justice and New York police inspected the Friedrich der Grosse, and found quantities of chlorate of potash and other chemicals. They brought back with them also Garbode (mentioned in the charge as "Karbade"), Paradis and Praedel, fourth engineers on the ship, who had assisted in making the bombs, and Carl Schmidt, the chief engineer. All of the group were implicated in the plot to the complete satisfaction of a jury which concluded their cases in May, 1917, by convicting them of "conspiracy to destroy ships through the use of fire bombs placed thereon." Kleist and Schmidt received sentences of two years each in Atlanta Penitentiary and were each fined $5,000; Becker, Karbade, Praedel and Paradis were fined $500 apiece and sentenced to six months in prison. Dr. Scheele fled from justice, and was arrested in March, 1918, in Havana. A liberal supply of vicious chemicals and explosives discovered in his "New Jersey Agricultural Company" implicated him thoroughly, if the evidence given by his fellows had not already done so. When he was finally captured he faced two federal indictments: one with Steinberg and von Igel for smuggling lubricating oil out of the country as fertilizer, under false customs manifests; the other the somewhat more criminal charge of bombing.