When the German spy system was working smoothly and giving gleeful satisfaction to its builders, the War Staff in Berlin sent to America a masterly schemer who threw sand into the machinery. He was Franz von Rintelen, a finished product of the Prussian war-mould. He had been born with a supreme confidence in the conquering destiny of Germany. He had been trained for his work in that order of things and he had subordinated to the needs of the Empire, his business, wealth, brains, energy—yes, his very soul. He had been ordered here to undertake, with the aid of Germany’s agents, the enormous task of isolating commercial and financial America, as a base of war supplies, from Europe. In trying to accomplish his aim, he sought to wreck American institutions and to use the United States as a battlefield in a rear attack on the Allies.
Highly imaginative, keen of foresight, a master of detail, a superb organizer, and conscienceless in the execution of his plans, he seemed like a man so perfectly trained for the emergencies of war that under no circumstances would he lose his poise. And yet when put face to face with his own misjudgments and forced to take measures to retrieve himself, he lost the very quality which his training was meant to insure—a carefully calculating eye and a cool head. His strategic moves consequently proved to be ridiculous errors that led to his own confusion.
In a brief sojourn in America he moved in the shadows of mystery, employing the vast network of German spies, hiring Americans, using thugs and setting in motion manifold plans for gigantic enterprises that involved the entire governmental, industrial and financial organizations of the country. When he went away, his work unfinished, his aims unaccomplished and a large amount of money wasted, there remained a multitude of trails, isolated facts and incidents suggesting his activities. Seizing these clues, Federal agents under A. Bruce Bielaski and William M. Offley, began to dig up von Rintelen’s associates, to get their stories and to obtain proof of his doings—his letters and telegrams, his agents’ speeches and the instructions which they tried to carry out. Taking these facts, Raymond H. Sarfaty, then Assistant United States Attorney in New York, working with patience and skill, fitted the details together into a series of great mosaics—depicting conspiracy, fraud, purchases of strikes, bribery, perjury, forgery, sedition, almost treason. Those pictures show how hidden forces—Americans and Germans working in secret—during von Rintelen’s presence in this country, plotted to cause commotions in political, industrial and financial spheres, and all to aid Germany in derogation of our rights.
PICTURES OF VON RINTELEN
In every one of them, von Rintelen looms as the audacious plotter, man of mystery, user of a hundred aliases, supreme egotist, a vaunted aid to the Kaiser and a Teutonic Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. In one picture, you see him in exclusive homes on Fifth Avenue, a “mould of form”—scarcely thirty-eight years old, slim and upstanding, with stalwart shoulders, the bearing of an aristocrat, short stubborn hair, a moustache with a like independent twist, and greenish-grey eyes that sparkled defiance. He garbed himself in the cut of London’s most artistic tailors and selected the colours of his ties, his shirts and his socks with a view to perfect harmony. He was the “glass of fashion” on the tip-toe of courtesy, beguiling with his gallant quips and charming his hearers by his fascinating stories and comments.
Other pictures show him under an assumed name, in conference with conspirators. He might meet them secretly in offices, or in hotels, or he might pick them up in an automobile, whizzing along at full speed and handing gold to hirelings who for a price were ready to undertake some criminal job. He might be seen dining in one of Broadway’s most alluring cabarets, ordering the rarest of wines and boasting of his schemes to accomplish in America what would be equivalent to Germany’s capture of Paris.
VON RINTELEN’S VALUE
And who is this man? He is so important that when made a prisoner in England, the Kaiser offered to exchange for the nobleman any ten British prisoners that King George might select. He is so esteemed in Germany that large amounts of gold were placed at the disposal of Americans to go to England and by hook or crook effect his escape. Rumour has sought to make him a relative of the Hohenzollerns. Another report has put him down actually as the Duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin. But persons, who knew him well in Berlin, saw him in the United States and at the prison camp in England, say he is von Rintelen. He is said to be the son of a former member of the Kaiser’s Cabinet; but the German “Wer Ist’s” does not credit that man with a son. Still, von Rintelen married into one of the wealthiest families in Berlin, his wife being a member of the von Kaufmann family, and he had a commanding social position in Germany.
He is wealthy in his own name, his fortune being estimated at $15,000,000. He is a director of the Deutsche Bank and the National Bank für Deutschland. He is, or was, a member of the big financial group of Germany, and as such was one of the Emperor’s financial advisers. His knowledge and advisory sphere included England, the United States and Mexico; and of the financial and industrial resources of these countries he was supposed to have a broad and comprehensive knowledge. He had influence also because he was a friend of the Kaiser and a close associate of the Crown Prince.