Paul Koenig, the head of the Hamburg-American secret service, who was active in passport frauds, who induced Gustave Stahl to perjure himself and declare the Lusitania armed, and who plotted the destruction of the Welland Canal. In his work as a spy he passed under thirteen aliases in this country and Canada.
Captains Boy-Ed, von Papen, von Rintelen, Tauscher, and von Igel were all directly connected with the German Government itself. There is now in the possession of the United States Government a check made out to Koenig and signed by von Papen, identified by number in a secret report of the German Bureau of Investigation as being used to procure $150 for the payment of a bomb-maker, who was to plant explosives disguised as coal in the bunkers of the merchant vessels clearing from the port of New York. Boy-Ed, Dr. Bunz, the German ex-minister to Mexico, the German consul at San Francisco, and officials of the Hamburg-American and North German Lloyd steamship lines evaded customs regulations and coaled and victualed German raiders at sea. Von Papen and von Igel supervised the making of the incendiary bombs on the Friedrich der Grosse, then in New York Harbor, and stowed them away on outgoing ships. Von Rintelen financed Labor's National Peace Council, which tried to corrupt legislators and labor leaders.
A lesser light of this galaxy was Robert Fay, who invented an explosive contrivance which he tied to the rudder posts of vessels. According to his confession and that of his partner in murder, the money came from the German secret police.
Among the other tools of the German plotters were David Lamar and Henry Martin, who, in the pay of Captain von Rintelen, organized and managed the so-called Labor's National Peace Council, which sought to bring about strikes, an embargo on munitions, and a boycott of the banks which subscribed to the Anglo-French loan. A check for $5,000 to J. F. J. Archibald for propaganda work, and a receipt from Edwin Emerson, the war correspondent, for $1,000 traveling expenses were among the documents found in Wolf von Igel's possession.
Others who bore English names were persuaded to take leading places in similar organizations which concealed their origin and real purpose. The American Embargo Conference arose out of the ashes of Labor's Peace Council, and its president was American, though the funds were not. Others tampered with were journalists who lent themselves to the German propaganda and who went so far as to serve as couriers between the Teutonic embassies in Washington and the governments in Berlin and Vienna. A check of $5,000 was discovered which Count von Bernstorff had sent to Marcus Braun, editor of Fair Play. And a letter was discovered which George Sylvester Viereck, editor of the Fatherland, sent to Privy Councilor Albert, the German agent, arranging for a monthly subsidy of $1,750, to be delivered to him through the hands of intermediaries—women whose names he abbreviates "to prevent any possible inquiry." There is a record of $3,000 paid through the German embassy to finance the lecture tour of Miss Ray Beveridge, an American artist, who was further to be supplied with German war pictures.
The German propagandists also directed their efforts to poisoning the minds of the people through the circulation of lies concerning affairs in France and at home. Here are some of the rumors circulated throughout the country that were nailed as falsehoods:
It was said that the national registration of women by the Food Administration was to find out how much money each had in the bank, how much of this was owed, and everything about each registrant's personal affairs.
That the millions collected from the public for the Red Cross went into the pockets of thieves, and that the soldiers and sailors got none of it, nor any of its benefits.
That base hospital units had been annihilated while en route overseas.
That leading members of other hospital units had been executed as spies by the American Government.