Rules and Regulations.
—1915—

#1. Beginning with November 6th, no blue copies are to be made of reports submitted in connection with D-Case #343, and the original reports will be sent to H.M.G. instead of the duplicates, as formerly.

#2. In order to accomplish better results in connection with D-Case #343, and to shorten the stay of the informing agent at the place of meeting, it has been decided to discontinue the former practice of dining with this agent prior to receiving his report. It will also be made a rule to refrain from working on other matters until the informant in this case has been fully heard; and all data taken down in shorthand. (11-11-15)

#3. Beginning with November 28th, 1915, all operations designated as D-Cases will be handled exclusively by the Secret Service Division, the Headquarters of which will not be at the Central Office, as heretofore. This change will result in discontinuing utilizing operatives or employees attached to the Central Office, Division for Special Detail and Pier Division. On the other hand, great

Random Pages from “P. K.’s Little Black Book”

In the same way he disguised his meeting places. In his instructions to the Secret Service Division we find this:

“Operatives of the S. S. Division when receiving instructions from me or through the medium of my secretary as to designating meeting places will understand that such instructions must be translated as follows:

“For week Nov. 28 to Dec. 4 (midnight).

“A street number in Manhattan named over the telephone means that the meeting will take place 5 blocks further uptown than the street mentioned.

“Pennsylvania R. R. Station means Grand Central Depot.

“Kaiserhof means General Post Office, in front of P. O. Box 840.

“Hotel Ansonia means café in Hotel Manhattan (basement).

“Hotel Belmont means at the bar in Pabst’s Columbus Circle.

“Brooklyn Bridge means bar in Unter den Linden.”

Each week he rearranged this code, so that anyone who thought that cutting in on a telephone call meant knowing where Koenig was bound was not likely to find him there. The man knew his German New York, and had numerous convenient meeting places where he could meet an agent and converse undisturbed, such as a German hotel at Third Avenue and 42d Street, or a German bar at Broadway and 110th Street, or a lodging house at South and Whitehall Streets, near the lower tip of the island, or a saloon connected with a Turkish bath in Harlem. He not only made it almost impossible to trace him by tapping his own wire, but his operatives were instructed to call him from pay-station telephones in locations where there was not one chance in a million of identifying the person who had called. Fuchs, of course, was the one-millionth chance, but Fuchs was no longer obeying Koenig’s orders, was persistent, and careless. Altogether Koenig had built up a system of caution on paper which almost beat the game, and which enabled him to conduct a large volume of business.

The functions of his departments were clearly defined. The pier division guarded the piers and vessels of the Line, and furnished him information of sailings from the New York waterfront, which he in turn passed on to the naval attaché, Boy-Ed. Through this division he was able to keep in touch with the waterfront element for whatever service of violence might be necessary, and to keep a fairly complete record of shipping. The special detail division was assigned to the guarding of von Bernstorff’s summer place at Cedarhurst, Long Island, Dr. Albert’s office in the Hamburg-American building, von Papen’s office at 60 Wall Street, and the Austrian consulate in New York. This division conducted every week a test to determine whether or not Dr. Albert was being shadowed. We find entered in his notes on his operatives this:

“H. J. Wilkens is commended by me for good service rendered thus far as attendant on Dr. Albert. This commendation is based on a note received from the latter under date of November 12, reading as follows:

“‘Dear Mr. Koenig:

“‘The service rendered by your bureau’s operative, H. J. Wilkens, have proven entirely satisfactory.

“‘Yours truly,
(Signed) H. T. Albert.’”

Apparently Koenig’s performance of his duty to the German cause encouraged the high officials of the German government in the United States to rely upon him, for these posts were gradually placed under his direction during the summer of 1915, the Embassy at Cedarhurst on July 3, Dr. Albert’s office on Sept. 1, von Papen’s office on Oct. 26, and the Austrian Consulate on December 15—three days previous to Koenig’s arrest, and less than a week after Captain von Papen, who was returning to his own country by the request of our country, had called P. K. to the German Club to “express his thanks for the services this Bureau have rendered to him.” “At the same time,” the little notebook confides, “he bid me Good-Bye.” We find these functions mentioned with a suggestion of reverence.

But the autobiography of Paul Koenig resumes its dark shroud of mystery when it turns to the functions of the division of secret service. There he is the dominating figure, a sort of cross between a Dr. Moriarity and a gorilla, a slippery conniver one minute and a pugnacious bully the next, convicted by his own complimentary reports. It was in handling the “D-cases” already mentioned that he employed his many false names, his secret numbers, his elusive places of appointment, and his essentially Teutonic discipline. The nature of the work of this division may best be suggested by citing a case which appears rather often in his records—Case D-343.