“Wagoner,” who was Paul Koenig himself, met the youth, and playing on his patriotism drew from him the information that he had access to many cablegrams to and from the Allied governments through the bank concerning the purchase and shipment of war supplies. Offering Schleindl a retainer of $25 a week, Koenig told him to steal from the files all such messages he could lay his hands on, together with copies of express-bills showing when the goods were delivered to the piers for shipment, all data relating to the prices paid, detailed descriptions of the purchases, and any other particulars which would help the German Government to complete its knowledge of what supplies America was shipping abroad. Schleindl grew quite enthusiastic in the work. Starting with light thefts, he gradually grew bolder, until he was in a position to steal documents night after night, take them to his appointment with Koenig, have them copied, and arrive at the Bank early enough the following morning to put them back where they belonged. Friday night was the regular appointment, but often messages of big shipments came in and he relayed the news at once to his chief. The extra $25 a week practically doubled his earning power, and made devotion to the Fatherland very attractive—so much so that he began to be afraid that Koenig, who was merely the receiving station for his reports, and who took no risks himself, would receive more than his share of credit. If there were any iron crosses to be given out, or any ribbons for foreign service, Schleindl felt that he had earned his, so he forwarded to his brother in Austria from time to time stenographic notes written in the Bavarian dialect which would be especially difficult of translation. In order to evade the censor he tore them into scraps and sifted them into the folds of newspapers which went unmolested through the British mail censors at Kirkwall. These scraps, pieced together and translated into reports, were forwarded by his brother to German officials.
Alexander Dietrichens
International Film Service. Inc.
Frederick Schleindl
Schleindl and Dietrichens at a German party
Schleindl’s zeal had led him into other channels of German activity. At college in Germany he had had a friend named Alexander Dietrichens, later known variously as Willish, Sander, Glass, and Lizius—one of those Riga Russians of German parentage who have served Bolshevism so eminently in Russia. In 1915 Dietrichens was in America, and the two renewed their friendship. He said he was eager to serve the Fatherland, and that he only wanted to know who was supplying munitions to the Allies to start a campaign of destruction against them. He suggested the Du Pont factories at Wilmington, and asked the young bank clerk to come along. Schleindl, impressionable and emotional, had not the courage. He confessed to me that he wept at the thought, and that he asked Dietrichens whether any harm could come to him if the explosion killed anyone. “Very likely,” Dietrichens answered cheerfully. Schleindl then declined, but he helped the dynamiter to the extent of keeping an occasional bomb or a package of dynamite for him during the day in his locker or under his desk at the bank. The main cache where Dietrichens stored his explosives was near Tenafly, New Jersey, but when Schleindl and I visited it, in a deserted spot almost a mile from the nearest building, the shanty was empty.
Schleindl was tried, convicted and sentenced to an indeterminate term in the penitentiary, for the theft of documents. Koenig pleaded guilty to the charge, but sentence was suspended on him owing to the greater importance of the Welland charges.