Ernest Becker

Copyright, International Film Service

Captain Charles von Kleist (left) and Captain Otto Wolpert (right)

The result of our first examination of the four was the arrest of Carl Schmidt, chief engineer of the Friedrich der Grosse, and three of his assistants, Georg Praedel, William Paradies and Friedrich Garbade. We covered the laboratory, but Dr. Scheele had fled, to Florida. There he received a telegram telling him it was safe for him to return to New York. He had traveled as far as Baltimore when another telegram informed him of the arrests, and he fled to Cuba, and it was March of 1918 before he was arrested by the Havana police and extradited to New York. The laboratory was in a secret room on the top floor of the factory, accessible only through a trap door, and the trap itself was pierced with eyeholes so that anyone at work inside could see who was outside. We found a rich store of explosive and incendiary chemicals—all the ingredients of the bombs, which Lieutenant Busby brought back as evidence. Scheele was a finished chemist, and a German spy of 23 years’ standing. It had never occurred to him that von Kleist would squeal for want of money. “How good a German are you?” he had asked von Kleist when he engaged him in March, 1915. (The first project of the two was to saturate fertilizer with lubricating oil and thus smuggle the oil into Germany.) “I’m as good a German as you ever pretended to be,” von Kleist answered. “You are not,” said Scheele, “or you wouldn’t have taken out naturalization papers here. I didn’t do that.” “Well, I couldn’t have got my captain’s sailing license if I hadn’t,” said von Kleist.

Loyalty to Germany alone had not satisfied the appetite of von Kleist, for he had caught a glimpse that night of the check for $10,000, signed “Hansen” which Scheele proudly waved as evidence of what Germany thought of his ship-destroying ability. In the Austrian-subsidized Transatlantic Trust Company, where von Rintelen had deposited a large amount of money on his arrival from Germany, he had an account in the name of Hansen. Here then was the explanation of Fay’s remark about his friend who was a prisoner in England.

So far, so good. We knew that Becker, Schmidt and the other engineers had made the bombs, and that Becker and Scheele had filled them. On the evidence the four were convicted; Becker and von Kleist were sent to Atlanta for two years, and the other four to the penitentiary for six months. We were satisfied, but could not prove, that Wolpert and Bode had disposed of the bombs where they would do the most damage. They refused naturally to convict themselves, were admitted to bail of $25,000, which was provided by friendly Germans, and were interned when we went to war. The four assistants served their terms and then were extended the privileges of internment camps as dangerous enemy aliens.

So far, so good, but the snake was not yet dead—we had only cut off a section of his tail. To be sure, he could not get about with his former vigor. The ship fires, which had continued through February, stopped, and one can count on his fingers the fires that broke out on ships after that date. Our theory had served its purpose—but who were the men higher up?

When Paul Koenig had been taken into custody in late December, 1915, we had found in his house in West 94th Street an address book containing some hundreds of names of folk with whom he apparently did business. The memorandum book is mentioned elsewhere in this volume in detail, but the present case may show just what specific use we made of the catalogue of spies which the obliging Koenig had left in our hands. Among other entries was this:

“Boniface during the day—3396 Worth—ask for
Boniface at night 1993 Chelsea—Never home until 10:30 P. M.”

We had gone systematically through the book, checking up our knowledge of each person mentioned, in order to see whether the trail of Koenig, von Papen, Boy-Ed and the Hamburg-American interests might not lead us to other unexpected outrages, and so we were seeking this Boniface who was “never home until 10:30 P. M.” For months he proved elusive, but not long after the arrest of the Hoboken bomb-manufacturers we located a certain Bonford Boniface.