Saboteurs: The Nazi Raid on America Cool stuff!!! .mp3 (4.52 MB)
Michael Dobbs
Knopf, 2004
Interesting. Relevant. History at its Best.
In June 1942, German submarines U-202 and U-584 departed the Battle of the Atlantic at a crucial stage. On moonless nights, at predesignated targets, their secret mission was to approach as close as possible the east coast of the United States. U-202 came so near to Long Island that the sub became grounded on a sandbar. As Captain Hans-Heinz Linder ordered the ship abandoned and charges set to scuttle her, a small party dressed in clothing with American labels crept inland. Carrying bags of detonators and high explosives, utilizing their specialist training from the top secret sabotage camp near Brandenburg, East Prussia and their pre-war experiences, they evaded capture. Eight German agents- four in New York, four in Florida- swiftly disappeared into American society.
Exciting stuff. History worthy of a big-screen epic.
Yet the most fascinating points in Saboteurs: The Nazi Raid on America are the small stories, the more intimate realities. Belfast-born Michael Dobbs- a veteran reporter for the Washington Post- completed a vast amount of research in FBI files, interviews and archives to discover who these eight men were and what they believed they were doing. None was James Bond. Nor anything like it. These inept misfits were far more interesting.
With concise, precise language Dobbs gets into the expensive shoes of George John Dasch, the leader of the Long Island group. A German immigrant to the US, Dasch spent his twenty years as a waiter attempting to organize fellow food service workers for the communists. Failing that, he returned to Nazi Germany where he impressed no one except exiled but well-connected American Bund leader Walter Kappe. In a story that reads like the best spy fiction, failed waiter and convivial drama queen Dasch was entrusted with a clandestine mission approved by Hitler himself.
The first thing Dasch did when arriving in New York City was sell his group out to J. Edgar Hoover's FBI. Then he spent a 36 hour pinochle marathon with old restaurant friends. Rather than blow up the city's bridges, the other members of his team drank themselves stupid, bought fancy shoes, clothes, expensive meals and other delights with bales of fifty dollar bills supplied by the Division III of the Abwehr.
The Florida group contained a Chicago kid named Herbie Haupt who barely spoke German. He had fled Chicago in 1941 to avoid marrying a pregnant girlfriend. In Mexico another German-American friend suggested they sail for Japan. Japan was not to their liking so they continued their world tour, travelling through China, Russia, and then into Germany shortly before Operation Barbarosa closed that border. The sabotage school was just a bit of fun, and the u-boat ride across the Atlantic the last leg on a wild trip home. Haupt arrived in Chicago via rail. He bought himself a snap-brim hat, a black six-cylider Pontiac sports coupe and a bottle of pills that could temporarily mimic a heart ailment. He had as little intention to demolish anything as he did to be called up in the draft that he had just registered for.
Other members of the group had come to the US to see girlfriends or just to avoid being sent to the Russian front. There was only one true Nazi amongst them. In short order, thanks largely to Dasch, the FBI swooped on both groups. The infiltrators- including a surprised Dasch, who had imagined that he would be rewarded with a job writing radio broadcasts- were imprisoned under heavy guard. Anti-German feeling amongst the public was high.
Despite the fact that no damage had actually been caused except to the Wehrmacht's war effort, President Roosevelt himself road the outraged bandwagon. The last half of Michael Dobbs' book tells the sad tale of how these hapless would-be saboteurs were vilified, railroaded and tried by a military tribunal of questionable legality. In a courtroom miracle, Dasch and another would-be double agent were given long prison sentences. Twenty-two year old Haupt and five others were executed in the electric chair. It was less than two months since they had come ashore.
Dobbs' writing is sharp and superb. The parallels with a current US situation are subtle, allowing readers of all political stripes to draw their own conclusions. Saboteurs: The Nazi Raid on America contains insights worthy of a different Michael Dobbs, the author of the House of Cards novels. This is a fascinating, fast-paced and fantastic read.
Critical Mick says: For interest and relevance, Saboteurs is history at its best.
Michael Dobbs, you rock! The other Michael Dobbs too!!
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