The German Secret Service in America 1914-1918 — Reading Notes

From Embassy to Street-Level Operations

The narrative traces a clear descent from official diplomatic channels to clandestine street-level activities. Count Johann von Bernstorff, the German ambassador, is identified as the 'responsible director' of secret policies, but the excerpts quickly move to operatives like Rintelen, who share offices in New York and communicate via coded telegrams. The authors document how the embassy's authority diffuses into a network of agents using pseudonyms ('F. Brown'), hotel rooms (Room 700 B, Sherman Hotel), and limousine meetings at Central Park. This structural shift from high diplomacy to covert action is mirrored in the prose, which alternates between official statements and intercepted messages.

The Labor Peace Council as a Front

A recurring image is the 'Labor's Peace Council,' initially based in Chicago and later in Washington. The authors present it as a front organization designed to manipulate American labor sentiment against munitions shipments. The council's structure is detailed: organizers James Short and J. J. Cundiff each received $50 a week, a secretary earned the same, and a vice-president (the informant Buchanan) took no salary. The movement from a local 'Peace Council' to a 'National Peace Council' is documented through congressional lobbying and press releases attacking the Federal Reserve Banks. The authors highlight the irony that the council claimed to represent a million labor votes while being funded by German agents.

Coded Communication and Financial Trails

The excerpts are rich with specific codes and financial figures that reveal the operational structure. Rintelen's telegram to 'E. Ruskay' uses the code 'F. Brown' and refers to a 'party who receives $12,500 monthly'—later identified as Samuel Gompers. Another message mentions 'Twelve thousand five hundred now at capitol,' with 'B' standing for Congressman Buchanan. The authors trace money flows: $12,500 monthly payments, $50 weekly salaries, and the cost of a clipping service. These details are not merely anecdotal; they form a paper trail that the authors use to reconstruct the movement of funds from German sources through intermediaries to American labor figures.

The Bridgeport Strike and the Limits of Control

A pivotal scene involves the munitions strike in Bridgeport, Connecticut. The authors show how the German agents attempted to paralyze industry through labor unrest. Rintelen's associate Lamar boasted that the strike was 'only a beginning' and that within thirty days industry would be paralyzed. However, the narrative also reveals the limits of German control: Samuel Gompers went to Bridgeport to stop the strike, and Lamar claimed that 'Buchanan will settle Gompers within twenty-four hours!' The outcome is left ambiguous in the excerpts, but the structure of the account—moving from confident prediction to uncertain resolution—mirrors the broader theme of espionage as a series of gambits with unpredictable results.

Readers should attend to how the authors juxtapose official documents (telegrams, press releases) with informal testimony (Buchanan's quoted statements, Meloy's recollections). This layering of sources creates a mosaic effect, where the reliability of any single piece is questionable but the cumulative pattern is persuasive. The book is less a narrative than an evidentiary dossier, and its power lies in the accumulation of specific, dated, and located details.