Operation Pastorius was a failed German intelligence plan for sabotage inside the United States during World War II. The operation was staged in June 1942 and was to be directed against strategic American economic targets. The operation was named for Francis Daniel Pastorius, the founder of the first organized settlement of Germans in North America. The plan involved eight German saboteurs who had previously spent time in the United States.

The plan quickly failed after two of the agents, George John Dasch and Ernest Peter Burger, defected to the Federal Bureau of Investigation shortly after being deployed, betraying the other six. A military tribunal – whose constitutionality was challenged to the Supreme Court in Ex parte Quirin – sentenced all eight to death later that year. President Franklin D. Roosevelt commuted the sentences of Dasch and Burger, while the other six were executed. In 1948, Dasch and Burger were granted executive clemency by President Harry S. Truman, conditional on their permanent deportation to the American occupation zone in Germany.

Sixteen other people were charged with aiding those in charge of the operation.

Background

After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941, followed by Germany's declaration of war on the United States four days later, and the United States' declaration of war on Germany in response, Hitler authorized a mission to sabotage the American war effort and attack civilian targets to demoralize the American civilian population inside the United States. The mission was given to Abwehr chief Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, the head of German military intelligence. During World War I he had organized the sabotage of French installations in Morocco, and other German agents entered the United States to attack New York arms factories, including the destruction of munitions supplies at Black Tom Island, in 1916. He hoped that Operation Pastorius would have the same kind of success.

Agents

Recruited for Operation Pastorius were eight Germans who had lived in the United States. Two of them, Ernst Burger and Herbert Haupt, were American citizens. The others, George John Dasch, Edward John Kerling, Richard Quirin, Heinrich Harm Heinck, Hermann Otto Neubauer and Werner Thiel, had worked at various jobs in the United States. With the exception of Dasch, all of the men were members of the German American Bund and/or Nazi Party. Neubauer had served in the German Army on the Eastern Front.

All eight were recruited into the Abwehr and were given three weeks of intensive sabotage training in the German High Command school on an estate at Quenzsee, near Berlin, Germany. The agents were instructed in the manufacture and use of explosives, incendiaries, primers, and various forms of mechanical, chemical and electrical delayed-timing devices. Considerable time was spent developing complete background "histories" they were to use in the United States. They were encouraged to converse in English and to read American newspapers and magazines to improve their English and familiarity with current American events and culture.

The team

<gallery class="center" heights="175" mode="packed">

File:George John Dasch.jpg|George John Dasch

File:Ernest Peter Burger.jpg|Ernest Peter Burger

File:Herbert Haupt - mugshot.jpg|Herbert Hans Haupt

File:Heinrich Heinck - mugshot.jpg|Heinrich Heinck

File:Edward John Kerling - mugshot.jpg|Edward John Kerling

File:Herman Otto Neubauer.jpg|Hermann Otto Neubauer

File:Richard Quirin - mugshot.jpg|Richard Quirin

File:Werner Thiel - mugshot.jpg|Werner Thiel

</gallery>

Mission

Their mission was to sabotage American economic targets: hydroelectric plants at Niagara Falls; the Aluminum Company of America's plants in Illinois, Tennessee, and New York; locks on the Ohio River, near Louisville, Kentucky; Pennsalt Chemicals (then the Pennsylvania Salt Manufacturing Company) in Cornwells Heights (Bensalem), Pennsylvania; the Pennsylvania Railroad's Horseshoe Curve, a crucial railroad pass near Altoona, Pennsylvania, as well as their repair shops at Altoona; the Pennsalt cryolite (a raw material in the production of fluorine and aluminum) plant in Philadelphia; Hell Gate Bridge in New York; and Pennsylvania Station in Newark, New Jersey. The agents were also instructed to spread a wave of terror by planting explosives on bridges, railroad stations, water facilities, public places, and Jewish-owned shops. They were given counterfeit birth certificates, Social Security cards, draft deferment cards, nearly $175,000 in American money, and driver's licenses, and put aboard two U-boats to land on the east coast of the U.S.

On the night of 12/13 June 1942, the first submarine to arrive in the U.S., commanded by Captain Hans-Heinz Lindner, landed at Amagansett, New York, about 100 miles east of New York City on Long Island, at what is now Atlantic Avenue beach. It was carrying Dasch and three other saboteurs (Burger, Quirin, and Heinck). The team was launched in inflatable rafts (in which Dasch nearly drowned) and came ashore wearing German Navy uniforms so that, if they were captured, they would be classified as prisoners of war rather than spies. They also brought their explosives, primers and incendiaries, and buried them along with their uniforms, and put on civilian clothes to begin an expected two-year campaign in the sabotage of American defense-related production.

Immediately upon reaching the beach, at around 30 minutes past midnight the saboteurs were discovered amidst the dunes by unarmed Coast Guard Seaman John C. Cullen, who was accosted by Dasch and offered a bribe of $300. (Cullen had been shortchanged, the money only amounted to $260.) Cullen feigned cooperation but reported the encounter. An armed patrol returned to the site, finding "four crates of explosives and some German uniforms that had been hastily buried in the wet sand", as well as fuses and pre-made bombs; but the Germans were gone, having taken the Long Island Rail Road from the Amagansett station into Manhattan, where they checked into a hotel. The FBI, informed of the operation by the Coast Guard, initiated a manhunt for the saboteurs. This group came ashore wearing bathing suits, but wore German Navy hats. After landing ashore, they threw away their hats, put on civilian clothes, and started their mission by boarding trains to Chicago, Illinois and Cincinnati, Ohio.

Betrayal

While in the Manhattan hotel, Dasch — clearly unnerved by the encounter with the Coast Guard — called Burger into their upper-story hotel room and opened a window, saying they would talk, and if they disagreed, "only one of us will walk out that door—the other will fly out this window." Dasch told him he had no intention of going through with the mission, hated Nazism, and planned to report the plot to the FBI. Burger agreed to defect to the United States immediately.<!-- or was arrested in his hotel room — as described by goldstein, this conflict should be rectified --> None of the other six German agents were aware of the betrayal. During the next two weeks, Burger and the other six were arrested. Dasch hoped that he would be hailed as a hero for exposing the plot, but the FBI had other plans; J. Edgar Hoover made no mention of him and claimed credit for the FBI for capturing the saboteurs.<blockquote>"I want one thing clearly understood, Francis. I won't hand them over to any United States marshal armed with a writ of habeas corpus. Understand?"</blockquote>

On 2 July 1942, President Roosevelt issued Executive Proclamation 2561, creating a military tribunal to prosecute the Germans.

Placed before a seven-member military commission, the Germans were charged with the following offenses:

  • Violating the law of war;
  • Violating Article 81 of the Articles of War, defining the offense of corresponding with or giving intelligence to the enemy;
  • Violating Article 82 of the Articles of War, defining the offense of spying; and
  • Conspiracy to commit the offenses alleged in the first three charges.

Members of the Military Tribunal

  • Maj. Gen. Frank Ross McCoy, President
  • Maj. Gen. Walter S. Grant
  • Maj. Gen. Blanton Winship
  • Maj. Gen. Lorenzo D. Gasser
  • Maj. Gen. Guy V. Henry Jr.
  • Brig. Gen. John T. Lewis
  • Brig. Gen. John T. Kennedy

The trial was held in Assembly Hall #1 on the fifth floor of the Department of Justice building in Washington, D.C., on 8 July 1942. Lawyers for the accused, who included Lauson Stone and Kenneth Royall, attempted to have the case tried in a civilian court but were rebuffed by the United States Supreme Court in Ex parte Quirin, a case that was later cited as a precedent for the trial by military commission of any unlawful combatant against the United States.

The trial for the eight defendants ended on 1 August 1942. Two days later, all were found guilty and sentenced to death. Roosevelt commuted Burger's sentence to life in prison and Dasch's to 30 years because they had surrendered themselves and provided information about the others. The others were executed on 8 August 1942 in the electric chair on the third floor of the District of Columbia jail and buried in a potter's field in the Blue Plains neighborhood in the Anacostia area of Washington.

Aftermath

The failure of Operation Pastorius caused Hitler to rebuke Admiral Canaris and no sabotage attempt was ever made again in the United States. During the remaining years of the war, the Germans only once more dispatched agents to the United States by submarine. In November 1944, as part of Operation Elster, the German submarine U-1230 left two SS-Reichssicherheitshauptamt (Reich Security Main Office) spies on the coast of Maine to gather intelligence concerning North American manufacturing and technical progress. After a month of high living in New York City, but no espionage gathering, one of the men turned himself in to the FBI, which captured both agents soon afterward. Both were convicted and sentenced to death, with their executions stayed throughout the duration of the war, after which their punishment was commuted by President Truman into life sentences in prison. One man was paroled in 1955, the other in 1960.

In 1948, President Harry S. Truman granted executive clemency to Dasch and Burger on the condition that they be deported to the American occupation zone in Germany. In Germany they were regarded as traitors who had caused the death of their comrades. Dasch died in 1991 at the age of 89 in Ludwigshafen, Germany. Burger died in 1975.

Sixteen people, including Herbert Haupt's mother and father, were arrested for aiding the saboteurs. The last person to be arrested was Lutheran Pastor Carl Krepper, a member of the German American Bund and the German American Business League, which supported boycotting Jewish businesses. Krepper had helped establish safehouses for the saboteurs. In March 1945, he was found guilty of trading with the enemy and conspiracy to commit sabotage and sentenced to 12 years in prison. Krepper was paroled in 1951, and died in 1972.

For his part in the affair, Seaman John Cullen was awarded the coxswain insignia, featured on the front page of the New York Times, and received the Legion of Merit medal. His wedding in 1944 made the newspapers and attracted turnout "well beyond the intended guests".