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Show Tiey Tried and Failed (lly John FAnar Hoover, Director Federal llurenu of Investigation, United State Department of Justice.) ' Nazis in America have been tak ing a drubbing like the Nazis facing the Yanks in Normandy, the British at Caen, and the Russians in ther victorious sweep through Poland. The much-vaunted methodical planning and scheming of the Nazis have contributed to their own downfall. down-fall. They tried, but failed, to swing their Fifth Column into action in America. It suffered setbacks before be-fore Pearl Harbor, but its back was broken once we were freed of peacetime peace-time restraints. Since Pearl Harbor, ove 15,750 suspected Fifth Columnists Colum-nists have been arrested. The more dangerous were interned, others paroled, and others released re-leased when it was certain they would do no harm. The German High Command admitted ad-mitted the Ineffectiveness of their Fifth Column when they dispatched the eight saboteurs to America by submarine two years ago. We have learned that other saboteurs were trained to take their places. But so far they have not put in their appearance. ap-pearance. The Nazi rats must not be underestimated. under-estimated. Try cornering a rat and see how he bares his teeth and strikes back. We can expect the same from the Germans until the last vestige of Naziism is crushed by our Armed Forces. America has a perfect score In combatting the experts in doom and destruction. No act of enemy-directed sabotage has yet occurred in the United states. I am sorry to say that even native-born Americans have tried; 1 am happy to say that they, too, have failed. One 23-year-old worker in an aircraft plant cut 21 wires in two bombers just to see how the FBI handled a sabotage investiga- ' tion. .He found out. The "Blunder Bund," which once scoffed at American faith in human ' nature, was set back when its chief espionage ring was penetrated by the FBI. We built a radio station with their funds, gave them misleading mis-leading information, sold them fictitious fic-titious plans, and at the conclusion of the case turned over a profit of $17,000 to the U. S. Treasury to buy bullets to shoot back at the "super race." Gerhard Wilhelm Kunze, convicted convict-ed leader of the German-American Bund, fled to Mexico. He was tripped up when the alert Mexican military authorities became suspicious suspi-cious after he stacked a 25-foot fishing fish-ing boat with 200 pounds of food, 450 liters of drinking water, and 50 packages of cigarettes. Ernset Fritz Lehmitz was caught as the result of some of his newsy letters designed to conceal reports in secret writing on convoy movements. move-ments. He wrote that his dog was sick, he was busy with a victory garden and as an air raid warden. These jig-saw bits of information were pieced together and after some additional hard work he and his associate, as-sociate, Erwin Harry De Spretter, were arrested. Before Pearl Harbor, the Nazi Embassy in Washington had detailed de-tailed plans to foment strikes and incite domestic strife. An important Nazi official in this country was discarded by his fiancee when she learned of his scheming against the United States. Another Nazi official offered of-fered to pay S500 for documentary documen-tary proof of the canard and lie that Benjamin Franklin was anti-Semitic. The Germans built up a dollar balance of over 521,000,000 by selling Rueckwan-derer Rueckwan-derer marks in this country prior to the war to be redeemed in Germany. Practically all the German consulates in the United Unit-ed States were active in promoting pro-moting the German-Americaij Bund. Nazi brazenness reached its Height when Baron von Spiegel, the German Consul in New Orleans, boasted that the United States would be repaid when the Reich completed its conquest in Europe. A Midwest consular attache was greatly embarrassed em-barrassed when he was caught making mak-ing pictures in a factory area. The Nazi spy, Heinz August Lun-ing, Lun-ing, arrested and executed in Cuba, kept canaries in his room to conceal the noise of his short wave radio transmitter. Heavily populated prisoner of war . camps in the United States hold thousands of frustrated Germans. Occasionally, some try to get away. Sometimes they succeed for a time. But no prisoner has yet been able to get back to Germany, and their periods of freedom generally are limited to a few hours. |