Chapter 11: The Diplomat, the Major, the Princess, and the Knight
Throughout World War II, Max Ilgner of I.G. Farben ran the organization known as the AO. Financed by I.G. Farben, the organization of Germans Abroad was not officially but in fact actually under Walter Schellenberg's direct control. * The leading agents for the AO in he hemisphere were Hitler's former commanding officer Fritz Wiedemann and Hitler's beloved treacherous Princess Stefanie Hohenlohe. With I.G. money and direct approval from Himmler, Wiedemann and Stefanie were the most peripatetic members of the American-Nazi international fellowship. They schemed along with Schellenberg for the downfall of Hitler and the advent of Himmler and the Schmitz Council of Twelve. They, like Himmler, dreamed of the restoration of the German monarchy. They visited the Kaiser in Doom, Holland, until 1941, the year of his death.
Wiedemann and Stefanie entered the United States telling the FBI privately that they had fallen out of favor with Hitler. This was true, since Hitler in fact was gravely suspicious of both of them because of their connections to both the official plot to dislodge him and to the ambiguous Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, head of the Abwehr, German Military Intelligence, who himself was suspected of being a double agent. As consul general in San Francisco, Wiedemann was head of the Orient Gruppe, the SD network that encompassed the whole Pacific basin including the North and South American coastal states, Thailand, Malaya, Hong Kong, mainland China, Formosa, and Japan while at the same time collaborating with the British and Americans. The Princess Hohenlohe, a widow, was his mistress, with unlimited connections in society.
The princess was half Jewish. She had been given the title of Honorary Aryan by Dr. Goebbels along with General Erhard Milch of the air force in return for her services to the Third Reich. She and Wiedemann had become romantically involved at the time of Hitler's rise to power.
Wiedemann was handsome, with black wavy hair, chiseled features, a powerful jaw, and a boxer's physique. Fluent in many languages, shrewdly intelligent, he was the toast of society on both sides of the Atlantic. The princess had been quite pretty as a young woman but had not aged well. The addition of years had filled out her figure and rendered her features far less attractive. Nevertheless, she had immense charm and vivacity; she was witty, sparkling, high-strung, and wonderful company. She was also one of the most dangerous women in Europe.
In the early 1930s, Wiedemann and Stefanie were entirely devoted to Hitler and I.G. Farben's AO. They were friendly with Lord Rothermere, British millionaire-owner of the London Daily Mail, who gave the princess a total of $5 million in cash to assist in Hitler's rise to power. She was less successful in France, which deported her in 1934 for scheming against an alliance between France and Poland that might have helped protect Europe from Nazi encroachment. She formed a close friendship with Otto Abetz, the smooth Nazi representative in Paris who later became ambassador and was so helpful in the fall of France. In 1938 the princess arranged a meeting between Wiedemann and Lord Halifax, the British Foreign Minister, in London, the purpose of which was to determine Halifax's and Chamberlain's attitude to Hitler. The mission was successful. As the princess had promised, Halifax told Wiedemann that the British government was in sympathy with Hitler and that he had a vision that "Hitler would ride in triumph through the streets of London in the royal carriage along with King George VI."
Wiedemann and the princess were credited by Hitler with helping to pave the way to his annexation of European territories. The Fuhrer rewarded her with the gift of Leopoldskron Castle near Salzburg, former property of the great Jewish theatrical producer Max Reinhardt. Beginning in 1933, Wiedemann made several visits to the United States, chiefly to direct the rabid Nazi organization known as the Friends of New Germany. He aided Ribbentrop in negotiating an anti-Comintem pact with Japan, and in the spring of 1938 traveled to the Balkans to bring them closer into the realm of the Axis.
Stefanie also spent much time in Switzerland, where she linked up with German Intelligence nets, many of them connected to her former husband, Prince Hohenlohe, who had been head of Austro-Hungarian intelligence in that country in World War I.
During the British abdication crisis of Edward III, Lord Rothemere sent the princess from London to Berlin with a Gobelin tapestry as a Christmas present for Hitler. After Edward abdicated, Hitler cabled Ribbentrop in London, "Now that the king has been dethroned, there is certainly no other person in England who is ready to play with us. Report to me on what you've been able to do. I shan't blame you if it amounts to nothing." The princess arrived at Berchtesgaden for a tete-a-tete just after this telegram. Hitler flirted with her and touched her hair; she had always wondered if he was a homosexual and was delighted to discover that he was attracted to her. She reminded him cheerfully that there were many in Britain who would indeed "play" with the Fuhrer even if Edward would no longer be able to do so in his new position as Duke of Windsor. She was soon to learn that the Duke of Windsor was still able to "play."
In the late 1930s, Princess Stefanie traveled continuously to London, Paris, Berlin, Salzburg, Madrid, and Rome. She was usually on Rothermere's payroll, and accepted a swastika-shaped diamond clip from Hitler and a photograph on which Hitler wrote "To my esteemed Princess." She and Wiedemann visited the United States in 1937, where they linked up to Fraternity friends such as Sosthenes Behn, Walter Teagle, and Edsel Ford. Their social position gave them great influence over prominent figures who could affect others in the Nazi cause. Hermann Schmitz rewarded the princess with a parcel of I.G. shares. At the Ritz Hotel in London a week after war broke out in September 1939, several lady aristocrats denounced her as a spy and insisted that she leave the restaurant at once. She proceeded calmly with her meal.
Later that year she was busy fighting an unsuccessful lawsuit in the London courts against Lord Rothermere for nonpayment of the amounts due to her in her travels on behalf of the Nazi cause. The case tied her up in London. Wiedemann went ahead to New York with the understanding that she would follow soon afterward. Now that Europe was plunged into conflict, their purpose was to help keep America out of the war and to unite German-Americans in business to the Fatherland. Wiedemann set up the German-American Business League, which had as its rules purchase from Germans only, a boycott of Jewish firms, and the insistence that all employees be Aryans. Financed by Max Ilgner through General Aniline and Film, Wiedemann developed the Business League while pretending to denounce the Associated Bunds organization. Among the members were the owners of 1,036 small firms, including numerous import-export companies, fuel services, dry goods stores, meat markets, and adult and children's dress shops. The League stirred up anti-Jewish feeling, financed secret Nazi military training camps, paid for radio time for Nazi plays, and publicized German goods. It ran lotteries without licenses and sold blue candles to aid its brethren in Poland and Czechoslovakia before those countries were annexed.
On September 10, just after war broke out in Europe, Wiedemann told the German-American Business League in San Francisco: "You are citizens of the United States, which has allied itself with an enemy of the German nation. The time will come when you may have to decide which side to take. I would caution that I cannot advise you what to do but you should be governed by your conscience. One duty lies with the Mother country, the other with the adopted country. Blood is thicker than ink ... Germany is the land of the fathers and regardless of consequences, you should not disregard the traditional heritage which is yours."
The Princess Stefanie's arrival in California in 1940 was not as trivial or absurd in purpose as it seemed, accompanied as it was by a great deal of publicity including seemingly endless column mentions. Given her glamour and notorious reputation, she was asked to many social events in San Francisco and Los Angeles. The idea of a Nazi rincess electrified society, even those members of it who delighted in stating their fondness for England. She was quizzed, gushed over, and interviewed incessantly. Meanwhile, she talked with the wives of business leaders, to try to influence their husbands toward the Nazi cause. She warned of the dangers of communism, and the possibility that Hitler might attack America if America were not friendly. She mentioned the wealth and prosperity of Germany.
She was a perfect agent for Nazi philosophy. She helped bring about many deals between businessmen and the I.G. Farben cartels. She continued her romantic liaison with Wiedemann. FBI agent Frank Angell and a special team tracked the two down to the Sequoia National Forest where Wiedemann and the princess spent the night together in a log cabin while the G-men lurked among the trees.
J. Edgar Hoover became so obsessed with the princess and her doings that he had squads of men following the wrong woman: the Princess Mabel Hohenlohe, an innocent American who had married into the family. Mabel and her friend, the socialite Gurnee Munn, were dogged futilely for months when they had in fact done nothing more serious than acquire a Palm Beach parking ticket.
At the beginning of 1940 the Princess Stefanie met Sir William Wiseman, baronet and Cambridge boxing Blue. Plump, with a bristling mustache and dignified air, he had been head of British Intelligence in World War I. He had become a partner in the Jewish banking company Kuhn, Loeb. Treasury documents assert that the company was aligned with the dominant group of companies in Latin America that had entered into agreement with Nazi trusts to divide up the Latin American communications business.
According to A Man Called Intrepid, the well-known biography of Sir William Stephenson, head of British Security Coordination in the United States, Wiseman was a member of Stevenson's staff in World War II and was delegated to spy on Wiedemann and Hohenlohe with the authorization of J. Edgar Hoover and the British government.
The FBI files contradict this assertion. Indeed, they show that Wiseman was under suspicion and investigation. Army Intelligence chiefs' memoranda show that Wiseman was unauthorized by the British or American governments to act in any negotiations whatsoever. Indeed, his activities were neither condoned nor supported by any government.
In a note dated December 14, 1940, Brigadier General Sherman Miles, Chief of G-2, wrote to J. Edgar Hoover: "I suppose it is possible [Wiseman] is another of the same group of Englishmen that has negotiated with the Nazis in the past through men like Axel Wenner-Gren, Torkild Rieber and James D. Mooney."
According to A Man Called Intrepid, a most inaccurate work, Wiseman was authorized by the FBI to hold a private meeting on November 26, 1940, at the Mark Hopkins Hotel in San Francisco with Wiedemann and Hohenlohe to discuss a negotiated peace with Hitler. The FBI records and Hoover's notes to Roosevelt on the matter show that the FBI's San Francisco representative N.J.L. Pieper simply got wind of the meeting and, highly suspicious of Wiseman, decided independently to monitor it.
The meeting represented the essence of Fraternity thinking. Wiseman, as the FBI reported later, made it clear that he was acting as the mediator, not for the government of Great Britain, as he later claimed, but for the appeasement group in London headed by Lord Halifax, who was soon to become ambassador to Washington. Winston Churchill had clearly defined in speech after speech, memorandum after memorandum, his position on the war: total surrender of Germany without compromise. Wiseman made clear at the meeting that Halifax and he thought differently.
The princess said she would, as a Hungarian subject, bring Hitler the peace offer from Halifax, obtaining a fake visa in Switzerland in order to enter Germany. She would intercede directly with the Fuhrer, using his affection for her, and if that failed, she would assist in the ill-conceived Royalist/Schellenberg/I.G. Farben coup d'etat in which Himmler would take over and permanently restore the monarchy. A representative of Himmler's Gestapo would then meet with Halifax in London to confirm the arrangements for an alliance with Great Britain. Wiseman irresponsibly said that now that France was out of the way, the British could offer more favorable peace terms to Germany: "The French are always the difficult ones to satisfy, and we've had to consider France in the past. France will not have to be considered now except from the standpoint that she will be reestablished like Poland."
Wiseman supplied Wiedemann at this meeting with intelligence about the way in which the Royal Navy had intercepted Hitler's plans for the invasion of England. Simultaneously, Wiedemann gave Wiseman intelligence on the workings of the German High Command. Wiseman said, "If I were advising Hitler as a friend, I would say he amount of damage you could do to America is nothing compared to the damage that can be done if you make the Americans mad. They get mad slowly but it takes them a long time to get unmad. They get hysterical and look for a spy under every sofa, and from that point of view it just takes America more into the war. From my point of view, I do not want them to do it, because I do not want to see more killing. ... I would say that I do not want a lot of sabotage in America because it just makes the feeling so much more bitter and things so much more difficult." These words are almost identical to those found in Wiedemann's and Charge d'Affaires Hans Thomsen's memoranda to Berlin.
Hoover kept a tight scrutiny on the three communicants from that moment on. On December 18, 1940, the FBI tapped the princess's telephone. She was calling Wiseman in New York City from California to beg him to assist her in extending her visa and avoiding deportation. Wiseman, clearly embarrassed, told her, "Please don't talk any more about it over the phone. ... Don't say any more." The princess told him, "You know I will be eternally indebted to you. You know you will never have to regret this." Wiseman went on, "I will send you a telegram telling you when to call me and will do all I can for you."
She kept on calling Wiseman, begging him to do everything in his power to stop the newspapers from printing anything concerning her deportation. He contacted Ingram Fraser of the British Purchasing Commission, trying to pull strings in Whitehall.
On January 3, 1941, Wiseman had a meeting with Herbert Bayard Swope, a wealthy politician, who conveyed a message from Lord Beaverbrook that Wiseman was to meet Lord Halifax soon thereafter "to negotiate peace." Wiseman had a series of discussions with high-level diplomats including figures of the Australian Embassy. A useful contact in the State Department was none other than Cordell Hull's cousin, Lytle Hull. Indeed, when World War II ended, Wiedemann asserted that Lytle Hull supplied him with inside intelligence on the State Department.
Another conspirator was the United States director of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, Major Lemuel Schofield, an enormously fat man with a head like a football and large, ugly features. When there was a public outcry for the princess to leave the United States in 1940, Schofield announced that no nation would take her, thereby preventing her deportation. He became more and more deeply involved in a romance with her when Wiedemann jilted her in favor of a general's divorced wife, Alice Crockett.
Wiedemann sent Mrs. Crockett to Berlin to meet with Hitler and Himmler and determine if the German government was satisfied with his efforts. This ordinary San Francisco housewife found herself in a whirlwind of high-level meetings. She was astonished to discover that Himmler gave her a special reception. But when she returned, she turned on Wiedemann and reported him and his secret activities to the FBI. She also sued him for several thousand dollars for unpaid fees in connection with her journey to Germany. She charged that Wiedemann was in concert with I.G. Farben, General Aniline and Film, Henry Ford, and Charles Lindbergh to bring about "subversion and sabotage in the interests of the Nazi government. " She said that many American government officials, as well as plant superintendents, workers, and foremen in industries, particularly the steel and munitions industries, were in Wiedemann's pay. She claimed he "employed ruffians to stir racial hate ... and paid such ruffians from funds of the German government." Despite the fact that Mrs. Crockett was telling the truth, and that her husband had been a prominent figure in the U.S. Army, her case was thrown out of court and she was not even granted public recognition for her efforts.
Meanwhile, Sir William Wiseman was still working hard to prevent the Princess Stefanie from being shunted off to Nazi Germany, where she might reveal too much. His guilty collusion with her is as clear as Major Schofield's in the numerous documents that have recently been declassified.
Wiseman, in a conversation one midnight with a British person whom the FBI could not identify, said that he had "done everything possible to keep the threatened deportation quiet" but he was "drastically concerned with Steffi's habit of blowing her cover."
He said in a conversation with Ingram Fraser of the British Purchasing Commission that he was concerned "to keep that hysterical creature from going off the deep end ... from losing her head and spilling all the beans on the table." Fraser said, "This may spoil a very beautiful friendship." Wiseman said, "If the friendship spoils, we'll just have to go out and pick up another one." He added, "This gives an opportunity for a scandal on a really big scale. That's what I'm afraid of. "
FBI men followed Wiseman everywhere by car, train, and plane. There was a flurry of meetings between Wiseman and Ingram Fraser. Wiseman and the Hohenlohes strongly welcomed the appointment of Lord Halifax as ambassador for Great Britain in the United States.
Lord Beaverbrook in London cabled that he wanted Wiseman to contact Lord Halifax "as soon as Halifax arrived." There were a series of mysterious meetings between Wiseman, former President Herbert Hoover, Herbert Bayard Swope, and others, apparently on the matter of the negotiated peace.
On May 20, 1941, Schofield came through. He dropped the deportation proceedings and gave an interview to newspapermen at San Francisco Immigration headquarters explaining why: "While in custody the Princess Stefanie has cooperated with the Department of Justice and has furnished information of interest. The Department believes her release from custody will not be adverse to the interests and welfare of this country. Arrangements have been made for her continued cooperation, and her whereabouts and activities will be known at all times."
The major personally conducted the princess to her luxurious apartment in Palo Alto. Dressed in a chic black crepe dress with frothy white collar, white gloves, and a black and white hat, the Nazi princess was in a good mood on May 25, 1941, as she drove around San Francisco with the Director of Immigration at the wheel. Asked by reporters wherever he went if he would explain the "interesting information" Hohenlohe had given him, the major said with a smile, "Obviously not."
Although Walter Winchell, President Roosevelt, and seemingly everybody in Washington knew that the head of Immigration and the Nazi's favorite agent were involved in an affair, her release passed without significant public protest of any kind. The strongest statement appeared in the New York Sun. It was: "If 130 million people cannot exclude one person with no legal right to remain here, something seems wrong."
Hoover tried very hard to obtain from the Attorney General the "important information" to which Schofield referred, but there was no reply to his or his assistant's many phone calls. In fact, FBI memoranda show the FBI couldn't even interview the princess. When Percy Foxworth of the New York FBI headquarters sent a memorandum on June 1 to Hoover saying, "It appears desirable to have Princess Hohenlohe interviewed in order that complete information which she can furnish may be available for consideration in connection with our national defense investigations ... regarding German espionage activities," Hoover scribbled a note at the foot of the memo, "Not until we get from McGuire [Matthew F. McGuire, assistant to Attorney General Jackson] a copy of what she told Schofield, then we should ask McGuire for clearance ** to talk to her."
Next day at a congressional committee hearing in Washington, author Jan Valtin testified that Wiedemann's consulate was a clearinghouse for the Gestapo.
By early June, McGuire had still not yet yielded up Hohenlohe's statement to Schofield. The applications went on and on. Wiedemann was still out of town by early June, filming bridges and roads and dams from Colorado to Florida.
On June 15, 1941, McGuire sent a memo to Hoover saying that the princess's statement was "in the personal possession of Lemmy Schofield and was being typed." The same day, Drew Pearson in his Washington Times-Herald column said that Hohenlohe had paid for her freedom with "some amazing revelations about subversive operations in this country and Britain." Hoover wrote on the article photocopy sent to his office, "Have we gotten this statement yet? Maybe if the Dept. won't give it to us we might get Pearson to supply us with a copy!"
Pearson's article went on to say that the princess had told Schofield that Wiedemann was in bad odor with Hitler because of his friendship with Himmler's friend Hess, who had just flown to England on his famous peace mission; that she had given Immigration officials a list of Nazi sympathizers in Britain who had been trying to effect a negotiated peace with Hitler; that she had specifically named Rothermere; that she had named other German Nazi agents.
By June 20, Hoover had become exasperated by the Department of Justice's seemingly endless delays in supplying Steffi's revelations. McGuire was stalling and refused to disclose why Drew Pearson had information the FBI did not. "This is the worst pushing around we have gotten yet," Hoover wrote at the foot of a memorandum from Edward A. Tamm of his staff on the latest delaying tactic.
Meanwhile, Hoover was tireless in ordering reports on Steffi's Nazi connections.
Agent N.J.L. Pieper in San Francisco tapped several telephones to learn that Wiedemann had had a falling-out with Steffi. An informant called Pieper to say that he was a German friend of Wiedemann's who felt he owed something to the American government. He leaked the contents of a conversation he had had with Wiedemann, who said, "There is nothing the Princess could have said that would harm me. She wouldn't. Indeed, she gave nothing to Immigration. It was a blind so that Schofield could let her out. And there's another element. Cordell Hull's cousin, Lytle Hull, was together with Schofield in this matter. He wanted her released."
This disclosure could not be acted on by Hoover, because of his limited powers.
In mid-June 1941, under enormous pressure from Roosevelt, the government dropped a bombshell. All Nazi consulates in America were ordered closed.
Wiedemann was under orders to leave the country by July 10. He had only been in the consulate for a few weeks. Several people walked by the building and were heard by reporters to say "Good riddance." Two American sailors climbed to the roof of the consulate and pulled down the swastika flag.
The night after orders came from Washington, Wiedemann's neighbors reported smoke pouring from the chimney of the consulate with flakes of ash. Papers were being stuffed into the consulate fires while others were loaded into the official Mercedes-Benzes to be put aboard German ships bound for their homeland. There were rumors that Wiedemann had offered to tell the Hearst organization everything he knew about Nazis in America in return for being allowed to remain in the United States. But this turned out to be false.
By June 26, Hoover still did not have Steffi's report. When Wiedemann and three friends went to the Stairway to the Stars nightclub in San Francisco, patrons at surrounding tables asked to be moved away. On July 3, Edward Tamm of the FBI reminded Hoover in a memo that after two months McGuire had still failed to come up with the promised report.
On July 8, Wiedemann traveled to Los Angeles to give all of his espionage reports in person to local Consul George Gyssling. Gyssling was leaving for Germany on the S.S. West Point; Wiedemann was to travel to China to continue with his work linking up the German and Japanese intelligence nets. He would also meet there Ludwig Ehrhardt, Steffi's second cousin by marriage, who was to become espionage chief for the Abwehr in the Orient two years later.
On July 9 it was announced that Wiedemann and Dr. Hans Borchers, new consul general in New York, would be leaving on the Japanese liner Yawata Maru. The British government had failed to give assurance of the safety of agents on the Japanese shipping lines, and this made Wiedemann extremely nervous.
Suddenly the British announced that Wiedemann would be exempt from seizure under his diplomatic immunity. For some reason Wiedemann didn't believe this. Possibly he thought it was a trick, because at the last minute he chartered three planes for himself and his staff and flew via Omaha and Chicago to New York.
Hoover had them followed. Meanwhile, Steffi was in Washington at the Wardman Park Hotel. It became the talk of the town that she was continuing her affair with Schofield. On July 31, Steffi's reports still not yielded up, Schofield sent to Attorney General Biddle (who had replaced Jackson) that in order to help America, she would supply a series of articles criticizing Hitler: domestic broadcasts; shortwave broadcasts to the Axis; replies to pro-German speeches by Lindbergh, Senator Wheeler, and so on; lectures. And all these would include the following: She would attack Hitler violently, describing his "treachery, deceit and cunning," adding that he was a "sly and cunning trickster" and "doesn't shrink from murder to achieve his purposes." In August 1941 the FBI apparently gave up hope of ever receiving Hohenlohe's report. With incredible boldness, the major moved from the Raleigh Hotel to the Wardman Park on the same floor as the princess.
Princess Stefanie was in bad form, screaming constantly at the staff. Schofield had to pay enormous tips to pacify the maids. On August 9 it was announced in the Washington Times-Herald that the princess would publish a book in six weeks containing the "secret information" she had allegedly handed to Schofield. The FBI's Harry M. Kimball sent a memo to agent Foxworth next day saying rather plaintively, "It might be as well to yet again request this information from Mr. McGuire, pointing out the indication mentioned in the article that the press intends to fully publicize this matter within the next six weeks and that it would be most advantageous for the Bureau to have available this information prior to the time it becomes public."
At long last, on August 18, 1941, the Princess Hohenlohe was asked to leave Washington. The scandal of her affair with Schofield was such that acting Attorney General Biddle asked him to have her returned to California immediately. When Edward Tamm of the FBI got wind of this, he called Biddle. Where was the princess's statement? Biddle stated he knew nothing whatsoever about it.
At the end of August, Wiedemann was in Berlin, reporting to Himmler on his many findings. In September he was on his way by L.A.T.I. airlines to Argentina, where Nazi activities were extensive. He arrived in Rio in September, to confer with the Gestapo leader Gottfried Salldstede, who had just escaped from Buenos Aires. The Brazilian newspaper O Globo had a photograph of Wiedemann on the front page with the headline "Number One Nazi of the Americas." The article stated bluntly that Wiedemann was responsible only to Hitler and had left $5 million in America to finance Nazi espionage rings.
Throughout August the Princess Hohenlohe moved to the homes of various friends of Schofield's in his native state of Pennsylvania. Meanwhile, in Rio, local police searched Wiedemann's belongings and found a list of Nazi agents in California. They also determined that he was headed for the Orient, a fact he himself confirmed the following day.
Wiedemann sailed for Kobe on the Manila Maru via Chile on September 8. Violent demonstrations outside the embassy caused him to leave on the first available vessel. Two small bombs exploded as he drove in an armed car to the Buenos Aires wharves.***
Meanwhile, the princess was staying in a house (described as a "lovenest" by Walter Winchell) in Alexandria, Virginia. FBI men saw Schofield arriving at the house in the evenings and leaving in the mornings. She was still using the name "Nancy White. "
In the days just before Pearl Harbor the princess was in Philadelphia with Schofield. Her address book was examined by the FBI during her absence from the hotel and was found to include the name of Francis Biddle's wife. Hoover made a special note of the fact.
The moment the Japanese bombed Hawaii on December 7, Hoover wasted no time. As the Princess Hohenlohe left a Philadelphia theater with her mother at 10:20 P.M. on the night of December 8, FBI agents seized her. They bundled her into a car, leaving her eighty-nine-year-old mother screaming imprecations at them on the sidewalk. Hohenlohe was fingerprinted and photographed. She tried in vain to call Schofield by telephone. She was taken to the Gloucester Immigration station in New Jersey and put into solitary confinement, later changed to dormitory accommodations where she joined four Japanese girls and a woman from New Jersey who had trampled on the American flag and who spent much of her time doing double somersaults while the princess read the reminiscences of Madame de Pompadour.
It was now confirmed by Hoover that the supposed confession the princess had made out in order to be released from deportation had never existed. McGuire's and Jackson's statements that the important document was being typed amounted to little more than a lie. Precisely why the Attorney General chose to become involved in this deception remains undisclosed.
The plot thickened in mid-January. In a report of January 15, 1942, to Hoover by Special Agent D. M. Ladd, it was made clear that the princess had "a very influential friend in the State Department whose mistress she had been; the Princess had stated that this friend had the authority to permit Axis aliens to enter the country and to keep anti-Axis aliens out of the country." The name to this day is blacked out in the report. Since Schofield's name appears in all the other reports, the reference presumably is to Breckinridge Long. To this day, the FBI refuses to declassify it.
During February 1942, Hohenlohe was writing letters to her mother at the Philadelphia YWCA, full of instructions on what Schofield was to do. He was to tell reporters not to molest her, check everything before it was published, and find some way out of prison for her on the pretense she was Hungarian, not Austrian. Hoover kept careful note of all these correspondences.
The princess gave the performance of a lifetime at the camp, faking a stroke and invoking her friendship with Sir William Wiseman. Biddle proved to be most helpful, insisting that the princess should be transferred from Gloucester to a place of "the alien's choice" where she could get proper treatment.
The local inspector and the head of the Immigration station conferred with the Philadelphia U.S. Assistant Attorney who fortunately for national security evaded the order that, he pointed out, could result in the princess choosing any hospital she liked, "even though the hospital or members of its staff were suspected of German activities."
The "stroke" changed to a fit of temperament and the princess stayed where she was.
Schofield dared to make a couple of visits. He saw to it the princess was given considerate treatment. Her mother spent many hours with Schofield in offices in downtown Philadelphia, followed constantly by FBI agents. But it proved impossible to bug Schofield's office.
Roosevelt wrote to Hoover on November 28, 1941, "I spoke to the Attorney General about the Hohenlohe case and he assures me that he has broken up the romance. Also, he thinks it best not to change the present domicile as the person in question is much easier to watch at that place. Please do a confidential recheck for me."
On June 17, 1942, Roosevelt wrote again to Hoover: "Once more I have to bother you about that Hohenlohe woman. I really think that this whole affair verges not merely on the ridiculous but on the disgraceful. Is the woman really at Ellis Island?"
On July 11, it was clear nothing had been done. The President wrote to Biddle, "Unless the Immigration Service cleans up once and for all the favoritism shown to that Hohenlohe woman, I will have to have an investigation made and the facts will not be very palatable, going all the way back to her first arrest and continuing through her intimacy with Schofield. ... Honestly, this is getting to be the kind of scandal that calls for very drastic and immediate action."
The princess had her problems. She was being threatened with a legal action for the recovery of funds paid out and legal services supplied by her London lawyers, Theodore Goddard and Company. She tried to finance the repayment by pressing several publishers to take her memoirs; the ever-reliable Schofield managed to get her a special pass to travel to New York to discuss the matter with her agents in March. The President was getting more and more restless.
An interesting episode took place on July 16, 1942. An FBI special agent went to the visiting room of the prison on the pretext of interviewing one of the inmates. He noticed the lax conditions: a Nazi spy who had recently been arrested was speaking on the pay telephone in German without being monitored. The princess was perched on a desk; she seemed to be in good spirits and taking a letter cheerfully from a prison staff member. Apparently her skills included a mastery of shorthand. Or she may have been making a translation.
The prison staff man said boldly in conversation to the agent, "The princess has to have personal attention, and I like to keep her company. Sometimes she helps me censor the mail!"
What this did to national security can only be guessed at. Not surprisingly, Hoover ordered an "all-out effort to discreetly obtain information concerning the activities of the princess."
It was reported by several plants at Gloucester that employees received raises via Schofield because of their kindness to the princess. Every effort was made to survey the princess's activities from adjoining windows; Hoover had ordered the use of "a rooming house" for the purpose. Unfortunately, there was no such building and "the main street in front of the station is patrolled by Coast Guards who are suspicious of any individuals who may pass by. It would not be feasible to park a car in the proper position to observe activities without being detected by the Coast Guard."
Hoover was drastically concerned and sent a message to his New York office reading (August 3, 1942), "In view of the interest which has been shown in this matter by the President of the United States and the Attorney General, you are directed to obtain all developments concerning it immediately and submit the same to the bureau for the attention of the espionage section."
The princess's luck was remarkable: it proved difficult for the law firm in London to pursue their case against her because her attorney, David Brooks, was missing in action in Singapore. This caused a delay in the case.
She began turning to the church when Schofield proved understandably cool. She asked the priest to contact Cardinal Doherty, but he declined, perhaps in part because she wasn't a Catholic as she pretended.
In order to allay or smother the President's suspicions, Attorney General Biddle decided to transfer the princess to Seagoville, Texas, a convenient distance from Washington. Schofield made sure that a contact man was planted in the camp as his stooge. At last one of the FBI men took a chance and advised the Coast Guard of his purpose in watching Gloucester station. The Coast Guard was under special instruction to watch every move the princess's mother made in case she tried to spring Stefanie loose.
Stefanie became violent at the thought of being transferred to Texas and, in the words of a report, "acted like a tigress." She said that if her captors wanted to take her out of Gloucester, "they would have to carry her." As a result, an American Legion ambulance arrived at the center with two men carrying a restraining sheet and a strait-jacket. When she saw these, she announced she felt better and proceeded to the railway station in an Immigration car. As she sailed out of the camp's gate, someone was heard to say, "Is Schofield in Texas?"
The answer was in the affirmative. In fact, Schofield had preceded her there by two days. Suddenly the reason for her going to Texas became clear: She could try to escape across the Mexican border.
The princess left the train station in style. She demanded the Coast Guard carry her suitcases, and when they declined, she castigated them, accusing them of being physically weak. Stung to the quick, they obliged. When she arrived on the train, she expressed astonishment that she had not been given a drawing room but was compelled to sit in the day coach with an officer on either side of her. But she soon flirted with the two men so outrageously that they brought her a glass of white wine and some peanuts.
The baroness, her mother, was already installed at the Hotel Adolphus in Dallas. The princess arrived at Seagoville only to dash off a telegram to an Immigration official that read: IMPOSSIBLE FOR MOTHER. PLEASE DISCARD ALL CONSIDERATION OR ETIQUETTE, PURSUE AND INSIST THAT B [her code for Schofield] DOES WHAT YOU WISH. UNBEARABLE HURRY. STEFANIE.
The telegram was no problem to understand; it meant that the official, firmly in Hohenlohe's pocket, was to abandon his own caution and make sure that Schofield got her back to Gloucester with no further ado. Apparently, the heat had already proved more than a counterbalance to the chances of escape to Mexico.
The princess began threatening everybody at Seagoville, saying that she would be out of Texas in a very short time. Whether that meant she intended to go to Mexico or New Jersey was far from clear.
To confuse matters further, the same day she arrived in Seagoville, Wiedemann was reported to have arrived by submarine near Seattle.
It is scarcely surprising that Schofield was in fact in Seagoville when Princess Hohenlohe came off the train on a stretcher and was carried to the hospital for ten days despite the fact there was nothing wrong with her. She demanded use of the telephone, extended hours for visits from her mother, and sleeping powders. However, the major's influence was limited at Seagoville. The inspector in charge of Immigration, Joseph O'Rourke, ignored Schofield's pleas and made sure she had no privileges at all. He also added a couple of guards to the cyclone fence. The princess announced that no fence would hold her and she would escape and go to Mexico at the slightest opportunity. Stefanie's mother announced that she wished to be interned with her daughter as she had nowhere else to stay. Biddle conveniently placed an order for her arrest.
Desperation set in by the end of November. The princess had given Schofield some jewelry to sell for additional favors and he had failed to return it. On an impulse she called the local FBI man in Dallas and said she would personally give Hoover a full account of her activities with Lord Rothermere, her association with Fritz Wiedemann, and particularly her contact with Major Schofield. She asked to be assured that this information would not be furnished to INS. She was warned that Biddle and Schofield were very close personal friends and Biddle would ignore her. She then said that her mother had told Schofield that Stefanie was being framed and that Stefanie was about ready to go to Hoover about the case when Schofield became alarmed and paid the baroness's way back to Texas. As a last ditch stand Stefanie offered to throw in personal information about Hitler and Goebbels to insure her release. Edward Tamm of the Washington FBI, in his memo to Hoover, said that the "Princess is a very clever and, consequently, a very dangerous woman, and that she is maneuvering now to play the Bureau against the Immigration Service so she will get something out of it."
In January 1943 the princess wrote a heavily reworked version of her life and sent it off to the FBI. She told the Dallas agent John Little as she handed over this scrambled document, "What I have to tell will be as sensational as [any] saboteur's trial. What I have to tell is a 50-50 proposition. You will never regret it as long as you live. If you help my story to receive the proper attention, you will be reimbursed many, many times. I also have means in Washington where a person giving the right word will see that your career is furthered!"
She claimed she was railroaded into internment to protect Schofield's name. She said, "Anyone who comes in contact with me -- it is his lucky day. This interview will make your career. My story will make headlines." She demanded to be sent to Hoover and Roosevelt "about matters which I can only relate to the President."
She became hysterical several times and then admitted, "I am a spoiled brat." She insisted that Agent Little promise to release her. She said that she knew of "secret misunderstandings" between Hoover and Schofield. She said Schofield was dreadfully afraid of Walter Winchell. She said Schofield had her jewels and she would report him to Hoover. She said, "I always tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth. And only lie when I have to."
She asked for a special board to sit on her case comprised of Hoover, Schofield, Biddle, "and anybody else who should be present."
"That is beyond imagination," Little replied.
She continued. "Ask Mr. Hoover to come here in person. I won't always be a nobody. I have friends. You'll do what you can?" She sent a letter to Hoover, grossly flattering to John Little. She then said, mysteriously, "I have something to tell you, Mr. Hoover, of a personal nature. As a result, I will be cleared!"
With blackmail in the air, Little left.
Her last words to him were, "You will make headlines!"
In a further statement she pretended that she had not been intimate with a man since 1920. ("Where some women take pleasure in giving themselves, I take pleasure in denying myself.")
The material was the mixture as before: a blend of truth and fantasy and veiled threats. It seems to have impressed somebody in Washington, because efforts were made to arrange a new hearing of the Princess Hohenlohe's case. She sent several letters to Hoover that indicated clearly she had given up on Hitler because of the news of his failures in the war. Meanwhile, her mother posed as an insane person and asked for commitment to a mental institution. She was judged mad at a state court at Dallas. She was put in a pauper's ward.
Another agent went to see the Princess Hohenlohe in November 1943 and found her extremely distraught and in an emotional condition. He described her as "a consummate actress," "her emotion ... artificial and designed to win my sympathy."
On March 1, 1944, the Princess Hohenlohe finally got her hearing. Those present on the board were two members of the Department of Justice and one member of the FBI. The board concluded she was innocent of everything and that she should be paroled at once. She sailed triumphantly out of Seagoville -- but not at once. Hoover held up the matter for some weeks. Roosevelt personally overruled the board and saw to it that the princess was not released for the duration.
In late January 1945, Stefanie tried to kill herself with an overdose of pills. How she obtained them is a mystery. The princess sent a harsh letter to Biddle and a long rambling note to Eleanor Roosevelt.
The princess was finally released a few days after V-E Day. She appeared to have suffered little from her ordeal, and Major Schofield welcomed her back with open arms. They moved to his farm near Philadelphia and lived there as man and wife. The princess reconquered New York society. Seen dancing at the Stork Club, she provoked columnist Robert Ruark into writing that soon Ribbentrop would be observed in similar circumstances.
Wiedemann was equally fortunate. During the war years he had successfully run Nazi intelligence in Occupied China from the consulate in Tientsin, guarding his safety by claiming diplomatic immunity when the American troops moved in and by pointing out that he had protected Jews there.
Arrested in China in 1945, Wiedemann turned state's evidence at Nuremberg, providing familiar information in a melange that secured him immunity from the Nuremberg Trials. Wiedemann breezed through denazification. He was credited with being part of the plot whereby Admiral Canaris, head of the Abwehr, had hoped to remove Hitler -- not, more accurately, with the Himmler plot. The FBI never sent the huge file on him and the princess to Nuremberg. They were not asked to so do. Once again, The Fraternity had closed its ranks.
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Notes:
* Its nominal chief was Ernst Wilhelm Bohle.
** Author's italics.
*** Wiedemann's movements are erroneously reported in A Man Called lntrepid.