Podcast Episode #174 - A German Spy Ring on Staten Island with Robert Weingartner
Two German spies were arrested on Staten Island, NY in June 1943 at the end of a long FBI investigation into their activities.
Ernest Lehmitz had originally immigrated to the US from Germany in 1913, and worked briefly at the German consulate in New York before the US entered the war in 1917. He remained in the area for the next 20 years, but during a visit back to see family in Germany in 1938 he was recruited by German intelligence. After several weeks of formal training in tradecraft he returned to Staten Island.
While there he recruited another man, Erwin DeSpretter, to assist with the operation. They observed naval and maritime activity around the area, including shipbuilding for the US Navy at Bethlehem Steel.
Lehmitz then sent reports written in invisible ink to dead letter drops in Portugal, Switzerland, and elsewhere. He mailed at least 26 letters, but unbeknownst to him, the 15th letter was analyzed at a British censorship office on the island of Bermuda, and British intelligence quickly informed the FBI of a suspected German spy ring somewhere around New York City.
FBI agents began the painstaking process of identifying the sender of the letter, who’d used the alias Fred Lewis. They eventually narrowed it down to Lehmitz based on clues in the visible text of the letters, combined with a handwriting sample still on file from when he’d returned from a trip to Portugal in 1941. A German-speaking FBI agent named Peter Hoehl even rented a room in Lehmitz’s home in order to observe him from up close before his arrest.
For episode 174 of the Spycraft 101 podcast I spoke with Robert Weingartner of Staten Island about his research into the Germany spies operating there during World War 2. We discussed their activities, their discovery, and the investigation that resulted in their arrests and convictions.
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