Cautionary Tales with Tim Harford - Dumm und Dümmer: Hitler Invades Florida

Episode Date: August 28, 2026

In 1942, eight men are sent from Nazi Germany to infiltrate America. Their mission: to sabotage critical infrastructure. Their problem: they're idiots. Operation Pastorius soon devolves into one of the most baffling failures of World War II. For a list of sources, see the show notes at timharford.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Pushkin. Joseph Schmidt drops a spoonful of baking soda. into a glass of water and stirs until the powder dissolves. He takes a syringe and draws up some of the solution. Then he pulls down his pants and carefully injects the baking soda into the tip of his penis. Desperate times call for desperate measures and Joseph Schmidt is desperate. Schmidt's in his early 30s. He's six feet tall, fit and strong.

He's got blonde hair and blue eyes, which helps in Germany in 1942. Schmidt is German, though he spent years in Canada, living on his wits as a hunter, trapper and trader. Then he ran into trouble and had to flee the country. It was hard to travel with the war on, but he made it back, Mexico and Japan.

No sooner had he got back to Germany, and he got a tap on the shoulder from an agent of the Abver, the Military Intelligence Service. I'm putting together a crack team of operatives to go undercover in the United States. The agent told him, I'm recruiting Germans who've lived in North America

and who'll be able to blend back in. He'll get a fake identity. Are you interested? Schmidt was interested. Schmidt was sent to a farm near Brandenburg. Over weeks of intensive training, he and eight other hand-picked operatives learned how to use explosives and timing devices.

They learned where to plant those explosives to cause maximum damage to the US economy, blowing up railroads, canal locks and aluminium plants. They learned to make invisible ink from laxative pills so they could send each other's secret messages. Joseph Schmidt learned something else, too. He learned that the other eight hand-picked crack operatives were largely idiots.

Just look at what had happened since they'd completed their training and traveled through Nazi-occupied France accompanied by a naval officer who was arranging for U-boats to take them from a French port to the U.S. coast. In Paris, one of the eight got roaring drunk and told everyone in the bar that he was a secret agent. Another woke half the hotel by getting into an argument with a prostitute. When she demanded payment, he was confused twice over.

He didn't understand French, and he hadn't realised she was a prostitute. Then there was George Dash, the man who'd been inexplicably chosen to lead them. Dash was the biggest idiot of all. He'd been a waiter in America for 20 years, and at least his English was good. Mostly, it did have a few quirks. For instance, he'd overgeneralized from the phrase, use your noodle,

and thought that noodle was an all-purpose synonym for brain. I could not put it all in my noodle. Dash struggled to pay attention in training. Then, when they got to France, Sheisa. I left my papers on the train. He lost the carefully falsified papers he'd need to establish his fake identity in the US. When he realized this, dashed dashed to the station. But the train had left.

He tried to explain his predicament to the station's staff, but made them so suspicious that they called the local Gestapo. Only with difficulty were the local Gestapo persuaded that this evident idiot really he was about to lead a team of trained saboteurs on a top secret mission. These idiots, thought Joseph Schmidt, are going to get me killed. It was clear to him what he had to do, inject baking soda into his penis. Schmidt knocks on the door of the naval officer in charge of arranging the U-boats. Captain Leutnant, says Schmidt. I think I've picked up a disease from a brothel in Paris.

Show me, says the officer. Schmidt pulls down his pants. The officer looks at the gunky foam oozing from the tip of Schmidt's penis. He says, you're not getting on one of my U-Boats with that. Schmidt was out of Operation Pistorius. George Dash would have to lead the remaining crack operatives without him. I'm Tim Harford, and you're listening to Cautionary Tales. George Dash did not enjoy his journey on the U-boat.

It wasn't too bad when the submarine was actually underwater. The electric engines hummed gently, and their progress felt serene. But it was also slow. Those electric motors weren't very powerful. To travel more quickly, they had to rise to the surface, fire up the noisy diesel engines. and keep a constant watch for Allied airplanes, ready to dive at a moment's notice.

The U-boat rocked and lurched with the waves. Dash curled up in his bunk, feeling horribly seasick. The journey took 17 days. Still, it could be worse. Dash was headed to Long Island, along with three of the other operatives. The remaining four members of Operation. Pastorius were on another U-boat bound for Florida.

There'd still be at sea for four more days. The eight would reconvene in Cincinnati, on a symbolic date, July 4th, to plan which bit of critical wartime infrastructure to attack first. It was nearly midnight on Friday, June the 12th, when the captain of Dash's U-boat said they could land. They were somewhere near East Hampton. It was hard to be sure exactly where, because the fog was thick. The captain drifted his U-boat gently into the sand.

Two sailors read it a dinghy to row the four saboteurs to shore. They tied a rope to the U-boat to find their way back. Into the dinghy went a big bag of cash and four crates, packed with explosives. The saboteurs would bury the crate. on the beach and come back for them later. Also into the dinghy went four sets of civilian clothes to change into. The saboteurs were dressed in military uniforms.

That mattered. If they happened to be captured while landing, they'd be treated as prisoners of war under the Geneva Convention. The sailors began to row, but which way was the shore? The fog was thick. They could only listen out for the breaking of the waves which seemed to be coming from the left. No, the right.

A wave broke over the dinghy, drenching everyone. They made it to the beach and unloaded the cargo. Then Dash heard a voice through the fog. Who are you? A coast guard. He must have landed near a Coast Guard station. Dash called back. Fishermen.

We ran a ground in the fog. Where are we? I'm a gun set. Come and shelter in the station for the night. All right. They'd discussed what to do if they met a lone coast guard on patrol, overpower him. Now that they'd actually met one,

well, Dash made his way through the fog till he was face to face with the coast guard. The man was young. Dash lowered his voice. I wouldn't want to have to kill you. You don't know what this is about. Dash pulled a wad of dollar bills out of his pocket. Take this and forget you ever saw us.

I don't want your money. Another figure appeared from the fog and said something to Dash in German. In German! What an idiot! Dash snapped at him. Shut up! and go back to the others. The young Coast Guard grabbed the money, turned, and ran off into the fog. In Amagan-set lifeboat station, the young Coast Guard's boss was sleeping when he burst through the doors.

Germans! There were Germans on the beach! Germans? What do you mean? Germans? There can't be. They tried to bribe me. Look! The young Coast Guard thrust the money at his boss. $260,000, several thousand in today's terms. Okay, said the boss, I believe you. He woke the other nightguards and gave them rifles, not that they'd ever been trained in how to use them.

No one had really expected Germans to land on a beach in the Hamptons. They followed the young coast guard through the fog to where he'd encountered the men. The men weren't there. But they could hear the raw revenge. and smell diesel fumes. The fog briefly eased, revealing a long, dark shape. A U-boat.

On the U-boat, the captain desperately revved his diesel engines. There was no use. He was stuck in the sand, and the tide wouldn't turn for another hour. The fog briefly eased, and he saw with horror how close he was to the Coast Guard station. He ordered his men to prepare to surrender.

They placed explosives around the boat. At all costs, the Allies mustn't capture their top secret enigma codebooks. But it was odd. The Coast Guards must have seen him, or heard his engines as he tried to get away. Yet they weren't firing on him. Why? Back on the beach, the Coast Guards had ducked behind a fence with the rifles they weren't sure how to use.

They were afraid the U-boat would fire on them. them. They made their way carefully back to the station and radioed their superiors who radioed Navy Intelligence, who said, Someone thinks they've seen a U-boat in the Hamptons. Yes, yes. We get calls like that from Nuttas all the time. Cautionary tales will be back after the break. You know app is here, Ontario. It's safe, secure and crystal clear with fast payouts and 24-7 local support. You can play over 3,000. and games right here, including Hard Rock Bet Casino exclusives.

The Hard Rock Bet Casino app is here, Ontario. Roll with us. Must be 19 years of age or older to play. Ontario only. Please play responsibly. Concerned about your gambling or that of someone close to you, visit connectsontario.ca. Herbie Haupt was just a child when his family moved from Germany to Chicago. By 1941, Haupt was 21 years old. an American citizen. That posed a problem. He'd have to register for the draft. And he had an

even bigger problem. He'd got his girlfriend pregnant. This was all far more responsibility than young Herbie Haupt was ready for. He told his mum he was going on vacation and instead skipped the country. He figured he could get a job in Mexico. But no, he'd need a work permit. Houtt burned through his money. He heard that Germans could work in Japan, so he got on a ship. He didn't like the work in Japan, so he got on another ship to Nazi-occupied France. He decided to visit his grandparents in Germany. Maybe he could join the Luftwaffe. That would be cool. But no, he'd need a permit to get any kind of job in Germany, and the Gestapo weren't inclined to give him one. They found his story hard to believe.

What kind of idiot drifts aimlessly around the world in the middle of a war? The Ubbair, the Military Intelligence Service, had no such concerns. Haupt got a tap on the shoulder. Would he like to join a crack team of undercover operatives? Houtt decided that, yes, he was. He did quite fancy a free journey back to the United States, thank you very much. He was missing his mum, and despite everything, his girlfriend. Also, there was rationing in wartime Germany.

He could only get two cigarettes a day. Hout was sent to a farm near Brandenburg for weeks of intensive training. They learned things like how to assemble collapsible boats. But when Houtt took his out on a lake, It collapsed. He was wearing heavy boots, nearly drowned. The training over, they had a weekend off in Paris. Houtt met a girl and took her back to the hotel.

She seemed to like him, but later she started yelling at him. Strange. Herbie Hout was put on a U-boat bound for Florida with three other saboteurs. They were given crates of explosives and money. Really quite a lot of money. Halpert alone was entrusted with $14,000, something like a quarter of a million in today's terms. They were given Nazi military caps. For some reason, it was important to wear them while landing.

The journey across the Atlantic was long. What an adventure he'd had. But Herbie Halpert was looking forward to getting home. Off the beach in Amagansett, in the dark and the fog. The U-boat captain waited, feeling more and more puzzled. The Americans must have seen them. Why weren't they attacking? Slowly, slowly, the tide inched in.

The captain tried once more with the diesel engines, one forward, one reverse. This time the U-boat lurched off the sand and chugged towards deeper water. then dive to safety. The first light of dawn crept along the beach. The Coast Guards quickly found discarded German uniforms and four crates which the men must have tried hurriedly to bury in the sand. The crates turned out to be full of explosives.

None of the Coast Guards, it seems, stopped to wander where had the Germans gone? If the Coast Guards had wandered that, they might have reasoned, perhaps the Germans walked inland till they got to the train tracks, then followed the tracks, till they got to a station. The Coast Guards might then have thought, let's check out Amagansett Rail Station. If they had, they would have found four damp, bedraggled, frazzled-looking men

with a large bag of cash, waiting anxiously for the first train to New York, which wasn't due till nearly seven o'clock. But nobody thought to check out Amagans at rail station. George Dash and his three companions got on the train. The seas off Florida were warm in mid-June. Herbie helped and his three colleagues wore only bathing suits to make their landing. and the military caps to mark them out as lawful combatants in case they were captured.

They weren't. Nobody saw them. They buried their crates of explosives carefully in the sand and discarded their Nazi caps. Now in civilian clothes, behind enemy lines, they were no longer protected by the laws of war. They were unlawful combatants. If they were captured, they could be executed.

Faced with this mortal peril, the top priority was a spot of shopping. They were, of course, supposed to use the cash they'd been given for sabotage activities. But naturally, they'd need new clothes, and shoes, and suitcases. Kirby Houtt treated himself to a flashy gold wristwatch. What next? They had more than a fortnight before they all had to meet in Cincinnati, so they went their separate ways. One was eager to resume his love life.

He went off to meet his mistress, then his wife. Herbie Hout took the train back home to Chicago. His parents were surprised to see him, and even more surprised to see his bag full of money. I've been in Germany, he said. I'm involved in matters of great importance. and Grandi and Grandpa say hello. Halt went to the local car dealership

and bought a black six-cylinder Pontiac coupe. He went to see his old girlfriend. She said, Where have you been? Our baby died. He said, Marry me? George Dash, as team leader,

had been given even more cash than the others, well over a million in today's money. Once the train from Amagansett had got him safely to New York, Dash checked himself into a fancy hotel, went shopping at Macy's, and then took another of the saboteurs out for dinner, rare steaks and fine wine. You couldn't get this kind of meal in wartime Germany.

Dash had chosen, his meal companion carefully. He wanted to learn more about Peter Berger's past. At the training camp, the other saboteurs had been suspicious of Berger. They knew he'd been in trouble with the Gestapo. Dash asked him, what happened? Peter Berger told Dash his life story. As a teenager, he'd been one of Hitler's earliest supporters. He'd taken part in the Munich Beer Hall Putsch, the Nazis' first attempt to seize power. It failed. Hitler went to prison. Berger emigrated to the States. When Hitler took charge, Berger moved back to Germany. But the Nazi party was riven with factions, and Berger's old friends fell out of favor. The Gestapo

had him arrested. He got out in the end, but his wife had been so shaking. up. She had a miscarriage. Berger clearly despised the Gestapo. That was no barrier to getting a tap on the shoulder from the upvair in the Nazi infighting. They didn't much like the Gestapo either. But what did Berger's bitterness mean for his commitment to their mission? The next morning, Dash invited Berger to his hotel room. As Berger later told the story, we continued our conversation of the night before. Dash's account was much more dramatic. I locked the door, I opened the window.

They were on the 13th floor. I said to Berger, we're going to talk, and if we disagree, only one of us will leave this room by the door. The other will leave by the window. Cautionary tales will be back in a moment. and berry and tropic berry energizers now at McDonald's made with freeze-dried fruit and an electric burst of flavor the all-new red bull energizers now at McDonald's this product may not be right for you high in caffeine details at macdonalds.ca and participating canadian restaurants excluding quebec in the hotel room on the 13th floor peter burger said to george dash i think we understand each other I don't want to go through with any sabotage,

and I don't think you do either. I noticed in the training camp that he never paid attention. George Dash and Peter Berger now agreed to betray the mission. Had they always secretly intended this, as they now insisted, or had they been spooked by their near-miss with the Coast Guard and decided to give up before they were caught? Either way, Berger picked up the telephone directory and looked up the number of the FBI's New York office.

They left the hotel and found a payphone. Dash made the call. I need to speak to Jay Edgar Hoover personally. Please inform Mr. Hoover that I will come to Washington to see him on Thursday. Or maybe Friday. Yes, yes, thought the call handler. Another nutter. We get them all the time.

It was now Sunday evening. Why did Dash want to wait till Thursday or Friday before travelling to Washington and risk one of the other saboteurs giving him up first? There was something he wanted to do. Play Pinnacle, his favourite card game. On Monday evening, Dash went to. to an old haunt, the waiters club. He knew everyone there, and they knew him as a frustrated waiter, who'd always seemed to think he was cut out for grander things. He'd talked a lot about politics,

but was he a Nazi or a communist? They were never sure. He'd disappeared mysteriously, and now he was back in expensive new clothes. Where have you been? they asked. don't ask me anything. I couldn't tell you the truth anyway. Dash took a seat at the pinnacle table and pulled out a bunch of high-value notes. Thank God I don't have to work as a waiter anymore. Dash played pinnacle all through Monday night

and all through Tuesday and all through Tuesday night. On Wednesday morning, he paid the bills of everyone in the club dispensed some handsome tips, took a taxi back to the hotel, and slept. On Thursday, he went to Washington. On Friday, he finally turned up at the FBI.

By now, the FBI had heard all about the Germans on the beach at Amagansett. The young Coast Guard had given them a description of the man he'd met. That description looked very much like the man who was next. Now telling an agent. I've got a long story to tell. I want to tell it in my own way, and I want to tell it to Jay Edgar Hoover. He should be expecting me.

Mr. Hoover, alas, was not available. But please, said the agent, tell your story. Dash began to ramble about how it worked as a waiter and never liked the Nazis. He went to Germany to visit him. his mother and got a tap on the shoulder from the Abwehr. He listened to the propaganda that America was broadcasting into Germany. It's terrible, Dash complained.

You should put me in charge. I'll rally millions of Germans to the Allied cause. The FBI agent tried to keep him focused. Where are the other seven saboteurs? After rambling for 13 hours, Dash finally mentioned at which New York hotel they could find Peter Berger. He'd told Berger to keep tabs on the other two who'd landed in Amagansett. And what about the four from Florida?

Ah, said Dash. He couldn't remember all the details, but not to worry, it was all written down in invisible ink on this handkerchief. To reveal the ink, he said, you simply have to use some, Some chemical. Which chemical? said the agent. If I'd known you boys were going to ask all these questions about it, I would have learned it. In his New York hotel room, Peter Berger got a knock on the door.

FBI, open up. Thank goodness, said Berger. What took you so long? Back in Washington, George Dash was. still racking his noodle. Ammonia! You need ammonia to read The Invisible Ink. With his flashy new watch on his wrist, young Herbie Hout was driving his Pontiac coupe

when men in suits in a Hudson sedan pulled him over. FBI, they said, we understand you're part of Operation Pastorius. Ah yes, said Herbie Halped. I was going to tell you. Really?

said the G-Men. When? Houtt explained what he'd been planning. See his parents, buy a car, propose to his girlfriend, then come clean about Operation Pastorius, and then go on honeymoon. The government men were incredulous.

You thought we'd let you go on honeymoon? Houtt did indeed. think that. After all, he hadn't actually done any sabotage. So what was he guilty of? They explained to him about the laws of war. You landed in a U-boat with crates of explosives. You're an unlawful combatant. You could be executed. One by one, the FBI picked up the members of Operation Pastorius. They all told similar stories. In Germany, said one, I always hoped something would come up to prevent me from going. They were called furtive, guarded conversations with one another.

What do you think of our leader? Not much. Hmm. Perhaps they'll be a way out. Mon Saboteur said he always knew they were doomed because Dash was an egomaniac and a crackpot. He'd been hoping to see his mistress and his wife. again, then abscond to Argentina. The eight were tried by a secret military tribunal. Journalists were allowed in, briefly, to look at the saboteurs. That was disappointing,

reported the New York Times. They'd expected burly-booted stormtroopers or brutal U-boat captains. But these individuals were inconspicuous, most ordinary-looking. The tribunal heard the statements the eight had given to the FBI. The one from George Dash ran to 254 pages. On the witness stand, Dash rambled off on so many tangents that the prosecutor despaired. We'll be here for a week if this goes on. I've never heard evidence like this in my life.

Luckily, Peter Berger was much more succinct and just as keen to tell them everything that might be useful. He told them about a ninth member of their group, who hadn't travelled at the last moment. Joseph Schmidt. Schmidt, said Berger, was cool and deliberate, an excellent shot. Big, strong and self-reliant, a very intelligent individual.

Perhaps this Schmidt might be sent over later with another group of saboteurs. The FBI put up wanted posters. The account that emerged of the saboteurs training was surprisingly impressive. In the crates they'd buried in the sand, for instance. They'd been given explosives, disguised as lumps of coal, an ingenious way to blow up a coal-fired engine. They'd been given intricate timer devices disguised as fountain pens. The FBI's explosives expert was impressed.

One of their targets was a cryolite plant in Pennsylvania. That puzzled the US government until they realised that their entire aluminium industry depended on it. The Nazis had understood their supply chain vulnerabilities better than they had themselves. which made it all the stranger that Operation Pastorius had been entrusted to such evidently inadequate individuals. The crackpot egomaniac, the embittered Gestapo hater, the naive, impulsive kid, and we haven't even got to the talkative drunk or the nervous wreck.

At the military tribunal, the defence lawyer said, isn't it enough to lock them up? None of them have actually done any sabotage and look at them. They probably never would have. The prosecutor responded with sarcasm. Can it really be true that the Uvair agent who recruited them was a dumbbell who chose eight morons? He demanded the death penalty for them all.

Operation Pastorius can surely tell us something about the importance of good recruitment. But it also reminds me of a classic study we've met before on cautionary tales. The experimenter's asked a subject to sit in a room, on their own, and fill out a form. Smoke began to pour in from a vent in the wall. Most subjects, as you'd expect, got up and left. Then the experimenters varied the setup. They put two actors in the room

and told them to ignore the smoke and carry on filling out their forms. Now, when faced with the thickening smoke, the experimental subjects also saw that the people sitting next to them were calmly soldiering on. In that situation, just one in ten people had the gumption to get up and leave. The others thought, nobody else is leaving.

Maybe this is fine? They kept on filling their forms while rubbing their eyes and coughing. The lesson, if you perceive danger, but others around you aren't taking action, don't assume you're the one who's wrong. There were nine people in the training camp for Operation Pastorius. they had weeks to form a judgment of the competence of their comrades and their leader and what that suggested about their prospects of survival. Yet only one in nine had the gumption and resourcefulness

to extricate himself from the situation. Joseph Schmidt. By injecting his penis with baking soda, Schmidt saved himself. The tribunal sentenced all the saboteurs to death. But two had their sentences commuted. George Dash and Peter Berger were held in prison.

Dash was appalled. I had all reason to believe that I would be greeted with open arms, befriended as an ally. Dash had fully expected to be put in charge of US propaganda. Before his execution, naive young Herbie Howe,

wrote a letter to his mum. I did not know what a grave offence it is to come here the way I did in wartime. But what happened to Joseph Schmidt? I wish I could tell you. The last trace of Schmidt in the historical record is the source of the story with which I started this tale. The Capitan-leutnant, who had inspected Schmidt's frothy penis and banned him from the U-boat, later bumped into him.

They bonded over their memories of the eight saboteurs. So incompetent, said the Capitan loitland. What a bunch of idiots! Anyway, did your health problem clear up? Schmidt grinned and told him about the baking soda. After that, nothing. No mention of what Joseph Schmidt did next. As a storyteller, that's disappointing.

I'd have liked to end this tale with his fate, but it's not surprising. Joseph Schmidt was the smartest person in Operation Pasturius. Once the wanted posters went up, of course, he was never heard from again. Sources for this episode include Saboteurs, the Nazi raid on America by Michael Dobbs, and They Came to Kill The Story of Eight Nazi Saboteurs in America by Eugene Rackless.

For a full list of our sources, see the show notes at Tim Harford.com. Cautionary Tales is written by me, Tim Harford, with Andrew Wright, Alice Fines, and Ryan Dilley. It's produced by Georgia Mills and Marilyn Rust. The sound design and original music are the work of Pascal Wise. Ben Adaf Haffrey edited the scripts.

It features the voice talents of Melanie Guthridge, Genevieve Gaunt, Stella Harford, Maseaer Monroe, Jamal Westman, and Rufus Wright. The show also wouldn't have been possible without the work of Jacob Weisberg, Greta Cohn, Eric Sandler, Carrie Brodie,

Christina Sullivan, Kira Posey and Owen Miller. Cautionary Tales is a production of Pushkin Industries. If you like the show, please remember to share, rate and review. It really does make a difference to us. And if you want to hear it, add free and receive a bonus audio episode, video episode, and members-only newsletter every month, why not join the Cautionary Club?

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