Stuff You Should Know - Selects: The Time Nazis Invaded Florida

Episode Date: March 11, 2023

During World War II, Nazis invaded the United States with saboteurs bent on fomenting chaos. Three times. Learn all about it in this classic episode.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

What would you do if a secret cabal of the most powerful folks in the United States told you, hey, let's start a coup? Back in the 1930s, a Marine named Smedley Butler was all that stood between the U.S. and fascism. I'm Ben Bullitt. I'm Alex French. And I'm Smedley Butler. Join us for this sordid tale of ambition, treason, and what happens when evil tycoons have too much time on their hands. Listen to Let's Start a Coup on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you find your favorite shows. I am Dr. Romany, and I am back with season two of my podcast, Navigating Narcissism. This season, we dive deeper into highlighting red flags and spotting a narcissist before they spot you. Each week, you'll hear stories from survivors who

have navigated through toxic relationships, gaslighting, love bombing, and their process of healing. Listen to Navigating Narcissism on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, everybody. It's me, Josh. And for this week's Select, I've decided it's time for a rousing bout of goofy history with our 2015 episode on the Nazis who invaded the United States during World War II. I won't give anything away, but suffice to say, it's the kind of topic that records itself. So relax. Let me give you a quick shoulder up there. Very nice. And enjoy this classic Stuff You Should Know app. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeart Radio.

Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant. Jerry's over there. This is Stuff You Should Know. Okay, ready for this? I'm ready. We're going to channel our Stuff You Missed in History class. Yeah. I'm not sure if they've done this or not. Are you? I don't know. So, Chuck, I don't know if you know this one because it didn't come up in this article, but back in World War II, did you know that the Japanese actually carried out bombing campaigns, two of them in Oregon? I did know that. Oh, you did? I'm a bit of a buff. Isn't that insane? Yeah. I mean, there's a lot of forgotten history or little known history that you read it. And thank God for like the internet because someone will post an article and say,

I bet you never knew this. Yeah. And then you're like, what? Yeah. That's pretty much the function of the internet, what you just described. Sure. So, this one, I think I learned about this from unsurprisingly, Uncle John's bathroom reader years and years and years ago. Oh, yeah. But definitely not in this kind of detail. It turns out that in World War II, in 1942, I believe, in Armagansett, New York, which is on Long Island, and Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida, which is just south of Jacksonville, Nazi saboteurs landed. They invaded America. Yeah. Pretty remarkable. It really is. What's even more remarkable is how badly their operations went. Yeah. What's remarkable is, well, not remarkable, what's

thankfully, they chose a bunch of dopes. Half-hearted dopes. Half-hearted dopes who, I don't know if they didn't do their research. We'll get into how they pick these schmoes. Yeah. But it didn't go so well. No, it really didn't. But if they had to pick some like the right guys, it might have been a whole different story. Oh, yeah, totally. In this war. And the FBI, especially J. Edgar Hoover, really lucked out that these guys were half-hearted dopes. Well, not if you ask him. No. It was just, he might as well have worn a cape around the office. Yeah. You know? Well, he may have in little else. So, back in World War II, even before World War II or before the U.S. under the Second World War,

Hitler had this great fantasy of sending New York City up in flames. Yeah. Like he really wanted to destroy New York. And Verne von Braun, the guy who helped get America to the moon, was working on a rocket program that could strike the United States from Europe. That was one thing. Never fully realized. No. Because the war came to an end before they could develop the right kind of missile. But they were working on it. Yeah. And they were also working on long-range bombers that could fly out of Europe all the way to America's East Coast and bomb. Yeah. Apparently, Hitler used to literally sit around and watch like film footage of cities burning and like fantasize about New York City. Crazy. Yeah. Well, he was pretty crazy. Sure. But he finally realized

that like if he was going to get New York, the best, most efficient, most at hand way to do that was to send saboteurs into the United States to infiltrate and do New York themselves. That's right. You know. Terrorists, essentially. Well, yeah. The only thing that kept them from being considered full-fledged just straight-up terrorists is because we were formally at war with this country. Yeah. So they were considered officially spies and unofficially saboteurs. Yes. Should we shout out the articles here? Yes, let's. Right off the bat. I read, well, I read a few. I read one on Damned Interesting, which was good. There was one you sent called World War II, German saboteurs invade America in 1942. Yeah. That was on HistoryNet. HistoryNet. Yeah. I feel like there was one more.

There's a Der Spiegel article. Oh, yeah. That's one. Called Operation Pestorius, Hitler's Unfulfilled Dream of a New Yorkan Flames. Yeah. Poor Hitler. I know. His dreams failed. So World War II hadn't been raging for long for the U.S. when this happened. It was right after Pearl Harbor was bombed. And Hitler said, you know what? They think they're over there. They're a long way from us, so they probably feel pretty safe. So let me undermine that and let me devise this plan. And it was originally going to be a wave of saboteurs, like every four to six weeks, they were going to be sending in small teams of terrorists slash spies to wreak havoc on the U.S. And thankfully, it didn't work out that way. So

it was kind of scrapped. Yeah. The Abwehr, I think that's how you pronounce it. You're the one who knows German. Abwehr. Is that right? Yeah. So that was the basically the saboteurs' unit of the German Military Intelligence Corps. And these guys had kind of perfected their craft with explosives and terrorism and all that jazz in European theaters already in the war. And so they set up a school, a terrorist school, which supposedly these guys were trained in like Jiu Jitsu as well as explosives and stuff like that. And I'll bet it looked a lot like Enter the Dragon in there, but with Germans, you know? Yeah. I wonder if they were trained at the Kung Fu School on an island somewhere, but this is in the woods. I wonder if they in the Black Forest,

perhaps. Yeah. I wonder if they were trained in Peanuckle and movie watching and car buying. I think that just came naturally. And rolling over and singing like a canary. So the Abwehr selected a man. His name was Walter Kapp, or is that Kappy? It'd be Walter Kapp. Walter Kapp, who was a pudgy, bull-necked man as described in the HistoryNet article. And the reason that they selected him to head up this operation, which Kapp came to nickname as Operation Pastorious, which is named after Francis Daniel Pastorious, one of the early German immigrants to the United States who arrived in Philadelphia in 1683. The reason they selected Kapp for this operation was because he had lived in America for 12 years already. So he understood America,

how it functioned, what targets should be struck, that kind of stuff. And they said, select your teams. Yeah. And so he put a donkey on the wall and got a tail with a little pin on it. Right. Now, what he did was he did some research and he went through the records of something called the Auslan Institute. And they were big on getting Germans back to Germany. Right. Ones that had emigrated to the United States. All over the world. Okay. So specifically, the ones he was looking for are ones who had been in the United States. Yeah, in this case. And a lot of these people had been in what was called the Bund, or is it the Bund? I would say it's a Bund, the American Bund, which was like basically the

Nazi sympathizers in the United States. Right. And they would set up little shops all over the country. Yeah. And they would speak out against Franklin Roosevelt. Sure. Speak in favor of fascism. And apparently they managed to get 20,000 people at a rally at Madison Square Garden once. By holding a Knicks game? Pretty much. I don't think the Knicks could even get 20,000 people that come out to Madison Square. But they were so unpredictable and radical here in the United States that even the Nazi party officially distanced itself from these guys in the Bund. Yeah, officially. Unofficially they recruited from their ranks, specifically for Operation Pestorius. Yeah. So he found some blue collar dudes. All but two of them had been Nazi party

members, which was a good start. Ford dropped off right off the bat, and that left him with what would be eight dudes, which they divided up into two teams of four. Right. One leader on each side and then three dopes below them. With cap at the head of the whole thing. Yeah. Even though he didn't come over to the United States for the operation, he was just sort of running the training initially. Yeah. And he was watching them do jujitsu. I guess so. In the hilarious Germans doing jujitsu in the woods, I don't think so. It just seems a little like neighborhood ninja camp kind of stuff. Well, they had to train in some sort of hand-to-hand combat. No, they're saboteurs. They don't

need to know that. They're supposed to know how to blow up a bridge. Yeah, but what if it caught in the middle? Like turn and run away. Jujitsu somebody down. No, you just run if you're a saboteur. Well, that's some foreshadowing right there. So here are the players on team one. We'll call it team Eintz. How about that? Is that one? Sure. Okay. On team Eintz, you had the leader, George John Dosh, and he was 39. He was the oldest guy. He was so old. I know, 39. And he was picked because he was a smooth talker and he was apparently just seemed very American, which was, if you're going to stick some Germans over there to be saboteurs, it's probably good if they can pass themselves off as just regular good German Americans. Right. Plus also, you have the added

benefit of not having to teach them to speak colloquial English. Sure. And they already know the terrain. They know the culture. Where's Coney Island? Right. I want a hot dog. Exactly. Yeah, so they were all good. Right. Yeah. Was that Count Dracula? No, that was my German saboteur. So that's why they went with the guys who had already spent time in America. Plus, it also showed a pretty significant loyalty to your homeland, the fatherland in this case, where when war breaks out, you go back to where the war is being fought to support it. Yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah. So they're like selecting from the Auslands Institute roles of immigrants who were also boond members. It seemed like just a knock it out of the park

group of guys. Yeah. So Dosh, he actually did, like you said, served in the German army in World War I, came to America, worked as a waiter, and then in 1939 said, you know what, duty calls, I'm going back home. Right. The second guy on the first team, Ernest Peter Berger. He was supposedly a smart guy and he had an interesting story because he was, he had long been a Nazi since they said as long as Hitler himself had been a Nazi. Yeah, he was part of the Beer Hall push. Yeah. He was what you call an early adopter of Nazism. He really was. And he actually had fled Germany for the United States because he was afraid he was going to get brought up on brawling charges. That's right. He liked to fight. Yeah. And he stayed there for about six years and then

worked as a machinist in the Midwest, even joined the National Guard, the U.S. National Guard, and became an American citizen. Yep. And then he went back after Hitler gained power, right? Well, he went back mainly because of the Great Depression. Oh, is that right? Yeah, but I mean it coincided, but he was like, yeah, this place stinks now. Yeah, and Hitler's in power. I'm going to go become a brown shirt and rough up people on the street, which is what he did. Pretty much. Because he really did love to fight. And the brown shirts were purged in the night of the Long Knives by Hitler and his cronies. Yeah. And it was Burger, right? Yeah. He managed to not be killed during that purge. Yeah. So he was working with his buddy Ernst Röhm

of the Stormtroopers, like serious business. Right. Röhm was actually killed during the purge. Oh, he was. Oh, yeah. They put a pistol in his cell with him and gave him 10 minutes to kill himself. Yeah. And he said, if you want me dead, Adolf's going to have to do it himself. And they came back. With Hitler. And Hitler's like, what is going on here? And the guy was standing there with his shirt off with his chest bared to him supposedly, and they just shot him in the chest point blank. And the head of the brown shirts went down. So that didn't work out for him. No, but Burger did survive this. Yeah, he did survive and went off to college. But then he wrote a paper about the Gestapo that was not too favorable and he got sent to a

concentration camp for his efforts for 17 months. Right. And then when he was released, they said, you can come out, but you have to go off with the army. Yeah. They harassed his wife. It was, I don't know that he was the best pick. Right. Now that I think about it. This guy that we've antagonized and thrown in prison and then forced into the army. Sure. We also killed his boss. Yeah. Harass his wife. We'll trust him as a saboteur. As a team of one of eight. Right. So Burger is the right-hand man to Dosh's team on Team Einst. Team Einst. E-I-N-Z. E-I-N-Z. Okay, cool. Then there were other, there were two other dudes, Heinrich Heinke. Right. That's a great name. And Richard Quiren. Yes. And they were a couple of machinists who

were a couple of machinists. They'd been in America for a while, came back, and were selected for this team. Yeah. Basically, they went back to Germany, started working at Volkswagen. And you know, I guess we're probably eager to leap on a top secret job like this. Sure. It's probably appealing to these guys. Right. You know? So that was Team Einst. We'll talk about Team... It's Vy. It's Vy. Yeah. Right after this. Yeah. What would you do if a secret cabal of the most powerful folks in the United States told you, hey, let's start a coup? Back in the 1930s, a Marine named Smedley Butler was all that stood between the US and fascism. I'm Ben Bullitt. And I'm Alex French. In our newest show, we take a

darkly comedic and occasionally ridiculous deep dive into a story that has been buried for nearly a century. We've tracked down exclusive historical records. We've interviewed the world's foremost experts. We're also bringing you cinematic, historical recreations of moments left out of your history books. I'm Smedley Butler, and I got a lot to say. For one, my personal history is raw, inspiring, and mind blowing. And for another, do we get the mattresses after we do the ads, or do we just have to do the ads? From iHeart Podcast and School of Humans, this is Let's Start a Coup. Listen to Let's Start a Coup on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you find your favorite shows. I'm Dr. Romany, and I am back with season two of my podcast, Navigating

Narcissism. Narcissists are everywhere, and their toxic behavior and words can cause serious harm to your mental health. In our first season, we heard from Eileen Charlotte, who was loved bombed by the Tinder swindler. The worst part is that he can only be guilty for stealing the money from me, but he cannot be guilty for the mental part he did. And that's even way worse than the money he took. But I am here to help. As a licensed psychologist and survivor of narcissistic abuse myself, I know how to identify the narcissist in your life. Each week, you will hear stories from survivors who have navigated through toxic relationships, gaslighting, love bombing, and the process of their healing from these relationships. Listen to Navigating Narcissism

on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. MySpace was the first major social media company. They made the internet, which up until then had been kind of like a nerdy space, feel like a nightclub, and also slightly dangerous. And it was the first major social media company to collapse. Rupert Murdoch lost lots and lots of money on MySpace because it turned out it was actually not a good business. My name is Joanne McNeill. On my new podcast, Main Accounts, The Story of MySpace, I'm revisiting the early days of social media through the people who lived it, the users. Because what happened in the MySpace era would have sweeping implications for all the platforms to follow. Listen to Main Accounts, The Story of

MySpace on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you find your favorite shows. So, Chuck, tell us about the smiling faces on Team Svi. Well, Josh, Team Svi was led by a man named Edward Curling, or Edward, I guess. Who, as I take it, is the only competent person in this entire mission. Yeah, he seemed like it, right? Kind of. A little more than the rest? Yeah. Comparatively speaking, he seemed like a criminal genius. Yeah, that's a good point. So, he was also one of, had gone to America in 1929 to work,

married a German woman there, and then they worked together as Butler and Cook for a little while, and then he said, you know what? I don't like you anymore. I think I want an American woman. So, he did that. And then when the war broke out, he tried to sail to Germany. Right. So, I'm not sure if he was a mastermind either now that I think about it. Well, he showed a lot of initiative. Well, good point. And he was turned back by the Coast Guard, but he finally made it to Germany in 1940, and he ended up working at the Ministry of Propaganda. Yeah, I guess with Goebbels, huh?

Yeah. Sure. And when he tried to sail to Germany that one time, he actually had a guy with him named, was it Hermann Neubauer, I believe? Oh, was Neubauer on his boat? Yeah, he was on that crew. And so, he would have been turned back as well. So, he was a natural fit. Right. Because he knew each other. And Curling actually recommended Hermann Neubauer to be part of the team. He's like, he can hoist to sail. Yeah. What else do you need to know?

He was in the boond. Who cares? That was the youngest member of his crew at 22 was Herbert Halpt. And he moved to the U.S. when he was just five years old. And so, I don't know that he was a great choice because he was practically American. Yeah. And he was also not so smart. Or put it this way. Experienced? He was not experienced. Right. A little green. A little wet behind the ears. Sure. And then the last guy, Werner Thiel, he, surprise,

surprise, was a member of the boond. And he was working in a war plant. So, just this weird hodgepodge rag tag group of guys were selected. Only two people out of the whole original 12 had been in the military. Yeah. This sounds like a movie in the making. Oh, yeah. But it just, if it would have had a great third act, it probably would already be a movie. Oh, yeah. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. It is lacking a third act.

I imagine like when, if someone had tried to develop this, you're like, this sounds great so far. It's going great. And then, oh, that's how it ends. Yeah. Shelf it. Yeah. So, these guys are put together. They're sent to the Abwehr school. Yeah. Tiller and Jiu Jitsu. Sure. And the oldest guy, George Dosh, is like, low kick, low kick. Oh, my hip.

Yeah. You know? Yeah. They were also studying like explosive techniques. Right. Wiring. Not just explosive Jiu Jitsu techniques, but real explosives. Right. Wiring, detonation, timers, all of this stuff. They got to go on field trips to power plants and bridges and canals and see like where the weak points were. And all of this took place over an intensive 18 days of training. That's it. They got 18 days of training.

Yeah. And apparently, Dosh, the leader of Team Ainz, wasn't even, I read one account that said he basically kind of snoozed through most of it, which would go on to explain a few things later. It's hilarious. Yeah. 18 days and you can't even stay awake to learn how to blow something up. Seriously. All right. On May 23rd, they were given their assignment. And these were, I mean, this was pretty smart. The assignments were, they had a good plan in

place. Small teams of dudes, Dosh's team was assigned to destroy quite a few things. Hydroelectric plants at Niagara Falls. Makes sense. The aluminum company of America, the factory in Illinois, Tennessee, New York. Yeah. Three plants. And the Philadelphia Salt Company's cryolite plant, which apparently supplies raw materials for aluminum. Right. And the reason they wanted to go after aluminum was because aluminum production in

the United States, the output was greater than all of Europe's, both sides, axis and, or no, I'm sorry, all of the axis's aluminum production put together. And aluminum is a very, very valuable thing during war. Sure. You used to make aircraft frames. Oh, yeah. You use it to make the interiors of ships. Apparently you use it for everything from like MREs, like the field ration tinkhands or,

well, not tinkhands, aluminum cans. Yeah. But all of this stuff comes in handy. Pinwheels. If you can, sure, pinwheels, like the good ones. Yeah. If you, but those, man, you can cut your finger off of one of those things. Yeah.

If you can cripple aluminum production, you can put a serious dent in the wartime effort. Yeah. It was a smart play. And then they are also told to bomb locks on the Ohio River between Louisville, Kentucky, and Pittsburgh. Yes. So disrupting. Transportation. Sure. That would have been a huge deal.

They would just strap a bomb to a pack mule that was supposed to be pulling a boat along the canal and kaboom. So that's team lines. Yeah. Team Svi, Kerling's team, they said, all right, you guys, we want you to concentrate on railroads because we saw during the American Civil War, destroying railroads is a great way to cripple an army. Sure.

They blew, and I don't think that's where they got the idea. You know, it's long been a wartime thing to destroy railroads. I see. Pennsylvania Railroad Station at Newark. Right. The Horseshoe Bend section of Railroad Track near Altoona, Pennsylvania. Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad, parts of it, the New York Central Railroad's Hellgate Bridge, locks and canals in St. Louis, Cincinnati, Ohio, and the water supply system of New York.

Right, and they were also told to carry out acts of general terrorism to scare people in general. Bombing Jewish-owned department stores, locker rooms at train stations, just basically just foment real fear and make Americans feel like, wow, America's being struck. Yeah, we're vulnerable. Right. And so the guy said, okay, let's do this. And they shipped out on two different subs from Lorient, France. U-boats, baby.

This is Germany. Yeah, okay. Untus E-boats. U-boats. Yeah. They left on U-584 and U-202, and they had, each team had four boxes, three of like dynamite and other explosives, and then a fourth box of things like timers and detonators and wiring and all that stuff.

Sausages. Sure, just in case they got a little hungry on the trip. Yeah, it was Germans, after all. Right. They also had a lot of money. A lot. They had roughly about a million dollars today. At the time, each group had 50 grand, and they needed this to travel and to live and to bribe

people and pay folks off. Right, in cash. So they had what's equal to about a million dollars today in cash on them in nothing greater than a $50 bill. Yeah, it's a lot of money, like physically a lot of money. Each member was given 9,005 of which is very funny, like team leader's going to hold on to this, and you can keep for yourself and your money belt and only carry like 450 in your pocket, and that should be enough dough to carry out this plan, was the idea.

Yep, and then the team leaders also got handkerchiefs that had the names and addresses and things of contacts. Friendlies. In invisible ink written on them. Yeah. So this is like a bona fide spy espionage terrorism operation. Again, great movie in the making so far. So the, and again, I think you said before that Hitler was planning on sending

several waves or wave after wave. Apparently the schedule was every six weeks they were going to send one or two teams to the United States. Yeah, I got, I mean, it was a really smart and scary plan because catching a tiny team of four guys who can assimilate as Americans or at least good German Americans, that's tough to catch. Yes. So Chuck, U202, which actually left two days after U584, showed up like 50 yards off the

shoreline of Long Island. And that's just frightening to think about. Yeah. There was a German U-boat 50 yards off of the shore of Long Island on June 12th, 1942. It showed up about eight in the evening and it belches out its cargo of box of explosives and saboteurs and the dudes as they're rowing to shore, they put, they were wearing like German military uniforms. Yeah, I didn't fully, and this didn't make a ton of sense to me.

Oh, well, if you were caught in plain clothes behind enemy lines, the rules of war state that you can be shot on site. But if you're caught as a German Marine, then you're just... You're a prisoner of war and you have to be treated... I would still say that I was taking a chance. I would have dressed as an American. No, I mean, like, I think that was smart. Yeah, I don't know, I would have dressed, I would have tried to assimilate, not being like,

I'm a German Marine, you're supposed to take me hostage. Right, but I think G.I. Joe would have been like, well, yeah, come on, let's go, I'm taking you hostage, whereas if the guy had been like, you're a spy, I am allowed to kill you right here and now. Yeah, I don't know, I don't agree with that one. But hey, everyone has their own rules when it comes to saboteuring. Okay, so... Sabotaging.

Right, yeah, sabotaging. I was just kidding anyway. And I've learned recently that that word is of recent provenance. Did you know that? Like, it didn't come into use until the beginning of like the 20th century. That makes sense. I would have thought it was a fairly old word. Yeah.

Nope. Did we just think of sabotage or did we just start calling it that? Like, did they not used to sabotage back in the day? Yeah, I think they just started calling it that. Okay. So, this is Dosh's team. Team Einz? Team Einz.

And they show up on the shore and they're wearing, again, German military uniforms. Yeah, which they took off really quickly. Very quickly, once they got on shore. Yeah, once they saw that, you know, okay, we made it, the operation has begun. They changed, right? Yeah, they changed clothes and they started, I guess they put on their I Love New York shirts and they started digging big holes in the beach to bury these munitions so they could come back as needed when they wanted to blow something new up.

Yes. They can't just carry that stuff around? No, they needed to just stash everything and go and cool out and make sure that no one was like onto them or anything like that and then come back and get it, like you said, as they needed. Yeah, the plan was to meet up for the two teams to meet up in Cincinnati on July 4th. Right. For a baseball game is what I'm imagining. Yeah, the Reds versus the Braves.

I don't know where the Braves were then, probably Milwaukee. Sure. Okay. I don't think they moved to Atlanta until the 60s. Yeah, but I was trying to think of Boston, but they were, that was long before. So, the team Einst was changing, they just landed. Yeah. They were in the midst of changing when they were discovered by Coast Guardsmen.

Yeah, well, one of them was that Dosh climbed over a dune and while the other guys were still burying and changing their clothes and he walked up and there was a Coast Guard dude, John Cohen, standing right there and he was like, hey, what you doing? Basically. And the guy was like, oh, nothing. And he apparently was kind of handling things when Berger comes over and Berger thought that, so the team Einst had been rode to shore by two German sailors. And I guess Berger lost track of the German sailors and assumed that they were still there

and that for some reason. It was only Dosh. Four guys plus the two. Right. And then Dosh had climbed over the dune to talk to one of the sailors. So Berger comes up and asks a question in German and the Coast Guardsman, John Cohen, is like, why are you speaking German? We're at war with Germany.

What's going on? And at that point, Dosh tells Berger to get out. Yeah, he said, you fool. Go back to the others. Right. And the guy was probably like, what others? Wait a minute. And so Dosh's story was that they were fishermen, stranded fishermen.

Yeah. And before he got really suspicious, Colin, the guy from the Coast Guard, said, well, if you guys are stranded fishermen. That's my job. We have a Coast Guard house, party house right up the beach. We just ordered some pizza. Come with me. You guys can eat some pizza and chill out.

And Dosh is like, well, we don't have any idea on us. Yeah, we don't fishing permits either. Right. We don't want to get in trouble. So the guy was like, well, you're telling a guy from the Coast Guard that. So you're in trouble, first of all. But secondly, that strikes me as weird. About that time, Berger comes up, asks his question in German.

And Dosh sees the writing on the wall and tells Colin, well, he says, do you have a mother? And Colin says, yes. And he goes, do you have a father? He says, yes. And Dosh says, well, then I wouldn't want to kill you. Yeah. So how about I give you some money, you can forget that this ever happened. And he tries to give him a hundred bucks.

And Colin says, nope. Yeah. He says, no, thank you. And he said, he ends up giving him $260. And Colin basically realized that something was going down. And I just need to just take this money and act like I'm down with the take and get out of here. So. So he does so.

He does. He skidaddles and then. Oh, but not before. This is a very key piece, actually. Oh, yeah, it is. Dosh grabbed his flashlight before he left and shined it on his own face and said, you will be meeting me in East Hampton sometime soon. Do you know who I am?

And the guy was like, no, I don't know who you are. And he said, my name is George John Davis. Which was a lie. Well, it was his real alias for the mission, though. So like he actually gave him his real alias. And he said, what's your name? And Colin said, Frank Collins, which was a lie. Which was a lie.

Pretty quick thinking. And basically he scrambled back and Dosh came back over and was like, little scene there, guys. I totally took care of it. Right. Should not be a big deal. Don't even worry about it. Pay the guy 260 bucks.

Yeah, we're good. Yeah. So everybody finished bearing these boxes, which they did. And Colin ran off and went and grabbed some of his fellow Coast Guardsmen. By the time they got back, Team Ainz had left. Yeah, they went and caught a train. But apparently, and this is another thing, so the U-Boat that dropped off Team Ainz had grounded itself on a sandbar and was sitting there like trying to get back out to sea.

Because Don was coming. He just rocked back and forth in your chair. It was that. That's what it looked like. Was that the method? They had all the guys in there. Yeah, just move to the left, to the right. Right, exactly.

Yeah. And finally, the tide came in just enough for them to dislodge themselves and go back out to sea just in time, but apparently, Colin and the other Coast Guardsmen who came back caught sight of this U-Boat heading back out to sea. Yeah, not good. Right? Yeah. No.

German U-Boat off the coast of Long Island just ran into some guys who were speaking German and tried to pay you off. And then now, all of a sudden, in the moonlight, you can see the ghostly outlines of four freshly dug holes in the sand. Yeah. Let's see what's in there. Yeah, I wonder if, I couldn't find, I saw that about the boat being stuck, but I couldn't find if that was, like, if they could have gotten away, you know, it could have all changed.

They might not have been that suspicious. I think that Colin was appropriately suspicious. Yeah, he was definitely coming back. But seeing the U-Boat was just icing on the cake. Exactly. Okay. So the other dudes had hopped, well, they dug up the holes and they found the stuff and said, okay, this is a huge deal.

Yeah, we just found a trove of explosives in German military uniforms buried on the beach, like 60 miles from New York. Yeah. So tootsweet by 10.23 that morning, those boxes were in the office of New York City police captain John Bayless, who then promptly got in touch with the FBI. And by noon that day, 13 hours after they had arrived, the FBI had all that stuff in custody and J. Edgar Hoover said there's a, we need to get a blackout on the news so these guys don't get wise to this.

Right. And we need to get the largest manhunt in FBI history underway. And they did, and we will explore that in all the ways the FBI got some lucky breaks on this right after these messages. What would you do if a secret cabal of the most powerful folks in the United States told you, hey, let's start a coup. Back in the 1930s, a Marine named Smedley Butler was all that stood between the U.S. and fascism.

I'm Ben Bullock. And I'm Alex French. In our newest show, we take a darkly comedic. And occasionally ridiculous. Deep dive into a story that has been buried for nearly a century. We've tracked down exclusive historical records. We've interviewed the world's foremost experts. We're also bringing you cinematic, historical recreations of moments left out of your history books.

I'm Smedley Butler. And I got a lot to say for one, my personal history is raw, inspiring and mind blowing. And for another, do we get the mattresses after we do the ads or do we just have to do the ads? From I Heart Podcast and School of Humans, this is Let's Start a Coup. Listen to Let's Start a Coup on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you find your favorite shows. I'm Dr. Romany. And I am back with season two of my podcast, Navigating Narcissism.

Narcissists are everywhere. And their toxic behavior and words can cause serious harm to your mental health. In our first season, we heard from Eileen Charlotte, who was love bombed by the Tinder swindler. The worst part is that he can only be guilty for stealing the money from me. But he cannot be guilty for the mental part he did. And that's even way worse than the money you took. But I am here to help. As a licensed psychologist and survivor of narcissistic abuse myself,

I know how to identify the narcissist in your life. Each week, you will hear stories from survivors who have navigated through toxic relationships, gaslighting, love bombing, and the process of their healing from these relationships. Listen to Navigating Narcissism on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. MySpace was the first major social media company. They made the internet, which up until then had been kind of like a nerdy space, feel like a nightclub, and also slightly dangerous.

And it was the first major social media company to collapse. Rupert Murdoch lost lots and lots of money on MySpace, because it turned out it was actually not a good business. My name is Joanne McNeil. On my new podcast, Main Accounts, The Story of MySpace, I'm revisiting the early days of social media through the people who lived it, the users. Because what happened in the MySpace era would have sweeping implications for all the platforms to follow. Listen to Main Accounts, The Story of MySpace, on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcast,

or wherever you find your favorite shows. All right. So, Team Eintz, let's recap here. They are in Manhattan. They go shopping at Macy's, of course, because they got a lot of cash. All they had with them was the clothes, the civilian clothes they brought, and all that cash. Yeah. That was it. Everything else was buried back at the beach, but is now in FBI custody, unbeknownst to these guys. That's right. So, they go shopping at Macy's. They said,

let's split up into pairs because that makes sense. Kieran and Hank checked into the Hotel Martinique. Dosh and Berger went to the Governor Clinton Hotel. Governor Bill Clinton. And I don't think so. And unless he was named after the hotel. Oh, yeah. Never know. That's why he always wanted to be governor. So, apparently, Dosh and Berger met, he summoned Berger to his hotel room up on a tall floor

and opened the window and said, I've got a plan, and I'm going to tell you about it. And if you're on board, you're on board, but if you're not, then one of us is leaving through the door and one of us is leaving through the window. He basically threw down the gauntlet. To Berger? To Berger. Oh, wow. I didn't realize that. Yeah. And so Berger, he basically said, I would like to turn and sabotage the sabotage

and go against Germany. And because America's kind of great. So, Dosh was going to kill Berger if Berger didn't go along with it. That's what he said. And apparently, Berger had the choice too. Like, or you can defeat you and throw you out the window. Or you can triumph and be the living victor. Yeah. So, I think Berger was just on board. And they said that in this article that Dosh probably was telling the truth, that he was really, this was his idea from the beginning.

So, here's the question. Like, historically speaking, Dosh has been seen as a genuine betrayer of this mission. Sure. But when he became a genuine betrayer of the mission is at issue still, according to this history net article, either he knew it before they even landed. And that that is why he showed his face and gave his real alias to John Cullen on the beach. Which makes sense. Or his encounter with John Cullen on the beach rattled him enough that he was like,

this is never going to work. We're already dead in the water. That's a quick turn. So, now I'm going to go ahead and betray it. Yeah. I say that he was in on it from the beginning. That's what that's my feeling. Because he was snoozing in spy school? I just, I don't know. It seems like a really quick, like they just landed on the beach. Five minutes later, he meets a guy and he's like, wait a minute, it's off. I'm going to betray Germany.

Right. It just seemed, I don't know, a little too hasty. Oh, maybe he had nerves of spaghetti. Yeah. Cook spaghetti even. So, he says, here's the plan on Monday. This is Dosh to Berger, right? Yeah. He said, on Monday, I'm going to go to... Had they closed the window by now?

Yeah. I think so. They went to dinner and everything was good. And he said, I'm going to go to Washington and meet with J. Edgar Hoover. This should be pretty easy to get that meeting. The man himself. Yeah. I hear he wears nothing but a cape around the office. And he said, you go back to the other two guys and just sort of occupy them for a little while while I'm going to DC and requesting a meeting with the FBI, the head of the FBI.

Right. So, Berger says, let's do this. Dosh says, okay, it's Sunday and Dosh doesn't make his way to DC until Thursday morning. Yes. Instead, he goes... So, remember, he was a waiter in America. Well, he called the FBI first, at least. Right. And the reason why he called first is he was a little worried because apparently, back in a training camp in the woods, Cop, Falter Cop, had said, you guys don't need to worry, we have a man on the inside of the FBI.

So, Dosh was worried that if he called or if he just showed up at FBI headquarters... He talked to that one guy. Right. Out of all the FBI guys, he would have that level of bad luck. Which one would I understand? That was a good concern for him to have. Sure. So, he called the New York Bureau first and said, I'm a German dude. I've got information for J. Edgar Hoover. Tell him I'm coming. And then he hung up and he went to a club for waiters and then played pinocchio for

like two straight days. Yeah, I think he was probably gambling. That's what I think, too. Because if I'm not mistaken with the math, he ended up with more money than he came with. Oh, really? Yeah. So, he went and gambled with sabotage money? I think so.

Man, that guy is some serious colonists. He's pretty awesome. So, eventually, he said, all right, I got to go to Washington. This pinocchio game is dried up. So, he hopped on the Acela Express for Washington. Sure, which I highly recommend, by the way. Man, train travel is awesome. It was great.

Regional train travel is a delight. Such a delight. And especially from Boston to New York, you just ride along the coastline there. And it's just lovely. It is lovely. Sailboats and Cape Cod houses on points. Yep. Lobster rolls.

Yeah. It's nice. Good stuff. All right. So, Dosh has arrived by train finally. By this point, Team Svi has landed at Pantavidra. Right. These are the pros.

Yeah. They show up in Florida, and they're like, let's do this for real. And I imagine Pantavidra Beach in 1943 was a pretty low-key scenario. For sure. You know? Yeah, I would think so. So, they are 25 miles south of Jacksonville. They bury their crates, no sweat, hop on a bus, go to Jacksonville.

They split up from that point. Two went to Cincinnati. Two went to Chicago. Yeah, and like, I mean, there was no must, there wasn't like any, no one was calling the FBI. Like, they were in it to win it, basically. Yeah, they should have done, Team I should have done their recon beforehand. The U-Boat should have not pulled up next to a Coast Guard station, first of all. That would have been one thing.

Yeah, because that Coast Guard station was like half a mile away. Yeah, it was there. All right, maybe that bad intel. So, Dosh gets to DC, checks into the Mayflower Hotel. Yeah, this is the same day that Kirling's group lands in Ponte Vedra. It's a big day. Huge day. Okay.

And he in DC said, all right, I'm going to call the FBI again, because got to meet with Hoover. And he reached out to a Dwayne trainer. And of course, trainer says, you know, this is probably not a legitimate call. We get these kind of weird calls all the time. But just in case. Let's go pick them up. Yeah, let's see what's going on. It's a slow day at headquarters.

Yeah, exactly. So they go and pick up the German and they bring them to the Justice Department. And Dosh said that he was basically bounced from agent to agent. He was kind of a hot potato. Nobody wanted to deal with him. And finally, he convinced these guys enough to end up in the office of Mickey Ladd, who was running the manhunt for the spies. And the head of the spies was now sitting in his office.

Yeah, telling him he's the head of the spies. And he still didn't quite believe him until Dosh said, oh, well, here, let me show you this. And dumped out $84,000 on Ladd's desk. Yeah. And Ladd said, I'm so pleased you came in today. Right. Come with me. Yeah.

So Dosh, here's his idea is I want to talk to Hoover himself. Because I'm going to be a hero. And I might even get like a Medal of Honor out of this. Right. Like maybe J. Edgar will have me over to his house for dinner. Yeah. Who knows what could come of this? Ticker tape parade.

They threw those all the time back then. Yeah. So the FBI gets him talking. He does get to meet Hoover briefly. Sure. But a couple of other agents take his deposition, which lasts for 13 hours. Yeah. And before he finished, he had told them about Berger and where Berger was, and they went

and picked up Berger. Yeah. He like, while he was still telling them the story, they were already on at Berger's hotel, staking him out. Yeah. So they, before they picked up Berger, they were staking him out, like you said. And they watched Berger go meet Kieran and Hunk. And so they just arrested all three of them.

And all of a sudden, they had Team Ainz in custody within like a day of Dosh walking into FBI headquarters. Yeah. It didn't go so well for Team Ainz. No. No. So when the team leader betrays you, like, yeah, you're in trouble. You're toast.

So on June 22nd, Hoover wrote to FDR and said, you know what, sir? We've caught all the members of this group that landed on Long Island. Pretty great, huh? And we are awesome. He didn't mention that the guy turned himself in and told them where everyone was. Right. And so FDR was just thought that Hoover had done like a bang up job, basically. And he's like, way to go.

Way to do your job. Exactly. He bled pretty much. So Dash had no real leads or anything about Team... Svi. Svi. Yeah. But he did have a handkerchief.

That's right. That had contacts on Invisible Inc. And surprisingly, he hadn't blown his nose in it at this point. But he couldn't remember how you were supposed to get the Invisible Inc. to become visible. No. Luckily, the FBI had a crack team of lab techs on this thing. And they figured it out. And now all of a sudden, they had the names and addresses of all of the German contacts

for these teams right there in their hands, thanks to Dash. Yeah. Right? So they were all obviously staked out just waiting on Team Ainz, or I'm sorry, Team Svi to meet up with these people. Right. Which they did. But first, Team Svi did some other weird stuff.

Like Herbert Haupt, he was in Chicago, where again, he'd lived since he was five. And Haupt decided that he would buy a Pontiac car. Yeah. He went to his parents' house. Right. Told his dad everything. Yeah. Had his dad buy him this car.

Yep. And he proposed to his girlfriend. Remember, he had left during the war and he was an able-bodied man over age 18. Yeah. And so the local draft board wanted to know where he was. So he drops by FBI headquarters to clear up his draft problem and says, I'm back. Sorry, I've already registered with my local draft board.

No need to track me anymore. I'm just an all-American boy. Yeah. And the FBI was like, yeah, sure. Thank you for coming by. Right. And then tailed them on the way out. Yeah.

And then he led them to at least one other team member, right? Yeah. And while this was going on, Curling and Werner Thiel went to New York and met up with a friend named Helmut Leina because they wanted to have sex with a lady. And so Leina hooked him up with his mistress, said, here, have sex with her. And he said, great, thanks. And he ended up traveling with that woman. Curling did.

And within a couple of days after Dosh surrendered, they spotted Curling because they were trailing him at a bar where he met with Thiel and they arrested both of those guys. Right. So two down on Team Svi, Helmut Helped, I'm sorry, three down at this point. Right. Helped was taken down in Chicago. Yeah. The only one left at this point was Herman Neubauer.

Right. And Neubauer spent his time in, was it in New York? I think he was in Chicago. Okay. You're probably right. He just went to the movies over and over again. Yep. That's what he did.

He was apparently lonely, so he sought out some friends of his wife whom he hadn't really met before. Yeah. He told them everything. He told them everything. Gave him his money for safekeeping. Unbelievable. But kept enough to go to the movies a bunch. So basically, he kept a dollar.

Right. And plus popcorn. Okay, $1.50. Yeah. And then he was, I think he'd just come back from the movies when the FBI picked him up. Right? Yep. So Dash, remember, is sure that he's going to be feted as a hero.

That J. Edgar Hoover is probably thinking about him right then. He's just basically like Ralphie in A Christmas Story, just daydreaming about how he's going to be carried around on everyone's shoulders. He probably should have been. So, I mean, he's the reason why this went south. Because he said, you know what, I'm siding with America. Sure. The thing is, Hoover.

He didn't care. J. Edgar Hoover, not only did he not care, Hoover was taking the credit for all this unraveling. Oh yeah, so he had to bury this. Right. He couldn't let Dash be known as this guy who had come and given him this whole thing on a platter. Right. Or else Hoover would look like an idiot. And Dash might very well have been hailed as at least a slimy collaborator rather than a criminal.

After everybody was rounded up, the FBI arrested Dash. And Dash must have been quite surprised by this. Well, yeah, they arrested him, but they said, hey, just go along with this. You'll get a full presidential pardon after six months. Oh, really? Just sort of play along with the arrest. And he was like, oh, okay. I see.

So put me in the jail with the other guys so they don't know. Yeah, exactly. He didn't want to get. And Hoover was like, yeah, sure. Well, because that jive with Hoover's plan to keep it all quiet still. Exactly. Was working out great for Hoover. It didn't work out great for Dash or the others, Chuck.

No. So FDR wanted to make sure that he could get the death penalty and that this could be kept quiet. So he formed a military tribunal to try these guys. And it was the first one since Lincoln had been assassinated. Yeah, it was a big deal. So the prosecutor was Attorney General Francis Biddle. Chief defense was Colonel Kenneth Royal. They defense argued initially for a civilian trial that was quickly scrapped and they said,

no, we're going to move forward with the tribunal and held the trial at the Justice Department in Washington during the month of July 1942. And basically said, we know the whole, there's not going to be much of a trial, fellas. Right. We know everything because you told us everything. Exactly. You are coming here to sabotage and blow up our junk and you're in big trouble. Right.

And the prosecutor sought the death penalty as expected. But it was up to FDR to decide when and where. And to do that, he had to have a transcript of the trial. And when he got this transcript of the trial, it became obvious that Hoover hadn't really done anything. Yeah. Apparently FDR never called him out on it in public. No, which was a nice thing to do, I guess. Because that would have just been further embarrassment for like the whole country, you know.

Yeah. So they kept that quiet. But at this point, it was news all over the country. They weren't keeping it quiet with the press. No. And the American public was way in favor of the death penalty. In fact, there was an open letter published in one newspaper calling for them to be fed to Gargantua, the gorilla at the Ringling Brothers Circus.

Because that's fair to Gargantua too. Yeah, eat those Germans. Well, instead, they electrocuted six of them on August 8th of the district jail in Washington, DC. That's right. Including Herbert Haupt, who was just like, I just wanted a Pontiac. Yeah, I just wanted to see my parents. Berger and Dosh were spared the death penalty because they basically had a hard time proving in court that they didn't, you know.

Fully intend to betray the operation. Yeah, exactly. Right. So they did not get electrocuted. They were sentenced Berger to hard labor for the rest of his life. And Dosh was given 30 years. But President Truman commuted their sentences, released them and deported them. Had them shipped to West Germany.

Yeah. West Berlin. Said, don't come back. Nope. Get out. And the other guys were buried in a potters field, by the way, outside Washington. Yes. Which is now the DC municipal water treatment plant.

Oh, really? Yeah. Where they were buried. Yeah. That's just right. Now they're part of the system, I guess. And so Dosh and Berger go back to Germany. And Berger starts like feeding the media the story.

Yeah, basically. Five years later. And Blame, right. And blames Dosh for the deaths of these other six German patriots who were saboteurs. Right? And Dosh tried to publicly clear himself. He first sought a pardon in America so that he could come back. Yeah.

He really wanted to get out of Germany. Yeah. I can imagine. And America said, no, we're not going to do that. We're not going to pardon you. We're still mad at you. Germany said, we're mad at you too. And so he just kind of faded out of the public spotlight.

Yep. He ended up dying in 1992 at the age of 89. And I didn't see any follow-up for Berger. For Berger. No. I think he wasn't quite as vilified as Dosh was. Right. For sure.

But that was not the last time the Germans sent saboteurs ashore. There was at least one other ill-fated attempt in 1944, another German submarine. These are expensive boats, man. They are really taking a massive risk to drop off a couple of saboteurs. Yeah. But they did it again off of Maine in a snowstorm. And two former American residents, German Americans, were sent off under the main coast in a snowstorm.

They were seen by a local Boy Scout using a compass during the snowstorm on the side of the road. And the Boy Scout was suspicious, so he traced their tracks all the way back to the shoreline when they come out of nowhere. Yeah. And he's like, I'm going to call a police. Nice. The Boy Scouts actually caught these guys? Yeah.

That's pretty cool. What's ironic is one of these German American saboteurs was a Boy Scout himself. So it was like Boy Scout on Boy Scout tattling. Wow. And they got picked up immediately. And as far as everybody knows, that's the last time Germany ever tried that. Yeah. I think the idea was that Hitler was like this is embarrassing.

Yeah. Let's just focus on the rocket program. Yeah. We can't keep sending guys to the United States who immediately get there and start doing stupid things. Right. Giving themselves up. Yeah. Going to see mom and dad.

Seeing them movies. Yeah. Yeah. Playing pinocchio. So that's it. That's the story of the time the Nazis invaded Florida and New York and Maine. If you want to know more about that, check out HistoryNet. Check out Damn Interesting.

Check out all sorts of stuff. Yes. Just search it. You'll find all sorts of cool things on it. I would not look for the movie coming soon to a theater near you. No. The third act non-existent. No.

Not really. No. It's just kind of a let down. Yeah. Doesn't end with a bang. No. It ends with Germany being mad at them and America too. Let's see.

I think I said Germany's mad, which means it's time for listener mail. I'm going to call this our cutest youngest fan and it includes an audio clip. Yeah. Hey guys. Did you hear this? Yes. It's pretty great. Yes.

My son Archer is two and a half years old. Just two and a half. We listen to podcasts together while I rock him to sleep at nap time and bedtime. Anytime he's tired, he says, Mommy, let's go Archer's room and listen to podcast. I usually rotate between Stuff You Should Know and Other How Stuff Works podcast. He's never seemed to have a preference until about two weeks ago when I put another podcast on, he said, no, Mommy, not that podcast, Just Stuff You Know, the red one. You guys are his favorite, which is fine with me.

And I have even attached a voice recording of him requesting your podcast. It was not rehearsed, mind you. It's just me asking him before his nap time today. And that is from Shauna. And Shauna gave us permission to hear from Archer. So let's go ahead and play that clip right now. Okay. Are you ready to take a nap?

Yeah. Do you want to, do you want to listen to a podcast? Yeah. Okay. Which podcast? Definitely no. Stuff You Should Know. Yeah.

Okay. Aw, wow. Pretty cute. Holy cow. Kid knows his stuff. Unbelievable. So Archer, if you can understand what's going on here by the sound coming out of the speakers. We know you don't yet form memories, but hopefully this episode will be a documentation.

That's right, Archer. So good luck in life. You are off to a great start. And now take your nap, little buddy. Nice. Well, if you wanted to share with us how your cute kid loves Stuff You Should Know, we love hearing that, right, Chuckers? We do.

You can tweet to us at S-Y-S-K podcast. You can join us on facebook.com slash Stuff You Should Know. You can send us an email to stuffpodcastathousestuffworks.com. And as always, join us at our home on the web, stuffyoushouldknow.com. Stuff You Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts on myHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app. Apple podcasts are wherever you listen to your favorite shows. What would you do if a secret cabal of the most powerful folks in the United States told you,

hey, let's start a coup? Back in the 1930s, a marine named Smedley Butler was all that stood between the U.S. and fascism. I'm Ben Bullitt. I'm Alex French. And I'm Smedley Butler. Join us for this sordid tale of ambition, treason, and what happens when evil tycoons have too much time on their hands. Listen to Let's Start a Coup on the iHeartRadio app,

Apple podcast, or wherever you find your favorite shows. I'm Dr. Romany, and I am back with season two of my podcast, Navigating Narcissism. This season, we dive deeper into highlighting red flags and spotting a narcissist before they spot you. Each week, you'll hear stories from survivors who have navigated through toxic relationships, gaslighting, love bombing, and their process of healing. Listen to Navigating Narcissism on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts.

MySpace was the first major social media company. They made the internet feel like a nightclub. And it was the first major social media company to collapse. My name is Joanne McNeil. On my new podcast, Main Accounts, The Story of MySpace, I'm revisiting the early days of social media through the people who lived it. Listen to Main Accounts, The Story of MySpace on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you find your favorite shows.