WRFH/Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM - Undetected: Fritz Duquesne Part 1

Episode Date: October 8, 2024

This week, Megan and Alessia explore Fritz Duquesne's backstory and learn how he made a sworn enemy of the British.

Welcome to Undetected on Radio Free Hillsdale. Go undercover with your hosts, Alessia Sandala and Megan Lee, as they uncover the stories of spies from every country and time. The most thrilling, yet the most secret of lives in history. Welcome back, everyone. I'm Alessia, and this week on Undetected, we will be talking about a famous spy on the other side of World War I and 2, Fritz Duquesne. He had quite the reputation throughout his lifetime. Megan, can you tell us a bit about that?

Absolutely, Alessia. The Daily Mail called Duquesne, notorious scoundrel wanted for countless crimes against the British. And New York Assistant District Attorney Abraham Rourke described him as one of the most desperate and daring criminals we have ever had here. YouTuber Jack Rackham calls him Indiana Jones meets James Bond, but better in every way. Let's dive into the story. Frederick Joubert Duques-Cain was born on September 21st, 1877, in East London, South Africa. Duquesne's parents were Boers. The name for South Africans descended from European settlers. They purchased a farm in Nilsstrom, today the town of Monomol. It was there that Fritz learned

survival and killing skills alongside his father, Abraham, who worked as a farmer, hunter, and trader. Fritz killed his first man at age 12, when a customer became violent with his mother over prices. Perhaps worried about their son's upbringing, his parents sent him to England for school the following year. After graduation, Fritz studied simple engineering until he joined up with a conman named Christian DeVrie, who he supposedly met on a boat. They went on a boat. They went on a a world tour of swindling people out of their money. But Fritz's days of lounging around Europe would soon end. In 1890, the second Boer War broke out between England and two Boer states, called the South African Republic and the Organs Free State. Essentially, it was fought over gold and diamonds,

which the Boers had and the British wanted. During the war, Fritz took part in the siege of Lady Smith in November 1899, and despite injuries and captured, Fritz managed to get away each time. With the survival skills his father had taught him, he was soon leading his own commando unit. His aptitude for stealth and survival earned him the nickname, the Black Panther of the Vell. Is this the Black Panther from Marvel? Yeah, the very name. Different guy, though. He was feared by the British, an American officer Frederick Russell Burnham, who was tasked to kill Fritz, later wrote,

His real accomplishments were so terrible, they make the yellow journal thrillers about him seem as mild as radio bedtime. Around this time, the legendary Kruger Millions story unfolded. involving Fritz, of course. The story goes that the president of the South African Republic, Paul Krueger, put Fritz in charge of hiding one of the shipments of Kruger's enormous hordes of gold from the British. However, the men working under Fritz tried to double cross him and steal the gold for themselves. But Fritz, being Fritz Duquesne, killed them all and hid the gold in a safe location, but it was never recovered.

The legends spread far and wide, and many have spent years searching for that treasure, something straight out of an adventure saga. Sometime through all this, Fritz made a return trip to the family farm where he had grown up, only to find it desecrated. His mother was at a concentration camp. His sister had been killed, and other sources say there were even more of his loved one's day. That was a turning point for Fritz. In that moment, he swore to enact revenge on Great Britain, and especially General Herbert Kitchener, the British commander-in-chief,

who had ordered the scorched earth destruction upon South Africa. Around the year, 1900, Fritz was captured after a British victory and sent to an intermination. camp near Lisbon, Portugal, but he escaped again. I'm starting to see a pattern here. By allegedly seducing one of the guards' daughters. After escaping, Fritz did something crazy. He traveled to England and enjoyed the British army. Thanks to the British accent developed from schooling in England, he was able to present himself as either a bore defector or assumed a completely new identity. We can't know for sure. In England, he built up a network of boar's sympathizers, but just as they were ready to start blowing things up, he was betrayed. But in terms of, he was betrayed.

true Fritz fashion, while everyone else was sentenced to death, Fritz found a way to only get himself a life sentence. Some sources say he supplied secret bore codes to the British, which he later claimed were fake, and Fritz was shipped off to a Dutch fort called the Castle of Good Hope. Despite the ironic name for a prison, Fritz certainly didn't lose all his good hope. With a literal spoon, he set to work carving out the stones in the wall. However, his plan was discovered, and he was sent to a penal colony in Bermuda, one which was much better fortified. It wasn't until June 1902 that Fritz secured passage on a ship away from the island, held by the Boer Relief Committee, but he decided there wasn't anything for him in South Africa

or Britain at the moment. So guess where he landed? America. America. After all that, this guy is still looking for drama. Oh, this is only the beginning. I'm Megan. And I'm Alessia. We hope you enjoyed this episode of Undetected. Tune in to Undetected next week to hear part two of Duquesne's swashbuckling story on Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM.