Investigating the Bund
In perhaps the most dangerous assignment of her career with the New York Police Department, Mae Foley was assigned to go undercover and pretend to be a Nazi sympathizer.
She reluctantly agreed.
After all, she’d just spent two years babysitting the 40+ unwilling witnesses in the Lucky Luciano mob trial and the follow-on trial for Jimmy Hines.
It was 1938 and she needed a break.
But then she reckoned, this assignment in its own peculiar way, could actually be something of a break too. So there she was, her shield and duty weapon safely tucked away in her bedroom dresser drawer, heading into Manhattan for a monthly meeting of the German-American Bund.
She attended all their meetings, feigning interest in the group’s goals of supporting Hitler’s policies in the U.S. and pretending enthusiastic support for their activities to grow membership – from summer camps for children (indoctrinating Hitler youth) to parades, rallies, and marches in the street.
A Bund parade in New York
Mae couldn’t go near the station house. But she reported weekly to her captain at the 108th Precinct sharing her intel about the group’s plans and stated goals.
This effort reflected a change in thinking by the executives downtown.
Why wait for something to go bad and be taken by surprise on the streets when violence erupted? It was better to have someone on the inside who could report back and provide a heads up on the Bund’s plans.
Her views on the assignment were fairly straightforward, until a big event emerged on the horizon.
The leader of the Bund, Fritz Kuhn, announced his plan for a uniquely American event, a salute to George Washington on February 20, 1939.
But just as Mae feared it wasn’t about Washington at all. It was about the Nazi party.
When the crowd of 22,000 began to chant “Free America! Free America” Mae began to shudder.
She did all this undercover spy work with no training whatsoever.
But that was mostly true of Mae’s entire career as a policewoman with the NYPD. She learned as she went along, writing the book as she went. She knew instinctively what to look out for, what was significant to report and what wasn’t. And once she learned that Fritz Kuhn had a mistress, that opened up another door for the experienced investigator.
Mae remained undercover until long after Kuhn was arrested and put on trial. The movement continued too.
As America entered into World War II, fear of Nazi infiltrators and spies were a top concern of both the FBI and the Office of Strategic Services (OSS).
While the Bund was officially dissolved in 1941, German infiltrators, spies, and sympathizers were still active throughout the war.
Young Betty MacDonald learned that when she joined the OSS in the winter of 1943. Weeks later, learning she was about to be deployed overseas, she learned she’d first need to complete a 3-week training course in the necessary field craft she would need as an operative.
While Betty was assigned to Morale Operations, doing work in propaganda and deception operations, she knew she needed work in areas such as interrogation, tailing, opinion sampling and residence search.
Week one put her skills to the test.
Betty had been a newspaper reporter prior to joining the OSS and she thought she would be good as an interviewer.
Her task during that first training week, find out people’s opinions on the German-American Bund.
She made up initial story, pretending to search for a family friend. But then she couldn’t figure out how to make the transition to a different topic and ask her required question. It was: “Is it fair to ask German-American Bund members to bear arms against their mother country?”
Betty just couldn’t get there. And the instructors told her they hoped she would never have to go undercover.
She had a face like an open sandwich. No guile whatsoever.
But later, once she was in India and then in China, she found that she could do whatever it took to get the job done.
They all did.
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