Albert Meems

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Albert Meems (* 1888 in the Netherlands ; † after 1946) was an animal trainer , animal dealer and alleged agent of the German defense .

Albert Meems was a long-time traveler to India for Hermann Ruhe. He traded with the Mysore Zoo : he got elephants , tigers and snakes for polar bears from Svalbard , toucans from South America and giraffes , eland and zebras from Africa .

From 1934 he lived in the USA and founded an animal trading branch which his brother William ran.

When he was putting together an animal transport from West Africa in 1935 , he lost a gaur bull . It is assumed that the very small young West African round-eared elephants shown by Ruhe in 1960 came from this import and were dwarf elephants .

From 1936 he ran the Meems Bros. & Ward company in Oceanside , New York and Sparkill, New Jersey with Elias S. Ward . In 1948, when there was hardly any foreign currency in Germany, they described themselves as the world's largest importer. After a freight embargo of rhesus monkeys by ship came in around 1961 , although the much more expensive air transport was allowed, they were convicted for failing to supply the Army Chemical Center Procurement Agency in Maryland .

In 1938 he came into contact with Johannes Bischoff from Nest Bremen through Lieutenant Ludwig Klaps . During the Second World War he traveled to England in late October and late December 1939 and in mid-February and mid-April 1942, where he resided in the Grafton Hotel on Tottenham Court Road . Pet dealer Howard alerted the Metropolitan Police and also reported that Meemes spied in Brazil during World War I, 1914-1918 . Meems is said to have telegraphed ship and troop movements from Bentheim to Bremen . In the first quarter of 1940 he was in France several times and is said to have reported on Franco-British troops on the Belgian-French border. He then traveled to India in 1942 on a Swiss visa. In 1946 he was arrested in the American Zone and taken to the Netherlands.

literature

  • 30 dromedaries, 21 Antelopes in NY From Africa. In: The Billboard. Volume 59, No. 37, September 20, 1947, p. 91, digitized

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Mammalian notices. Volume 18, 1970, p. 204
  2. ^ Mammalian notices. Volume 18, 1970, p. 205
  3. ↑ Santa Cruz Sentinel. May 26, 1936, p. 4
  4. ^ Administration of Government Contracts. 4th edition, CCH Incorporated, 2006, ISBN 978-0-8080-1435-5 , p. 559, digitized
  5. ↑ United States v. Meems Brothers & Ward. leagle.com
  6. ↑ Etienne Verhoeyen: Spies aan de achterdeur. De Duitse defense in België 1936–1945. Maklu, 2011, ISBN 978-90-466-0427-4 , pp. 73f., 440f., Digitized
  7. ^ German Intelligence Agents and Suspected Agents. nationalarchives.gov.uk (with picture)
personal data
SURNAME Meems, Albert
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Dutch-German-American animal trainer and dealer
DATE OF BIRTH 1888
PLACE OF BIRTH Netherlands
DATE OF DEATH after 1946