Walter cap

Walterkap (born January 12, 1905 in Alfeld / Leine; † 1944 at the front) was a German journalist and National Socialist who, as an emigrant in the USA in the 1930s, carried out propaganda and espionage for the purposes of the NSDAP , including as editor-in-chief of German newspaper and as a propaganda leader in the Amerikadeutschen Bund ("Bund"). After his return to Germany, he headed the Pastorius sabotage operation as a defense officer .

Life

Walterkap grew up in Germany and experienced the First World War and the defeat of the German Empire as a child, including the revolution that followed. In 1922 he became a member of the nationalist Young German Order and in 1923 joined the NSDAP . In March 1924 he emigrated to America.

In the United States

In October 1924 Fritz Gissibl founded the National Socialist Association Teutonia in Detroit together with his brothers Peter and Andreas, Alfred Ex, Frank von Friedersdorff and Josef (Sepp) Schuster . In the summer of 1925 cap made friends with Fritz Gissibl and became active in Teutonia, which recruited support for Adolf Hitler among German immigrants in the auto industry, many of them unskilled workers with insufficient knowledge of the English language . Walter cap was co-founder and editor of the German-language Teutonia newspaper Vorposten (subtitle: "News of the German Freedom Movement in the United States"), a "badly written" paper according to S. Diamond, in which Teutonia all the problems of Germans in Germany and in Abroad traced back to the " Jewish International " and proclaimed the "truth about Germany". He also worked as a journalist for the German-language evening post in Chicago and as an America correspondent for the Völkischer Beobachter , the official NSDAP newspaper in Germany.

After the " seizure of power " in 1933 ,kap was named head of the US Defense and Reconnaissance Department in the NSDAP on instructions from Germany. From 1933 to 1936 he was the Federal Press Officer of the Friends of New Germany , a forerunner of the American-German Confederation . In 1934 cap was editor-in-chief of the Deutsche Zeitung (DZ) in New York , the association organ of the Friends of New Germany, which was regarded as the mouthpiece of the National Socialists in America. Cap had in 1934 in a congressional investigation ( Investigation of Nazi Propaganda Activities ... , 73. Congress, 2nd session.) As a witness before the House Committee on Un-American Activities to testify (HUAC) from the Jewish HUAC chairman and was Samuel Dickstein asked .

By 1936 he was the "Hauptschriftleiter" (editor-in-chief) of the Deutscher Weckruf und Beobachter , the official newspaper of the Amerikadeutschen Bund, and at the same time the Bundestag's press officer. In addition to his official press work, he worked for the Federal Intelligence Agency (Bunaste) in the NSDAP / AO , the federal intelligence service under the leadership of Heinz Spanknöbel . After his escape from the USA, the management of the Bunaste probably fell to a cap.

Back in Germany

Kap returned to Germany in 1936 (according to other sources not until 1937) and in 1937 was appointed head of the press department of the German Foreign Institute in Stuttgart . In 1938, former members of the American-German Confederation and the Friends of the New Germany, who had come back to Germany, founded the Kameradschaft USA under the leadership of Fritz Gissibl (renamed Amerikadeutsche Kameradschaft in 1941) based on the premises of the German Foreign Institute in Stuttgart. Gissibl also worked for the institute, with which the comradeship was only loosely connected. In 1939 - when the Second World War broke out --kap was drafted into the Wehrmacht as a private . In January 1941, cap officially took over the leadership of the Comradeship USA after Gissibl was transferred to Poland in 1940. In 1941 the Wehrmacht was transferred to the Foreign Office in Berlin, Department II (Sabotage) of the Abwehr at the Wehrmacht High Command . Despite his almost constant absence, he nominally retained his position as comradeship leader; in practice, the comradeship was headed by Joseph K. Leibl, a Bundist from Cleveland .

As a defense officer with the rank of first lieutenant , he headed the sabotage operation "Pastorius" in 1941/42 , in which German sabotage groups were supposed to commit attacks on American industrial centers after they were deposited on the east coast in submarines. Cap looked for suitable candidates in the return migration files of the German Foreign Institute and formally directed their training. He stayed in Germany during the operation. Operation Pastorius was a complete failure: all seven landed agents were arrested within days, five were executed and two received prison terms. Cap is described by his German-American agents in the interrogation protocols of the FBI as incompetent in matters of sabotage and agent work, who was only able to succeed as an " old fighter " with the golden party badge through his NSDAP connections .

In 1943, the Wehrmacht commanded him as an "expert on American conditions" to the Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle of the SS, where he probably worked out a guideline for the special treatment of "prisoners of war from overseas of German origin". In 1944 cap fell in service at the front.

Publications

The German change in America . Friends of New Germany, New York City, ca.1934.
The cultural mission of the "Friends of the New Germany" Federation in USA Friends of the New Germany, New York City, ca.1934.
The Germanness of America at the crossroads . Friends of New Germany, New York City, ca.1934.
Who we are and what we want: The program of the “Association of Friends of the New Germany” . Friends of the New Germany, New York 1935. ("Explained by Federal Press Officer Walter Cap, available from German wake-up calls and observers")
Sudeten Germany returns home . German Foreign Institute, Stuttgart 1938.

literature

Sander A. Diamond: On the typology of the American Nazi movement (PDF; 1.3 MB) . In: Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte , Volume 23, Issue No. 3, 1975, ISSN 0042-5702 , pp. 271–296.
Michael Dobbs: Saboteurs: The Nazi Raid on America . Knopf, New York 2004, ISBN 0-375-41470-3 .
Hans-Werner Retterath: Deutschamerikanertum and Volkstumsgedanke: Z ur Ethnizitätskonstruktion by the German foreign cultural work from 1918 to 1945 . University of Marburg, 2003, urn : nbn: de: hebis: 04-z2003-06464 .
Cornelia Wilhelm: Movement or Association? National Socialist Volkstumsppolitik in the USA . Steiner, Stuttgart 1998, ISBN 3-515-06805-8 . (Transatlantic Historical Studies. Volume 9)
Cornelia Wilhelm: Ethnis Germans as an Instrument of German Intelligence Services in the USA, 1933–45 . In: Heike Bungert (Ed.): Secret Intelligence in the Twentieth Century . Taylor & Francis, 2003, ISBN 0714683310 , pp. 35-57.

Individual evidence

↑ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g ^h ⁱ ^j Cornelia Wilhelm: Movement or Association? National Socialist Volkstumsppolitik in the USA . Stuttgart 1998, p. 291. (Biographical appendix, entry on cap, Walter .)
↑ ^a ^b ^c Sander A. Diamond: On the typology of the American Nazi movement . In: “VfZ”, vol. 23, no. 3, 1975, p. 272. Cornelia Wilhelm gives 1925 as the year of emigration.
^ ^A ^b Cornelia Wilhelm: Movement or Association? National Socialist Volkstumsppolitik in the USA . Steiner, Stuttgart 1998, p. 69.
↑ Investigation of Nazi propaganda activities and investigations of certain other propaganda activities: Public hearings before the Special committee on un-American activities, House of representatives, Seventy-third Congress, second session . Vol. 12, United States Congress, Special Committee on Un-American Activities. United States Government Printing Office , Washington DC 1934.
↑ Jeffrey Scott Demsky: Going Public in Support: American Discursive Opposition to Nazi Anti-Semitism, 1933–1944 (PDF; 703 kB) , University of Florida 2007, p. 40. (Dissertation)
^ Klaus Kipphan: German Propaganda in the United States, 1933–1941, Winter, Heidelberg 1971, ISBN 3-533-02158-0 , p. 56.
↑ Shoot them or hang them? . In: "Der Spiegel", No. 15/1998 of April 6, 1998.
^ Sander A. Diamond: On the typology of the American Nazi movement . In: “VfZ”, Vol. 23, No. 3, 1975, p. 291.
^ ^A ^b Arthur L. Smith, Jr .: The Comradeship USA . In: "The Journal of Modern History", Vol. 34, No. 4, December 1962, doi : 10.1086 / 239183 p. 403.

personal data
SURNAME	Cap, Walter
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Cap, Werner
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	German journalist, National Socialist and German expat in the USA
DATE OF BIRTH	January 12, 1905
PLACE OF BIRTH	Alfeld
DATE OF DEATH	1944

[wilhelm-biographie-291-1] ↑ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g ^h ⁱ ^j Cornelia Wilhelm: Movement or Association? National Socialist Volkstumsppolitik in the USA . Stuttgart 1998, p. 291. (Biographical appendix, entry on cap, Walter .)

[diamond-272-2] Sander A. Diamond: On the typology of the American Nazi movement . In: “VfZ”, vol. 23, no. 3, 1975, p. 272. Cornelia Wilhelm gives 1925 as the year of emigration.

[wilhelm-69-3] A ^b Cornelia Wilhelm: Movement or Association? National Socialist Volkstumsppolitik in the USA . Steiner, Stuttgart 1998, p. 69.

[4] Investigation of Nazi propaganda activities and investigations of certain other propaganda activities: Public hearings before the Special committee on un-American activities, House of representatives, Seventy-third Congress, second session . Vol. 12, United States Congress, Special Committee on Un-American Activities. United States Government Printing Office , Washington DC 1934.

[5] Jeffrey Scott Demsky: Going Public in Support: American Discursive Opposition to Nazi Anti-Semitism, 1933–1944 (PDF; 703 kB) , University of Florida 2007, p. 40. (Dissertation)

[6] Klaus Kipphan: German Propaganda in the United States, 1933–1941, Winter, Heidelberg 1971, ISBN 3-533-02158-0 , p. 56.

[7] Shoot them or hang them? . In: "Der Spiegel", No. 15/1998 of April 6, 1998.

[diamond-291-8] Sander A. Diamond: On the typology of the American Nazi movement . In: “VfZ”, Vol. 23, No. 3, 1975, p. 291.

[smith-kameradschaft-9] A ^b Arthur L. Smith, Jr .: The Comradeship USA . In: "The Journal of Modern History", Vol. 34, No. 4, December 1962, doi : 10.1086 / 239183 p. 403.