German saboteur John Dasch never renounced his American citizenship, leading to a conviction for treason. FBI
18. John Dasch was a naturalized American citizen who had been born in Germany
John Dasch was born in Germany, journeyed to America in 1923 (entering illegally), worked at odd jobs and as a waiter in several American communities, served in the US Army Air Corps, and became an American citizen in 1933. In 1941, as relations between the United States and Germany deteriorated towards war, Dasch returned to Germany. There he received espionage training in preparation for his return to his adopted country. Dasch was part of a team which was delivered to the United States by U-boats in 1942, determined to attack various targets of sabotage. The Americans quickly learned of the presence of saboteurs, and a massive manhunt to locate them was undertaken, led by the FBI. By then Dasch was planning to surrender to American authorities to act as a double agent.
Dasch and his partner Ernst Burger contacted American authorities – Dasch tried to reach J. Edgar Hoover personally – and revealed the circumstances and participants of the plot, leading to the arrest of the six others involved and their conviction as spies. All six were executed. For his co-operation with the authorities, Dasch was tried for espionage and treason and sentenced to life imprisonment. The trial was before a military tribunal established by President Roosevelt. In 1948 President Truman commuted the life sentences of Dasch and Burger, ordering them deported. In West Germany, both men were treated as what they were, traitors to their country. Neither man received the pardon which they claimed they had been promised by J. Edgar Hoover.
Joseph Smith was charged with treason in two neighboring states and was killed awaiting trial in Illinois. Library of Congress
19. Joseph Smith was killed while in jail under a charge of treason
Joseph Smith, the founder of the Church of Latter-Day Saints, was serving as mayor of Nauvoo, Illinois when he ordered the destruction of the printing facilities of the Nauvoo Expositor, a newspaper which lasted for a single issue. When it was released on June 7, 1844, among its reporting was an article which exposed Smith and his followers as polygamists. The non-Mormon public was shocked and the city council passed an ordinance, with Smith’s urging, to force the paper to cease publication. Smith then ordered the city marshal to seize the printing press and type. According to the marshal the seizure was accomplished peacefully; the paper’s publisher claimed that a mob had destroyed the press and seriously damaged the building in which it had been housed.
Smith then, in resistance to court orders from outside Nauvoo, called out the city militia and declared martial law. The governor of Illinois offered a trial in Carthage, before a non-Mormon jury, for Smith and his brother Hyrum, under the charge of treason against the state of Illinois, for the act of inciting riots across the state. The brothers and the rest of the city council surrendered to Illinois officials and were jailed in Carthage. It was while in jail awaiting trial for treason that Joseph Smith and his brother, armed with pistols smuggled into them by associates, and several other men being held were killed when a mob stormed the jail. Several differing accounts of the violent end of Joseph Smith emerged in the aftermath, many of which ignore the charges of treason against him. Smith had earlier been charged with treason in Missouri in 1838, which precipitated his flight to Illinois.
Kaltenbach admired the Hitler Youth and created a similar organization in Iowa before returning to Germany. Bundesarchiv
20. Frederick Kaltenbach was indicted by the Americans for treason, but died in Soviet custody
Frederick Wilhelm Kaltenbach was an Iowa-born son of a naturalized German, raised in Waterloo (coincidentally the home of the five Sullivan brothers of World War II fame). In 1933 the graduate of Iowa State Teacher’s College and the University of Chicago won a scholarship at the University of Berlin, and became a devoted adherent of Nazism. When he returned to Iowa in 1935 he started a boy’s club modeled on the Hitler Youth, with similar uniforms. The support of Nazism led to him losing his teaching certificate in 1936 and he returned to Germany and in 1939 began broadcasting German propaganda to the United States via short-wave radio, long before the United States formally entered the war.
Kaltenbach harangued against Franklin Roosevelt and Lend-lease attempted to prevent FDR’s election to a third term, and referred to himself whimsically as Lord Hee-Haw. After the United States entered the war he attacked the morale of troops and citizens at home. As the war went on and it became evident how it would end, he shifted to covering his tracks as an ardent Nazi by attempting to align himself with anti-Nazi elements, though he continued to broadcast Nazi propaganda as late as the spring of 1945. He was indicted for treason in the United States in 1943 and was arrested at his home by the Soviets in Berlin in 1945. The Soviets sent him to their Special Camp Two in Buchenwald and when the American authorities requested he be surrendered for trial the Soviets refused. They later informed the State Department that he had died of natural causes, and in 1948 the indictment was dismissed.
Where do we find this stuff? Here are our sources:
