Kurt Albert Jahnke (17 February 1882 – 22 April 1950) was a German-American intelligence agent and saboteur active both during

World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

and

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

Biography

Born in Gnesen, Jahnke immigrated to the United States in 1899, became a naturalized citizen, and later served in the U.S. Marines in the

Philippines The Philippines, officially the Republic of the Philippines, is an Archipelagic state, archipelagic country in Southeast Asia. Located in the western Pacific Ocean, it consists of List of islands of the Philippines, 7,641 islands, with a tot ...

.State Secrets: The Kent-Wolkoff Affair By

Bryan Clough Bryan Clough (born 1932, Oldham, LancashireIndex of Births, Marriages and Deaths in England and Wales, 1837–1983) is an English writer. Clough has written several books and articles dealing with phreakers, hackers and computer virus write ...

, page 224 From August 1914, under the command of the German Consul General Franz Bopp, Jahnke performed various intelligence and sabotage operations for the German Admiralty from his San Francisco base. He and his assistant,

Lothar Witzke Lothar Witzke (May 15, 1895 – January 6, 1962) was a junior officer in the German Imperial Navy, who, after escaping from internment in neutral Chile, became an Officer of Naval Intelligence spy and saboteur on active service in the United St ...

, were responsible for the April 1917 munitions explosion at the

Mare Island Naval Shipyard The Mare Island Naval Shipyard (MINSY or MINS) was the first United States Navy base established on the Pacific Ocean and was in service 142 years from 1854 to 1996. It is located on Mare Island, northeast of San Francisco, in Vallejo, Califor ...

in San Francisco, "likely" responsible for the

Black Tom explosion The Black Tom explosion was an act of arson by field agents of the Office of Naval Intelligence of the German Empire, to destroy U.S.-made munitions that were about to be shipped to the Allies during World War I. The explosions occurred on Ju ...

in Jersey City, New Jersey, and are suspected of other explosions and of fomenting labor strikes. When the United States entered the war in April 1917, Jahnke and Witzke moved their operations to

Mexico City Mexico City is the capital city, capital and List of cities in Mexico, largest city of Mexico, as well as the List of North American cities by population, most populous city in North America. It is one of the most important cultural and finan ...

.World War One By Priscilla Mary Roberts, page 1606 According to the Senate testimony of intelligence officer and double agent Dr. Paul Altendorf, who was undercover in Mexico City with the U.S. Military Intelligence Corps from 1917 through April 1919, Jahnke had schemed a Mexican attack on the United States. An army of 45,000 men, funded by Ambassador von Eckardt and trained by German reservists, would march against the U.S. in 1918 and "arouse the Negroes to civil war." Back in Germany in the late 1930s, Jahnke established the "Jahnke Büro", essentially a small private intelligence service reporting up to

Rudolf Hess Rudolf Walter Richard Hess (Heß in German; 26 April 1894 – 17 August 1987) was a German politician, Nuremberg trials, convicted war criminal and a leading member of the Nazi Party in Nazi Germany, Germany. Appointed Deputy Führer ( ...

. There is speculation that Jahnke was somehow involved in Hess's still-puzzling flight to Scotland in May 1941; true or not, he fell out of favor with

Ribbentrop Ulrich Friedrich-Wilhelm Joachim von Ribbentrop (; 30 April 1893 – 16 October 1946) was a German Nazi politician and diplomat who served as Minister of Foreign Affairs of Nazi Germany from 1938 to 1945. Ribbentrop first came to Adolf Hitler' ...

and the

Gestapo The (, ), Syllabic abbreviation, abbreviated Gestapo (), was the official secret police of Nazi Germany and in German-occupied Europe. The force was created by Hermann Göring in 1933 by combining the various political police agencies of F ...

and his accumulated files were confiscated. Later in the war, Jahnke served as intelligence advisor to

Walter Schellenberg Walter Friedrich Schellenberg (16 January 1910 – 31 March 1952) was a German Schutzstaffel, SS functionary during the Nazi era. He rose through the ranks of the SS, becoming one of the highest ranking men in the ''Sicherheitsdienst'' (SD) and ...

. He and his wife were captured by Soviet

SMERSH SMERSH () was an umbrella organization for three independent counter-intelligence agencies in the Red Army formed in late 1942 or even earlier, but officially announced only on 14 April 1943. The name SMERSH was coined by Joseph Stalin. The form ...

agents in April 1945 and interrogated. In 1950, Jahnke was put on trial as a spy, found guilty, and executed the same day.Reinhard R. Doerries: ''Tracing Kurt Jahnke: Aspects of the Study of German Intelligence''. In: George O. Kent (Hrsg.): ''Historians and Archivists''. (Fairfax, VA, 1991), 27–44.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Jahnke, Kurt 1882 births 1950 deaths Black Reichswehr personnel American military personnel of the Philippine–American War American spies for Imperial Germany American people convicted of spying for Nazi Germany American people executed by the Soviet Union Emigrants from the German Empire to the United States Executed American collaborators with Nazi Germany People executed for spying for Nazi Germany Nazis executed by the Soviet Union by firearm People from Gniezno Saboteurs United States Marines