Simon Emil Koedel
Born
Simon Emil Koedel

1881
Würzburg, Bavaria, Germany
Died1949[1]
Espionage activity
Allegiance United States
 Germany
 Germany
Service years1912-1918, 1930s-1944
CodenameAgent A2011

Simon Emil Koedel (1881–1949) was a spy for Nazi Germany in World War II.[2][3] Born in 1881 in Würzburg, Bavaria, Germany, and came to the US in 1904.[3] Koedel enlisted in the US Army in 1908 and served until 1911, and in 1912 he became a US citizen.[4] He began spying on American shipping for Germany, and in April 1915 headed for England via Holland. He spied on shipping in England and Scotland until he was arrested in Liverpool. After being deported back to the US, he headed to Germany in 1916 again via Holland. Koedel was then commissioned as a captain in the Germany Army and subsequently returned to the United States.

During World War II, Koedel used his stepdaughter, Marie Koedel, to spy on US and other seamen while in port in New York.[5] He monitored American ports and US military suppliers.[6] He obtained and forwarded to Germany volumes of information about US companies involved in the war effort over many years, but also about policy, decisions made and to come; information which he obtained by posing as a concerned citizen. He often wrote to Congressmen and other highly regarded persons who unwittingly helped him through otherwise closed doors.[7]

The Koedels were both arrested in 1944. They were charged with conspiracy to commit espionage. In 1945, Simon pleaded guilty, while Marie was convicted at trial. During her trial, Marie, who claimed she acted under duress and her mother had said Simon had physically abused the two of them. Simon was sentenced to 15 years in prison, while Marie was sentenced to 7.5 years in prison. Both avoided possible death sentences since their known spying activities happened before the United States entered the war.[8][9]

References

  1. ↑ Mickolus, Edward F. (2015). The Counterintelligence Chronology: Spying by and Against the United States from the 1700s through 2014. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, Inc. ISBN 9781476662510. Retrieved 14 February 2020. On March 1, 1945, he was convicted of conspiracy to commist espionage [...] He was released a year later, and deported back to Germany. He died a vagrant three years later
  2. ↑ Hoover, J. Edgar, ed. (February 1940). "Cooperation Stressed in International Relations Report" (PDF). FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin. Washington, D. C.: Federal Bureau of Investigation. 15 (2): 16. Retrieved 14 February 2020. In another espionage case, Colombian authorities worked closely with the FBI and as a result the spy, Waldemar Othmer, was apprehended and convicted in the United States of North America. Following out all possible avenues of investigation, information was developed on similar activities of Simon and Marie Koedel. Othmer had reported shipping information from Norfolk, Virginia, and the Koedels had worked in the New York area for the Germans. These three spies received terms totaling 42½ years.
  3. 1 2 Williams, Michael W. (26 September 2016). "Citizen Spies: Simon and Marie Koedel A father and daughter conducted espionage operations for the Third Reich in the United States.". Warfare History Network. Retrieved 14 February 2020. The Abwehr enrolled Simon Koedel as Agent A2011, the "A" indicating Koedel was a foreign agent. The "2" identified him with the Bremen sub branch soon to be headed by Johannes Bischoff, and the number "11" meant he was one of the first agents recruited for that network.
  4. ↑ Miller, Joan Irene (26 October 1984). Spies in America. German Espionage in the United States, 1935-1945 (Master of Arts in History thesis). Portland State University. Retrieved 14 February 2020. Sources agree however, that it was sometime in the middle thirties that Koedel volunteered his services to "Abwehrnebenstelle" Bremen to act as a spy against the United States. Though Koedel had retained his American citizenship, he stated: "I love Germany with all my heart and I am even willing ••• to give my very life for her."
  5. ↑ Gilbert, Martin (1989). "3 Finland Defeat, November 1939". The Second World War - A Complete History. New York, New York: Henry Holt and Company, Inc. p. 37. ISBN 0-8050-0534-X. Retrieved 14 February 2020. On January 3 [1939], German naval Intelligence had received a report from one of its agents in the United States, Marie Koedel, reporting on those American military supplies purchased by Britain which were being loaded at Hamilton dock in Brooklyn, on the ships being loaded, and on their sailing schedules. Marie Koedel was even able to enlist the services of a British sailor who had jumped ship, Duncan Scott-Ford; later he was uncovered, captured, brought back to Britain, tried and hanged. But the information he sent back, as that of Mary Koedel, added to the German understanding of British shipping operations. A considerable amount of German information also came, not from any individual spy, but from a careful reading of the uninhibited American press.
  6. ↑ "New York Spies - Simon Koedel". The Gus Neuss Archives of articles related to the Bund at Yaphank. Longwood Central School District. Retrieved 14 February 2020. In the fall of 1939 he began riding the ferries in earnest. He took six and seven trips a week. On the Staten Island boats he scanned busy harbor traffic through field glasses and sneaked into the cabin to make notes on what he saw. [...] Often he rode the Weehawken ferry from 42nd St. and closely watched British freighters lying in the Hudson. He slipped into subways and rode to the bustling Bush Terminal in Brooklyn. There he watched the loading of lend-lease shipments and tried to figure out what was in crates lying on the docks by names of the manufacturers stenciled on the outside.
  7. ↑ Breuer, William B. (2003). "A Father-and-Daughter Spy Team". The Air-Raid Warden Was a Spy And Other Tales from Home-Front America in World War II. Hoboken, New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. pp. 165–167. ISBN 0-471-23488-5. Retrieved 14 February 2020. He was given a commission as a captain and was soon promoted to major because of his innovative and highly productive spying activities. Koedel sought and was granted membership in the American Ordnance Association, [...]. Often he strolled brazenly up to the gates of plants, flashed his Ordnance Association card, and was admitted. Sometimes officials took him on a guided tour of what should have been a topsecret facility. Once he tried this ploy at the Chemical Warfare Center at Edgewood Arsenal, Maryland, [...] Guards would not permit Koedel to enter. [...] Koedel promptly telephoned an official at the Ordnance Association office in Washington [...] The association official contacted a high officer in the War Department and demanded to know why this [...] loyal booster of a strong national defense was being barred from Edgewood Arsenal. [...] Within hours an officer in the War Department read the riot act to the Edgewood Arsenal commander, and Koedel entered the facility and was given a guided tour. Two weeks later, Abwehr officers in Berlin were reading Agent A-2011's report on what he had seen and been told at the secret arsenal.
  8. ↑ "Clipped From The Daily Mail". The Daily Mail. 1945-02-19. p. 3. Retrieved 2023-03-07.
  9. ↑ "Citizen Spies: Simon and Marie Koedel". Warfare History Network. Retrieved 2023-03-07.


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