In this issue, we continue with the text of the interrogation of Kapitdn Dietrich Niebuhr, the wartime German naval attache in Argentina. Remember, this is copied exactly from the file, complete with the underlines & other typographical highlights. In KTB #141 we covered Question #1 and so therefore, here is Question #2.

2. Give the complete arrangement of the clandestine German radio network operations in South America.

Niebuhr insisted that he had no connection with the clandestine transmitting system operated by the Sicherheitsdienst in South America. Napp and Mueller, he pointed out, had been forced to Rio in order to relay their reports to Germany. He himself, until a few months before he left Buenos Aires had been able to communicate directly with the OKM in Berlin through his own code.

Near the end of 1942 the Argentines reduced the number of cipher groups permitted to Axis embassies to one hundred a week, whereupon the Office of the Naval Attache found itself restricted to an average of about twenty. Before that time, however, Niebuhr had been at liberty to communicate at will with his principals in the practically unbreakable Schluessel M of the German Navy.

The Naval Attache had his own Enigma machine on which he used a code similar to that of the commercial Enigma but slightly changed to add greater variations. The existence of the Enigma was not a secret, but the coding wheels themselves were carefully guarded. The messages, once transferred into Schluessel M, were handed to Transradio International to be sent to Berlin; this was before Transradio was reorganized and taken over by the American, George HAYES. The Embassy proper had its own Foreign Office system & code the Naval Attache sent his messages independently.

The prisoner was asked if his reports might not have been picked up by submarines in the vicinity, since he had admitted that ship movements constituted a part of his transmissions. Niebuhr replied that the U-boats were certainly not in possession of Schluessel M, even if they were able to get on the beam. Moreover, in the little time they had during the day to listen to the radio, the submarines concentrated on the wave of their own U-boat Chief There were few submarines in La Plata waters during his time, Niebuhr said; they moved along the coasts of Brazil, in the vicinity of Bahia.

Questioned as to what he had meant when he said that Napp and Mueller used "a childish code that any professional could break", the prisoner asserted that he had merely inferred that from his later knowledge that the United States had been reading the messages. Niebuhr had not meant to say that these Abwehr agents were using a transmitter themselves, but had referred to the code they presumably used in sending from Brazil.

As mentioned in Session I Niebuhr admitted to having known Gustav Utzinger, but disclaimed any knowledge of the latter's activities in clandestine radio. Utzinger, the prisoner said, had been known to him as an employee of Telefunken who had come to Buenos Aires from Rio, and who later left that company to go to Asuncion as a radio expert for the Paraguayan Ministry of War. Utzinger once came to Buenos Aires with two Paraguayan officers to buy radio materials. Regarding Orga T. Utzinger's technical division of Bekker's organization, the prisoner asserted that he had never heard even the name.

HARRY's NOTE - ERICH GIMPLE (884-1988) was Abwehr agent #146 out of more than 20,000 Abwehr agents. He too, was 'an engineer for Telefunken Radio' in South America in the early days. It appears that being a Telefunken engineer in those days had more attached to it than what was apparent on the surface.

Niebuhr admitted that Utzinger had been friendly with the Assistant Naval Attache, Martin MUELLER, but denied knowledge of any clandestine operations between the two. In his time, the prisoner reported, there had been no necessity for the Naval Attache to send transmissions secretly, since he had his own Schluessel M. Mueller may have cooperated with Utzinger and the SD later, Niebuhr said.

The prisoner also admitted to having known PUlipp IMHOFF, but likewise denied that the acquaintance had been in any way connected with clandestine matters. Imhoff, he said, was the DEBEG representative who worked in the port of Buenos Aires inspecting and installing radio equipment on German and Argentine merchant vessels. This Deutsche Betriebs Gesellschaft was a branch of TELEFUNKEN which had its regular "Deberbeamte" on board the ships it served.

HARRY's NOTE - Some years before the outbreak of World War II, American millionaire Howard Hughes sold his huge yacht to Axel Wenner-Gren, then the world's richest man. He owned what's now Paradise Island in the Bahamas, owned some 5,000,000 acres of land in his native Sweden- founded the Electrolux Vacuum Cleaner Company and owned the Bofors armament works. Just about every ship of any navy in those days (and many today) mount Bofors automatic weapons. He also had a mistress named Inga Aarvad who was Hitler's companion for the 1936 Olympics in Berlin - Inga later became the lover of young US Navy Lt. John F. Kennedy. In short, Wenner-Gren was a most important man to the Hitler Government in the Western Hemisphere as he & his yacht SOUTHERN CROSS made many voyages to South America.

When Italian Count Edmundo di Robilant got married, he and his bride enjoyed their honeymoon aboard SOUTHERN CROSS before the Count reported to his new job; that of Director of the South American oprerations of the Italian LATI Airlines. He was soon arrested for transmitting Allied ship movements out of South American ports to Berlin. Can you see any kind. of connection, here?

In KTB #143 next month, we continue with Question #3 and onward. Some of the activities of World War II make a little more sense when you know all the 'Spook Stuff that went on behind the scenes. ERICH GIMPEL - -what can you add?

DON ANGEL ALCAZAR de VELASCO (158-1985) sent a very long letter to us in 1985, telling of his service as a spy chief to the Japanese and to the German Governments in World War II. His story with its amazing revelations, ran from KTB #110 to its ending in KTB #124. Back issues are available if you wish, at only $5 each.

After reading all the startling events told by DON ANGEL, we did a tremendous amount of research and have compiled a stack of documents about one foot high, and we present them in this section over as many issues of our KTB as necessary. When you have read them all - you decide what really happened!