Evening star., 1939-06-25
By John G.. Henry.

On a warm April evening in 1917,
only a few short days after the
United States entered the World
War, two men sat close by an open
window in a balcony room at the
rear of the Hotel Paglasch, Ave-
nida Juarez, Mexico City.
Before them on a table was a
copy of magazine, glass of care
fully strained lemon juice, pen,
pencils, paper At the rear of the
room was another man-waiting.
Steadily, one of the two men near
the window tipped the pages of the
magazine, Blue Book of January,
1917, finding words and letters which
he wanted Meticulously, under each
of those selected he pierced the page,
using a pin or some similar instru-
ment, until about ITO tiny perfora-
tions were scattered through the
magazine.
Noting the page location of each of
the pin pricks, he inserted a four
digit number in the pencil draft of
q message which the two men were
spelling out slowly on the paper be-
fore them.
Then, dipping sharp-nubbed
pen into the lemon juice, he turned
to page 700 of the magazine At die
tation of his companion, he started
to write the message in lemon juice,
running the lines lengthwise of the
page and at right angles to the print
ing thereon. Nine lines were written
on page 700, ten were transcribed
on page 698, eleven more on page
696 and final four on page 694.
Came Under Suspicion.
The writer was Frederick L. Herr
mann, Brooklyn-born son of Ger
man-American parents, who had en-
tered the service of the German gov
ernment early in 1915. After several
undercover assignments in Great
Britain, including observation OF
British fleet movements in the Firth
of Forth while he was enrolled as a
forestry student at the University
of Edinburgh, Hermann had come
under suspicion of Scotland Yard
Recalled to Berlin, he had been
given new assignment in early
1916 as a saboteur in the United
States and Mexico.
His companion in the Hotel Pag-
1asch was Adam Siegel, German
cavalry officer, likewise an under
cover agent, who because of his
command of the Russian language
often posed as Russian.
The third man was 2aoui Gerdts
Of German-Spanish ancestry.
Through chain of circumstances
not essential to this immediate
narrative the trio had met on
ship sailing from Havana to Vera
Cruz shortly before their described
actions at the Hotel Paglasch.
Anti-German sentiment was in
creasing in the United States, and
work was to be done in Mexico
Hermann, for instance, mad been
commissioned to destroy by fire or
explosion the Tampico oil fields.
from which the allies were receiv-
ing great quantities of wartime oil
Once there, however, the trio had
encountered some difficult. The Ger
man Minister, Won Eckhardt, had
suspected Hermann and Gerdts of
not being German agents at all but
rather spies in British or Amer
lean employ. Furthermore, a staff
OF German saboteurs already was
operating in Mexico, and there was
reluctance to divert German funds
from this group to the newly ar
rived ones.
The situation was not complete
ly smoothed out when Won Eek
hardt received confirmation from
Berlin that Hermann had been
commissioned to destroy the Tam
pico oil fields but that discretion
as to when or how this might be
done was being left with the Min
lister.
Now despite the exodus of Ger
man agents from the United States
in early 1917 there remained in
Baltimore one Paul G. L. Hilken,
who had been serving as paymas-
ter for the Kaiser's agents in the
United States, and one Friedrich
Hinsch, another of the saboteurs
high in the confidence of his su-
periors in Berlin.
Message to Baltimore.
For several reasons, among them
the solicitation of funds and to
obtain further confirmation of his
status as a German agent, Herr
mann therefore decided to write to
Hilken, with Gerdts being depu-
tized to bear the message to the
Baltimore offlcial and to bring back
the desired funds.
In a mixture of English, German
and numeral code relating to the
pin pricks the message was written
In the pages Of the Blue Book. Using