The Waterbury Democrat., 1942-10-28
.SABOTEUR PLOT TOLD AT TRIAL
Ernest Burger Relates Training He, 2 COnipan-
 ions Had in Germany
RY RoBERT .. LouCHRAN

BX ROBERT IT. LOUGHkGAN Limited Press Staff C0rrespondentl
 Chicago, oct. 2e.-CUP)-Ernest Peter Burger, sleek-haired Naal saboteur, told his hitherto secret story today of the plot in which he and seven fellow spies landed by U-boat in the United States to sabotage key industries and rail- roads.
 Burger, whose testimony before e military court at washington, D. O., helped send six companions to death In the electric char, was the first witness in the treason trial of the parents, the uncle and aunt and two friends of Herbert Hans Haupt, 22, one of the executed sabo- teurs.
 A small man with Q round face and oil-slicked hair, and thick German accent, he described on l8- day course in sabotage which he, Haupt, and the others took at a school at Brandenburg, Germany, before departing from Berlin May 22 with eight boxes of explosives, and incendiary devices en route to the United States.
 "Our assignment was to damage and harm the Alcoa, the Aluminium Company of America" he testified. We all received the assignment. Part of our assignment was to dam age railroad plants connecting the aluminium plants with the nlanu- featuring plants of the refined pro- duct"
 "How were you to destroy thenP" asked Dist. Atty. J. Albert Woll.
 By placing certain explosives for which we received the formula, close to the tracks, attaching Q battery or timing device and slowing 1t up."
 Burger revealed that Haupt had disobeyed the instructions of Lieut.. Walter Kappe, former editor of a Chicago German language newspa- per, who was in charge Of the eight men in Germany.
 "The instructions given to Herbert Haupt were first, not to visit his parents in Chicago after his arrival over here" Burger said. second, to get employment in the optical in- dustry. Third, to register as soon as possible for the army"
 Haupt did get in touch with his parents, Mir. and Mrs. Hans Max Haupt, on June 19, after first con- tacting his aunt and uncde, MT. and Mrs. Otto Froeling, shortly after landing by submarine on the Florida coast. Subsequently, the govern ment charges, Haupt explained his mission to his parents, the Froelings and their neighborS, Walter Wergin and his wife, and enl ed their aid, He made an effort to get his job back at the Simpson Optical Co, where he had worked before and which was engaged last summer in manufacturing parts for the Norden bcmbsight, one of the nations most closely guarded military secrets.
 Woil asked Burger to describe the Brandenburg sabotage school.
 "There is an old estate, a prov ing ground, classrooms and butld- ings on the practicing grounds" Burger said. "There is tower for observation and a pit for experi- ments, a railroad track and Q build- ing representing a warehouse. The pit was used for the testing of ex- plosives."
 Burger said at one time he and the others questioned Haupt's abil- ity to carry out the mission be- cause of his youth.
 Then" said Burger, "Kappe an- swered that Herbert Haupt broke the blockade and he was decorated with the iron cross, and we Erc-7 that he was hero .. Haupt said that no matter how old he was, he proved that he was old enough to go through with a certain order or assignment"
 He did not explain the meaning of the phrase "broke the blockade" !"