A Long-Forgotten Nazi Memorial Mystery-- Part 8: Now Hidden Away in a Government Facility

So, most likely, the 200+ pound memorial was placed on public land by the American Nazi Party.

The National Park Service couldn't do anything about removing the marker until they found out if anyone was buried under it.  They went over World War II records for details on where the bodies had been buried, but came up with no definitive answers were forthcoming.  Old maps showed conflicting spots for the burials and one even showed it under a building.

Rosenstock believes that whoever buried the bodies didn't want them found.

But, no one was buried under where the marker was found because in the 1940s a creek had run through the spot.

In 2010, under direction of the museum curator, a fork lift exhumed the granite block and lowered it into a truck.  The stone, tagged OXCO-475, now spends its days under a protective blanket on a shelf in a storage facility in suburban Maryland -- its exact location a secret.

Sounds a Bit Like At the End of the Indiana Jones Movie About the Lost Ark.  --GreGen

A Long-Forgotten Nazi Memorial Mystery-- Part 7: The "N.S.W.P.P." Clue

Until the mid-1960s, the National Socialist White People's Party had gone by the more familiar name:  The American Nazi Party.  The group's founder, George Lincoln Rockwell, had given it the new title shortly before his assassination in 1967.

By the 1970's, however, the group had begun to split apart and had lost much of its relevance.  Jim Rosenstock believes the newly found Nazi memorial marker is from that time.

The party didn't entirely cease to exist until 1983 so the stone may have been carved more recently.

As for now, the memorial presents a conundrum.  It is certainly something that should have been left on public property, but there is nothing in any handbook that says what to do with it.

--GreGen

A Long Forgotten Nazi Memorial Mystery-- Part 6: Fast Guilt, Fast Death

In mid-Summer 1942, seven U.S. Army generals found all eight men guilty but left their punishment up to the president.  FDR sentenced six to death, and two, including John Dasch, to lengthy prison terms, though both were deported after the war.

The electrocutions began at 12:01 p.m. on August 8.  By 104, all six were dead.

Three days later, they were secretly buried amid a seldom-visited thicket of Southwest Washington known as Blue Plains.

Jim Rostenstock back searched this information, but the question remain, "Who placed the granite memorial stone there?"

The line at the bottom spelling out "N.S.W.P.P." offered a clue.

GreGen

A Long Forgotten Nazi Memorial Mystery-- Part 5: Hysteria and Secret Military Trials

War hysteria broke out.  Hundreds of German immigrants were rounded up, and others suspected of spying were arrested.  The Justice Department banned German and Italian barbers, servers and busboys from Washington, D.C.'s restaurants because three of the would-be saboteurs had worked as waiters in America.

Ignoring due process, President Franklin Roosevelt ordered that the Germans be tried in secret before a military commission -- a tactic then backed by the U.S. Supreme Court, that President George W. Bush would replicate 59 years later in his directive that Guantanamo Bay detainees be judged in similar fashion.

--GreGen

A Long Forgotten Nazi Memorial Mystery-- Part 4: J. Edgar Hoover Took Credit for Stopping Them

Four days later, John Dasch took the $82,000 he'd been given for the operation -- more than $1 million in today's money --  and boarded a train for Washington.  There he met with FBI agents, whom he expected to welcome him as a hero.

They didn't.

J. Edgar Hoover, the head of the bureau, recognized the opportunity.  In late June, with all eight men captured, Hoover announced their capture in New York -- and claimed credit for the FBI.

He made no mention of Dasch.

A huge war scare rolled over the United States.  Francis Biddle, then attorney general, later wrote in a memoir, "The country went wild."

--GreGen

A Long Forgotten Nazi Memorial Mystery-- Part 3: Here's the Story

At the start of World War II, Adolf Hitler decided he wanted to show the world just how susceptible America was to a German attack so he ordered his military to devise a plan.

The high command recruited eight Germans for the mission.  In teams of four, the men were loaded onto a pair of U-boats, one destined for Jacksonville and the other for a beach near the tip of Long Island.

On June 13, 1942, the New York group reached shore -- and was discovered by an unarmed Coast Guardsman on foot patrol.  The Germans escaped, but by morning the Coast Guard had unearthed the Germans' buried supplies:  fuses, pre-made bombs and four crates of TNT.

Those supplies wouldn't have mattered as their leader, John Dasch, had no intention of setting off any of the bombs.  When the group reached New York City, he and a comrade decided to turn the others in to American authorities, so Dasch phoned the FBI.

--GreGen

A Long-Forgotten Nazi Memorial Mystery-- Part 2: All the Elements of a Great Mystery

Jim  Rosenstock works in resource management for the National Park service and was a big local history buff was curious and skeptical about this stone.  He got involved with finding out about the marker.

As he dug deeper, it had all the elements of a great mystery:  World War II espionage, nationwide panic, a mass electrocution, J. Edgar Hoover chicanery, white supremacists, federal bureaucracy and a U.S. Supreme Court case that played a significant role in America's modern war on terror.

For decades, few people in Washington, or elsewhere, knew of the stone's existence.  It wasn't a secret so much as something that just never got out.

--GreGen

A Long-Forgotten Nazi Memorial Mystery-- Part 1: Six Executed German Agents

From the July 2, 2017, Chicago Tribune "Nazi memorial a long forgotten mystery" by John Woodrow Cox.

This is one really interesting story.

Power company workers were walking  through a rarely visited thicket in Southwest Washington state when they spotted something, a rectangular slab of granite.  Upon closer inspection they saw it was a memorial to honor Nazi spies and it was on U.S. government property.

It said:  "In memory of agents of the German Abwehr executed August 8, 1942.".

Below that were the names of the six executed:

Herbert Hans Haupt
Heinrich Harm Heinck
Edward John Kerling
Hermann Otto Neubauer
Richard Quirin
Wener Thiel

And, at the bottom "Donated By the  N.S.W.P.P."

The whole endeavor had the code name Operation Pastorius.

And, It Thickens.  --GreGen

Five Attacks on U.S. Soil in World War II-- Part 3

4.  OPERATION PASTORIUS--  Eight male German sabateurs, all naturalized U.S. citizens were to sabotage war industries and use terrorism on U.S. citizens.

In June 1942, U-boats dropped off two four-man groups.  One landed in Amagansett, New York, and the other at Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida.  Each team had $84,000 cash.  One group turned themselves in and the mission failed.

5.  JAPANESE FIRE BALLOONS--  Balloon bombs called "Fugos."  Starting in 1944 there were 9,000 high-altitude balloons launched from Japan.  Each carried 50 pounds of explosives.  They drifted some 5,000 miles to the U.S. mainland, a trip of three days at the high altitudes.

Nearly 350 made it across with several being intercepted and shot down.  Balloons were spotted in 15 states, as far east as Iowa and Michigan.  The only fatalities were from one balloon which exploded in Oregon, killing a pregnant woman and 5 children.  These six are considered the only U.S. mainland fatalities during the war.

And Most Americans Think the U.S. Was Safe During the War.  --GreGen