Hitler's Man in Havana by Thomas D. D. Schoonover

Author:Thomas D. D. Schoonover [Schoonover, Thomas D. D.]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: non.fiction
ISBN: 9780813173023
Publisher: University Press of Kentucky
Published: 2008-09-12T00:00:00+00:00

Mammy [Helga] Darling:

I was so very happy, when I received your nice letter. I was arrested already, when your lines were given me, like a wonderful surprise from heaven, in those dark and terrible days I spent during the last time, and you can’t imagine how I felt morally thinking of you, the boy and the parents, and I still do not know, if there will be a possibility to join the family someday. Hope you, Hunky [his son, Adolf Bartholomae], Dad [his uncle Gustav Adolf] & Mussy [his aunt Olga] & the whole family and Arabella [illegible; a pet?] and Enso [illegible; a pet?] etc, are alright and will be safe until the end of this war.

Your people [the U.S. interrogators and officials] and the Cubans treat me very nice, and I shall never forget what they have done for me during these hard weeks.

I like to tell you by this opportunity that I am a victim of a bad preparation and a very bad organization [the Abwehr] Dr. K[oelln?] is so proud of, and I have the wish I always had; that he and his bandits might go to hell this time, so that everybody can breath [sic] fresh air again. I never liked this job, pardner [sic], you know that quite well, and that’s exactly what makes my feeling awfully mad.—I guess the Chicago [his wife’s aunt, Ella Bartholomae, and uncle, Philip Bartholomae, residing in Los Angeles] and Milwaukee [his uncle Julius Lüning] families are informed, since I gave their addresses to somebody.

That’s all for this time, Mammy dear, hold your head high and give many, many kisses to Hunky, Mussy, and Dad, and a lot of love to yourself. In the firm hope and trusting that God will help me. I am always

Bunny [Heinz August Lüning]66

The Transocean news service, confidentially linked to the German government, forwarded a report from the United Press service in Havana that Lüning was “the first German spy ever executed.” That was not correct, although he was the only German spy executed in Latin America during World War II. The report repeated the baseless allegation that he was executed “because of radio contacts with German submarines which led to the sinking of allied ship tonnage.”67 This rumor followed Lüning to the grave and beyond.

Benítez and Batista pointed to Cuba’s role in breaking up Lüning’s (phantom) spy ring as a major step in reducing the effectiveness of German U-boats. Their action helped secure all Allied interests in the greater Caribbean area from Axis attack. Benítez expressed his view to the Washington press on October 26, 1942. A month after Lüning’s execution, during a talk in the United States, Bastista asserted that breaking the Lüning operation went a long way toward ending the highly successful German U-boat campaign in the Gulf of Mexico–Caribbean area.68 Batista’s self-congratulatory interpretation was all smoke and mirrors. The chief Cuban contribution to curtailing German U-boats involved making air and naval bases available for U.S. and British antisubmarine activity. More

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.