Günther Orgell
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Carl Günther Boshan Orgell (born 1900) was a German-born engineer, representing the newspaper Westdeutscher Beobachter (WB) in the US and residng in Great Kills, Staten Island, New York.
Life
Orgell was prosecuted under the Foreign Agents Registration Act. Orgell was a registered agent of the V.D.A./VDA (Volksbund für das Deutschtum im Ausland; Society of Germans Living Abroad). In this role he also supplied German language schools with literature. He was a leader in the DAK movement (Deutsch-Amerikanischer Kongreß), whose secretary he was appointed in 1932. As secretary to Victor Ridder, he controlled his activities. As As the contact person for the Foreign Policy Office of the NSDAP, he was active in the Führersuche (leadership school) of the Volksbund as of 1933. From 1936 onwards, he also had good contacts with Karl Götz and thus to the DAI (Deutsches Ausland-Institut). He was also an intermediary for Clevelander DAHA (Deutschamerikanischer Heimatkunde-Ausschuß). Günther Orgell was also associated with Friends of Germany.
- While the VDA’s geographic focus lay mainly on the “lost territories” and ethnic German minorities in Eastern and Southern Europe, it always cultivated good ties to the United States, if only for financial support. When the victory of National Socialism ushered in “a new era,” the organization could increase its efforts across the Atlantic thanks to generous state support. The VDA hired an official representative in the United States, Carl Günther Orgell, sent speakers on continental tours, and acquired the addresses of countless German Americans around the country. Starting in October 1934, it also increased its emphasis on publications and began sending out the Heimatbriefe, a newsletter distributed by the VDA’s regional chapters under different names, for example as Buten und Binnen (“Outside and Inside”) from a branch in Lower Saxony, as Thüringer Heimatbriefe from a branch in Thuringia, and as Sächsische Heimatbriefe from the chapter in Saxony.[1]
On 2 July 1943, he was indicted by a federal grand jury on charges of failing to disclose that he acted in behalf of the German Foreign Office and the NSDAP when he registered with the State Department as a foreign agent for the VDA.[2]
Criminal case
- Foreign Agents Registration Act—Cases: United States v. Carl Guenther Orgell, D.D.C. Crim. No. 72193 (1945)
