Oscar C. Pfaus
Oskar Karl Pfaus (also Oscar C. Pfaus) was a German American journalist in Chicago and later an agent for the Abwehr. He was born in Illingen, Germany in 1901 and emigrated to the United States in the 1920s. While in America, Pfaus traveled about as a hobo on railcars and claimed to have worked as a prospector, a forester, and cowboy.[1] He gained his American citizenship with his service in the United States Army[2] serving under General George Van Horn Moseley. He later settled in Chicago and became a policeman fighting the Al Capone mob.
Pfaus started the Germanischer Bund which was the Midwest distribution center for propaganda printed by the Fichte-Bund in Germany. Later he was the editor of the Chicago edition of the Weckruf und Beobachter the paper of the German American Bund.[3]
He returned to Germany in December 1938 and became a director in the English section of the Fichte-Bund in Hamburg. He obtained a copy of the Franklin Prophecy forgery, edited it and reissued a pamphlet titled "A Real Case Against the Jews."[4]
Shortly thereafter he began working with German intelligence, the Abwehr.[5] In 1939 the Abwehr sent Pfaus to Ireland with the cover of a Frankfurter Zeitung newspaperman to recruit IRA leadership in preparation for the coming war.[6]
When he arrived, Pfaus was not well versed in Irish politics and first meet with Irish fascist leader Eoin O'Duffy who earlier had broken with the IRA.[7] O'Duffy was hostile to the idea of IRA cooperation however his deputy Captain Liam D. Walsh proved more helpful to Pfaus in making IRA contacts.[8] Eventually Pfaus meet with the IRA Chief of Staff Sean Russell and agreed to send James O’Donovan as a representative to Germany to explore IRA/Abwehr cooperation. Pfaus made a total of three trips to Ireland between February and August 1939. He was able to obtaine leads on IRA underground in Boston and New York City which resulted in the Abwehr sending an agent to America.
Pfaus was a religious eccentric and started a group called the Global Brotherhood.[9]
After the end of the war Pfaus lived in Hamburg.
Works
- WE ACCUSE! (pamphlet, 1940)
Notes
- ↑ The Spy who spent the war in bed: and Other Bizarre Tales from World War II, by William B. Breuer, page 12
- ↑ House Investigation of Un-American Propaganda Activities in the United States (1943) Page 30
- ↑ Secret Intelligence in the Twentieth Century, by Heike Bungert, Jan Heitmann, Michael Wala, page 46
- ↑ "Dies Body Told How Nazis Direct Anti-semitic Propaganda in U.S. from Hamburg" JTA October 23, 1939
- ↑ Secret Intelligence in the Twentieth Century, by Heike Bungert, Jan Heitmann, Michael Wala, page 46
- ↑ Armed Struggle: the History of the IRA, by Richard English, page 64
- ↑ Defending Ireland: the Irish State and its Enemies since 1922, by Eunan O'Halpin, page 147
- ↑ The Secret Army: the IRA, by J. Bowyer Bell, page 158
- ↑ Ireland Defined: Espionage through the Ages, page 218
