William Lonkowski
William Lonkowski (born 1893) was a German Abwehr agent who assembled a successful spy ring and obtained most of America’s aircraft design secrets in the 1930s.
Early life
Born of Silesian parents, Lonkowski became an aircraft mechanic during World War I.[1] He would become a first rate aero-engineer and a competent aircraft designer. He found a home in the Abwehr; one of his first assignments was assessing France’s aircraft capacities in 1922.
American arrival
William Lonkowski arrived in the United States on March 27, 1927. He obtained employment at the Ireland Aircraft Corporation on Long Island, New York and began to develop a spy ring among the plant’s German-American workers. Two key individuals he recruited were Otto Voss and Werner Gudenberg who would eventually move on to other defense plants expanding the reach of the spy ring.[2] Eventually Lonkowski’s network of spies could deliver almost overnight any secret ordinance plan the Abwehr requested.[3] Lonkowski left Ireland Aircraft Corporation and developed a new cover for his spying activities by becoming a correspondent for the German aviation magazine Luftreise.
In October 1934 William Lonkowski called upon Dr. Ignatz Griebl who had started his own spy network and both agreed to combine their resources.[4]
Near arrest and escape
William Lonkowski's activities were finally discovered on September 25, 1935 when he was stopped by a customs official as he was boarding the ocean liner Europa.[5] The customs official saw Lonkowski was carrying a violin case and asked to see it solely because of his interest in violins. Upon opening the case the customs official saw aircraft drawings under the instrument.
Lonkowski was interviewed by military intelligence and explained these drawings were necessary for him to write his aviation articles. He was told to come back in three days for further questioning. The next day Lonkowski fled to Canada and boarded a German freighter back to his homeland. This would be the end of his spying career in America. William Lonkowski would be welcomed as a hero by the Abwehr for having assemble a successful spy ring that had stolen about every major military secret the United States possessed.[6] Hitler later rewarded him with a major position in the Air Ministry.
Trivia
Hollywood would base the 1939 film Confessions of a Nazi Spy upon the Griebl-Lonkowski spy ring.
Notes
- ↑ The Game of the Foxes, by Ladislas Farago, page 17
- ↑ Insidious Foes: the Axis Fifth Column and the American Home Front, by Francis MacDonnell, page 50
- ↑ Citizen Hoover: a critical study of the life and times of J. Edgar Hoover, By Jay Robert Nash, page 68
- ↑ The Game of the Foxes, by Ladislas Farago, page 23
- ↑ Insidious Foes: the Axis Fifth Column and the American Home Front, by Francis MacDonnell, page 51
- ↑ The spy who spent the war in bed: and other bizarre tales from World War II, By William B. Breuer, page 7
