Kurt Albert Jahnke (17 February 1882 – 22 April 1950) was a German-American intelligence agent and saboteur active both during

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

and

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

Biography

Born in

Gnesen Gniezno (; german: Gnesen; la, Gnesna) is a city in central-western Poland, about east of Poznań. Its population in 2021 was 66,769, making it the sixth-largest city in the Greater Poland Voivodeship. One of the Piast dynasty's chief cities, ...

, Jahnke immigrated to the United States in 1899, became a naturalized citizen, and served in the

U.S. Marines The United States Marine Corps (USMC), also referred to as the United States Marines, is the Marines, maritime land force military branch, service branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for conducting expeditionary warfare, exped ...

in the

Philippines The Philippines (; fil, Pilipinas, links=no), officially the Republic of the Philippines ( fil, Republika ng Pilipinas, links=no), * bik, Republika kan Filipinas * ceb, Republika sa Pilipinas * cbk, República de Filipinas * hil, Republ ...

.State Secrets: The Kent-Wolkoff Affair By

Bryan Clough Bryan Clough (born 1932, Oldham, LancashireIndex of Births, Marriages and Deaths in England and Wales, 1837–1983) is an English writer. Clough has written several books and articles dealing with phreakers, hackers and computer virus writ ...

, page 224 From August 1914, under the command of the German Consul General Franz Bopp, Jahnke performed various intelligence and sabotage operations for the German Admiralty from his San Francisco base. He and his assistant

Lothar Witzke Lothar Witzke (May 15, 1895 – January 6, 1962) was a junior officer in the German Imperial Navy, who, after escaping from internment in neutral Chile, became a spy and saboteur on active service in the United States and Mexico during the First Wo ...

were responsible for the April 1917 munitions explosion at the

Mare Island Naval Shipyard The Mare Island Naval Shipyard (MINSY) was the first United States Navy base established on the Pacific Ocean. It is located northeast of San Francisco in Vallejo, California. The Napa River goes through the Mare Island Strait and separates th ...

in San Francisco,World War One By Priscilla Mary Roberts, page 1606 "likely" responsible for the

Black Tom explosion The Black Tom explosion was an act of sabotage by agents of the German Empire, to destroy U.S.-made munitions that were to be supplied to the Allies of World War I, Allies in World War I. The explosions, which occurred on July 30, 1916, in New Y ...

in Jersey City, New Jersey, and are suspected of other explosions and of fomenting labor strikes. When the United States entered the war in April 1917, Jahnke and Witzke moved their operations to

Mexico City Mexico City ( es, link=no, Ciudad de México, ; abbr.: CDMX; Nahuatl: ''Altepetl Mexico'') is the capital and largest city of Mexico, and the most populous city in North America. One of the world's alpha cities, it is located in the Valley o ...

. According to the Senate testimony of intelligence officer and double agent Dr. Paul Altendorf, who was undercover in Mexico City with the U.S. Military Intelligence Corps from 1917 through April 1919, Jahnke had schemed a Mexican attack on the United States. An army of 45,000 men, funded by Ambassador von Eckardt and trained by German reservists, would march against the U.S. in 1918 and "arouse the Negroes to civil war." Back in Germany in the late 1930s, Jahnke established the "Jahnke Büro", essentially a small private intelligence service reporting up to

Rudolf Hess Rudolf Walter Richard Hess (Heß in German; 26 April 1894 – 17 August 1987) was a German politician and a leading member of the Nazi Party in Nazi Germany. Appointed Deputy Führer to Adolf Hitler in 1933, Hess held that position unt ...

. There is speculation that Jahnke was somehow involved in Hess's still-puzzling flight to Scotland in May 1941; true or not, he fell out of favor with

Ribbentrop Ulrich Friedrich Wilhelm Joachim von Ribbentrop (; 30 April 1893 – 16 October 1946) was a German politician and diplomat who served as Minister of Foreign Affairs of Nazi Germany from 1938 to 1945. Ribbentrop first came to Adolf Hitler's not ...

and the

Gestapo The (), abbreviated Gestapo (; ), was the official secret police of Nazi Germany and in German-occupied Europe. The force was created by Hermann Göring in 1933 by combining the various political police agencies of Prussia into one organi ...

and his accumulated files were confiscated. Later in the war, Jahnke served as intelligence advisor to

Walter Schellenberg Walter Friedrich Schellenberg (16 January 1910 – 31 March 1952) was a German SS functionary during the Nazi era. He rose through the ranks of the SS, becoming one of the highest ranking men in the ''Sicherheitsdienst'' (SD) and eventually ass ...

. He and his wife were captured by Soviet

SMERSH SMERSH (russian: СМЕРШ) was an umbrella organization for three independent counter-intelligence agencies in the Red Army formed in late 1942 or even earlier, but officially announced only on 14 April 1943. The name SMERSH was coined by Josep ...

agents in April 1945 and interrogated. In 1950, Jahnke was put on trial as a spy, found guilty, and executed the same day.Reinhard R. Doerries: ''Tracing Kurt Jahnke: Aspects of the Study of German Intelligence''. In: George O. Kent (Hrsg.): ''Historians and Archivists''. (Fairfax, VA, 1991), 27–44.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Jahnke, Kurt 1882 births 1950 deaths 20th-century Freikorps personnel American people executed by the Soviet Union American spies for Imperial Germany Executed American collaborators with Nazi Germany German people executed by the Soviet Union Nazis executed by the Soviet Union by firearm People from Gniezno Saboteurs United States Marines World War I spies for Germany German emigrants to the United States People executed for spying for Nazi Germany