Japan's Attack on Pearl Harbor Aided by Germans!
German Spies Helped Japan Attack U.S. Forces on December 7, 1941
Dec 7, 2008
After the brazen bombing of Pearl Harbor, Franklin Delano Roosevelt described December 7, 1941, as "a date which will live in infamy." The Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor is regarded by historians as one of the most successful sneak attacks in the history of warfare. However, a little remembered aspect of the success of this brutal attack is that a good portion of the intelligence the Japanese gained about Pearl Harbor came from German spies that had lived on Oahu since 1935.
German Agents Working for Japan
A little-known family of spies helped make the sneak attack on Pearl Harbor easier. A German Nazi named Bernard Julius Otto Kuehn (Kuhn) moved his wife and two children to Hawaii in August of 1935 intending to spy upon the American military on behalf of Japan. Kuhn had become a minor official of the Gestapo and had developed close ties to Heinrich Himmler, the head of the dreaded secret police.
However, this arrangement was promoted by Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels as a by product of his relationship with Kuhn's attractive 17 year old daughter, Susie Ruth. At 17, Ruth Kuhn had been Goebbels' mistress in Berlin. When he learned that the Japanese government sought a European spy to work in Hawaii, Goebbels recommended Susie Ruth and her family.
Bernard Kuhn had served in the German Navy during W.W. I and eventually became a physician after the war. Dr. Kuhn and his wife Friedel, their daughter Susie Ruth, and her half-brother Hans Joachim, was an inconspicuous family that no one suspected of carrying on espionage for Japan which paid them well for the information they provided about the U.S. military presence in Oahu.
The Family that Spied Together
Every member of the family contributed towards collecting and documenting secret military information. Susie Ruth was a regular Mata Hari as she dated U.S. servicemen stationed at Pearl Harbor and ultimately opened a local beauty parlor that proved to be a valuable source of gossip from wives and girlfriends of military men on the island. It is reported that the wives of high-ranking military officers spent many hours gossiping about their husbands' activities.
Dr. Kuhn's wife helped monitor the conversations of the various ladies in the salon on certain days. Friedel's specific job was to record all intelligence that the family obtained. When Friedel travelled to Japan twice, no one suspected a thing about her trips. Returning from her second visit, Mrs. Kuhn successfully brought back $16,000 which was promptly deposited into their bank account.
Mrs. Kuhn even dresssed up six year old Hans in a little sailor suit and his father would walk with him down near the docked ships. Many of the sailors thought he was cute and gave him unofficial tours of their ships. Having been coached by his father, he would ask specific questions and keenly observe everything he saw. Later he reported it all to his parents.
Coded Messages Sent to the Japanese Consulate
Dr. Kuhn would flash coded messages from the attic of the Kuhn's home to the nearby Japanese consulate. Their information was invaluable. Actually, five days before the attack, they transmitted to the Japanese information describing every American ship in Hawaii.
This system went undetected until the day of the attack. Military intelligence finally noticed the blinking lights from the Kuhn cottage overlooking Pearl Harbor and ultimately arrested the family as they were still transmitting information. All except Hans went to prison, but all were deported to Germany later.
Source:
David Wallechinsky & Irving Wallace, The People's Almanac "Pearl Harbor and the Japanese Spy Family" © 1975 - 1981
