The FBI Doesn't Like Wise Guys

Eberhard Fuhr was locked up for four years during World War II. His crime? Being German in America.

FBI agents arrested and handcuffed the high school senior six weeks before graduation in front of classmates and teachers. [His brother] Julius was picked up later that day.

"I never returned to school," Fuhr wrote in a 2006 online memoir. "I lost not only belongings in my school locker, but my dignity."

"What would you say to your German cousin if he came to you for sanctuary after coming up the Ohio River in his German U-boat?" he remembers being asked by one of his interrogators.

"I said a sub couldn't come up the Ohio River — it only drafts 4 feet," Fuhr recalls. "I guess I was being a smart guy. It went downhill from there." [Link]

Innocent Until Proven German

Old FBI files reveal the shocking truth about nefarious individuals like WWI-era farmer Albert Deitz.

Deitz, a German, had claimed to be from Pennsylvania when he purchased his farm. But he aroused suspicion by paying for the land in $100 bills from a Los Angeles bank. According to [FBI Agent Roy] McHenry's investigation, Dietz didn't fraternize with his neighbors and "discourages their attempts to be neighborly."

Furthermore, his neighbors believed his behavior indicated he wasn't really a farmer. He mowed only a small portion of his hay crop and didn't market his dairy products.

When McHenry went to the Dietz farm, he noted the "plowing was not the work of a good farmer." He described Deitz as probably about 55 years old, 5-foot-10, quite bald, weighing 150 pounds and having a strong German accent. His wife, about 44, was "not at all comely with a very sour expression." [Link]

This investigation occurred several years before the Patriot Act was passed, so Deitz could not be arrested for being a lousy farmer with a suspicious accent and an ugly wife.

Genealogue Challenge #37

The grave of Al Brady was marked last week—70 years after he was gunned down by FBI agents in Bangor, Maine.

What were the full names (first, middle and last) of his parents?

Get Grandpa's FBI File

We nosy genealogists have long known the magic of FOIA requests, but a website called Get Grandpa's FBI File is bringing the method to the nongenealogical masses. Fill in the fields and they'll produce form letters for you to send off to the G-men in Washington and at field offices. Of course, RootsWeb SSDI does the same sort of thing for SS-5 requests.

Just understand that it might take time.

[via Boing Boing]

A G-Man's Journal

Here's another place you might not want to find your grandparents' names: the diaries of FBI special agent Max H. Roder, now for sale on eBay.

The diaries from 1931 to 1937 are his narcotics work in Philadelphia Pa. Diaries from 1938 to 1959 are New York City work except for a brief period Sept 46 to Sept 47 when he went back to Philadelphia Pa. It appears the New York City cases were mainly targeted again Italian Americans in Little Italy. You'll be amazed how many people smoked opium in NYC. [Link, via Boing Boing]

Was Hoover Working Undercover?

Genealogist Millie McGhee-Morris says she's related to FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover. Oh, and she's black.

She recounted how she came home from school at age 12 and mentioned to her grandfather that her history class had talked about Hoover.

Millie McGhee-Morris said census and other records she found support her family's history that shows a link to J. Edgar Hoover.

Her grandfather told her that Hoover was his cousin. He told her to keep the secret of his black ancestry to herself or the whole family could be killed, she said. [Link]

A Cousin in the Bureau

An FBI agent trying to get a peek at columnist Jack Anderson's files allegedly tricked his widow into signing a consent form after indulging her with some genealogy small talk.

Olivia Anderson told The Associated Press that she thought she was allowing the FBI to examine a limited number of files from the 1970s, not broad access to the nearly 200 boxes of her husband's papers.

Anderson, 79, said she met with FBI agent Leslie Martell twice and, indulging her passion for genealogy, determined that they could be distant cousins because they trace their families to the same vicinity of West Virginia.

"She didn't ask me to sign anything the first time. Maybe that's because I claimed her as a cousin," Anderson said. [Link]

This is why I never talk about genealogy without a lawyer present.

[tagged: genealogy, family tree, ancestry]