The Return of the Dark Invader
About this ebook
The War ended in 1918, but it was not until 1921 that Rintelen was freed. He returned to Germany to find his country, which, when he had left it, had been in the full pride of its nationhood, rapidly dissolving into the chaos that reached its height in 1932.
In such a Germany there was no room for this naval officer, or for any representative of the régime that had fallen from public grace. The story of Rintelen’s return is one of the dramatic episodes of the post-war period. It forms a part of the manuscript that makes this book.
But the manuscript has a greater interest than this personal one. Much of the secret history of the growth of the new Germany is here told for the first time. It is a story of intrigue and treachery on the one hand, and on the other, of an amazing loyalty and implicit patriotism.
The story of The Dark Invader ended when he left the grey walls of the Atlanta Penitentiary behind him. The account of his return begins with the sight of the deserted docks and shipyards of Bremerhaven. How it ends Captain von Rintelen himself tells.
About the author
Captain Franz Dagobert Johannes von Rintelen (19 August 1878 - 30 May 1949) was a German Naval Intelligence officer in the United States during World War I. Sent to the neutral United States in 1915 to sabotage American ships carrying munitions and supplies to the Allies, his work was largely successful by means of developing and planting pencil bombs, organizing strikes and work slowdowns to inhibit American aid to the Allies, and negotiating funds to purchase weapons and U-boat landings.
Displeased with his success, his German colleagues effected his eventual arrest in England, where he was interned for 21 months. He was then extradited to the U.S., tried and found guilty on Federal charges in New York, and imprisoned in Atlanta, Georgia for 3 years, after he U.S. entered the war. He returned to Germany in 1920 and died in England in 1949 aged 70.
