Hans Thomsen

Hans Thomsen (born 1891 in Hamburgcite book
title = Hitler's Last Chief of Foreign Intelligence: Allied Interrogations of Walter Schellenberg
first = Reinhard
last = Doerries
publisher = Frank Cass
page = 367
url = http://books.google.com/books?id=2HGa4VtOiFAC&pg=PT393&lpg=PT393&dq=hans+thomsen+german&source=web&ots=OfotYHAugz&sig=9USTi_EqBx5Z3xg4_s9uu7oGq-U
accessdate = 2008-02-11] ) was a German diplomat for the Third Reich. He served as Chargé d'Affaires at the Embassy of Germany in Washington, representing the German government from November 1938 (after the recall of ambassador Hans-Heinrich Dieckhoff) to December 11, 1941 (termination of relations after declaration of war).cite book
title = Franklin Delano Roosevelt: Champion of Freedom
first = Conrad | last = Black
publisher = PublicAffairs
date = 2003
page = 505
url = http://books.google.com/books?id=GL3DaSEZO34C&pg=RA1-PA505&lpg=RA1-PA505&dq=Hans+Thomsen+Dieckhoff&source=web&ots=KlKPQl4RbP&sig=DUovg9j8ux7xkuqbv1MBiL1GIWQ
accessdate= 2008-02-11 ] In 1943 he replaced Victor zu Wied (the brother of William, Prince of Albania) at the German delegation in Stockholm, Sweden, remaining there to the end of the war. Thomsen was interrogated prior to the Nuremberg tribunals but was not charged with any crime.

Thomsen and the isolationists

Like Dieckhoff, Thomsen suffered no illusions about the administration's policy towards Nazi Germany, and he sent warnings to the German government advising them of President Roosevelt's hostility,cite book
title = The United States and Germany: A Diplomatic History
first = Manfred| last = Jonas
publisher = Cornell University Press
date = 1984
url = http://books.google.com/books?id=MSLgiCvfKXQC&pg=PA238&lpg=PA238&dq=hans+thomsen+german&source=web&ots=2fuKaiAIWw&sig=M6YRxGFDagjEXYBmN8sqyrddN6U#PPA238,M1
accessdate = 2008-02-11] . Therefore, he was involved in several attempts to drum up American isolationist opinion, including efforts to get American authors to write in opposition to American involvement in the War. [cite book
title = The German Opposition to Hitler: The Resistance, the Underground, and Assassination Plots, 1938-1945
first = Michael C. | last = Thomsett
publisher = McFarland & Company
date = 1997
page = 151
url = http://books.google.com/books?id=n4AsZq4e5vwC&pg=PA151&lpg=PA151&dq=hans+thomsen+sweden&source=web&ots=d7Uj3Xbj7f&sig=bzWCeG7jq2N0wi13IL24WiZOUfw
accessdate = 2008-02-11] Thomsen also orchestrated a campaign to influence the 1940 Republican National Convention to pass an anti-war platform.cite news
last = Stout
first = David
title = How Nazis Tried to Steer U.S. Politics
work = New York Times
date = July 23, 1997
url = http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9405E5D8173CF930A15754C0A961958260
accessdate = 2008-02-11] Thomsen reported to the German foreign ministry on June 12, 1940 that a "well-known Republican congressman" had offered to take a group of fifty isolationists to the convention in exchange for $3000.cite book
title = The American Axis: Henry Ford, Charles Lindbergh, and the Rise of the Third Reich
first = Max | last = Wallace | publisher = St. Martin's Press | date = 2003 | page = 262
url = http://books.google.com/books?id=MRQtC2Pd9h8C&pg=PA262&lpg=PA262&dq=Hans+Thomsen+isolationist&source=web&ots=2qKDsaxHIA&sig=5RgZj-v_hp-IWRTe5FiM8QBKYVk#PPA262,M1
accessdate = 2008-02-11] Thomsen asked for funds for this and for full page advertisements to be placed in newspapers during the convention. These ads were written by George Viereck, a German agent on the staff of Congressman Hamilton Fish, and appear to have been influential: the wording of the foreign policy plank, reported Thomsen, "was taken almost verbatim" from an ad which appeared in the New York Times and other papers. [cite book
title = Five Days in Philadelphia: The Amazing "We Want Willkie!" Convention of 1940 and How It Freed FDR to Save the Western World
first = Charles | last = Peters | publisher = PublicAffairs | date = 2005 | page = 91
url = http://books.google.com/books?id=cTyHlOW3wCIC&pg=PA91&lpg=PA91&dq=%22hans+thomsen%22+isolationist&source=web&ots=bVX8r58jQY&sig=IuQwQmdNeqg36BuVxnt1lMFXbtI#PPA91,M1
accessdate = 2008-02-11 ] Fish does not appear to have been personally involved in these efforts, though he headed the National Committee to Keep America Out of Foreign Wars which sponsored the ads.

The Purple cipher

Thomsen warned his government, in April 1941, that the Japanese diplomatic code (code-named Purple by the Americans) had been broken by the Americans, having been tipped off by the Soviet ambassador to the US, Constantin Oumansky. These warnings were passed on to the Japanese government, but in the end they were not acted upon, and American cryptographers continued to read Japanese messages through the war. [cite book
title = World War II: An Encyclopedia of Quotations
first = Howard
last = Langer
publisher = Greenwood Publishing Group
date = 1999
page = 198
url = http://books.google.com/books?id=pmEfBrcn3PYC&pg=PA198&lpg=PA198&dq=Hans+Thomsen+german&source=web&ots=ukW1hG59d2&sig=LjM2T-tPnDJWKxsZX-ud8U5jbZA
accessdate = 2008-02-11 ] [cite book
title = The Codebreakers: The Comprehensive History of Secret Communication from Ancient Times to the Internet
first = David
last = Kahn
publisher = Scribner
date = 1996
accessdate = 2008-02-11 Text from [http://www.wnyc.org/books/1622 excerpt] of first chapter on WNYC website]

Thomsen and Donovan

Just before the Pearl Harbor attack, Thomsen was involved in a curious attempt by William Donovan, the United States Coordinator of Information, to recruit him entirely to the American side. Thomsen had been supplying information on German military strength and movements to Malcolm Lovell, a real estate developer involved in Quaker anti-war efforts.cite web
url = http://teaching.cs.uml.edu/~heines/secretwar/GlobeSecretHistory/index2_bar1.shtml
title = Cryptic messages fuel debate about what, when, US knew of Pearl Harbor attack
first = Mark | last = Fritz | publisher = Boston Globe | date = April 15, 2001
accessdat = 2008-02-11] Lowell understood himself to be an intermediary and passed the information on to Donovan. These messages included various warnings about Japanese actions and their consequences, including warnings that the Japanese Empire was compelled by its position to attack the United States; on November 13, 1940, he also passed through a message that Germany would join with Japan if the latter were to declare war on the United States.cite book
title = The Shadow War Against Hitler: The Covert Operations of America's Wartime Secret Intelligence Service
first = Christof | last = Mauch | others = trans. Jeremiah Riemer
publisher = Columbia University Press | date = 2005 | page = 33-34
url = http://books.google.com/books?id=ESgCiltKKJsC&pg=PA33&lpg=PA33&dq=hans+thomsen+pearl+harbor&source=web&ots=y05YxMvCTZ&sig=R07Ikvh2kBLhpo9GomZVtbOXWko#PPA34,M1
accessdate = 2008-02-11] Donovan and Roosevelt were not entirely sure what to make of this information; nonetheless, just before the attack, Donovan offered Thomsen a million dollars in exchange for a public statement distancing himself from the Nazi regime. Donovan's efforts failed, and Thomsen returned to Germany at the end of the year as America entered the war.

References