Kurt Frederick Ludwig - Setting Up The Ring

Setting Up The Ring

Upon arrival Ludwig went to a boarding house located in Ridgewood, Queens. He set himself up as a leather-goods salesman and proceeded to recruit agents and couriers from various German-American Bund groups in the New York/Brooklyn area in preparation for his espionage activity: he recruited six men and two women for this purpose, several of whom had little practical experience in espionage. One of the two women was Lucy Boehmler, a pretty 18-year old high school graduate from Maspeth, Queens, who joined up because she thought it might be fun.

Money used to fund his operations were paid through the German Consulate in New York.

Ludwig made a practice of visiting docks in New York Harbor and along the New Jersey coast where, from his observations, he could report information to Germany on the identities of the ships and their cargoes. He also visited various U.S. Army posts, and reported on the identities of the individual units of each, as well as their organization and equipment which he felt would be of interest to his superiors. By December, Ludwig had also included information regarding aircraft manufacturing and performance based on his surveillance of aircraft plants in the Long Island area (notably Grumman, to which he assigned the codename "Grace").

Information that the ring had gleaned were sent to Germany, as well as to accommodation addresses in neutral Spain and Portugal through letters containing messages written in invisible ink. Letters of the highest priority were bound for Heinrich Himmler, who was assigned the alias "Manuel Alonzo"; Reinhard Heydrich, the head of the RSHA was "Lothar Frederick". Other recipients were assigned similar codenames.