William G. Sebold
| William G. Sebold | |
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William Sebold (left) talks with Duquesne, who was unaware that FBI agents were filming the whole episode behind a two-way mirror, 1940
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| Born |
March 10, 1899 Mülheim, Germany |
| Died | February 16, 1970 (aged 70) Walnut Creek, California |
| Spouse | Helen Lena Buchner Sebold |
| Occupation | Spy |
William G. Sebold (Wilhelm Georg Debrowski; March 10, 1899 in Mülheim, Germany – February 16, 1970 in Walnut Creek, California) was a United States citizen who was coerced into becoming a spy when he visited Germany after being pressured by several high-ranking Nazi members. He informed the American Consul General in Cologne before leaving Germany and became a double agent for the FBI. With the assistance of another German agent, Fritz Duquesne, he recruited 33 agents that became known as the Duquesne Spy Ring. In June 1941, the Federal Bureau of Investigation arrested all of the agents. They were convicted and sentenced to a total of 300 years in prison.
Sebold served in the German army engineering corps during World War I. After emigrating to the United States in 1922, he married and worked in industrial and aircraft plants throughout the United States and South America. On February 10, 1936, he became a naturalized citizen of the United States.
He returned to Germany in February 1939 to visit his mother in Mülheim. Upon his arrival in Hamburg, Germany, he was approached by a Gestapo agent who said that Sebold would be contacted in the near future due to the knowledge he obtained while working in United States aircraft factories. Sebold proceeded to Mülheim where he obtained employment.
In September 1939, a Dr. Gassner visited Sebold in Mülheim and interrogated him regarding military planes and equipment in the United States. He also asked Sebold to return to the United States as an espionage agent for Germany. Gassner and another man, a "Dr. Renken", told him that they would expose information that he had omitted from his U. S. citizenship application about serving time in a German jail unless he agreed to assist them. Renken was in fact Major Nickolaus Ritter of the Abwehr, who was in charge of military espionage.
After the threats to his family, his life, and his citizenship, Sebold agreed to cooperate with the Nazis. He was then sent to a seven-week training program in Hamburg, Germany where he learned to operate a clandestine shortwave radio, which he would set up when he returned to the United States.
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Wikipedia