FOIA request submitted on Nazi ties of Trump's father
BY THE WAYNE MADSEN REPORT
WMR has submitted a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to the FBI requesting any documents on FBI surveillance of Donald Trump's father, Fred Trump, from 1927, the year he was arrested at a Ku Klux Klan rally in Queens, New York, to 1993, the year he was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease.
Donald Trump has denied his father was arrested at a Klan rally in 1927, even though the incident was reported by June 1, 1927 edition of The New York Times. Fred Trump was 21 at the time. The KKK was allied closely to several Nazi organizations in the United States, including the German American Bund and Silver Legion.
Later, as war clouds gathered over U.S.-German relations, Fred Trump insisted that the Trump family was Swedish, not German. In fact, Fred Trump's father and mother were German nationals who immigrated to the United States from Kallstadt, in the then-Kingdom of Bavaria. The Trumps wanted to cover up their German heritage, something they had in common with other Nazi agents in the United States. The Nazi Duquesne spy ring relied on the honey trap Lilly Stein, an Austrian Jew who immigrated to New York with the help of U.S. Vice Consul in Vienna Ogden H. Hammond, Jr. Stein, who covered up her Jewish ancestry, penetrated some of the highest and most well-connected social circles in the city.
The same year Fred Trump was arrested at a Klan rally in Queens, German immigrant Hermann Lang arrived in New York. Lang, a draftsman for the Carl L. Norden Corporation at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, was recruited by the Abwehr in 1939. Lang passed the top secret blueprints for the Norden bomb sight to the Nazis. In 1938, the Luftwaffe began using a bomb sight similar in design to Norden's.
The elder Trump, who was born in The Bronx in 1905 to his German immigrant father and mother, fit the profile of several right-wing German immigrant offspring in the New York area who were recruited as agents for Nazi Germany. The FBI files may be rather sparse on Nazi spies since its director, J. Edgar Hoover, considered the surveillance of Soviet agents to be a higher priority for the FBI until after the U.S. entry into World War II in December 1941.
German military intelligence, the Abwehr, and Nazi state security, the Gestapo, placed a premium on recruiting German-American citizens into clandestine service in the 1930s and early 40s. Fred Trump's affiliation with the KKK would have made him a prime recruitment target for the Abwehr and Gestapo stations in New York City.
WMR has requested from the FBI any files that would link the elder Trump to the German American Bund, a group of German-American Nazis active in the New York and New Jersey area in the 1930s, as well as other Nazi
organizations. Also of interest is Fred Trump's wartime building construction work at major U.S. Navy ports used for the embarkation of U.S. troops to Europe. Fred Trump’s bidding on Navy contracts to build housing and other units in Chester, Pennsylvania and Norfolk and Newport News,Virginia are suspicious given Trump’s past activities with Nazi-affiliated groups. Newport News was the location of Newport News Shipbuilding Company and the C&O Pier, where many U.S. troops embarked for Europe and a number of German prisoners-of-war were disembarked for internment camps. [At left, HMS Mauretania in September 1942, embarking U.S. and Canadian troops for Europe].
One Nazi agent, Waldemar Othmer, a naturalized American citizen who came to America in 1919, took jobs at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, close to Fred Trump's rental apartments, and at Camp Pendleton in Virginia Beach, Virginia. Virginia Beach was one of the planned German landing sites in the event of a German military invasion of the United States. Othmer used his presence at the bases to track the entrances and exits of British and American warships, troop 
transports, convoys, and merchant ships. [Photo at left: German U-Boat survivors of a U.S. Coast Guard attack in the Chesapeake Bay]. Othmer used invisible ink to send coded messages to his Nazi intelligence handlers. In 1942, Othmer was transferred by the U.S. Army to Knoxville, Tennessee, where he had a perch close to the atomic bomb development work at nearby Oak Ridge.
Dr. Ignatz Griebl, who immigrated to Manhattan's Yorkville neighborhood in 1925, became both a Nazi spy handler and an officer in the U.S. Army Reserve. Griebl handled Nazi agents in Norfolk, Baltimore, and Boston, including those conducting surveillance on Navy operations at the ports. One of Griebl's agents was Gustav Guellich, who immigrated in 1932 and landed a job as a metallurgist at the Federal Shipbuilding Company in Kearney, New Jersey. Recruited as a Nazi spy in 1935, Guellich was able to collect documents on new U.S. Navy guns and shells, destroyer blueprints, and samples of cables deployed on Navy ships. Also coming into Guellich's hands was top secret information on the rocket research being conducted by Dr. Robert H. Goddard at his laboratory in Roswell, New Mexico.
There is every indication that Fred Trump held his far-right views during the war. He adamantly refused to rent to African Americans, even though many of them worked at the Brooklyn Navy Yard and other nearby military bases and were in need of housing. When the draft was imposed in 1940, Fred Trump, who was 35, was subject to conscription but was never drafted. In 1942, Trump's age and dependent children would have put him in a lower priority category for the draft. Yet, Fred Trump did not serve in any draft-exempt occupational areas such as war production or public health and safety. He built housing for the Navy but it was under contract and Trump was paid well by the government. After the war, Fred Trump built homes for veterans and low-wage earners but was soon hauled into court for bilking the government, including the Federal Housing Administration (FHA), out of hundreds of thousands of dollars. [Left: list of World War II shipyards. Sun Shipbuilding & Drydock in Chester, Newport News Shipbuilding & Drydock, and "others" were wartime construction sites for E. Trump & Son Company].
Fred Trump's history during the 1930s and war years is replete with gaps, which is always an indication that someone's biography is being altered or manipulated. Hopefully, FBI records may help shed some light on Fred Trump's highly suspicious past.
The following is the FOIA letter sent to the FBI for all records on Fred C. Trump:
transports, convoys, and merchant ships. [Photo at left: German U-Boat survivors of a U.S. Coast Guard attack in the Chesapeake Bay]. Othmer used invisible ink to send coded messages to his Nazi intelligence handlers. In 1942, Othmer was transferred by the U.S. Army to Knoxville, Tennessee, where he had a perch close to the atomic bomb development work at nearby Oak Ridge.Dr. Ignatz Griebl, who immigrated to Manhattan's Yorkville neighborhood in 1925, became both a Nazi spy handler and an officer in the U.S. Army Reserve. Griebl handled Nazi agents in Norfolk, Baltimore, and Boston, including those conducting surveillance on Navy operations at the ports. One of Griebl's agents was Gustav Guellich, who immigrated in 1932 and landed a job as a metallurgist at the Federal Shipbuilding Company in Kearney, New Jersey. Recruited as a Nazi spy in 1935, Guellich was able to collect documents on new U.S. Navy guns and shells, destroyer blueprints, and samples of cables deployed on Navy ships. Also coming into Guellich's hands was top secret information on the rocket research being conducted by Dr. Robert H. Goddard at his laboratory in Roswell, New Mexico.
There is every indication that Fred Trump held his far-right views during the war. He adamantly refused to rent to African Americans, even though many of them worked at the Brooklyn Navy Yard and other nearby military bases and were in need of housing. When the draft was imposed in 1940, Fred Trump, who was 35, was subject to conscription but was never drafted. In 1942, Trump's age and dependent children would have put him in a lower priority category for the draft. Yet, Fred Trump did not serve in any draft-exempt occupational areas such as war production or public health and safety. He built housing for the Navy but it was under contract and Trump was paid well by the government. After the war, Fred Trump built homes for veterans and low-wage earners but was soon hauled into court for bilking the government, including the Federal Housing Administration (FHA), out of hundreds of thousands of dollars. [Left: list of World War II shipyards. Sun Shipbuilding & Drydock in Chester, Newport News Shipbuilding & Drydock, and "others" were wartime construction sites for E. Trump & Son Company].
Fred Trump's history during the 1930s and war years is replete with gaps, which is always an indication that someone's biography is being altered or manipulated. Hopefully, FBI records may help shed some light on Fred Trump's highly suspicious past.
The following is the FOIA letter sent to the FBI for all records on Fred C. Trump:
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WayneMadsenReport
P.O. Box 4232
Washington, DC 20044-4232
waynemadsendc@hotmail.com
9 October 2017
Federal Bureau of Investigation / Attn: FOI/PA Request / Record/Information Dissemination Section
170 Marcel Drive, Winchester, VA 22602-4843
Expedited FOIA Request Transmitted via FAX: (540) 868-4391/4997
Dear Sir/Madam:
This letter constitutes an expedited request under the Freedom of Information Act (“FOIA”), 5 U.S.C. § 552, and is submitted on behalf of Wayne Madsen Report (WMR).
We request copies of all records generated between January 1, 1927 and December 31, 1993, concerning Frederick Christ Trump of Jamaica Estates, Borough of Queens, New York. Mr. Trump died on June 25, 1999, as reported by The New York Times on June 26, 1999.
This request includes, but is not limited to, minutes of meetings, notes, correspondence, submissions, reports, memoranda, telephonic call records, staff calendars, as well as any and all documents referencing Frederick Christ Trump and E. Trump & Son, Incorporated, relating to the Ku Klux Klan; Friends of the Hitler Movement; Friends of New Germany; German American Federation; German American Bund; Silver Legion of America; the Free Society of Teutonia; Mr. Fritz Julius Kuhn; Mr. Walter Kappe; Mr. Heinz Spanknöbel; Mr. Fritz Gissibl; Mr. Andrew Gissibl; Mr. Peter Gissibl; the New Yorker Staats-Zeitung, Deutsche Zeitung, and Deutscher Weckruf und Beobachter newspapers; and the AV Publishing Company. Of particular interest are any FBI counterintelligence documents regarding Frederick Christ Trump’s wartime construction contracts at Sun Shipbuilding Co., Chester, PA; U.S. Naval Base, Norfolk, Virginia; and Newport News Shipbuilding and Fort Eustis, Newport News, Virginia.
For purposes of fee assessments, we request that WMR be placed in the category of “news media” requester. WMR publishes daily news articles of a public interest on an international web site, issues special on-line reports, and is used as a primary news source by broadcasters, newspapers, magazines, and news websites around the world.
We note that the National Security Agency, Department of the Navy, U.S. Department of State, and the Defense Intelligence Agency have previously recognized that WMR qualifies for “news media” status. We also request a waiver of all applicable duplication fees, as release of this information will contribute significantly to the public’s understanding of the activities and operations of government.
As the FOIA requires, I will look forward to your response within twenty (20) working days.
Sincerely yours,
Wayne Madsen
Editor
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