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So far as I could learn, Dieckhoff became a marine engineer, working for the North German Lloyd after the World War. In 1923 he entered the United States illegally and remained for two years. Eventually he returned to Germany, but came back to the United States, this time legally, applied for citizenship papers and became a naturalized citizen five years later.
Like Dieckhoff and Boldt, Harry Woulters, alias Hugo Woulters, the third of the three subpoenaed men, is a naturalized citizen of German extraction. He went to work in the Navy Yard within one day of Dieckhoff. Before that, both had worked on the same four American destroyers at the Staten Island Shipbuilding Company.
Later when I asked Nordenholz, he denied that Dieckhoff had ever given him any money to hold. Dieckhoff had worked on turbines, gear reductions and other complicated mechanical parts on the cruiser "Brooklyn." The moment I asked him if he handled blueprints he answered in the affirmative, but quickly added that the blueprints were returned every night and locked up by the officers.
"Yes; in cash, right here." "No banks?" "We like it better like that in cash." Boldt, like Dieckhoff, had been a marine engineer on the North German Lloyd. He went to work in the Brooklyn Navy Yard in 1931. When the cruiser "Honolulu" made its trial run in the spring of 1938, Boldt was on board.
"How many people work on a destroyer a thousand?" "Oh, no. Not that many." "About one hundred?" "About that," he said uncertainly. "And you worked with Dieckhoff for six months on the same warships and never met him?" "Yes," he insisted. "How come that if you never met him both of you applied for jobs at the Brooklyn Navy Yard at about the same time?" He shrugged his shoulders. "I don't know.
We'll get rid of the stinking kikes! Heil Hitler!" The three suspected Nazi spies were subpoenaed on August 23, 1938. They were: Walter Dieckhoff, Badge No. 38117, living at 2654 E. 19th Street, Sheepshead Bay. Hugo Woulters, Badge No. 38166, living at 221 East 16th Street, Brooklyn. Alfred Boldt, Badge No. 38069, living at 64-29 70th Street, Middle Village, L.I.
He worked on these destroyers during the day. Until late at night he pursued his hobby of building ships' models, which he never made an attempt to sell. Dieckhoff weighed his words carefully during our talk. "Why did you apply for a transfer from Staten Island to the Brooklyn Navy Yard?" I asked. "I don't know," he said. "I guess there was more money in it."
The house where Woulters lives has a great many Jews in it, judging from the names on the letterboxes, and since Hugo sounded too German, he listed his first name as "Harry." "You and Dieckhoff worked on the same destroyers on Staten Island and you say you never met him there?" I asked. "No, I never met him until the second day after I went to work in the Navy Yard."
When Dieckhoff first came to the United States, the Nordenholzes accepted him with open arms. He was the son of an old friend back in Bremerhafen, Germany. Dieckhoff asked permission to keep two trunks in the Nordenholz garret; he stored them there when he went to work in the Brooklyn Navy Yard.
After the Berlin-Tokyo axis was formed , Germany became particularly interested in American naval affairs, for the axis, among other things, exchanged military secrets. Shortly before the agreement was made, Dieckhoff suddenly went to work for the Staten Island Shipbuilding Co., Staten Island, which was building four United States destroyers, numbers 364, 365, 384 and 385.
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