Citizen of the Shadows

A biography focuses on a German spy in America.

Although he is little known today, Lothar Witzke was the “sole spy convicted and sentenced to death in the US during World War I.” This book takes a close look at Witzke’s life, particularly his possible role in an act of sabotage known as Black Tom (named for Black Tom Island, where the incident occurred). Black Tom involved the explosion of munitions in New York Harbor on July 30, 1916, that was so severe it damaged the Statue of Liberty. The blast also killed three men and a child. But before the book digs into what happened on July 30, it takes a look at Witzke’s arrest in 1918 and his early years as a sailor. Witzke was only 22 years old when he was apprehended while crossing the border between Mexico and the United States. He was tried before a military tribunal for espionage and, though initially sentenced to death, he was later pardoned. He returned to Germany in 1923 and he hardly led a quiet life before his death in 1962. But what was the extent of his involvement with Black Tom? Witzke’s strange life hardly needs embellishment: Friedland and Hornick’s book does a fine job of sticking to the facts as much as possible. Of course, this is not always easy with a subject who often told “contradictory stories about his early life and his time in America.” Still, the biography provides many rich details. Readers learn about everything from Witzke’s imprisonment in Leavenworth, Kansas, to other incidents he may have been involved in. While the evidence is intriguing, certain statements can be dry, as with a note on Witzke’s potential role in a bombing in San Francisco: “It is necessary to present what is uncontested about the evidence and then to summarize the more plausible theories of cause that compete with it.” Nevertheless, readers have much to discover in this engaging portrait of an undeniably mysterious and intriguing man.

A well-researched, engrossing, and thorough investigation of a multifaceted historical figure.