The German Spies at Pearl Harbor

Summary

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Episode Overview

Podcast: American History Hit
Episode: The German Spies at Pearl Harbor
Host: Don Wildman
Guests: Christine Kuhn & Mark Sciapone (authors of Family of Spies)
Date: December 8, 2025

In this gripping episode, Don Wildman sits down with Christine Kuhn and her husband Mark Sciapone, co-authors of Family of Spies, to unravel the extraordinary true story of Christine’s grandparents—high-ranking Nazis who acted as spies for the Japanese in Hawaii leading up to the attack on Pearl Harbor. The conversation delves into the family’s secret history, the intricate web of espionage, the emotional toll of uncovering such a legacy, and new insights brought forth by decades of research and recently declassified documents.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Kuhn Family’s Secret Past

• Origins in Nazi Germany
  • Otto Kuhn, Christine's grandfather, was a high-ranking Nazi, once interviewed for head of the Gestapo.
  • The whole family became enmeshed in the Nazi movement—Christine’s grandmother Friedel joined the Nazi women’s group, Aunt Ruth joined the League of German Girls, and Uncle Leopold worked for Joseph Goebbels’ propaganda office.
  • "They all got involved in it... The whole family just jumped in hook, line, and sinker, honestly." — Christine Kuhn (10:28)
• Aunt Ruth’s Affair and Jewish Heritage
  • Ruth’s affair with Goebbels complicated their situation; her mixed Jewish heritage became dangerous under Nazi law.
  • Goebbels leveraged this, sending the Kuhns to Hawaii as spies: “Goebbels had to get rid of his misdeed. So he tapped Otto on the shoulder to go to Hawaii as a spy for the Japanese because they were looking for Caucasians to put on the island.” — Christine Kuhn (11:44)

2. From Germany to Hawaii: Spies in Paradise

• Arrival and Espionage Strategy (1935 Onwards)
  • The Kuhns established a lavish lifestyle, carefully blending in as sleeper spies while gathering naval intelligence.
  • "They were supposed to go in, build trust within the community, make friends... They were involved in spying from the very be–I guess from the very beginning." — Christine Kuhn (15:32)
  • Funded covertly (the equivalent of $1–1.5 million over three years), their lifestyle eventually drew attention from authorities.
• Espionage Tactics
  • Used everyday activities (parties, socializing, running a beauty salon) as covers to extract information from military personnel and their families.
  • “Ruth, you know, fraternized with young sailors... all as a means to try and glean information from the military.” — Christine Kuhn (15:32)
  • Contacted Japanese handlers primarily through the consulate and later via master spy Takeo Yoshikawa.

3. The Mechanics and Impact of Their Spying

• Methods of Communication
  • Otto designed a signaling system to alert Japanese submarines about ship movements using sheets hung on clotheslines, coded light flashes from attic windows, and flags on a sailboat.
  • “A sheet hanging on the clothesline meant something to do with battleships... and lights from his dormer window at their house that could be seen from subs off the shore meant that battleships had cruised or carriers were coming in or so.” — Mark Sciapone (24:06)
• Significance to Pearl Harbor Attack
  • The system provided Tokyo with ship position data days before the attack; it was apparently a Plan B—likely not used in real-time, but the design itself was found among burning documents when the consulate was raided after the attack.

4. Discovery of the Family Secret

• Christine’s Personal Revelation
  • Christine first learned fragments of the truth in 1987 during a tense visit with Aunt Ruth who warned, “Don’t ask any more questions. You have good life... Don’t ask any more about your family, your grandparents, or Pearl Harbor.” — Aunt Ruth (08:17)
  • In 1994, a Hollywood screenwriter’s letter finally prompted her father’s confession, sparking decades of research.
  • “About ten minutes later, he called me back and he was sobbing uncontrollably. I’ve never seen him cry like that.” — Christine Kuhn (08:36)
• The Family Pact of Silence
  • The secret was so well-guarded that even Christine’s cousins in Germany had no idea. The story only came out after persistent investigation and eventual willingness in later years to share the trauma and history.

5. Arrest, Trial, and Aftermath

• The Immediate Aftermath of Pearl Harbor
  • The Kuhns were on the A-list of Nazi suspects to be arrested the day after Pearl Harbor. The entire family was taken to Sand Island internment camp for interrogation.
  • Otto eventually confessed, making him the only person convicted for spying related to the attack on Pearl Harbor.
• Sentencing and Exile
  • Originally sentenced to death, Otto’s punishment was commuted to 50 years’ hard labor due to legal technicalities (spying during peacetime).
  • He was eventually allowed to leave the US after the war, spending years in Ellis Island and Buenos Aires before dying in Germany in 1956.
• Consequences for Eberhard (Christine’s Father)
  • Spent months in the internment camp, was eventually released after being found uninvolved, then joined the US Army and fought in Okinawa.
  • “He knew once he walked away, he would never see them again... He just said it was not his home. America was his home.” — Christine Kuhn (35:57)

6. Personal and Historical Legacy

• Complex Family Emotions
  • Christine describes the emotional difficulty—her father’s storytelling as a deflection from darker memories, the pain of unearthing truths, and the responsibility of telling the story.
  • “To understand his history and what he went through took years to come to terms with... In the end, it really released him when he could finally bare his soul.” — Christine Kuhn (37:00)
• Digging for Truth Amid Misinformation
  • The authors had to navigate disinformation in previous books and archives, with rumors sometimes exaggerating the family’s role.
  • “It was like trying to put a puzzle together, and we were missing pieces... The national archives were, what, 800 pages?” — Christine Kuhn (42:55)
  • “It was crazy to look at the files, though, and see the actual MO from J. Edgar Hoover to his agents talking about her grandfather or President Roosevelt talking about her grandfather in a memo.” — Mark Sciapone (43:53)
• A Story for the Next Generation
  • The process of writing the book became a way to finally share the secret and preserve a critical, if painful, piece of American and family history.
  • “He thought it was an important story and that it should come out. But we didn’t really decide to write the book and release all those secrets until after he had passed.” — Christine Kuhn (38:00)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Learning the Family Secret:
  “Don’t ask any more questions. You have good life... Don’t ask any more about your family, your grandparents, or Pearl Harbor.”
  — Aunt Ruth (08:17)

• On Otto’s Experience:
  “He interviewed with Himmler and he lost a job out to Reinhard Heydrich... So Otto was well thought of and pretty high up the ranks of the Nazi party.”
  — Mark Sciapone (19:31)

• On Espionage Methods:
  “A sheet hanging on the clothesline meant something to do with battleships when they had sailed. And lights from his dormer window at their house... meant that battleships had cruised or carriers were coming in or so detailed different ship movements.”
  — Mark Sciapone (24:06)

• On Impact and Responsibility:
  “To know this man that coached my softball team and was so involved in my life, and then to turn around and in one day, you know, he’s a completely different person. But he’s not a different person. He’s still my father.”
  — Christine Kuhn (37:00)

• On the Emotional Toll:
  “It was a secret that my family kept and my dad kept. And I think in the end, it really released him when he could finally bare his soul and tell me, in our family, everything that had happened when he was growing up.”
  — Christine Kuhn (37:00)

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Significant Timestamps

• 01:35 – Opening scene: Setting at Kailua Bay, foreshadowing the espionage
• 05:39 – Christine introduces the main family members involved in the spy ring
• 08:17 – Aunt Ruth’s warning to Christine during their first meeting
• 10:28 – Christine discusses the family’s deep involvement in Nazism
• 15:32 – The Kuhns’ arrival in Hawaii and their strategy as sleeper spies
• 20:24 – How the Kuhns communicated intelligence to Japanese handlers
• 22:20 – Ruth and Friedel’s beauty parlor as an espionage front
• 24:06 – Explanation of the signaling system and its mechanics
• 28:36 – Arrest and internment on Sand Island after Pearl Harbor
• 31:19 – Otto’s conviction, death sentence, and eventual commutation
• 35:49 – Eberhard’s (Christine’s father) break from the family and decision to stay American
• 37:00 – Christine on the personal challenges of learning and retelling her family’s history
• 42:55 – Challenges in separating fact from fiction and navigating archival misinformation

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Conclusion

This episode provides a rare, deeply personal glimpse into one of the lesser-known yet critical espionage operations preceding the Pearl Harbor attack. By exploring the Kuhn family’s secrets through Christine Kuhn’s own journey of discovery, listeners gain not only new historical insights but also an appreciation for the complexities of family, identity, and the burden of history. The detective work required to untangle fact from misinformation is itself a testament to the enduring need for rigorous historical investigation.

Recommended for: Anyone interested in WWII, espionage, family history’s impact on personal identity, and the ongoing quest to understand America’s past.

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Transcript

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In 1941, Kailua Bay, on the windward side of the Hawaiian island Oahu, is open coastline, white sands, blue waters, a handful of fishing boats. Onshore family farms ring a rural community linked by dirt roads. In geography and temperament, it is the direct opposite of Naval Station Pearl harbor on the southern shore beyond the forested mountain ridge. Here it is quiet, idyllic. There it is metal, gray and militaristic, a world bracing for war. The US Navy's Pacific Fleet hasn't fired a shot, but its looming presence sends a message to rival Japan. Be warned, we are here. But as we drift at sunset in our boat back in Kailua, a bright blue sky turning indigo, then star flecked black. There are no Signs of danger. Except. Wait a second. What was that? From three dormer windows in a house just off the beach, a bright beam shines, pulsing. To the casual eye, it's probably a forgotten lamp left burning in the window. But to the submerged Japanese submarines observing in the bay, it is something else entirely. It's a signal, a coded report on the American operations at Pearl Harbor.

Hello, History hit, listeners. This is American History hit. I'm Don Wilden. Welcome. The story of Pearl harbor comes around every year. This time every year, we consider again the tragic events of Sunday, Dec. 7, 1941, when Japanese fighter planes descended on the island of Oahu, attacking the American undefended naval fleet there, resulting in massive destruction and loss of life and triggering the entrance of the United States into World War II. It is a day, in the legendary words of Franklin Roosevelt, that will live in infamy. It is a story now essential to understanding so much of the world as we know it today. And it is a story 84 years later, in 2022, still revealing itself. Just this month, on November 25, a new book will be released entitled Family of Spies. It is written by our guests today and involves a story that reads like a movie script, but it is real life. The real and remarkable history of the author's own family, that of her grandparents who acted as Nazi spies in Hawaii, working on behalf of the Japanese in the days leading up to the attack. Christine Kuhn is the author along with Mark Sciapone and both join us today. Hello and welcome.

[Mark Sciapone]

Thanks for having us.

[Christine Kuhn]

Hi, how are you? Thank you for having us.

[Don Wildman]

Can I explain your partnership right away here as authors of the book?

[Christine Kuhn]

Sure. So in 2020, I decided that I wanted to tell my family story for a variety of reasons. And I looked at my husband Mark, and I said, hey, if anyone's going to tell this story, it's going to be me. And so we went into it together because it was a ton of research. It had been a 30 year journey. So we decided to go in and it's been a great project for us to work on together as husband and wife, which is kind of crazy, but it's been a remarkable journey and one I'm glad we were able to take together.

[Don Wildman]

What a moment in your family's history, the imminent release of this book. It must be so exciting for you.

[Christine Kuhn]

Yeah, it is. It's very exciting. I'm a little nervous. This is my debut, so to be able to put this out into the world comes with some trepidation. But with that, I'm Excited to move forward and I'm excited to tell this part of history.

[Don Wildman]

The book has received remarkable reviews, is a page turner of a story and it sheds light, as I've mentioned, on how the attack on Pearl harbor may have been planned, how so much was known. Your book tells an incredible story of your own family members involvement. Who was in your family at this time? Give me the cast of characters there.

[Christine Kuhn]

So there was my grandfather Otto. He was a high ranking Nazi and interviewed for head of the Gestapo before going to Hawaii to spy for the Japanese. There was my grandmother Friedel. She was also looked at as like kind of the matriarch of the family. The FBI thought she may have even been the mastermind behind the operation. My dad thought she was probably the smarter of the two and the more driven of the two of them. Then there's my uncle Leopold, who was my dad's half brother. He was from a different father too. Friedel had two relationships. So one was with the Jewish architect and the other was with another gentleman. So you have my uncle Leopold who joined as a stormtrooper and then eventually went to work for Joseph Goebbels in the Office of Propaganda. And then there's my aunt Ruth, who had an affair at 19 with Joseph Goebbels. And because she was half Jewish and the Nuremberg laws were going into effect, the family was tapped on the shoulder and asked to move to Hawaii and work for the Japanese.

[Don Wildman]

And then their sons, Eberhardt and Hans. Your father and his brother, were they twins?

[Christine Kuhn]

No, Eberhard is six years older than Hans. Oh, I see. So Eberhard went over when he was nine and Hans went over when he was three.

[Don Wildman]

Gotcha. Okay.

[Christine Kuhn]

So their formative years were growing up in Hawaii.

[Don Wildman]

All right, it is so much the story of your father's experience as a young boy. Can you lead us into the story and get us started here?

[Mark Sciapone]

The mystery really started back in 1987 when Chrissy got a call from her father and said, hey, your Aunt Ruth has moved a couple hours away from New York. She'd love to meet you. Now her dad had never really talked much about his family at all. And Chrissy was thrilled to have a chance to actually meet his older sister for the first time. So we drove two hours to Charleston where she lived with her husband Hans in a retirement community. And she answered the door, she's this sweet little old lady, frail, but very, again, very sweet. So we walked in and sat down and had a conversation for probably an hour. And most of the conversation was Ruth asking Chrissy about her life and how her, her little brother, Chrissy's dad, Everhard, was doing. But toward the end of the conversation, Chrissy looked at a picture next to Aunt Ruth on the table, and it was an old wedding picture. And Chrissy said, are those my grandparents? And Ruth didn't say a word. She just nodded her head yes. She said, well, can you tell me anything about them? And Ruth just didn't say a word. She just nodded her head no. So Chrissy pushed a little further and was like, well, can't you tell me anything? I really love to know my dad is so cryptic about your side of the family. And Ruth just cut her off and kind of stiffened and pointed her finger at her and said, don't ask any more questions. You have good life, in a thick German accent. Don't ask any more about your family, your grandparents, or Pearl Harbor. Pearl Harbor, Where'd that come from?

[Christine Kuhn]

After that, when I got home, I reached out to my dad and was telling him about the visit and said, you know, asked him about why my aunt wouldn't talk about the family. And once again, he dodged the question, changed the subject, because he just wouldn't talk about it. But in 1994, the whole process resurfaced. Mark and I were married now and had two young boys. And we received a letter from a Hollywood screenwriter talking about my grandfather being involved in Pearl harbor, working for the Nazis. And I was floored. And so I called my dad and I said, hey, dad, you know, I got this letter, we talked about it, and he was, he assured me that had to be a mistake. No way. My dad didn't do that, you know, everything he just kind of stumbled through. And I said, okay, well, I'm going to do some research and I'm going to call you back and I'll let you know what I find out. About 10 minutes later, he called me back and he was sobbing uncontrollably. I've never seen him cry like that. And he told me basically that, you know, the story of his dad and how he had come from Germany to go to Hawaii and spied for the Nazis and how his Aunt Ruth had gotten caught up in it. And so it kind of started that 30 year journey for us trying to uncover the truth of what really happened and how they were involved.

[Don Wildman]

So to this point, there was never that family conversation that raised eyebrows and made you wonder. It was a complete family secret.

[Christine Kuhn]

It was a. For me, it was a complete family secret. My mom didn't know, I didn't Know, it's crazy. You know, even my cousins in Germany didn't know. You know, it was a secret. I think it was a pact. The whole family had gone into that they would keep it a secret from the next generation.

[Don Wildman]

Well, it is pretty extreme stuff. So let's talk about how this worked. How did the Kuhn family become embroiled with Nazis?

[Christine Kuhn]

You know, it was back in the late 20s when Hitler was taking his rise to power. Right. And so he started going around and he was giving speeches around Germany. And my grandfather and my Uncle Leopold, who was my father's half brother, went to speech in Kiel, and they were just mesmerized by what Hitler was saying. So they came back and Otto joined the Nazi Party. Actually became very high within the Nazi Party. Leopold joined as a storm trooper. My grandmother joined the nfs, which was a women's group with the Nazi Party. And my Aunt Ruth joined the League of German Girls. So they all got involved in it. My father being only like three or four around that time, he was oblivious. He was not involved. But the whole family just jumped in hook, line, and sinker, honestly.

[Don Wildman]

Wow. And your Aunt Ruth obviously had much to do with this.

[Christine Kuhn]

Yes.

[Don Wildman]

In what way? What happened with her?

[Christine Kuhn]

Leopold ended up working for the Office of Propaganda, and so he had a connection to Goebbels. So when Ruth was 19, she had gone to a party with Leopold and had met Goebbels, and they started an affair.

[Don Wildman]

Wow.

[Christine Kuhn]

But Ruth had a bit of a secret. So with the Nuremberg Laws going into effect, Ruth was actually half Jewish because she was from a different. She was adopted by Otto. Otto was not. Her father, Friedel had had an affair with the Jewish architect. So when the Nuremberg Laws went in saying Germans and people from German descent could not have relationships, Goebbels had to get rid of his misdeed. So he tapped Otto on the shoulder to go to Hawaii as a spy for the Japanese because they were looking for Caucasians to put on the island. And Ruth went with them, and the.

[Don Wildman]

Entire family was shipped over to Hawaii.

[Christine Kuhn]

From Germany, except for Leopold. Leopold stayed in. In the army in Berlin. Yeah. And got married and had kids and actually fought in the final battle of Berlin.

[Don Wildman]

Amazing. Okay, so let's put a pin in this for a moment and just back up a little bit, because one of the issues of this is so fascinating to me is that which often bothers people when they hear about the Nazi, you know, the rise of Nazis is that conditions in that country were so difficult coming out of World War I and into into the Great Depression and all of that. That had so much to do with normal people, respectable families, deciding to take this path because you say you would attend these rallies and see this revival of the German people. And it was so inspiring to them. This is really at the heart of the matter, as far as your family goes, isn't it?

[Mark Sciapone]

It was interesting because you nailed it on the head. They were this very, just regular upper middle class family and they were swept up in the Nazi mania because when the stock market crashed in 1929, it affected the world's economy and Germany was in just as bad of a depression as everyone else. So when Hitler was making all these promises about everybody's going to be better, there's going to be jobs, we're going to get off the shackles of the Treaty of Versailles, people were excited about that. So that's kind of the rationale behind them.

[Don Wildman]

It's just this irony, I guess is the right word for it, where we know in retrospect what happens and we try to project back to that moment, knowing everything that we now know. And it's just so imbalanced. And yet in real time, what was happening from moment to moment made so much sense to people at that moment. So your family is caught up in the midst of what the entire country is going through in this gigantic phenomenon. And suddenly this other twist happens, which is your Aunt Ruth's genealogical identity. And for that reason, the entire family history has to change. So off they go to Hawaii. And what year are we talking about?

[Christine Kuhn]

That was 1935.

[Don Wildman]

Okay, so we're long before Pearl Harbor. Of course, the Japanese are. There's a lot going on politically in the Pacific. You know, as we've talked about many times on this show, what is leading up to, to the World War II and the war in the Pacific is very complex stuff about the Japanese, politics and so forth. I wasn't aware that at this point they were actually planting spies or looking for information about Hawaii and American naval operations there. That's very interesting.

[Mark Sciapone]

That's part of why it was so hard to pin down. Because A, there was no FBI office in Hawaii at the time. They didn't open that up until 1939. And they were playing the long game.

[Don Wildman]

Hawaii's not even a state yet. Doesn't happen until 1950.

[Christine Kuhn]

Right, right.

[Don Wildman]

This is just a little place out in the middle of the Pacific Ocean and remains so even until Pearl Harbor. That's the first time people even know what's going on here. Describe their arrival there and their lifestyle. And how your family becomes established.

[Christine Kuhn]

Yeah. So when they arrived, they kind of went in as sleeper spies. Right. They were supposed to go in, build trust within the community, make friends, like, so that they would be there throughout the time and throughout. Even maybe after the bombing and gather intel. And so, you know, they. They were involved in. In spying from the very be. I guess from the very beginning. I think it probably took a little bit for them to get full fledged into it, but they were living a very lavish lifestyle. They had two homes, they drove fancy cars, they hosted parties. You know, Ruth, you know, fraternized with young sailors. You know, all as a means to try and glean information from, you know, the military. And on top of it, they had no visible means of income. So I think that was what really kind of triggered, you know, triggered the Hoover to kind of look into it a little bit differently. Mark, do you want to add anything?

[Mark Sciapone]

Well, just that they were getting paid the equivalent over the first three years they were there of a million to a million and a half dollars.

[Don Wildman]

Wow.

[Mark Sciapone]

To lay low, ingratiate themselves, give some information when they could find it. But really they were supposed to be subversive and not stick out and just blend in with the crowd so that when they were needed, nobody would point a finger at them.

[Don Wildman]

Interesting. And they would not have known that they were part of a war planning effort at all. Right. This is. They're going because they were told to go by the German government or did they know what was going on?

[Christine Kuhn]

I think they knew.

[Mark Sciapone]

Yeah. They had an idea certainly that they weren't going over there to talk about flowers.

[Christine Kuhn]

Right.

[Mark Sciapone]

So they knew that there was something. They didn't know what it was exactly. But when you're told to keep an eye on naval bases that are over there at Hickam and Kaneohe and certainly Pearl harbor, they had a feeling something was afoot, but I don't think anybody contemplated that it was going to be as big and bad and quick and awful as it was.

[Christine Kuhn]

Yeah. They even went to Japan as well and met with them.

[Don Wildman]

Yeah.

I'll be back with more American history after this short break.

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Were they good at what they did? Were they? Because they didn't have experience doing this sort of thing?

[Christine Kuhn]

Well, I think they did. Otto did have a little bit of experience because of his history working in Germany.

[Mark Sciapone]

Otto was tapped on the shoulder, not because Goebbels saw him walking down the street. He was up for the role of head of the Gestapo.

[Don Wildman]

Oh, I see.

[Mark Sciapone]

And he interviewed with Himmler and he lost a job out to Reinhard Heydrich, who was the architect of the Holocaust and just the monster among monsters. So he was. Otto was well thought of and pretty high up the ranks of the Nazi party. So they trusted him to go over there and do a good job. They knew that Japan was going to be their future ally and they were certainly working together in concert.

[Don Wildman]

So this family is now living in this lavish house, you say, and basically their job, a sort of combined effort, is to observe the movements of American naval operations in different ways. Ultimately, they are passing secrets to the Japanese. That's their job. Who was their contact there? Who was their Japanese handler?

[Mark Sciapone]

So they worked through the Japanese consulate. So the consul general and the vice consul were basically his handlers at that point. A spy came over later, Takeo Yoshikawa, who became more of a contact to him. But he would filter all the information through the Japanese consulate who would then send it to Tokyo. And the crazy thing about how that information got transmitted was the Japanese consulate could receive information from Tokyo, coded messages, but they couldn't send them. So when they wanted to send a message to Tokyo based on information that they'd uncovered, they walked down to the RCA wire office just like everybody else, stood in line, paid their fee. The wire office sent this coded top secret messages to Tokyo. And everybody went about their day. Nobody blinked an eye.

[Don Wildman]

Who was the Japanese master spy in charge of this?

[Mark Sciapone]

His name was Takeo Yoshikawa. He came over under the guise of being a consulate official, but he spent a lot of time as Japan's man on the ground, along with Otto. And Otto, spying is a little cryptic, but Takeo's was not. He wrote an autobiography and he would tell how he. He was a great swimmer. He would hop in the ocean a mile or two away from Pearl harbor, swim breathing through a reed and check if there were submarine nets. And he would view the island from a little Japanese tea house called the Sunsho Ro and just watch the ships come and go. Pick up hitchhikers who were mostly military naval guys after a long Saturday night and hey, I'll bring you back to the base and chat them up. And they would divulge information. So he knew an awful lot about ship movements, et cetera. And I assume Otto was doing the same thing, but we don't know. Otto never confessed exactly what he was doing, other than some of the bits and pieces.

[Don Wildman]

Right. And as you mentioned, Ruth was dating American military men. She also opened a beauty parlor, right?

[Christine Kuhn]

Yeah, she opened a beauty parlor with her mother, Friedel, and it was thought to be a front to gather information from all the Navy wives who came in to get their hair done.

[Don Wildman]

Perfect place to be eliciting information. I mean, probably a traditionally understood place for spies to work in that. Nail salons. Right?

[Christine Kuhn]

Yeah. Because you sit and talk the whole time. Right. And you just. Your guards down, you're getting your hair done. Yeah, I think that was pretty ingenious.

[Don Wildman]

The sons were very young. Were they involved at all in any way?

[Christine Kuhn]

No, they were not. My father, we've talked about this quite a bit, and he didn't know what his parents were doing, obviously. Hans did not. They were, they were growing up in an idyllic, you know, environment. They went to the beach, they rode bikes with their friends, you know, and I think a big part of it is when my dad, I mean, he was arrested along with the family in the middle of the night the day after Pearl Harbor.

[Don Wildman]

Wow.

[Christine Kuhn]

And you know, he was only 15 at the time he spent his 16th birthday on the internment camp on Sand Island. Wow. And so he was. He was thought to be as dangerous as his parents. But after multiple interrogations, Robert Shivers actually released him. And he finished high school. He denounced his German citizenship, and he actually joined the army and fought in Okinawa. So he was devastated by what his parents did. And his Aunt Ruth.

[Don Wildman]

Yeah.

[Mark Sciapone]

Robert Shivers was the special Agent in charge of the FBI. So he ran the department over here, over them.

[Don Wildman]

Gotcha. The information that they gathered, was it ever proven to be utilized in any way? Was it particularly valuable to the Japanese?

[Mark Sciapone]

Yeah, the FBI files, you know, they were passing information to the consulate. The FBI had them under surveillance, and they would watch them come and go from the consulate with satchels full of information that they said was information that, you know, shouldn't have been passed to our enemies. But they never detailed what it was. They just knew something bad was happening. And then as far as what his real job was supposed to be was about six weeks before Pearl harbor, before the attack, he was called to the consulate. And they said, listen, we need you to design a signaling system, basically, in case everything else that they've got going on fails as far as communication. And so the signaling system, their house is on the windward side, which is the eastern side, the other side of the island from Pearl harbor and Waikiki and Honolulu. So he designed a signaling system that would tell subs, Japanese subs off the coast, what was going on with ship movements. So, you know, a sheet hanging on the clothesline meant something to do with battleships when they had sailed. And lights from his dormer window at their house that could be seen from subs off the shore meant that battleships had cruised or carriers were coming in or so detailed different ship movements. The first run was so complicated that they told them, no, go back and make this simpler. It's too much. So he did, and they transmitted that, the consulate to Tokyo on December 3rd. And then when Pearl harbor happened and the Japanese consulate was stormed by the FBI and police, they found them burning papers. And one of the papers in there was this signaling system that Otto had designed that had been sent to Tokyo. So the signaling system detailed ship movements before December 7th. We don't think he actually used them. I think that was a plan B in case something happened where they could not communicate with the Japanese coming in. But it was also a test run so that. Well, now the Japanese. Now the Japanese have bombed Pearl Harbor. They're going to need communication. They're hoping that Otto, as A Caucasian face was not going to stick out and be arrested. And he would now be able to get them information via this signaling system that he had designed early on.

[Don Wildman]

Right. I mean, it involved like flashing coded messages from the attic, didn't it? How did that work?

[Mark Sciapone]

Yeah, it was just lights. The dormer window was at the top. So if the light was on from 8 to 9, it meant a certain number of ships had sailed from 9 to 10, another bunch of ships to sail. Chrissy, there were other things like the boat in the harbor and stuff, right?

[Don Wildman]

Wow.

[Christine Kuhn]

Yeah. There was also like sheets on the line on the clothesline. If a sheet on the clothesline, it meant ships were coming in or battle cruisers were harbored. And there was also flags on. He had a sailboat. And if the flag was sailing a certain color or a certain day, that. That communicated something else different about military movement.

[Don Wildman]

Over what period of time are we talking about years of this happening?

[Christine Kuhn]

Well, he actually was. Yoshikawa, which was another kind of telltale, visited the home about six or seven weeks prior to December 7th. And that's when they asked him to create the signaling system. So the signaling system, as Mark mentioned, was meant to be, you know, after the bombing, because they. I don't think they thought they were going to be so successful on that first run from everything that I can take. So Otto was supposed to remain on the island incognito and then be able to communicate further information after the initial bombing.

[Don Wildman]

You know, it's such a big fact of Pearl harbor that the American aircraft carriers weren't. So many of them weren't in that harbor. And that plays out faithfully, of course, to the Battle of Midway and so forth. I can't help but wonder what was, you know, if this signaling system played any. Any role in that missing, you know, that, that misguided situation for the Japanese.

[Mark Sciapone]

I don't think so. I think that they were ready to respond to it. But one of the last wires to Tokyo from the conflict had said that the. The carriers had sailed and here's what ships are left in, in at Pearl. And then they made the decision that, well, that's enough. We'll go ahead and attack.

[Don Wildman]

Right. Well, they would have been underway for, for sure by that time. So after Pearl harbor takes place, the tragic day happens. Explain what happens. The FBI has been watching them. They know what they're doing. They move right in and arrest them. The day after the. The attack. Right.

[Christine Kuhn]

They did. Both Friedel, Otto and Ruth were all on the Nazi A list that in the event that we went to war. They were to be picked up. So they went and picked them up. My dad, because he was 15, went with them and they took them to sand island, where they spent several months, four to five months on Sand Island. Everyone was going through interrogation. Ruth, Friedel, Otto. Everyone was being interrogated, including my dad. And then, you know, over time, they got Otto and he actually signed a confession, which was a big part of why he was the only person tried and convicted for the bombing of Pearl harbor is because he went in and he signed the confession, whereas Ruth and friedlife remained silent and never said anything about what they had done. And then, like I said, my dad spent his 16th birthday on the island, on Sand Island. And then he was eventually released to foster care when they realized he had not been involved.

[Don Wildman]

Wow.

I'll be back with more American history after this short break.

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[Don Wildman]

The FBI writes from November 20, 1941 to January 27, 1942, when charges were filed that Otto was conspiring with the Japanese, sharing information about battlefields, aircraft carriers, cruisers, et cetera, et cetera. February 21, in front of a military commission, he is sentenced to be shot by musketry as a spy. Did that happen?

[Christine Kuhn]

No, it didn't really. What Happened is he was convicted. But the attorney general had some questions right off the bat because Otto was tried. He was tried in military tribunal, but his spying had taken place during a time of peace. So he was actually waiting for another trial to come to get the final verdict from another trial that was in the Supreme Court. And that was the. The submarine saboteurs who had. They were German spies who had landed in both Ponte Vedra and New York.

[Don Wildman]

Yeah.

[Christine Kuhn]

To come into the United States. Well, when they were captured, they had been spying during a time of war. So they were convicted and sentenced to death. And that kind of put a problem on Otto sentencing, because he had been spying during the time of peace. And the most you can get for spying during a time of peace is 50 years hard labor.

[Don Wildman]

Interesting.

[Christine Kuhn]

So they commuted his sentence to 50 years hard labor.

[Don Wildman]

You know, we did an episode on the. On the Rosenbergs. Nothing to do with this story, but the Rosenberg case has a similar problem, is that they were spying during peacetime. So the treason never doesn't apply. But that was what was so controversial about that. How interesting. So he volunteers information about the Japanese and German spy rights. In other words, he's a useful person for the. For the Americans. His sentence, as you say, was commuted to 50 years in prison with hard labor. June 6, 1946. Kuhn's sentence was further committed so that he could be deported. Where is he deported to?

[Christine Kuhn]

Well, that's interesting because. So when my grandfather, after the war, he wrote a letter trying to get his sentence turned over. And so after looking at it, they actually sent him to be deported, but he went to Ellis Island. He actually spent two years there. And we don't know why, but he was on Ellis island for two years. And after that, some of the government officials looked at it and were like, this is astonishing. He hasn't been deported yet. So they just release him.

[Don Wildman]

Wow.

[Christine Kuhn]

And they release him into New York. And he has to work for several months in order to get the fare to take a. To go back to Germany. But instead of going back to Germany, his wife, Friedel, said, don't come back here. This is not going to be a good place for you. So he actually spent several years in Buenos Aires before he had cancer, and he went home to Germany to die.

[Don Wildman]

And he arrives there in 1955, dies of cancer in 1956 at the age of 61. Young man, Eberhard, your father. Right. Is kept in an internment camp for a few months. Was considered a danger of some sort.

[Christine Kuhn]

Yeah. The FBI considered him as dangerous. To national security. As his parents, he told me this story once he was on a boat coming back from an interrogation, and sitting next to him was prisoner number one. It was a submarine captain whose sub had run ashore and he had been captured. And, you know, I think that that really hit him hard that the Americans would think that he was just as dangerous as this Japanese man who came to kill Americans and blow up, you know, Pearl Harbor. And, you know, I think that stuck with him for a really long time and was really, really hard for him. It kind of made him angry. But after multiple interviews with Robert Shivers and the FBI, they realized he didn't have anything to do with the spine, and they released him and he went and lived in foster care.

[Don Wildman]

I see. Okay. The entire family, except for your dad, eventually arrives back in Germany. When did this all become more clear to him? I guess in the aftermath with the trial and so forth. Right?

[Christine Kuhn]

Yeah, I think so. I think. Well, obviously, when he got picked up in the middle of the night, I think that probably was a hint that something they had done something that they weren't supposed to. And in the trial, I mean, that was. That's probably one of the most emotional moments for me when I realized that both my dad and his younger brother Hans, who was only nine at the time, had to testify for the prosecution. And so I think at that point, you know, between being picked up and going to trial, he realized that his parents had been. They had been involved with the Japanese and with the plot to bomb America.

[Don Wildman]

But what a turnaround to end up fighting in the war for the Americans. It's an extraordinary 180, isn't it?

[Christine Kuhn]

It is. I think it was hard for my father. I. I couldn't have done that at 16. I couldn't have walked away from my family.

[Don Wildman]

I don't think exactly. That's what we're talking about.

[Christine Kuhn]

Yeah, but for him to walk away. He knew once he walked away, he would never see them again. I mean, Friedel, Hans and Ruth were part of the last prisoner exchange of the war. And my aunt, my grandmother really, like, tried to convince my dad to go back with them, and he just wouldn't do it. I mean, he said, I'm an American. I want to stay here. I know you are still German, but I am not. And so he didn't go. And, you know, when he denounced his citizenship, I don't think he ever went back to Germany again, Not in my lifetime that he ever went back. He just said it was not his home. America was his home. And so that was pretty emotional for him.

[Don Wildman]

I have to ask you a personal question, because I'm fascinated by this. So your father became an entirely different person in this story for you, didn't he? Because you would have known a man who wasn't telling this story and therefore divulging a lot of his experience in life and feelings about his family. Just to a man who was completely honest with you about all this, that's an incredible journey to take as his daughter.

[Christine Kuhn]

Yeah, I mean, growing up, my dad, he loved to tell stories. I mean, he told the most outlandish stories, you know, about alligators and lost children. I think telling those stories were easier than telling his real ones. And so, you know, to know this man that coached my softball team and was so involved in my life, and then to turn around and in one day, you know, he's a completely different person. But he's not a different person. He's still my father. He's still the same man that raised me. But to understand his history and what he went through took years to come to terms with. And I think, you know, it was a secret that my family kept and my dad kept. And I think in the end, it really released him when he could finally bare his soul and tell me, in our family, everything that had happened when he was growing up. Because I think that's a hard. That's hard to carry for years and years.

[Don Wildman]

Did he encourage you to tell the story?

[Christine Kuhn]

Not at first. You know, 30 years ago, I didn't want to tell the story. I mean, I didn't want to be associated with this family that had done something so incredibly terrible and evil. I did not want to be involved with that family. So over the years, we talked about it and I learned about it, but it was never a book. It was never something I was going to put out there. But, you know, as we started putting the information together, we really didn't decide to totally write the book until 2020. But he had said he had. Actually, we had talked to historians about it, and I think he was comfortable with the story coming out. We talked about it, and he said he thought it was an important story and that it should come out. But we didn't really decide to write the book and release all those secrets until after he had passed.

[Don Wildman]

Did you ever meet Ruth later on?

[Christine Kuhn]

No. I mean, we talked on the phone. We met her. I met her in 87. We talked on the phone often. You know, we would reach out. You know, I would see her. But she. If you asked about anything if you asked her any questions about her family or Pearl harbor, she would ghost me. She'd shut down, and she wouldn't talk to me for months. So I just learned to stay away from that subject. She passed away in 2010.

[Don Wildman]

Had her brother, your dad, and her been in touch a lot in those years.

[Christine Kuhn]

Yeah. Yeah. I think he. You know, he would. In the beginning, he would travel to New York. I do think they spoke on the phone quite often. It was. It was interesting. When she passed away, I connected with a family friend that she had known growing up in Germany, Peter. And he was holding a box of information for me. And so he. He actually was a professor at the University of South Carolina, where Mark and I went to school and where my son was a freshman at the time. So we made plans to meet. And I was looking through the box, and it had her German ration card. It had pictures and letters and all this information that she had never told me. And I found her address book, and.

[Verizon Announcer]

I was like, oh, wow.

[Christine Kuhn]

Grabbed the address book, immediately went to the Ks and they were gone. And I looked over at Peter, he goes, they're in there. She had torn out the Ks and had them taped on the under drawer of her bedside table because she was still trying to keep anyone from knowing who the future generation of Kunes were. And so it was pretty. That was a pretty impactful moment. It actually gave me the names of some of my cousins. The phone numbers were gone. There were no emails there, but I was able to get their names. And that's what kind of triggered a whole new resurgence. Started using Facebook and reaching out, trying to find these cousins that lived in Germany.

[Don Wildman]

Ruth eventually marries an American officer in Germany and ends up moving back to the United States. Right.

[Mark Sciapone]

It's funny you say that, because there was so much misinformation out there, and that was one of the tidbits in some books written earlier, that she'd married this American military guy she did marry when they lived in Hawaii, 1941. She got married to a man who was as old as her father, and he was a former military officer, but he'd been retired. He'd been working in the stock market for years. So that was the man that she married and was married to when Pearl harbor hit and she was arrested from their home.

[Don Wildman]

Okay, but later in life, what happens to Ruth?

[Christine Kuhn]

So she goes back to Germany. She was a nurse. She worked in Germany for a number of years, and she met her husband, Hans Kippenberg, and she moved back to the United States with him.

[Don Wildman]

I see we're mixing up our facts there. Interesting.

[Christine Kuhn]

That happens a lot in this story. It's crazy.

[Don Wildman]

Well, this is what's so remarkable about this effort of yours and this accomplishment. You know, my dad was in World War II as well, and nothing nearly as dramatic happened for him. But it's a detective story to put these records together and try to patch these lives that you kind of vaguely understand. But so many of these folks that went through this, in whatever regard, keep it to themselves or kept it to themselves all these years, very famously. So that's a whole generation of secret keepers because they just didn't want to go back there in their minds for whatever reason, or they were actively trying to conceal something, who knows what. But it's a real. We're all playing this role as telling these stories of those we are descended from who went through this extraordinary moment in time.

[Christine Kuhn]

Right. And we're always trying to find the truth. Right. And some of those stories, if we don't find them now, they're gonna be lost. We have to find these lost stories.

[Don Wildman]

Yeah. Well, you've done the. An amazing service to put this story together. It's an incredible piece of information for anyone interested in the story of Pearl harbor, for sure, World War II in general, but also the family dynamics, which are still very emotional for you. I can tell, as you're telling this story, it's a very personal one for you.

[Christine Kuhn]

You know, you're mentioning about confusion, and I think there was a lot. And Mark can probably talk about this as well, but there was a lot of misinformation. You know, the books out there had Ruth and my grandfather leading the attack on Pearl Harbor. That was an outrageous story that didn't happen, but it was sensationalized. I mean, they actually didn't overlook Pearl Harbor. They lived on the other side of the island. There were also tons of conflicting information in the National Archives and the FBI files that we looked through. So you talked about putting a. Putting the story together. It was like trying to put a puzzle together, and we were missing pieces. You'd have to read the National Archives, compare it to the books, compare it to a. That my father said or a letter that was written to really kind of come to the actual truth because it was not an easy process. I mean, the national archives were, what, 800 pages, mark?

[Mark Sciapone]

Yeah. It's a big file. Yeah. They were watching them for years. And it was crazy to look at the files, though, and see the actual MO From J. Edgar Hoover to his agents talking about her grandfather or President Roosevelt talking about her grandfather in a memo. So that was kind of crazy actually holding the piece of paper there and pretty eye opening.

[Don Wildman]

Makes it all too real, doesn't it? Incredible. Well, the book is called Family of Spies. It is written by Christine Kuhn and her husband Marc Sciapone. Thank you so much for joining us. I know you're talking to a lot of people these days about this book and congratulations on doing so. I look forward to folks listening grabbing their copy.

[Christine Kuhn]

Thank you so much for having us.

[Mark Sciapone]

Thanks Don. Appreciate your time.

[Don Wildman]

Hey, thanks for listening to American History hit. You know, every week we release new episodes, two new episodes dropping Mondays and Thursdays. All kinds of content from mysterious missing colonies to powerful political movements to some of the biggest battles across the centuries. Don't miss an episode by hitting like and follow. You help us out, which is great, but you'll also be reminded when our shows are on. And while you're at it, share it with a friend. American History hit with me, Don Wildman.

[Mark Sciapone]

So grateful for your support.

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