Radio-Craft Magazine Sought by Nazi Spies
September 1945 Radio-Craft

September 1945 Radio-Craft [Table of Contents] Wax nostalgic about and learn from the history of early electronics. See articles from Radio-Craft, published 1929 - 1953. All copyrights are hereby acknowledged.

Just as with the poor, the spies will always be among us. This story reports on a bookstore in New York that during World War II funneled money and technical information back to the Nazi Party in Germany. Electronics, aerospace, and other technical publications (including Radio-Craft magazine) were chief among the sought-after sources. The shop was a front operation which lost a huge sum of money per the official accounting books, but had copious amounts of funds pouring in from German "investors." Today's enemy money fronting operations are largely radical religious and communist entities collecting funds from America-hating groups and individuals who live and thrive here. Did you know it was during WWII that Persia began being commonly referred to as "Iran," which has the same etymology as the Aryan (the similarity in sound is no coincidence) movement that accompanied Nazism? Both groups aspire(d) to eradicate the Jewish people from the face of the Earth. The more things change, the more things stay the same.

Radio-Craft Sought by Nazi Spies

With the closing of a little New York bookshop known as Westermann's by FBI agents recently, it was revealed that Radio-Craft was one of the objects of spies seeking information on the latest in American radio and electronic devices, copies being ardently collected by them and sent to Germany. The shop was actually owned by a concern controlled by Alfred Hugenburg, Hitler's first Minister of Economics. Although it had been losing 25,000 dollars per year for the past few years, "stock-holders" in Germany sent the manager more than 30,000 dollars in bonuses for good business, practices which allegedly saved the firm money.

The true story of the bookshop was bared by the U. S. Treasury Department, which reports that since 1926, the bookshop 1945 has acted as a collecting and forwarding station, from which large quantities of information on U.S. military developments had been sent to Berlin. Anything having to do with mechanical equipment of the United States armed services or to military strength and activities was of interest to Westermann's, and the little shop mailed out great stacks of such magazines as Aero Digest, Coast Artillery Journal, Aviation Magazine and Radio-Craft to interested "correspondents" in Berlin.

The bookshop's true role came to light, the Treasury stated, in 1941, after the mailing of books and other literature from the United States was banned. Mr. Eisele, who managed the bookshop, protested and asked exemption. Secret Service and FBI agents were assigned to find out why.

Posted January 12, 2022
(updated from original post on 7/31/2014)