USF St. Petersburg campus Honors Program Theses (Undergraduate)

Sean Amodeo

First Advisor

Gary Mormino, Ph.D. Professor, College of Arts and Sciences University Honors Program University of South Florida St. Petersburg.

Publisher

University of South Florida St. Petersburg

Document Type

Thesis

Date Available

2012-03-29

Publication Date

2009

Date Issued

2009-12-22

Abstract

On May 7, 1945, Germany surrendered. After years of bloody and terrible fighting, the Allied powers had finally beaten the German war machine. Three years earlier, in June 1942, that victory looked far from inevitable. German U-boats attacked Allied ships all along the American coast, rattling America and revealing its vulnerability. Into this climate of uncertainty and fear, the German army launched Operation Pastorius. Their objective: to secretly land eight men along the eastern seaboard carrying explosives, equipment, and large sums of American money. They planned to sabotage the American war effort. On June 13, 1942, the first group of four Nazis left U-202 in a rubber raft and headed for the beach near Amagansett, New York.' The second group of four landed on the beach at Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida, near Jacksonville on June 17.2 Before the end of August, all eight men were arrested, tried, and sentenced to death for their participation in the plot. Six of the eight would ultimately pay with their lives, while two would receive prison sentences. Edward Kerling, Herbert Haupt, Werner Thiel and Hermann Neubauer comprised the Florida landing force. The four in New York consisted of George Dasch, Ernest Burger, Robert Quirin and Heinrich Heinck.3 Their biographies hardly read like those of professional saboteurs, making them seem like unlikely choices for such a dangerous and important mission.

Comments

A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the University Honors Program, University of South Florida St. Petersburg

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.

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