(Some Spoilers) Somewhat fictional account of the cracking of a Nazi sabotage ring by the FBI back in 1942 which in fact the FBI had very little or nothing to do with. The truth is that one of the saboteurs involved in the plot to blow up America suddenly got cold feet and ratted out his comrades to save his own neck. These lame brain Nazis, the cream of crop in fact, saboteurs screwed up as soon as they landed, from a German U-Boat, on US soil. It's when they were spotted by a US Navy sentry and offered him $300.00 in US currency in order for him to shut up and not report them! This instead of just killing him like any other nations saboteurs, like the US & UK, would do as a matter of policy! As well as keeping themselves from getting caught and executed as enemy spies!
The film has patriotic German/American Carl Steelman, George Sanders,infiltrate a chapter of the German American Bund and later take up the identity of fellow member Ernst Reiter, Fred Nurney, who was shot and killed by the police when they raided the Bund's headquarters. This raid which took place while the US was already at war with the Axis powers made no sense at all! Since the Bund was disbanded, by its own leadership, soon after the Jananese attack on Pearl Harbor with Nazi Germany, Japan's ally, declaring war on the USA!
Steelman working undercover for the FBI sails to Germany from New York City when at the time-in 1942-all traveling from the USA to Germany was suspended because of the state of war that existed between the two countries. Steelman then, after being thoroughly checked out by the Nazi Gestapo, ends up being trained by the Nazis as a saboteur under the name of the deceased Ernst Reiter.
You would think that the German Government would have had at least one photo of Reiter to make sure if Steelman was really him but for some strange reason it didn't! The Nazis are so brainless that even when the late Ernst Reiter wife, Anna Sten,complains to them that Steelman is not her husband but an impostor they believe him not her with Steelman telling the head of Nazi sabotage operations Col. Taeger, Dennis Holey,that she's insane. Didn't Frau Reiter have at least a wedding photo of her and her late husband to prove that Steelman was in fact not him? Or better yet didn't she have any friends, like members of the wedding, to vouch for her that Steelman wasn't her husband Ernst?
Steelman with Frau Reiter declared insane and later executed, on orders of Col. Taeger, is now freed to sabotage the Nazi plan to blow up America by blowing up the Nazi U-Boat that dropped him and his fellow Nazi saboteurs off on the beaches of Long Island New York. Now safe at home, the USA, and in no danger from Hitler's Gestapo Steelman fingers, or expose, the Nazi saboteurs to the proper authorities the FBI and his boss Chief Craig, Ward Bond.
There's even a comical side to the movie involving Steelman's father Julius, Ludwig Stossel, who disowned his son thinking that he's a loyal Nazi not a patriotic American like himself. With Julius sick and what looked like on his death bed Chief Craig, against his better judgment, comes to visit the sick old man to assure him that his son Carl is actually working undercover for the FBI against the hated Nazis.
***SPOILER ALERT*** With his son's patriotism now confirmed what does the silly old guy do but shoots his mouth off to everyone within earshot, after promising Chief Craig not to, about how patriotic his son Carl is! One of those whom Julius tells about Carl's secret mission is Dr. Herman Baumer, Sig Ruman, who's secretly working for the Nazis as a top spy in America! luckily Dr. Baumer's warning to the German Government about Carl Steelman's anti-German activities got there too late for the Nazis to both arrest and execute him before he actually got on shore and turned in the saboteurs, who had no idea what was going on, that were with him.
Wartime propaganda at its best showing how the US Government was on top of things in preventing a 9/11 type, German not Islamic, terrorist attack engineered by the Nazis. It did in fact prevent it but it did it only with the help of the Nazis, or one Nazi who chickened out, themselves!
The film has patriotic German/American Carl Steelman, George Sanders,infiltrate a chapter of the German American Bund and later take up the identity of fellow member Ernst Reiter, Fred Nurney, who was shot and killed by the police when they raided the Bund's headquarters. This raid which took place while the US was already at war with the Axis powers made no sense at all! Since the Bund was disbanded, by its own leadership, soon after the Jananese attack on Pearl Harbor with Nazi Germany, Japan's ally, declaring war on the USA!
Steelman working undercover for the FBI sails to Germany from New York City when at the time-in 1942-all traveling from the USA to Germany was suspended because of the state of war that existed between the two countries. Steelman then, after being thoroughly checked out by the Nazi Gestapo, ends up being trained by the Nazis as a saboteur under the name of the deceased Ernst Reiter.
You would think that the German Government would have had at least one photo of Reiter to make sure if Steelman was really him but for some strange reason it didn't! The Nazis are so brainless that even when the late Ernst Reiter wife, Anna Sten,complains to them that Steelman is not her husband but an impostor they believe him not her with Steelman telling the head of Nazi sabotage operations Col. Taeger, Dennis Holey,that she's insane. Didn't Frau Reiter have at least a wedding photo of her and her late husband to prove that Steelman was in fact not him? Or better yet didn't she have any friends, like members of the wedding, to vouch for her that Steelman wasn't her husband Ernst?
Steelman with Frau Reiter declared insane and later executed, on orders of Col. Taeger, is now freed to sabotage the Nazi plan to blow up America by blowing up the Nazi U-Boat that dropped him and his fellow Nazi saboteurs off on the beaches of Long Island New York. Now safe at home, the USA, and in no danger from Hitler's Gestapo Steelman fingers, or expose, the Nazi saboteurs to the proper authorities the FBI and his boss Chief Craig, Ward Bond.
There's even a comical side to the movie involving Steelman's father Julius, Ludwig Stossel, who disowned his son thinking that he's a loyal Nazi not a patriotic American like himself. With Julius sick and what looked like on his death bed Chief Craig, against his better judgment, comes to visit the sick old man to assure him that his son Carl is actually working undercover for the FBI against the hated Nazis.
***SPOILER ALERT*** With his son's patriotism now confirmed what does the silly old guy do but shoots his mouth off to everyone within earshot, after promising Chief Craig not to, about how patriotic his son Carl is! One of those whom Julius tells about Carl's secret mission is Dr. Herman Baumer, Sig Ruman, who's secretly working for the Nazis as a top spy in America! luckily Dr. Baumer's warning to the German Government about Carl Steelman's anti-German activities got there too late for the Nazis to both arrest and execute him before he actually got on shore and turned in the saboteurs, who had no idea what was going on, that were with him.
Wartime propaganda at its best showing how the US Government was on top of things in preventing a 9/11 type, German not Islamic, terrorist attack engineered by the Nazis. It did in fact prevent it but it did it only with the help of the Nazis, or one Nazi who chickened out, themselves!