This is just like the week in January 1933 when von Papen

[Hardrada]

decided to be Vice-Chancellor and had President von Hindenburg appoint Adolf Hitler Chancellor. In the sense that it is high drama and theater!

[formercia]

1. Franz Von Papen: WWI Geman Spy and Saboteur

Black Tom Island

The term "Black Tom" originally referred to an island in New York Harbor next to Liberty Island. The island received its name from a local legend of an African American resident named Tom. By 1880, a causeway and railroad had been built connecting it to the mainland for use as a shipping depot.<2> Sometime between 1905 and 1916, the Lehigh Valley Railroad Company, which owned the island and causeway, expanded the island with landfill, resulting in the addition of the entire area to the limits of Jersey City. The area contained a mile-long pier that housed the depot as well as warehouses for the National Dock and Storage Company.

Black Tom was a major munitions depot for materials manufactured in the northeast. Prior to a 1915 blockade of the Central Powers by the British Royal Navy, American industries were free to sell their materials to any buyer, but by this time the Allies were the only possible customers. It was reported that on the night of the attack, two million pounds (1 kiloton) of ammunition were being stored at the depot in freight cars, including one hundred thousand pounds of TNT on the Johnson Barge No.17, all awaiting eventual shipment to Britain and France. Jersey City's Commissioner of Public Safety, Frank Hague, reported he had been told the barge had been "tied up at Black Tom to avoid a twenty-five dollar towing charge" <3> (US$503 in 2010).
Explosion


After midnight, a series of small fires were discovered on the pier. Some guards fled, fearing an explosion. Others attempted to fight the fires and eventually called the Jersey City Fire Department.

At 2:08 a.m. (6:08 GMT), the first and largest of the explosions took place. Fragmentation from the explosion travelled long distances, some lodging in the Statue of Liberty and some in the clock tower of the Jersey Journal building in Journal Square, over a mile away, stopping the clock at 2:12 a.m. The explosion was the equivalent of an earthquake measuring between 5.0 and 5.5 on the Richter Scale<3> and was felt as far away as Philadelphia. Windows broke as far as 40 kilometres (25 mi) away, including thousands in lower Manhattan. Some window panes in Times Square were completely shattered. The outer wall of Jersey City's City Hall was cracked and the Brooklyn Bridge was shaken. People as far away as Maryland were awakened by what they thought was an earthquake.

Property damage from the attack was estimated at $20 million (US$ 402 million in 2010). The damage to the Statue of Liberty was valued at $100,000 (US$ 2,012,000 in 2010) and included the skirt and the torch.<4>

Immigrants being processed at Ellis Island had to be evacuated to lower Manhattan. Reports vary, but as many as seven people may have been killed, including:

* a Jersey City policeman <5><6>
* a Lehigh Valley Railroad Chief Of Police <5>
* a ten week old infant <6>
* the barge captain <6>

Injuries numbered in the hundreds. Smaller explosions continued to occur for hours after the initial blast.

Investigation

Two of the watchmen who had lit smudge pots to keep away mosquitoes on their watch were immediately arrested. It soon became clear that the fires of the smudge pots had not caused the fire, and that the blast had not been an accident. It was traced to a Slovak immigrant named Michael Kristoff, who had served in the U.S. Army, but admitted to carrying suitcases for the Germans before America entered World War I. According to him, two of the guards were German agents. It is likely that the bombing involved some of the techniques developed by a group of German agents surrounding German ambassador Count Johann Heinrich von Bernstorff, probably using the pencil bombs developed by Captain Franz von Rintelen.<7> Although suspicion at the time fell solely on German saboteurs like Kurt Jahnke and his assistant Lothar Witzke, still judged as "likely" responsible by some<8>, later investigations in the aftermath of the Annie Larsen affair unearthed links between the Ghadar conspiracy and the Black Tom explosion. Franz von Papen is known to have also been involved in both.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Tom_explosion

[Hardrada]

4. I just got a copy of von Papen's memoirs and, for some reason,

he doesn't mention any of this. He was sort of political cat of 9 lives and kept landing on his feet. I suppose his Vatican connection had something to do with this. Thanks for the links so I can get get the whole story.

[formercia]

2. Von Papen's connection with Right-wing reactionaries in the US and elsewhere.

Including those involved in the coup against FDR:

http://moversandshakersofthesmom.blogspot.com/2008/08/franz-von-papen.html

[formercia]

3. K&R n/t