Baron Constantin (von) Maydell : 1942 - 1946

[Guest]

In Game of the Foxes, Laslo Farago described Baron Konstantine Van Maydell as "the top Abwehr agent in the United States in 1940." Baron Konstantine Von  Maydell was arrested on a Presidential warrant as a dangerous alien in September  1942, tried for espionage in Federal District Court for the Southern District of New York,  and interred for four years in North Dakota. The proceedings were either closed, or the Court records have disappeared. He was released in 1946.

I am trying to complete his biography, but some major parts are missing :

- when did he enter the USA ?

- in the late 1930's it looks like there were two Barons (von) Maydell...

Anyone knows of a good acces to the newspapers from those days (september 1942) ?

As the Court records have disappeared (is this so ?)  

Maydell is being mentioned all over the place in the JFKA, but very little is know about the man himself.

I have a few possible Maydell's going from Europe to the USA pre-WWII, but no way to be 100% sure wich is the correct one... 

The good news is they were all related... 

Anyway, all tips appreciated !

 

PS : I have the data from Mae Russel and William Shirer 

Edited October 3, 2022 by Jean Paul Ceulemans

[John Kowalski]

Have you tried the genealogical website ancestry? They have a lot of ship records that show when a person arrived in the US. You may also find information about his family that could help determine if there was more than one person with that name.

John Armstrong's book Harvey and Lee mentions that spies sometimes had a second person with the same name. 

Most public libraries have local newspapers. What city did he live in? Go to that city's public library and they should have the newspapers. Ask the reference staff if the papers has been digitized which means you can access it online. When I wrote the Dual Life of Albert Osborne I discovered that he spent a lot of time in Knoxville Tennessee. The library told me that their newspaper had been digitized so I bought a library card from them and found many articles about him. 

 

 

[Guest]

Thanks for the tips.  I have tried Ancestry, Geni, Geneanet and a few others as one of my other hobbies is genealogy.

Currently I'm still looking for any references to : "Von  Maydell was arrested on a Presidential warrant as a dangerous alien in September  1942, tried for espionage in Federal District Court for the Southern District of New York,  and interred for four years in North Dakota. The proceedings were either closed, or the Court records have disappeared. He was released in 1946."

A lot of people mentioning this (or part of it) in books, articles, essays,... but I have no clue where this information originated from.  Could be from some older essay, don't know...

[Guest]

The genealogical part I have mostly covered (the link the GvM etc).

[John Kowalski]

Do the articles have a bibliography or end notes? I found an article online by John Judge he said that Maydell was George DeMohrenschildts cousin but he did not provide a source.

 

Edited October 9, 2022 by John Kowalski

[Guest]

I did find some connections to the von/de Mohrenschildt family, I posted it in the topic "The von Möhrenschildt family" (there's a lot more in that topic)  

GDM would say the Baron was like his 5th cousin or so. 

Some say he was no relative at all.  

After months going up and down the VM family-tree I've finally found one connection (but I'm pretty sure there are more).

For one, Baron von Maydell's great-grandmother (I hope this it the correct English term, could be one more generation up) was Leontine Ernestine Ulrich von Mohrenschildt (born in 1812),  she married a Berend Otto von Maydell.

The common ancestor between George de Mohrenschildt and Leontine Ernestine Ulrich von Mohrenschildt is three generations higher up the family tree..., that was Berend Otto von Mohrenschildt (born 1718 - died 1789)....   According to this, Baron Maydell was his 8th cousin (or so).  Now there are other family ties I have not yet investigated in full, especially some female lines.  It is possible there is a closer relationship to be found in there.

Also In George von Mohrenschildt's family tree I have at least 2 (and poss. 3) of them that married a cousin (on one of those close marriages  I have found the dispensation* from a Pastor).   Making things complicated at times... (in real life those marriages could couse serious genetical problems) 

 *to marry a close relative you need to ask a special permission from the Church because it is not usually allowed

I now have pretty much the male lines in family von Möhrenschildt documented (hundreds of pages), every now and than I'll work on the female lines, just want to do something else every now and then.

But the Baron von Maydell seems to have disappeared after WWII, so I'm still looking for the criminal records, or sources to those

 

 

[Guest]

When I am done with the female lines I will input them into my genealogy program.  Once that is done it's a lot easier to show relations, etc   My own family-tree has over 15,000 persons in it. My wife's over 12,000.  But I have been working on those for decades. 

The von Mohrenschildt will only be some 200 to 400 persons (depending on other relations of interest being found or not), not a lot but time consuming of course to do the input.

From there anything goes, looking for more family relations in this case can be interesting (I will certainly try doing some research on the White-Russians in Dallas and the families LHO has met in Russia).    Now, anything can be inputted in the data, where and when they have worked/lived/been in the military/....  The program I use has hundreds of available fields to define.  

 

Edited October 9, 2022 by Jean Paul Ceulemans

[John Kowalski]

That's amazing work you did on your family. Also did work on my family years ago and found relatives I didn't know existed.

It's interesting that both are barons and both are spies. But making a connection between them may not help you find the records you are looking for.

Have a book called Three Barons The Organizational Chart of the Kennedy Assassination. It's by J.W. Lateer who is a member of this forum. In his book he writes that  Maydell produced a film called Spain in Arms and it was shown at the Ritz Carlton in New York in 1940 and George attended this viewing.   The book's notes refer to an article by John Bevilqua about Maydell's German spying. https://deeppoliticsforum.com/forums/archive/index-php/t-2763.html. Tried this link and it is broken, so you will have to visit the forum if you want to read the article.

Have you heard about Bruce Adamson? He wrote some books about George and they are available on kindle.

https://www.amazon.com/Books-Bruce-Adamson/s?rh=n%3A283155%2Cp_27%3ABruce+Adamson

 

 

 

Edited October 8, 2022 by John Kowalski

[Guest]

I will get those books one of these days.

Indeed, connecting them won't get me the records, but in the JFKA on the Russian/Baltic/German side, there is still a lot we don't know about.

E.g. like the connection (if any, of course) between :

"Baron Lilienfeld-Tall" (usher at Dimi's wedding)

and

"George Otto Helmut Victor de Lilienfeld" (who knew Allen Dulles)

There quite a number of these possible connections

[John Kowalski]

What is your source for Maydell's 1942 arrest and court appearance, was it Farago's book?

Who did you contact regarding obtaining court records?

Do you know what happened to him after he completed his prison sentence and when did he die?

 

[Guest]

I did not try to obtain court records, was looking to get some more detailed/hard references before anything

The Three Barons, James W Lateer  : "Returning to New York City from a temporary stay in Venezuela, he learned that his friend Baron Konstantin Maydell had been released from Ellis Island Prison by a Federal Judge after serving only four years."

In Game of the Foxes, Laslo Farago described Baron Konstantine Van Maydell as "the top Abwehr agent in the United States in 1940." Baron Konstantine Von  Maydell was arrested on a Presidential warrant as a dangerous alien in September  1942, tried for espionage in Federal District Court for the Southern District of New York,  and interred for four years in North Dakota. The proceedings were either closed, or the Court records have disappeared. He was released in 1946.

 

Also, this is all relatively new to me, I have just gotten into the JFKA some 6-8 months ago* (approx.).

I had zero JFK books...  😄 Now I have some 25, have read a buckload of essays, etc  But still a long way to go, there's at least 30 more books I want te read in due time...

But I decided to do some research on G. de/von Mörenschildt given the Belgian connection (as such I found his immigration file, etc).  From there I started to search for his relatives and the family history.  

As Maydell was being mentioned as " a 5-th cousin" I went looking for that, to find... few hard references on some stuff, it's probably out there some where (I hope !).    

*my first POI was the Minox camera of course, reading Greg Doubna's topics the Minox got me into the JFKA and I still have my spy camera collection (German Minox, Japanese Minolta 16, the Russian Kiev's (30 and Bera), etc

Edited October 9, 2022 by Jean Paul Ceulemans

[Paul Brancato]

Jean-Paul - if you come across the name Dorothe Matlack in your investigation of the broader Russian/Baltic/German milieu please post. She was the Eastern European expert in Army Intelligence, and was present at one meeting with George DeM when he traveled with Charles. She gets a mention in  Our Man in Haiti, but I’m convinced there is a larger story here. The other name I would mention is the very interesting Army Colonel Frank Brandstetter, like Matlack Hungarian. He reported to Army Intelligence for decades, was from Dallas but lived mostly in Acapulco. 

[Guest]

1 hour ago, Paul Brancato said:

Jean-Paul - if you come across the name Dorothe Matlack in your investigation of the broader Russian/Baltic/German milieu please post. She was the Eastern European expert in Army Intelligence, and was present at one meeting with George DeM when he traveled with Charles. She gets a mention in  Our Man in Haiti, but I’m convinced there is a larger story here. The other name I would mention is the very interesting Army Colonel Frank Brandstetter, like Matlack Hungarian. He reported to Army Intelligence for decades, was from Dallas but lived mostly in Acapulco. 

I did not know Dorothe Matlack was Hungarian, I did know she handled the entering of Hungarian refugees  (1956/57 I believe)

Army Colonel Frank Brandstetter I'll have to add.   

[Paul Brancato]

4 hours ago, Jean Paul Ceulemans said:

I did not know Dorothe Matlack was Hungarian, I did know she handled the entering of Hungarian refugees  (1956/57 I believe)

Army Colonel Frank Brandstetter I'll have to add.   

Are you in general terms wondering if GDM, despite public persona, was part of a N A Z I underground? 

[Guest]

From what I have seen so far, above all he was an opportunist.  I feel he didn’t care where the money came from, as long as he got his cut.

I do believe he was German intelligence when he entered the USA,  we can’t underestimate the extend and structure of the N A Z I organization by 1938 (1).  
When the war was over in Europe he tried entering the OSS, this is a strong indicator of him knowing how things worked in the deep-end of politics…  

Him contacting US Intell. (at times it looked like he was handing out freebies…) is rather suspicious and I tend to believe he still had his old contacts and, if anything, he wanted to be a double (he had learned from the war not to bet on only one horse… ).  Perhaps he assumed double-agents got double-paychecks…  

I do wonder if he was a contact between former N A Z I and US Intell. (would explain his travels in South-America, the contacts, .).    

Now, the US did import a bunch of former N A Z I scientists and others (and installed Gehlen and Co. in Germany while at it).  

Someone like GDM would know how to work the contacts.   It would not surprise me if he was a fundraiser of some sort as well (as far as I can read there were plenty of  supporters in Texas to a right-wing cause, whatever that was at that time).

And he really didn’t care about the welfare of others, GDM helping LHO because the latter was simply poor ???  Not in a million years...   

GDM was working for/with Duvalier…  of all dictators…  the worst of the worst (Charles wouldn’t be any better). To me that says a lot about GDM.  

Of course, the above is just how I feel about him at this moment, that's one thing, proving it is another as we all know.  But there is a lot of circumstantial stuff flying around, too much to be ignored. 

(1) I am adding this little note just because so many young people don’t know.  Hitler was the NSDAP leader since 1921 and had already attempted a coup d’état in 1923.  By 1938 they were pretty much omni-present and had already won a few "civil-wars" in Germany and Austria.  Nobody should have been surprised when they invaded Poland in 1939.  For over 15 years the world had been looking the other way...