The Baltimore Sabotage Cell: German Agents, American Traitors, and the U-Boat Deutschland During World War I

The Baltimore Sabotage Cell: German Agents, American Traitors, and the U-Boat Deutschland During World War IThe Baltimore Sabotage Cell by Dwight Messimer
ISBN: 9781612518695
Published by Naval Institute Press on March 15, 2015
Genres: History, Military, Naval
Pages: 280

The book’s focus on U-Boat Deutschland makes it easy to understand the experimental vessel and keep track of the groups connected with it. Deutschland was one of two subs designed as underwater freighters to avoid the British blockade. The other, the Bremen, was lost at sea on its initial voyage.

Support of the U-Boat was only one of the activities of the Baltimore sabotage group; it also attempted to spread diseases to horses being sent to the Allies.

Deutschland made only two successful trips before it was re-commissioned as a standard submarine after America entered the war.

The Germans and Americans in the U.S. who acquired the trade goods for shipment to Germany were in peril once the U.S. entered the war; most escaped. While some people, civilian and military, toured and inspected the Deutschland while docked in Baltimore, it was not until after the war that interviews with the cell’s surviving participants revealed how extensive and successful the Baltimore group had been.

A well written and unexpectedly interesting case study of an unusual aspect of the war.

Reviewed by Anne Merritt

Escape from Villingen, 1918

Escape from Villingen, 1918Escape from Villingen, 1918 by Dwight R. Messimer
ISBN: 9780890969564
Published by Texas A&M University Press on 2000
Pages: 195

Len's Summary: Americans escape from an Imperial Germany POW camp during WWI.

Find and Destroy: Antisubmarine Warfare in World War I

Find and Destroy: Antisubmarine Warfare in World War IFind and Destroy: Antisubmarine Warfare in World War I by Dwight R. Messimer
ISBN: 1557504474
on September 2001
Genres: History, Military, Weapons
Pages: 312

Len's Summary: Messimer is a lecturer in History at San Diego State University and a specialist in WWI and early American aviation. His research benefited from his knowledge of German…