Canine Cat

Early in World War II's noisy propaganda campaign, reporters at CBS's shortwave listening post in Manhattan became fairly familiar with an impersonal, unaccented voice reading Nazi bulletins in English. One night in October, the voice identified itself as Fred Kaltenbach, from Iowa. Fred had a "letter" he wanted to read, to an old pal back home named Harry. Soon Fred got into the tall corn. One night he signed off with: "Well, Harry old man . . . give my regards to the folks back home in Ottumwa and Waterloo." At this CBS's ears pricked--a clue. Then, around Thanksgiving time, Fred said "punkin." That settled it. He was a real American. Every Monday night thereafter, at 8:30 EST, Fred would pop up on the German short wave with a new "Dear Harry" letter.

He wrote chummily of Nazis as high as No. 2 ("Man, what a picture it is to see Hermann's birds soaring swiftly overhead! Boy, are they fast!") and sneeringly of Britain's Churchill ("First Lord of the Admiralty, past master of the waves"). One night he dismissed British claims of U-boat sinkings with "Every German U-boat. . . bears the number K-9. Canine, Cat. Because every cat has nine lives."

Last week, after considerable earnest fact-finding, CBS had all the dope on Fred. He was Butcher John Kaltenbach's boy, from Waterloo, the one who went to Berlin in 1936 to get his Ph.D., married a German girl named Dorothea Peters from the staff of Hermann Goring's aviation magazine, and signed up with the Nazi propaganda staff.

Since then his only trip home was last May, when the German Government paid his fare over so he might see his dying father. Waterloo Rotarians paid him $25 to address them. When Fred's pro-Nazi beliefs had all been aired, one member blurted, "If you like Nazi Germany so well, why don't you go back there and stay?" Said Fred: "I am."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.