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Oceti Sakowin - wintry wonderland - photo by Terry Wiklund

Standing Rock’s Invisible Enemy

Cyber warfare and misinformation directed at No DAPL activists creates real damage

By C.S. Hagen
OCETI SAKOWIN – An invisible enemy – streaming the airwaves – haunts Standing Rock’s supporters. The nemesis’ presence has long been felt inside the camps opposing the Dakota Access Pipeline, but few had proof of its existence until recently.

Cell phone and live streaming problems were jokes, hidden behind nervous chuckles. Then people began pointing to the ubiquitous airplane circling on the hour, nearly every hour, wondering if their sudden connection issues were created by someone inside. The reports were rumors, conspiracy theories. Soon, few among the thousands could say their devices were not being affected.

The difficulties spring partly from the area’s remoteness and the rugged terrain, but more-so now from what can only be psychological-driven digital attacks. Sudden signal loss, computer files disappearing, fried fiber optic cables, sudden battery deaths from a near full charge, are common. At least one person’s PayPal account was emptied of all monies, according to activists.

“There is an invisible antagonist winking at us, but no one knows exactly what that means, but we know how it feels,” Ari Herman said. He’s from northern California and is daily at the front lines facing heavily protected law enforcement with tear gas, pepper spray, water cannons, and percussion grenades.

Herman discovered this “antagonist” when he received an email from Google on November 9, reverse traced the email through an IP search and discovered it was sent by a technical department of North Dakota from Fort Totten, approximately 200 miles to the north.

“It’s egregious, and it’s terrifying,” Herman said. “It’s a very sound approach when you think about it. It’s subversion. Less violent. Less costly. I felt it. I felt it was like an emotional waterboarding, it was happening to me and a lot of people. It was creating a very strange aura of suspicion.

“People who announce they are coming to Standing Rock start to have issues even before coming to the state. The precedence this sets is disturbing to say the least.”

A non-profit organization savvy about online setups in conflict zones, was alerted to Standing Rock’s situation. Geeks Without Bounds, a Washington state organization established in 2010, is an accelerator for humanitarian projects. They’ve been working with the Oceti Sakowin camp since September, setting up Internet and Intranet accesses in specific spots by using a “network hop” to catch the signal from Standing Rock Telecom. A giant geodesic dome, known as the big white dome, donated by participants from Burning Man, became the camp’s first Internet café. Power to run the equipment comes from the sun, and a mini tower called “the stick in the ground on Hop Hill” has been erected to boost signals.

The organization reports many people’s cell phones are acting strangely, and legal observers are documenting and investigating the real threats that come from digital surveillance and communication interference.

Files from long-term criminal defense attorney Bruce Ellison’s computers have disappeared, he said. Ellison is working pro bono as legal team coordinator for the Lawyer’s Guild Mass Defense Committee.

“I know we’ve been investigating a lot of claims of mass data seizure,” Ellison said.

An electronics bug was found inside the Prairie Knights Casino. The device fell from under a table during a meeting inside the Indigenous Environmental Network’s suite, Ellison said. The bug wasn’t sophisticated enough to come from government; he suspects DAPL security teams.

Cyber warfare isn’t the only subversive threat, Ellison said, he knows from experience that agitators and infiltrators posing as activists try to blend in, especially during times of chaos, such as the case of DAPL security employee Kyle Thompson who was apprehended by the Bureau of Indian Affairs on October 27. Police and state’s attorneys called Thompson a victim, and did not file charges against Thompson.

Or the instance when an unknown person came up behind an activist at the front line, pointed at her to police, and then shoved her forward, Ellison said.

“There’s all kinds of stuff going on there that isn’t good, and certainly isn’t democratic. Historically, company security really takes the lead. They provide information to the Federal Bureau of Investigation and other agencies. We suspect that this comes down to corporate security.”

Additionally, video footage shows an FBI agent with the Joint-Terrorism Task Force waiting outside Sophia Wilansky’s hospital door, he said. Wilansky nearly had her arm blown off by a percussion grenade after she was hit, and knocked to the ground by a rubber bullet on November 20, medics and activists said.

“There’s a lot of unknowns going on, and we’re trying to keep our eyes and our ears open.”

After Ellison returned home from Standing Rock approximately three weeks ago, one of his telephone lines connected to the Internet – the only line he used while at the camp – was completely destroyed.

A complete new line had to be installed, Ellison said.

Many at Oceti Sakowin have felt “lost in the wind,” Herman said, without access to their digital worlds. He’s also a writer on The Lego Box Travelogue, and some of his stories have been featured on the Oceti Sakowin webpage. Movements such as Standing Rock’s opposition to the Dakota Access Pipeline need social media and Internet access to grow.

“Living out here under the security apparatus, it’s terrifying,” he said. To a small extent, the experience has taught him as a white person, what it might feel like living as a native person, or black person, or as a LGBT person, he said.

Herman arrived at the camps in early November. “I heard the calling, a little whisper,” he said. “I was ashamed of our treatment of Native Americans, and I wanted to come out here on the ground with my beliefs. This is an important frontier for our relationship with native communities, but setting an important precedent for climate issues… and the climate of surveillance in the occupation camps.” He’s an American, and he’s not against corporations making money, but recognizes the need for change.

“The intimidation is strongly reminiscent of the motto used by the Air Force’s Special Operations Wing in charge of Psy-Ops, “Never Seen, Always Heard,” Herman wrote in his article. He is currently helping out at Oceti Sakowin, he said.

“No one knows for sure who is behind the attacks, but the top suspects include a collusion between Morton County Sheriff’s Department, Energy Transfer Partners’ security and intelligence contractor TigerSwan or another military contractor, the National Guard, and/or the North Dakota Police,” Herman wrote.

Morton County Sheriff Kyle Kirchmeier has repeatedly denied that his agency is involved in cyber warfare against Standing Rock and its supporters. The FBI refuses to answer questions to its involvement in the DAPL controversy, and spokespeople from Energy Transfer Partners and its subsidiary, Dakota Access Pipeline, would not return telephone calls or emails for comment.

Lisha Sterling, the Geeks Without Bounds executive director, said she can’t solve hackers, and she can’t hack back against DAPL or law enforcement as that is illegal and dangerous to Standing Rock.

“What we can do is teach people how to be safer,” Sterling said. “We’ve got encrypted comms options in camp, something called a Mumble server, that anyone can connect to over the Wi-Fi Mesh Intranet if they use that instead of calling each other over the phones their conversations will not be listened in on.”

Encryption is one of the keys to help protect laptops, cell phones, and even personal banking accounts. Also, downloading “Signal” to use for text messaging and for voice calls, turning off automatic updates in Settings, backing up phone data to computer, and being careful to update operating systems, are other ways to help limit hackers’ success rates.

Herman says that another media blackout is currently underway – once again – at the camps, and fears that a police plan is in the works. The FAA has issued another no-fly zone at Standing Rock until December 2, and the “siege” tactics declared by Governor Jack Dalrymple against Standing Rock, authorizing police to fine anyone hauling supplies to Standing Rock up to USD 1,000, and threatening to take away emergency response teams is only part of the state’s strategy.

The legal repercussions are not known, even more ethereal are legal strategies to combat these digital wraiths. “I can tell you I was really pissed off when I found out who did it, I was surprised…” Herman said.

His voice scrambled on the phone, like listening to an AM radio station halfway tuned in. And then the line went dead.

Tipis with snow at Oceti Sakowin – photo provided by Terry Wiklund

Radio, Facebook, and hacks

Last week, Anonymous, the international network of activists and hacktivists, threatened Morton County Sheriff’s Department, and allegedly destroyed its website and Facebook pages. On Wednesday, a new Morton County Sheriff’s Department Facebook page, followed by more than 600 people, reported the following:

“Greetings, everyone. We’d like to formally apologize for being ignorant f*cks. We know no better. We are privileged and do not understand the importance of water and its connection to the essence of life. We do not believe in science, climate change, or sustainability. Sincerely. The Pipeline Pigs.”

On Tuesday, the Facebook page posted: “On this white and snowy day in North Dakota, we’d like to announce that our pig heads are so bloated, we think we have the authority to illegally interfere with interstate commerce. We think we can trample over the constitution with our cloven hooves. We are looking to hire lawyers as we can face jail time for violating the Constitution and people’s civil rights.”

A different Morton County Sheriff’s Department Facebook page has cultivated approximately 30 followers, and appears to be Pro DAPL, or at least supportive of government decisions to restrict emergency services to Standing Rock, and to fine anyone carrying supplies up to USD 1,000.

“Soon there will be nothing to keep those crybaby anarchists fed and warm but peace signs and prayer,” the alternative Facebook page reports. “It’s been fun terrorizing them, but all good things must come to an end. Us boys in blue are starting to get chilly, even in full combat gear we’re wearing. Time for you hippies to give up and move on. No more supplies, no more emergency services, take the hint already… Love being evil.”

There is also two more Facebook pages, one called Morton County Sheriff Department, which appears to be a venting platform.

Scott Hennen, a partner at Flag Family Media, who broadcasts on stations such as KFYR 55 AM Bismarck and WZFG 1100 AM Fargo, called the activists at Standing Rock “sick,” “a group of lawless thugs,” and “eco-terrorists” on his Facebook page. He believes North Dakota should sue the federal government, according to Facebook posts.

On Monday, Hennen interviewed Morton County Sheriff Kyle Kirchmeier, reporting 110 days had passed since the beginning of the “siege,” as Hennen described the situation outside of Cannonball.

Kirchmeier won’t send law enforcement to clear Oceti Sakowin, and doesn’t expect federal assistance, “as long as the current administration is there,” the sheriff said during the interview.

“I’ve heard stories of rampant drug use and rapes, I don’t know, they’re just stories,” Hennen said. “Do we know what’s happening in the way of lawless behavior in the camp?”

“There is definitely, the alcohol, the drug use, the sexual assault, we do have reports of that.” Kirchmeier said, adding that such reports are forwarded to the Army Corps.

Henner praised Dalrymple’s decision to stop emergency responses to the camps. He called a lawsuit against Kirchmeier and the Morton County Sheriff’s Department’s use of excessive force “bunk.”

“Law officers have been shot at, spit on, had feces thrown at them, had their families terrorized – and now they’re being sued. Throw it out of court – along with the violent extremists invading Morton County.”

Hennen’s claims have been called lies by people supporting Standing Rock.

Cannonball Sacred Stone Camp – photo provided by Terry Wiklund

Dalrymple’s orders

On Wednesday, the governor backtracked the seriousness of his emergency evacuation message, saying that law enforcement will not be hunting Standing Rock suppliers, or arbitrarily stopping people. He also petitioned for a meeting with Standing Rock leaders, he said, and wants to discuss how to rebuild the relationship between the tribe and the state.

“We want the entire public to know that this is not a safe place,” Dalrymple said. During a press conference reporters asked Dalrymple why call the emergency evacuation if he wasn’t planning on cleaning the camps out.

“We get that question every time there is a flood too, what purpose does it serve. It is an official notice from the state, from the National Guard, from law enforcement that we may not be able to help you in an emergency situation. No, we are not going to be having roadblocks or stopping vehicles.”

Dalrymple’s assurances did not ease activists’ fears near Standing Rock late Wednesday afternoon, especially after an online report that a Red Cross shipment was stopped by North Dakota National Guard.

Lynn Speral, chief executive officer for American Red Cross Dakotas Region, said she was aware of the online reports, but that the American Red Cross is a neutral organization and is not assisting anyone involved in the DAPL controversy at this time.

“If things would warrant a disaster type relief response, such as cars stranded because of a storm,” then her organization would respond. “But the situation there is not one that requires the American Red Cross’ assistance, Speral said. If Standing Rock required blood then the supplies would not come from the American Red Cross.

Dalrymple also said he has never contemplated using National Guard or federal or state officers to forcibly remove activists from Army Corps lands. The pipeline is finished everywhere in North Dakota, 95 percent complete, with one exception: under the Missouri River at Lake Oahe.

“To change the route now is probably not feasible,” Dalrymple said.

Lieutenant Governor Drew Wrigley said the state will not be held responsible if serious injury or death occurs at Oceti Sakowin. “They’re there without a permit… they’ve stayed through many seasons. This snowstorm was predicted several days in advance, all of it was out in the media. At some point there’s an assumption of risk, there’s a lot that’s involved and I don’t mean to make light of any of it. There are some people there who probably don’t know anything about this weather.”

Emergency response crews will attempt to respond to calls, Dalrymple said, but arrivals will not be guaranteed.

Dalrymple further mentioned that he has had no official offers from Kelcy Warren, CEO of Energy Transfer Partners, to pay government costs, which are expected to reach a total USD 17 million.

“I don’t even know if it’s possible,” Dalrymple said.

A decision for Morton County to accept any official offer would not rest in the governor’s lap, he said.

Dalrymple also stated during a press conference that his office has been in constant contact with Standing Rock Sioux Tribe Chairman Dave Archambault II, however; according to an official request for information filed with the governor’s office approximately six weeks ago, the governor had no contact with Archambault’s office during a two-week period when tensions were heightening between the state and the tribe.

Ladonna Tamakawastewin Allard, a historian and owner of the Sacred Stone Camp lands, said the governor’s office doesn’t understand the tenacity of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe and its supporters.

“We have been here for thousands of years,” Allard said. “We understand North Dakota winter. When they first issued the order to cow the Indian people, to get back to the reservation, there was a blizzard. And the winter was hard. And the Indian said, ‘Who moves in a blizzard?’ Now we come to 2016 we’re saying the same thing, ‘Who moves in a blizzard?’

“We are not going to back down. We are not in anyone’s home, we are in our own home. Awake. We are in our own home, from the Heart River, to the Platte River, to the plateaus, to the Missouri, 1851 is the supreme law of the land.”

She believes in the rule of law, but says that it is no longer working.

“What do you do against injustice? You stand up, you stand in prayer, you stand in the best way you can. So the governor doesn’t understand prayer. The governor doesn’t understand that the real power is the people, and the real power has always been the people, not a corporation. I think we are seeing that today, where the people are saying ‘We need to change.’ We are not standing down. We are in our home. We are strong, and we have prayer. The governor has no idea what he’s facing.”

Human Devil – Tientsin at War – Part II

April 26, 2014 / CSHagen / 0 Comments

This is the second article in the “Tientsin at War” series, written to remember a mysterious Manchurian spy, presumed dead in 1947. She was officially executed as a traitor to China by the Kuomintang, but recent evidence suggests that she evaded the final bullet and lived until 1978. She was a dreamer, a warrior, a bisexual that charmed her way into the inner workings of her many enemies. Called the Human Devil by the Kuomintang, she was a hailed a heroine by the Japanese. Pour yourself a cup of coffee, sit back, and enter a world of sexual predators, espionage, murder and betrayal.

By C.S. Hagen

TIANJIN, CHINA – Some days Eastern Pearl dressed as a young soldier boy. She wrapped her small breasts with silk, cut her hair and pulled on a uniform. Other days she wore a hanbok, and became a Korean prostitute, teasing her way up her enemy’s chain of command, almost within reach of the Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek to discover Nationalist secrets.

The Japanese hailed her a hero, and named her Yoshiko Kawashima.

“Whenever a section of the Japanese Army found itself in difficulties, the rumor was spread that Yoshiko was on her way,” the Daily News

Eastern Jade wearing summertime men’s shirt, pants and tie, with riding boots – from online sources

reported on March 22, 1934. “Flagging troops fought like demons, it is said, and every time her name was invoked it meant victory.”

The Nationalists wanted a bullet between her eyes, and called her the Human Devil. According to some newspaper reports in the early 1940s, she was stabbed once by an assassin and while convalescing was visited again by Nationalist soldiers disguised as doctors who beat her nearly to death with little hammers.

Weighing no more than ninety-five pounds, lithe and fox clever, skin pale as silken tofu, twenty-three year old Eastern Pearl survived to pursue her dreams with the fleetness of a Mongolian pony. Born Aisin Gioro Xianyu (愛新覺羅顯玗), with a courtesy name of Dongzhen (東珍), or Eastern Pearl, and a traditional name of Jin Bihui (金璧辉), she was a Manchu princess and cousin to the Qing Dynasty’s last emperor Puyi. Her father fled the Qing Court in disgrace to Japan after the 1911 Xinhai Revolution, and on his deathbed when Eastern Pearl was only a child made her swear to free her Manchu homeland from Chinese bondage and see the Dragon Throne restored.

Her blood was of a prouder strain than her cousin’s, the boy emperor, a 1934 story published on Eastern Pearl in the Daily News wrote. “Sexually she was what is known as an intermediate type, an individual in whom glandular unbalance produces features, bones and build, texture of skin, hair and flesh, character and desires that are as much feminine as masculine.”

Eastern Pearl dedicated her life to the resurrection of the Manchu supremacy. From the Badlands of Shanghai, to the whorehouses of Peking to the opium dens and glitzy cabarets of Tientsin, she laughed at danger often times shifting her shape to slink behind enemy lines.

Step into Tientsin’s Underground

Tientsin (天津), known today as Tianjin, means Ford of Heaven, and is a sprawling port city southeast of Peking (Beijing), the capitol of China. The Tientsin Concessions were areas of the city sectioned off by Qing Emperor Doro Eldengge after the Chinese lost both opium wars to eight allied and foreign nations. Tientsin was also a retirement home for beaten warlords known for their chests of gold and silver.

A charming city, an interesting city, according to the Cambridge University Press, a city that washed the wealthy and fortunate ashore and into the foreign concessions. Shanghai was called a pearl, but real power – silver and gold – was buried in secret hiding places beneath the Astor Hotel.

The concessions were a haven for abdicated emperors, such as Puyi who resided in the Japanese Concession, and for ex-presidents like Xu Shichang, who enjoyed literature and gardening inside his British Concession mansion. After Republican President Cao Kun and his clique were beaten and betrayed by “Christian General” Feng Yuxiang, he came to Tientsin to lick his wounds. Few Tientsiners in the “Who’s Who in China” wanted to miss one of Cao’s birthday parties.

At the opposite end of the morality pole, Duan Qirui, once known as the most powerful man in China, lost his power through shady deals, and retired to Tientsin to build a private Buddhist temple. He was a weiqi player, and was quoted once as saying the troubles of China were demons sent down to earth and until they had all been killed the troubles would continue.

For up and comers like Eastern Pearl, and anyone else wanting to see and be seen, the “Paris” cabaret in the Japanese Concession was the hotspot during Tientsin’s roaring thirties. “Like moths to candles,” the Queenslander reported on April 16, 1936, “the wealth and fashion, the rapturous, the lost and the damned are attracted nightly to the tinsel and glitter of the “Paris” cabaret.”

Royalty and opium kings, soldiers and gunrunners, all were welcome, as long as they had silver.

Chinese, Polish and White Russian dancing girls lounged at postage stamp tables surrounding a dance floor, and were willing to romp for four shillings. Under pointed lights sparkling off lead glass decanters, the “Happy Hans” and his Russian musicians played the latest jazzy hits. The nightclub was always packed, always sizzling with intrigue.

Careful, weapons aren’t allowed, but nobody really checks.

Descending a short flight of stairs, the entryway opens up into a circular room. A piano enlivens the mood with a rendition of the Vernor Duke song “Autumn in New York.”

The nightclub hits all the senses. First the dim lighting, and as the eyes adjust the ole factories are buffeted by waves of thick smoke, the choking blues of cigarettes and sickly-sweet greens from opium. A fiery woman in a low-cut dress nudges past and heads toward the dance floor, wafting Old English Mitcham Lavendar – the “perfume that is England.”

The nose wants to follow, but the knees are suddenly weak.

Uniforms and golden epaulettes swallow the redhead, and a dozen languages, each vying for dominance in the room sound more like geese, late for their southern sojourns.

After a careful study, a White Russian hostess steps up to say the tables are taken, but there’s room at the bar. Before taking a short flight of stairs, she asks if company is needed…

In one dark corner, sandwiched between two concubines, the “Young Marshal” Zhang Xueliang, former Manchurian warlord, sips champagne. Hair neatly trimmed and slicked, Zhang’s boyish face is deceitfully innocent as he watches a well-known rebel leader dance the foxtrot with a woman in a bright pink dress. His gaze shivers the soul.

The most fashionable concubine leans into Zhang’s ear, momentarily distracting him. Jewels dangle from her neck, and as she whispers sweet nothings the second concubine pouts; her blood red lips form a perfect circle while she flicks ash from a long stem cigarette to the floor.

A picture taken of Eastern Jade while she was in Tientsin. – from online sources

Wu Yiting, the fox trotting man, may not have the Young Marshall’s armies, but he is no one to be trifled with either, and everyone in the “Paris” knows this. In Tientsin, however, it’s safer to be careful. Two bodyguards sit rigidly at a nearby table, light glinting off slender Nambu pisols, half hidden under napkins.

At the bar a scowling Japanese Gendarme, or Kempeitai, throws a sneer toward the British Consul-General Lancelot Giles. The Englishman is pale, even under the dim lighting, and pretends not to notice by listening in to a joke from an American explorer. Both are drinking Johnny Walker Red. A well-known Nazi talks up a Polish girl, too young for her line of work. Her face holds a jade sheen, sure tell sign she’s a heroin addict.

On the other side of the rounded bar, an Italian naval officer exuberantly agrees to a price from a fresh White Russian beauty in a tailored sailor’s suit. She jumps from her chair displaying legs even the Young Marshall notices, and into the Italian’s arms.

A backslidden American missionary, a group of smarmy silver smugglers and a Japanese detective take up the remaining chairs. Standing room only. Except for one last table, opposite the Young Marshall’s, where the Manchu Princess, Eastern Pearl, dances with a hostess. Like usual, she’s dressed in men’s clothes: white linen pants, riding boots, a white shirt tucked in, starched collar, loose, with a man’s tie. Her hair is short, parted slightly to the side. Step a little closer and a stocky man with one long eyebrow materializes from the shadows. Only her sideburns, hair pulled to a point across her cheeks, give her sex away, and then again… Her eight-year old son, born from her first marriage with a Mongolian prince, wants to go home.

He calls her father.

Hunter of Military Secrets

When the Qing Dynasty fell, Eastern Pearl was whisked secretly east to Japan, and brought up by Namiya Kawashima, a Japanese spy and adventurer. She was rechristened under a Japanese name, Yoshiko Kawashima, schooled in the Japanese system with an education befitting a high born lady, learning among other subjects judo and fencing.

As a child, she was aloof and quiet, rarely joining her classmates in games or friendship.

As a teenager her adopted father enjoyed raping her, and she turned to a bohemian lifestyle funded by rich lovers. She appeared to settle down for two years with a Mongolian Prince, but the marriage in actuality was her first mission, arranged by General Kenji Doihara, leader of the terrorist Black Dragon Society. She provided him with intelligence on Mongolian defenses, maps and weak points.

The first time Eastern Pearl met Doihara she was dressed as a woman. He ordered her out of his office, and asked how she got in.

“By my charms and my wits,” Eastern Pearl reportedly said. “I want to work for you.”

Doihara threw her out anyway. He had little use for a stick-thin, saucy Chinese woman.

Three days later Eastern Pearl arrived again, but as a man. According to The World’s News, Doihara came close to shooting her.

Eastern Pearl in a military uniform – from online sources

“I am the girl who was here three days ago,” Eastern Pearl said. She was dressed in a mandarin’s suit and skullcap, her hair was cut short. “And I still want to work for you.”

In Doihara, Eastern Pearl saw the one man she could yield to as a woman, The World’s News reported. To Doihara, Eastern Pearl was the one woman who could match his one hundred faces, “from sweetheart to as many sacrifices as were needed on the altar of Japan.”

“I determined to bob my hair when I was 16, and become a man,” Eastern Pearl said in The World’s News story. “My reason is the condition of China. I resolved to help China. But another reason is that I received many proposals of marriage. Some were of a kind that I could hardly with decency refuse if I remained a girl. I have not had any proposals or love-letters since I became a man.”

She led four hundred horseback soldiers in her homeland of Manchuria, never meeting defeat. When Japan’s invasion of Manchuria finished, she was hailed a heroine.

Eastern Pearl went on to Shanghai, becoming Dr. Sun Fo, Sun Yat-sen’s younger brother’s secretary.

“He was not aware of who I was,” Eastern Pearl said for a Japanese magazine interview in 1933. “And it was well for Japan he did not know. I could not reveal my mission in Shanghai.”

After gleaning information from the Nationalist Party, she hurried back to Tientsin, disguised herself as a coolie and pulled up to the back door of the boy emperor Puyi’s mansion. Although the mansion was guarded, she had lived with her cousin and the Empress Wanrong when she stayed in Tientsin, and knew the secret passageways. She found her way to her cousin’s bedside and whispered into his ear.

“I am just a rickshaw man, your Lordship, but mighty friends of yours have sent me. I have clothes that are an indignity for you to wear, but they will help you get a throne.”

Initially, Puyi resented the idea of Japanese assistance in retaking the Dragon Throne, but Eastern Pearl persisted, saying that once he had the throne and was made emperor, no one would dare to stand in his way.

Puyi relented.

She slipped him out the back door, into the rickshaw. Guards yelled and gave chase. Night prowlers tried to stop the rickshaw, but Eastern Pearl ploughed her way through.

Two days later she delivered the last emperor to the Manchurian throne.

Puyi's Tientsin mansion - photo by C.S. Hagen

Puyi’s Tientsin mansion, Eastern Jade lived here when she was in Tientsin – photo by C.S. Hagen

The back door (door is original) from which Eastern Pearl helped Puyi escape to pursue dreams of ruling Manchuria – photo by C.S. Hagen

“Pearl’s Place”

Eastern Pearl became mistress to Puyi’s advisors, married a total of three Chinese princes, each time disappearing shortly after she learned what she needed and successfully procuring their fealty to Japan.

Enemies said she was evil since seventeen.

“She has spotless skin, looks like a prostitute and has got too familiar with Japanese generals, prominent politicians and leading financiers,” Chinese newspapers said of her at the time.

Eastern Pearl wouldn’t have disagreed. She was their plaything and she was doing nothing more than fulfilling her training. She chose the life of a courtesan rather than a wife because she was influencing wills and had a purpose – the restoration of the Manchurian throne.

With her cousin on the throne, she had two ambitions left to fulfill: the real independence of Manchuria, and the conquest of China.

She failed in both.

The Japanese offered Puyi lip service only. When rich Manchurian natural resources were exploited and sent to Japan, Eastern Pearl raged. She denounced Japan, called on her lovers to keep their promises. She caused dissension in the ranks of the Japanese Kwantung and Manchurian puppet armies and reported to North China Nationalist authorities.

Aisin Gioro Puyi (left) as the puppet emperor of Manchuria (right) after incarceration in a communist prison – from online sources

Nobody trusted her any longer. The Japanese Black Dragon Society decided to assassinate her, and then changed its mind. The Nationalists reportedly made two attempts on her life and missed.

“They [Japanese] are so proud of what they did in establishing Manchuria that they regard the Manchurians as inferior people,” she is quoted as saying in an article in The News. “Even a Japanese beggar in Changchun looks down on a Manchurian beggar.”

She disappeared for a time, resurfacing in Peking as the proprietor of “Pearl’s Place,” a restaurant and meeting point for Japanese agents, their collaborators and her lovers. Her restaurant didn’t make money. She spent thousands on trinkets and opium. When she grew tired of one lover, male or female, she found another.

“A favorite method of disposing of a lover who displeased her, or failed in the carrying out of a promise, was to encourage jealousy,” The World’s News reported on September 1, 1951. “This was easy [for her] as few prominent men were strong enough to resist her beauty and fascination once she set after them.”

“She was the most remarkable woman spy the East has known,” reported The News on April 7, 1948. “A woman who was termed the Pearl of Asia, the Jeanne d’Arc of China and Japan’s Mata Hari.”

Eastern Pearl before shortly before her "execution" - not yet 40 years old

The painting of a photograph supposedly taken in 1986 of Eastern Pearl, years after her supposed execution. – from the Chinese Phoenix News Media

After more than a decade of undercover work, indiscriminate sex and opium, Eastern Pearl lost her luster. Her near forty-year-old body was racked with illness, which, according to some newspapers, was syphilis.

Ironically, it was a Chinese spy, posing as her servant, who betrayed her to Nationalist police. She was arrested after World War II on November 11, 1945 wearing a Japanese general’s uniform. Defeat and opium had dulled her mind and body. Her face, according to the Chinese press at the time, resembled the English letter V.

Eastern Jade spent her last days poorly clad, shivering and almost toothless in a prison. In Peking Central Court the “Human Devil” admitted her relationships to Japanese war criminals, but pleaded not guilty on treason against China. On October 23, 1947 Eastern Pearl was sentenced to death. Among other crimes she was accused of participating with the kidnapping of the Generalissimo, assistance with the assassination of warlord Zhang Zuolin, and as being the number one lieutenant of General Kenji Doihara. She would have been sentenced earlier if not for thronging crowds striving to catch a glimpse of her while on her way to a Peking court. When the judge read her death sentence, “she smiled with seeming unconcern,” reported The West Australian.

A black and white photograph taken after her execution was released and given to the Generalissimo, but rumors persisted that she had enticed a woman to take her place and she escaped. Only two American photographers were allowed to take Eastern Jade’s picture, who is named as Chuandao Fangzi (川岛芳子), after her Japanese name. The Chinese press was banned. The photograph is grainy, and out of focus. Not proof enough, with half her face missing, that the woman in the picture is Jin Bihui, Dongzhen – the Eastern Pearl, Yoshiko Kawashima – the Mata Hari of the East, the Human Devil.

In 2008 a Chinese artist named Zhang Yu (张钰) rocked Chinese media with an announcement that a person she had grown up with was none other than Eastern Jade, who passed away in 1978, not in 1947. She had been living in Changchun as a woman named “Granny Fang” (方姥姥). The Chinese Phoenix News Media featured the story in 2011, but said there was no concrete evidence to prove Zhang Yu’s claims. Both bodies had been cremated; DNA samples could not be investigated. Her fingerprints were not left behind on books as “Granny Fang” used tweezers to turn the pages. Among other artifacts “Granny Fang” left behind was a gold lion reportedly a gift for her former male secretary Xiaofang Balang (小方八郎), which she was unable to give. A cryptic and poetic note was found inside the statue, which had a filled-in crack at the bottom. The note is difficult to translate.

The cryptic note Eastern Jade allegedly left behind – from the Chinese Phoenix News Media

芳魂回天   Fang hun hui tian
至未归来   Zhi wei gui lai
含悲九泉   Han bei jiu quan
达今奇才   Da jin qi cai

Fang’s spirit returns to the heavens, not to return. There’s sadness from the nine springs, reach for genius only.

Investigators also found a pair of binoculars with Eastern Jade’s Japanese phonetic initials – HK – engraved into the adjustment rings inside a locked suitcase, Chinese Phoenix Media reported. According to some top police officials who performed handwriting comparisons, the evidence was enough; Granny Fang was Eastern Pearl. If true, the Human Devil would have been 71 years old at the time of her death, which then begs the question, who was the girl in the photograph? A lover? A fellow spy? A paid patsy? Or are Zhang Yu’s claims simply a desperate reach for attention, and Eastern Jade was executed when official records say she was?

“If you say she used tweezers to read books, you can’t help but suspect she was a spy,” the Chinese Phoenix Media commentator said. “Very mysterious.”

According to official sources from 1947 Eastern Pearl pleaded with authorities not to make a show of her execution. She wanted no press, and one clean shot to the back of the head. An unknown Japanese monk collected her body for cremation, sending her remains to a Japanese monastery.

The picture taken after Eastern Pearl’s execution – graphic – but its authenticity has been debated since 1947. – from online sources

“Tientsin’s List” – Tientsin at War – Part III

April 25, 2014 / CSHagen / 0 Comments

This is the third article in the “Tientsin at War” series,which uncovers evidence Gestapo agents were working undercover in Tientsin during World War II. Taken partly from “Top Secret” Office of Strategic Services records now declassified by the Central Intelligence Agency, their typewritten interrogations conjure a musty , dimly lit room inside the Tientsin Municipal Police Station. Outside, it’s night. World War II is coming to a close. An ashtray on a wooden table can’t possibly take another butt, but a Chinese police officer finds a hole while OSS agents face a known Gestapo man, five thousand miles from his Fatherland.

By C.S. Hagen

TIENTSIN, CHINA – One carelessly sealed letter through diplomatic pouch made Nazi Germany’s Consul-General Fritz Wiedemann aware the Gestapo were working in Tientsin.

Four letters betrayed the Nazi spy – “EMME.”

A picture of Wiedemann, Tientsin's former Nazi general-consul, and a Adolf Hitler in a frame - by online sources

A picture of Fritz Wiedemann, Tientsin’s former Nazi general-consul, and Adolf Hitler in a frame – online sources

“We had not the right to read these letters,” Wiedemann said in his testimony to Office of Strategic Services (OSS) agents on September 29, 1945. “But once a letter was delivered open; that’s how we got the name.” Agents were investigating in part if rumors that Werwolfs, Nazi Germany’s underground partisans sworn to kill anti-Nazis, were active in Tientsin.

Fritz Gunther Emme, born to Richard and Goyke Emme on March 13, 1913 in Danzig, was a Gestapo agent living at 202 Edinburgh Road, currently named Changde Road, which is not far from Chateau 35, a Western eatery established in 2010. Officially, Emme was an engineer working for C. Melchers & Co.

Described as a thin, gaunt-faced near sighted man with glasses, standing no taller than five feet six inches and head of Tientsin’s Gestapo, he was a private in the German Reserves before being recruited into the Gestapo. “The S.D. took me away from the Army,” Emme said during his interrogation. “I felt I had to do it. Just another patriotic duty.”

Despite being newly married to Elvira Wormsbecher, a woman he met in Tientsin, Emme had no identification of any kind after he was captured in Tientsin, according to the OSS secret report, now declassified. His front was as an engineer working at Melchers & Co., Number 16 Bruce Road, but he was an agent of the S.D., an affiliated sister organization of the dreaded Gestapo. Emme reported to Gestapo man Charles Schmidt in Peking (Beijing), who reported to Colonel Josef Meisinger, the “Butcher of Warsaw” in Shanghai, according to Wiedemann.

Inside the Tientsin Municipal Police Station, a nervous Emme tripped on his answers saying he was simply excited, many times refusing to answer questions fired fast as a MG 34 machine gun. He was confronted with a list of names and checkmarks in his own imitation leather notebook. Agents feared it was a blacklist.

The list of names is not short. “Will you explain these entries?” Captain Coulson of the OSS pointed to page number ten.

“These are acquaintances of mine. Mr. M. Stahmer. These are check marks for Christmas cards.”

“When did you send that card, last year?”

“No, must have been the first Christmas I was out here in 1941.”

“Why did you preserve this book – a record of Christmas cards sent in 1941?”

“I forgot about it,” Emme said.

“You tore out many pages. The entries in it are all in your writing. Did you tear these pages out?”

“Yes I did. It was used in the office as the book was not used any more after 1940 or 1941.”

“But you have preserved these pages. These names are of people you did not send cards to?”

No direct answer, and then the captain squeezes the trigger again.

“You entered these names here. For what purpose? Did you put these names in the book?”

“I put my acquaintances in the book to remember so that they would not be offended.”

“How does it happen that the check marks against the names are in ink and these names are in pencil?”

“I don’t know.”

Glass√

E. Wolf√

J. Mueller√

Rosochatsky√

Kirshbaum√

“Why did you not send him a Christmas card?”

No answer.

Fritz Selieneyer√

Dr. Richard Brieuer√

Wener Koelin√

Steneck √

Podgoretney√

Captain Coulson made a note to show Podgoretney had died in Shanghai, then showed Emme a business card for Dr. Bongarten found inside the notebook.

“Did he know you were a Gestapo man?” the captain said.

“No.”

Caught. The captain turned pages.

“I show you the entries made upside down on page 73, will you explain?”

“These are weather entries of barometer readings.”

“When did you begin making these weather reports?”

“I got the barometer as a present and I started making them on June 16, 1945.” The captain purposefully relaxed, asking Emme about hobbies, and then fired again.

“Did you ever own a radio sending or receiving set?”

“No, have no knowledge of radio.”

“Do you remember this? You went to S.D. school to study radio for three months, and you learned how to make radios.”

“Studied code sending and receiving; I don’t remember any more of these signs.”

“Are you an experienced radio man or not?”

“I am not.”

You did study it for three months.”

“Yes, sending and receiving.”

Emme is caught in another blatant lie when asked about hidden property and jewelry, much of which, he said, belonged to his wife, which he pawned for money.

“Have you made any effort to conceal your property?”

“No.”

The captain waved a receipt for personal property stored at the residence of Mr. L. Julian, in Tientsin. “You know what this is?”

“No.”

“I will ask you again. Did you deposit any of your property with friends for safe-keeping?”

“Yes, I have.”

“This receipt. Mr. L. Julian. Where does he live?”

“I don’t know – he works in our company.”

“Have you left other property with other people?”

“Yes, Mr. Chi.”

“What is his first name and where does he live?”

“He has his office on the corner of Bristow Road and Rue Du Chaylard.”

“What did you leave with him?”

“I left one case of cutlery, a case of books, all together four cases.”

“Where has your wife left her jewels?”

“She has them with her.”

Emme was caught in deeper lies saying he never reported to the Abwehr Group, another Nazi intelligence-gathering agency that dealt exclusively

A house formerly owned by a Nazi general in Hexi District, in the old German Concession area – photo by C.S. Hagen

with human intelligence, and then conveniently remembered he had filed a report about Japanese forces in Qingdao, a Shandong Province coastal city and former German Settlement.

Nothing else is known about Emme’s imprisonment or release, but when Germany surrendered Wiedemann quickly called OSS agents and negotiated his own surrender. He didn’t want to be captured by the quickly encroaching Soviets to the north and feared retribution from vengeful Werwolfs.

“There were some Germans who were really anti-Nazi in China,” Wiedemann said, “but I don’t know if Meisinger really gathered information about these people. Once I was told that one of these businessmen in Tientsin is accused to be anti-Nazi and acting against the interests of the Reich and regime and said … [there were] files about this businessman.”

Tientsin’s Nazi Past

According to a 1946 U.S. War Department document entitled “German Intelligence Activities in China During World War II” declassified by the CIA in 2001, many of China’s German businessmen were considered a threat to US interests because they had entrenched themselves deeply into both Chinese society and business venues.

Before the First World War Germany had a lease for a concession area in the southwest section of Tientsin for ninety-nine years. The area was taken over by the Japanese in 1917. Despite the lack of an official concession, Germany continued trade and furthered political and business interests within the country and by the start of World War II the Nazi party had branches in Shanghai, Peking, Tientsin, Hankow, Tsingtao, Canton, Tsinan, Chefoo, Foochow and Kunming, (respectively Shanghai, Beijing, Tianjin, Hankou, Qingdao, Guangzhou, Jinan, Yantai, Fuzhou and Kunming). The branches were small, and out of 4,300 Germans in China at the time, the Nazi Party boasted 575 members.

Hitler Youth and League of German Girls in Tientsin – online sources

Tientsin had ninety-eight registered Nazis of the total 700 German residents, costing the Fatherland 45,000 Deutschmarks a month (an actual 25,000 in real expenses), Wiedemann said. Funds were transferred through companies, sometimes directly from the German-Asiatic Bank (Deutsche-Asiatische Bank) until the end of the war, which included subsidies for the German Deutscher Zeitung newspaper for North China. Tientsin’s most popular Nazi publication was the Twentieth Century magazine, known as the “slickest piece of propaganda disseminated by any government.” Another newspaper in Tientsin was the Deutsh-Chinesische Nachrichten, run by Waldemar Bartels, who died in a Japanese Prison, charged with activities defying Berlin and Tokyo. Tientsin also had access to radio station XGRS, which was operated on direct orders from Berlin’s Propaganda Ministry.

Other German companies in Tientsin at the time included the Defag on Victoria Road, another front for Nazi activists, and Siemens on Taku Road. There was also the German School on Yunnan Road, which was founded by German businesses, but was later taken over by Nazi Germany in the 1930s. Germans built a park at Woodrow Wilson and Soochow roads, and a German-American Hospital between Ningpo and Tanchu roads. The German Lutheran Church with its picturesque cemetery – now gone – was located on Shensi Road. The German Concordia Club, still standing today, was a popular meeting place for Germans before and during World War II. The main library was British, called Tientsin’s British Municipal Library, and local Chinese were not allowed entry.

Tientsin’s German companies Melchers, Defag, Kunst & Albers, the Deutsche-Asiatische Bank , among others, are on file with the “Records Pertaining to Axis Relation and Interests in the Far East” stored at The National Archives in Washington D.C.

Melchers, the company Emme and other Nazis used as a front, was a trading company established in Tientsin in 1898. After both the first and second world wars the company was liquidated, according to a company booklet commemorating Melchers 175 operational years in 1981. The U.S. War Department reported the most important feature during the war years for Melchers and Defag in China, and Illies & Co. in Japan was transferring funds and financing various Nazi intelligence groups. Although Japan and Germany were allies, trade suffered immeasurably.

After World War II German companies liquidated, according to the U.S. War Department. Proceeds from the sales of businesses, houses and properties were distributed to German citizens as payroll. Swiss francs or US dollars were purchased through collaborationist friends known as “straw men,” which then went to purchasing gold bars, later hidden in cellars and backyards. According to the Melchers’ booklet, Carl Gerhard Melchers, fifth generation of the family involved in company management at Tientsin, tried to continue the business but left China in 1951. Melchers reentered the China market through Hong Kong, Tokyo, Singapore and Kuala Lumpur and had a liaison office in Peking (Beijing) at the time the booklet was published.

Newspapers and foreigners’ accounts who lived in Tientsin during the 1930s and early 1940s report Tientsin’s different nationalities mingled, sometimes bickered at local nightclubs and cabarets. Excluding White Russian and Japanese funded gangs and hit squads roaming the concessions, racial or political violence was rare, but occurred on occasion. On September 6, 1939 a German fired upon a patrol in the British Concession, according to the Kalgoorlie Miner newspaper. There were no casualties, but a group of local members of the British Defense Force stormed a German Tennis Club and arrested the shooter. Each concession lived by its own sets of laws and customs, rarely venturing past the safety of its own barricades, and were impervious to Chinese law.

Isabelle Maynard in her book Growing Up Jewish in Tientsin says that as a child she remembers Hitler Youth marching down Victoria Road, swinging swastikas and singing “Horst Wessel” at the top of their lungs. “Englanders” fought back with patriotic songs of their own. Once, written on the Tientsin Jewish School’s wall, someone scrawled the word Djid, meaning dirty jew, which instantly electrified the high school boys into a search for the culprit.

Anti-semitic activity in conjunction with Hitler’s Final Solution was not high on the Nazis’ and German consul-general’s to do list.

The Kiessling’s Cafe – established in 1906 as a bakery. Herr Kiessling set up another restaurant in the German Concession called Kiessling and Bader’s Cafe. The restaurant was staffed by White Russian girls and Chinese waiters and was considered a “guide to European Tientsin and a source of great pleasure to its inhabitants.” In the 1990s government-operated copies were attempted in Tientsin, all of which failed. The first floor is now a KFC, leaving only the upper floors as a bar and restaurant. – photo by C.S. Hagen

As a high-ranking representative of Nazi Germany’s government, Wiedemann, who lived at Number 1 Detring Court, spent most his mornings at the Kiessling’s Café, talking to friends, employees, agents and contacts. Although Wiedemann had been “banished” to Tientsin, he immediately accepted the posting when it was offered. He wanted to remove himself as far from Nazi Germany as he could.

“As I greeted my subordinates in my office in Tientsin I told them I didn’t come out to Tientsin to work,” Wiedemann laughingly told OSS agents. He laughed frequently during the interrogation. “It was the same for me as in the old Roman Empire – send somebody across the Mediterranean – away from the capitol.”

Wiedemann’s duties as the consul-general were to give lessons, called Zellenabende, once a month to Tientsin’s German residents, hold celebrations on Hitler’s birthday and holidays, donate clothes and food for the poor, give speeches, pass faulty information to Japanese through Chinese employees and relay information. He did not admit to being a spy, and said his interests in Tientsin were mostly of a commercial nature. Wiedemann also attended and maintained the “German-Italian-Japanese Friendship Organization” which was an obligatory social gathering where plays and concerts were performed in the name of mutual friendship.

Despite the Tripartite alliance between Germany, Italy and Japan, nothing in Tientsin was easy, Wiedemann said. Communication was the most difficult aspect of his duties as the Japanese military authorities would not allow any direct transmissions to Berlin. He was aware of messages being coded with secret ink or photographed as microdots, then sent through drop boxes or by slow courier or with Italian assistance by radio, but he said he had nothing to do with espionage.

Nobody trusted anybody, he said. The alliance was a superficial one in Tientsin, at best. Despite the existence of Hitler Youth, few Germans, if any, actively followed Nazi protocol or attempted to stem the growing flow of Jewish refugees in the city. Mostly, German nationals were concerned with lining their pockets, like any other businessman or woman.

In a 2003 story made public by the OSS Society, Inc., Grant “Barney” Fielden says the Federal Bureau of

The German Concordia Club – online sources

Investigation expressed great interest in debriefing Wiedemann. When the OSS plane was landing in Tientsin,

Japanese soldiers surrounded the plane with their swords drawn, they were surprisingly allowed to land and take Wiedemann into custody. He was flown to Kunming for debriefing.

“You had to like the guy,” Fielden wrote. “Remember, he was a Nazi official for years, but he was ever the diplomat: suave, black homburg, very sophisticated.”

According to interrogation records from the Office of US Chief of Counsel for the Persecution of Axis Criminality, Wiedemann was in Hitler’s “Inner Circle,” but Allied negative opinions of Wiedemann lessened after the Swiss Consul in Tientsin spoke up for his anti-Nazi attitude. While in Tientsin, Wiedemann’s speeches were mostly against Hitler, which nearly cost him his job, and he feared for his life.

The German Concession formerly on Wilhelmstrasse Avenue – then Woodrow Wilson now Jiefang Road – online sources

“In Tientsin my views were well known before very long,” Wiedemann said in the report. “I was opposed to Hitler’s policies. I was opposed to the war.

“[I was] put into the doghouse.”

Wiedemann was a royalist. He believed in the power of the monarchy and saw Nazism and Bolshevism as “two sides to the same coin.” As a socialite and opportunistic spy, he enjoyed his women, his schnapps, his thick German beer, Kiessling Cafe’s fresh bread and Wiener Schnitzels and decided the Nazi ship would sink long before Victory in Europe Day. He contacted the OSS not only because the Soviet invasion was looming, but also because he feared retribution from the Werwolf Underground.

From men like Emme.

When asked about other potential Werwolf Underground members Wiedemann listed Peter Meinss of Tientsin as the most fanatical; Charles Schmidt of Peking; Major Huber of Shanghai; Franz Marks, chancellor of the Tientsin Consulate who according to OSS records was the most fanatical long term Tientsin Nazi, and lastly Ulbrecht, Hitler Youth leader in Tientsin. Such men, Wiedemann thought, disguised themselves as businessmen and were financed through banks such as the German-Asiatic Bank. Through secret letters sent directly from Colonel Meisinger, they were capable of partisan work such as spreading leaflets and making threats, after Nazi Germany’s surrender.

No matter how the Gestapo might have denied their careful scrutiny of its citizens at home and abroad, every spy had a card index file with photos of residents under police surveillance, and kept a blacklist of all German undesirables, Wiedemann said.

The OSS records do not confirm, nor do they deny the “Tientsin List” was either a candid Christmas card notes or a lethal hit list. The truth will never be revealed, but it was proof enough for Wiedemann, an opportunistic former adjutant of Hitler’s, the consul-general of Tientsin, to surrender to American agents.

After World War II he testified at the Nuremberg Trials, and spent twenty-eight months in prison before returning to the farming life in Upper Bavaria. He died January 17, 1970. In 2012 news agencies around the world reported Wiedemann helped save Ernst Hess, Hitler’s commandant of the List Regiment during World War I. Although Hess, a decorated war hero, survived the Holocaust, the Jewish Voice from Germany and other news sources report Hess was sent to a labor camp in Munich where he suffered terribly.