In January, 1915, von Rintelen, then a director of the Deutsche Bank, and the National Bank für Deutschland, and a man of corresponding wealth, was commissioned to go to America, to buy cotton, rubber and copper, and to prevent the Allies from receiving munitions. So he went to America. And from his arrival in New York until his departure from that port, he threw sand in the smooth-running machinery of the organized German spy system.
He eluded the vigilance of the Allies by using a false passport. His sister Emily had married a Swiss named Gasche. Erasing the "y" on her passport he journeyed in safety to England as "Emil V. Gasche," a harmless Swiss, who observed a great deal about England's method of receiving munitions. Then he evaporated to Norway. His arrival in the United States was forecast by a wireless message which he addressed from his ship on April 3, 1915, asking an American friend of his to meet him at the pier. The American owned a factory in Cambrai, France, which had been closed by the German invasion on August 29, 1914. The American had hastened to Berlin in late 1914 and asked his friend Rintelen to see that the plant be opened. Rintelen had succeeded, and was come now to break the good news, knowing perfectly well that the American would be under deep obligation and would secure any introductions for him which he might need. When the ship docked, the friend was not there, for some casual reason. But Rintelen, always suspicious, hired a detective, who spent a week investigating; then the friend was discovered, and became Rintelen's grateful assistant.
So it happened that "Emil V. Gasche," the harmless Swiss, dropped out of sight for the time being, and von Rintelen assumed the parts of "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde." "Dr. Jekyll" visited the Yacht Club and called upon wealthy friends, proving a more charming, more delightful von Rintelen than ever. He met influential business men who were selling supplies to the Allies. He was presented to society matrons and débutantes whom he had use for. To these he was Herr von Rintelen, in America on an important financial mission. "Mr. Hyde" sought information from von Bernstorff, Dr. Albert, von Papen, Boy-Ed, Captain Tauscher and George Sylvester Viereck about the production of war supplies. Astounded by what he learned from them and had corroborated from other sources, he began to realize how utterly he had misjudged America's potential resources and what a blunder he had made in his predictions to the General War Staff. He saw with a chilling vividness the capacity of America to hand war materials to the Allies, and her rapidly increasing facilities to turn out greater quantities of ammunition and bullets. The facts he obtained struck him with especial force because of his knowledge of the greater strategy. It is upon a basis of the supplies of munitions in the Allied countries, particularly Russia, as von Rintelen knew them, that his acts are best judged and upon this basis only can sane motives be assigned to the rash projects which he launched.
