Leon G. Turrou

Leon George Turrou (September 14, 1895 - December 10, 1986) was an FBI Special Agent who was tasked with leading an investigation that located and interrogated Nazi German spies within the United States. He also became the author of a popular book at its time called Nazi Spies in America.^[1] His writings were adapted into the film, Confessions of a Nazi Spy.

Early life

Leon G. Turrou was born on September 14, 1895 in a city called Kobryn, located on the southwest region of Belarus.^[2] He became an orphan at a very young age with his father passing away about six months before his birth, and his mother not long after his birth. He was later adopted by a wealthy tradesman and spent a majority of his youth travelling around the world. At the age of eighteen, he moved to the United States where he found a job working as a translator for the New York Times due to his multi-linguistic skills.

In 1928, after going through a list of occupations, he was eventually hired by the Federal Bureau of Investigation headed by J. Edgar Hoover at the time.^[1] It was through this appointment that he became an FBI Special Agent responsible for locating and arresting Nazi German spies in America.

Career

After working with the Federal Bureau of Investigation for about 10 years, Leon G. Turrou led the investigation into a Nazi spy ring operation in 1938. Although three Nazi spies were convicted and imprisoned and Turrou became famous, he deeply disappointed the F.B.I. for leaking information about the case to the New York press and writing a series of articles about the case for a newspaper.^[3] During his interrogation of the spies he told them they'd have to testify before a grand jury, which led to many of them fleeing the country, so that four times as many spies escaped as were captured. The F.B.I. today considers him to have bungled the case. Turrou was fired from the F.B.I. in June 1938. During the trial itself, which took place in October 1938, his testimony was impeached by the defence using the accusations of seeking to make money and fame from the case, as well as allegations of witness tampering and even taking a bribe from Dr. Greibl. The allegations did not stand up, but the F.B.I. thought Turrou had made the organization look amateurish, unable to defend the nation against espionage.

During his investigation, Turrou used polygraph tests to interview his suspects, perhaps the first of its use by the FBI in an espionage investigation.^[4] The subjects of his investigation were Martin Schade, Captain William Drechsel, Karl Friedrich Wilhelm Herrmann, John Baptiste Unkel, Kate Moog and Dr. Ignatz T. Griebl. Turrou's newspaper articles were used as the basis of the film, Confessions of a Nazi Spy.^[5]

References