Fritz Joubert Du Quesne
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Frederick “Fritz” Joubert Du Quesne (sometimes spelt Duquesne pronounced in English as “Doo-Cain’’) (born Cape Colony 21 September 1877, died New York City 24 May 1956) was a South African Boer soldier, prisoner of war, big game hunter, journalist, war correspondent, Anglophobe, stockbroker, saboteur, spy, and adventurer whose hatred for the British caused him to volunteer to spy for Germany during both World Wars. He is also known as "The man who killed Kitchener" since he claimed to have sabotaged and sunk the HMS Hampshire, on which Lord Kitchener was en route to Russia in 1916.
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[edit] Early life
Fritz Joubert Du Quesne was born in the Cape Colony in 1877 and later moved to Nylstroom in the ZAR where his parents started a farm. When he was 17 years old, he left for University in London, and then attended the Royal Military Academy in Brussels.
[edit] Second Anglo-Boer War
When war broke out in South Africa in 1899 Du Quesne returned to South Africa to join the Boer commandos. He was wounded at Ladysmith and received the rank of captain in the artillery. Du Quesne was captured by the British at Colenso but managed to escape in Durban. He joined the Boers again for the battle of Bergendal but the Boers had to fall back to Mozambique where they were captured by the Portuguese and sent to an internment camp in Caldas da Rainha, near Lisbon.
At this camp he charmed the daughter of one of the guards, who helped him escape to Paris. From here he made his way to Aldershot in England where he joined the British army and got posted to South Africa in 1901, with an officers rank.
[edit] Hatred for Kitchener and Britain
While he was in the British army, they passed through his parent’s farm in Nylstroom which he found destroyed under Kitchener’s scorched earth policy. He also learnt that his sister was murdered and his mother was dying in a British concentration camp.
Du Quesne was horrified and outraged, and made it his life’s work to take revenge on Kitchener and the British.
He returned to Cape Town with plans to sabotage strategic British installations. He recruited 20 men, but was betrayed by the wife of one of them. He was put on trial but managed to escape the death penalty by volunteering to give (phony) Boer codes to the British.
[edit] Escape from Bermuda
Du Quesne thus got a lighter sentence and was sent to Bermuda as a prisoner of war. He managed to escape again, and swam to Hamilton. Here he was helped by one or more women, who put him in touch with German sailors who helped him escape from St. George's.
[edit] Frederick Russell Burnham
For many years, starting in the Second Boer War, Du Quesne had wanted kill the highly decorated American, Chief of Scouts for the British Army, Frederick Russell Burnham. After returning to America, Burnham remained active in counter-espionage for Britain and much of it involved Du Quesne. Neither succeeded in gaining the upper-hand, but many years later in a letter to Burnham, Du Quesne wrote:
"To my friendly enemy, Major Frederick Russell Burnham, the greatest scout of the world, whose eyes were that of an Empire. I once craved the honour of killing him, but failing that, I extend my heartiest admiration. One warrior to another, Fritz Joubert Duquesne, 1933"
[edit] Career in the USA
Having escaped from Bermuda, Du Quesne landed in New York City, where he found employment as a journalist for the New York Herald. He became known as a travelling correspondent, big game hunter and storyteller whilst in New York. The war ended with the Boers having lost, and with his family dead, Du Quesne never returned to South Africa. He became a naturalized American citizen in December 1913.
He was sent to Port Arthur to report on the Russo-Japanese War, as well as Morocco to report on the Riff Rebellion. By 1910, he became Theodore Roosevelt's personal shooting instructor and accompanied him on a hunting expedition. Later, he showed up in Australia, calling himself "Captain Claude Stoughton" of the Western Australian Light Horse regiment, giving lectures on the Great War.
[edit] First World War Activities
Having met a German-American industrialist in the Midwest around 1914, he was sent to Brasil as "Frederick Fredericks", under the guise of “doing scientific research on rubber plants”, but planted time bombs, disguised as cases of mineral samples, on British ships that disappeared at sea. Among these were the "Salvador", the "Pembrokeshire" and the "Tennyson", and one of his bombs started a fire on the "Vauban".
In 1916 he placed an article in a newspaper, reporting on his own death in Bolivia, at the hands of Amazonian natives. He claimed to have assumed the identity of Russian Duke Boris Zakrevsky (who was supposed to accompany Kitchener to Scotland and then to Russia) and travels to Holland to join Kitchener in Scotland. Du Quesne is supposed to have given a signal to German U Boats when Kitchener’s ship would be approaching.
Du Quesne claimed he escaped from the torpedoed and sinking "Hampshire" on a raft and received an Iron Cross for his deeds. He returned to America.
In December 1917 Du Quesne was arrested in New York on charges of fraud for insurance claims on “mineral samples that were lost” with the ships he sank off the coast of Brasil. By this time the British authorities were also looking at Du Quesne as the agent responsible for “murder on the high seas, arson, faking Admiralty documents and conspiring against the Crown”. American authorities agreed that they would extradite Du Quesne to Britain, if the British sent him back afterwards to serve his sentence for fraud.
[edit] Activities 1919 to 1939
In May 1919 while awaiting extradition, Du Quesne pretended to be paralysed and is sent to the Bellevue Hospital, from where he escaped, disguising himself as a woman.
About a year later he appeared in Boston, using the pseudonym “retired British Major Frederick Craven”. He is known to have used several more names, among them “Colonel Beza”, “Piet Niacud” as well as “Captain Fritz du Quesne” (his real name and rank).
Of this period in his life, little is known, only that he worked as a freelance journalist and an agent for Joseph P. Kennedy's film production company. It is also during this time that he worked with Clement Wood to write his “biography” known as "The Man who Killed Kitchener" with rights sold to a film production company.
In 1932 Du Quesne was betrayed by a woman who revealed his true identity to the FBI who arrested him. British authorities again requested he be extradited, but he fought this charge in court. The judge ruled that even though the charges had merit, the statute of limitations had expired.
[edit] Second World War Activities
in 1941 Du Quesne was arrested again by the FBI with two associates, on charges of relaying secret information on Allied weaponry and shipping movements to Germany.
During his trial, Du Quesne claimed that his actions were aimed at Britain as revenge for the crimes done to his people and his country during the Second Anglo-Boer War in South Africa.
This time, the 64 year old Fritz Joubert Du Quesne didn’t escape and was sentenced to 18 years in prison. He also received a 2-year concurrent sentence and payment of a $2,000 fine for violation of the Registration Act. He served his sentence in Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary in Kansas where he was mistreated and beaten by inmates. In 1954 he was released due to ill health, having served 14 years, and died indigent, at City Hospital on Welfare Island (now Roosevelt Island) on 24 May 1956 at the age of 78 years.
[edit] The Legend
It is not known which parts of his life were fiction and which were fact, since Du Quesne was a charismatic master of self-promotion as well as a famous storyteller, but different sources throughout the world mention him, albeit in different guises. It is known that he was handsome, charming, intelligent and fluent in several languages (Afrikaans and Dutch), English, French, German and maybe Spanish or Portuguese).
His charm was well-known with women, but he even made an impression on men. An Afrikaans pastor, A.J. van Blerk, who was interned with Du Quesne on Bermuda, described him as "a handsome man, well developed, with bright blue eyes and beautiful black hair that hung down to his shoulders" in his book "Op die Bermudas beland" (“On the Bermudas landed”).
On a “Wanted” poster Du Quesne is described as such (facts regarding his height, weight, complexion and eye colour are erroneous):
- "Frederick Joubert Duquesne alias Captain Claude Stoughton, Frederick Fredericks, Piet Niacud, Fritz Duquesne, Fordham.
- Description – age 40 years, height 5’ 7’’, weight 155 pounds, dark brown hair, brown eyes, dark complexion.
- Duquesne is of roving disposition. He is a writer of stories, an orator and a newspaper reporter and may apply for position as such. Is a good talker. Speaks Dutch, German, French and Spanish fluently.
- On May 25, 1919, while confined in Prison Ward at Bellevue Hospital, New York City, awaiting extradition by the British Government on a charge of “murder on the high seas”, he escaped by cutting the bars of his cell. "This man is partly paralyzed in the right leg and always carries a cane. May apply for treatment at a hospital or private physician. He also has a skin disease which is a form of eczema. If located, arrest, hold and wire, Detective Division, Police Headquarters, New York City, and an officer will be sent for him with necessary papers. Richard E. Enright, Police Commissioner."
The life of Fritz Joubert Du Quesne was the subject of a 1999 documentary film by South African filmmaker Francois Verster that won six Stone Awards.
The 1945 film "The House on 92nd Street" was also a thinly disguised version of the "Duquesne Spy Ring saga" of 1941, but differs from historical fact. It won screenwriter Charles G. Booth an Academy Award for the best original motion picture story
[edit] Books about Du Quesne's life
- The man who killed Kitchener; the life of Fritz Joubert Duquesne, 1879- by Clement Wood. New York, W. Faro, inc., 1932.
- Sabotage! The Secret War Against America by Michael Sayers & Albert E. Kahn. Harper & Brothers Publishers, 1942
- Taking Changes by Frederick Russell Burnham. Chapter 2 is about Duquesne. Haynes Corp, 1944.
- Counterfeit Hero: Fritz Duquesne, Adventurer and Spy by Art Ronnie. Naval Institute Press, 1995 ISBN 1-55750-733-3
