On this day, Aug. 8, in 1942, six convicted Nazi saboteurs who’d landed in the U.S. were executed in the District during World War II.
In May 1942, two teams of spies landed on the shores of Long Island, N.Y., and Florida, and split up to destroy key war facilities in the United States.
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But one of the Germans, George Dasch, 39, who had previously lived in the United States, decided to expose the plot. Dasch went to FBI headquarters in D.C., and asked to meet with J. Edgar Hoover.
Within eight days, the remaining seven saboteurs were rounded up.
After a military trial, six were sentenced to death, and electrocuted at the D.C. jail.
Dasch and another spy were spared. Their sentences were commuted by President Harry Truman in 1948 and both men were deported to occupied Germany.
— Scott McCabe
