Erich Gimpel

The 100-year-old Gimpel died in São Paulo, Brazil on 3 September 2010.

Following the terrorist attacks on the United States in September 2001, several books about Nazi spies in America were published, and his book finally appeared in the U.S. under the title Agent 146 (2003).

Gimpel was the last person to be tried before a U.S. military tribunal in the Second World War. His autobiographical account of his undercover work, Spy For Germany, was first published in English in 1957, in Great Britain.

Erich Gimpel's career as a spy was dramatized in the 1956 film Spy for Germany (German title: Spion für Deutschland). The actor Martin Held played the leading role.

Gimpel was sent to Alcatraz, where he played chess with Machine Gun Kelly. Gimpel was paroled in 1955, after serving 10 years in prison (Colepaugh would be paroled in 1960) and returned home to West Germany. Gimpel would later make his home in South America.

After Gimpel's capture, the spies were handed over to U.S. military authorities on the instructions of the Attorney General. In February 1945, they stood trial before a Military commission, accused of conspiracy and violating the 82nd Article of War. They were found guilty and sentenced to be hanged. An execution date was set for 15 April 1945. However, three days before their scheduled executions, President Franklin D. Roosevelt unexpectedly died. Due to a custom to not hold any executions during a period of state mourning, the executions were delayed. After the war ended, the sentences of both Gimpel and Colepaugh sentence was commuted to life imprisonment.

Gimpel and Colepaugh were transported from Kiel to the U.S. by the German submarine U-1230, landing at Frenchman Bay in the Gulf of Maine on 29 November 1944. Their mission was to gather technical information on the Allied war effort and transmit it back to Germany using an 80 watt radio transmitter Gimpel was expected to build.

Gimpel had been a radio operator for mining companies in Peru in the 1930s. When World War II began, he became a secret agent, reporting the movement of enemy ships to Germany. When the United States entered the war in December 1941, Gimpel was deported back to Germany. He then served as an agent in Spain.

Erich Gimpel (25 March 1910 in Merseburg – 3 September 2010 in São Paulo) was a German spy during World War II. Together with William Colepaugh, he took part in Operation Elster ("Magpie") an espionage mission to the United States in 1944, but was subsequently captured by the FBI in New York City.