Saboteur

“ Where destruction is involved, the weapons of the citizen-saboteur are salt, nails, candles, pebbles, thread, or any other materials he might normally be expected to possess as a householder or as a worker in his particular occupation. His arsenal is the kitchen shelf, the trash pile, his own usual kit of tools and supplies. The targets of his sabotage are usually objects to which he has normal and inconspicuous access in everyday life. ”

“ Bad news travels fast, and simple sabotage will be discouraged if too many simple saboteurs are arrested.
(b) It should not be difficult to prepare leaflets and other media for the saboteur about the choice of weapons, time, and targets which will insure the saboteur against detection and retaliation. Among such suggestions might be the following:
(1) Use materials which appear to be innocent. A knife or a nail file can be carried normally on your person; either is a multi-purpose instrument for creating damage. ”

“ The saboteur should never attack targets beyond his capacity or the capacity of his instruments. An inexperienced person should not, for example, attempt to use explosives, but should confine himself to the use of matches or other familiar weapons.
(d) The saboteur should try to damage only objects and materials known to be in use by the enemy or to be destined for early use by the enemy. It will be safe for him to assume that almost any product of heavy industry is destined for enemy use, and that the most efficient fuels and lubricants also are destined for enemy use. ”

“ Since the effect of his own acts is limited, the saboteur may become discouraged unless he feels that he is a member of a large, though unseen, group of saboteurs operating against the enemy or the government of his own country and elsewhere. ”

“ It should be pointed out to the saboteur where the circumstances are suitable, that he is acting in self-defense against the enemy, or retaliating against the enemy for other acts of destruction. A reasonable amount of humor in the presentation of suggestions for simple sabotage will relax tensions of fear. ”

“ Another man may be trained to counter him. The training of the second man is essentially a study of how the first man’s mind works. Then it can be guessed what this saboteur will think and do. But such a trained security man will often be badly handicapped if he comes upon the sabotage methods of a second man—an entirely different saboteur who thinks in a new fashion. The security man may be hampered in dealing with the second man’s sabotage just because he knows too much about the thinking of the first.
Joe went off and scowled at a wall, while the young lieutenant waited hopefully nearby. ”

“ With double guards around the hangar area and even tighter security restrictions than before, the unknown saboteur was unable to attack the precious ship again. But he struck elsewhere. The single track monorail that Barret had run into the area was blocked by an explosion in the mouth of the tunnel. Nearly a thousand tons of rock and earth had fallen on the hangar side, blocking delivery of vital equipment. ”

“ If you commit sabotage on your job, you should naturally stay at your work.
4. TOOLS, TARGETS, AND TIMING
The citizen-saboteur cannot be closely controlled. Nor is it reasonable to expect that simple sabotage can be precisely concentrated on specific types of target according to the requirements of a concrete military situation. Attempts to control simple sabotage according to developing military factors, moreover, might provide the enemy with intelligence of more or less value in anticipating the date and area of notably intensified or notably slackened military activity. ”

“ This does not mean parachutists or saboteurs, but actual members of the German Air Force, and the sabotage service is mentioned at the end.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: The sabotage service must be people who are going to do sabotage if they are going to be of any use, must they not? They do sabotage, don’t they?
KEITEL: Undoubtedly; but not by means of airborne troops and parachutists, but through saboteurs in the frontier areas who offer their services for this kind of work. Yes, that is what they are thinking of. We had many such people in the Sudeten region. ”

“ A loud report sounded over the water.
“The bridge!” gasped Louise. “It’s been dynamited!”
“No, no!” exclaimed the Commodore impatiently. “That was gunfire! The Coast Guard boat has gone into action!”
[202]
A moment later those aboard the Eloise saw a flash of fire and heard another loud report.
“You may rest easy now,” said the Commodore, relaxing. “With the Coast Guard on the job, that saboteur hasn’t a chance. If he escapes with his life he’ll be lucky.”
Penny sagged weakly against the railing of the Eloise. ”

“ Sabotage varies from highly technical coup de main acts that require detailed planning and the use of specially-trained operatives, to innumerable simple acts which the ordinary individual citizen-saboteur can perform. This paper is primarily concerned with the latter type. Simple sabotage does not require specially prepared tools or equipment; it is executed by an ordinary citizen who may or may not act individually and without the necessity for active connection with an organized group ”

“ MOTIVATING THE SABOTEUR
To incite the citizen to the active practice of simple sabotage and to keep him practicing that sabotage over sustained periods is a special problem.
Simple sabotage is often an act which the citizen performs according to his own initiative and inclination. Acts of destruction do not bring him any personal gain and may be completely foreign to his habitually conservationist attitude toward materials and tools. Purposeful stupidity is contrary to human nature. ”

“ Once he is encouraged to think backwards about himself and the objects of his everyday life, the saboteur will see many opportunities in his immediate environment which cannot possibly be seen from a distance. A state of mind should be encouraged that anything can be sabotaged. ”

“ These include telephone, telegraph and power systems, radio, newspapers, placards, and public notices.
(3) Critical materials, valuable in themselves or necessary to the efficient functioning of transportation and communication, also should become targets for the citizen-saboteur. These may include oil, gasoline, tires, food, and water.
5. SPECIFIC SUGGESTIONS FOR SIMPLE SABOTAGE
It will not be possible to evaluate the desirability of simple sabotage in an area without having in mind rather specifically what individual acts and results are embraced by the definition of simple sabotage. ”

“ Acts of simple sabotage are occurring throughout Europe. An effort should be made to add to their efficiency, lessen their detectability, and increase their number. Acts of simple sabotage, multiplied by thousands of citizen-saboteurs, can be an effective weapon against the enemy. Slashing tires, draining fuel tanks, starting fires, starting arguments, acting stupidly, short-circuiting electric systems, abrading machine parts will waste materials, man-power, and time. Occurring on a wide scale, simple sabotage will be a constant and tangible drag on the war effort of the enemy. ”

“ All troops committed outside the combat area of Normandy are to be informed about the duty to destroy enemy terror and sabotage units briefly and succinctly, according to the directives issued for it.
“4. Supreme Commander West will report immediately daily how many saboteurs have been liquidated in this manner. This applies especially also to undertakings by the military commanders. The number is to be published daily in the Armed Forces communiqué to exercise a frightening effect, as had already been done toward previous commando undertakings in the same manner.” ”

“ Among the potential citizen-saboteurs who are to engage in physical destruction, two extreme types may be distinguished. On the one hand, there is the man who is not technically trained and employed. This man needs specific suggestions as to what he can and should destroy as well as details regarding the tools by means of which destruction is accomplished.
(c) At the other extreme is the man who is a technician, such as a lathe operator or an automobile mechanic. Presumably this man would be able to devise methods of simple sabotage which would be appropriate to his own facilities. ”

“ First of all, Document 553-PS, the note: This memorandum was issued by me in August 1942. As I have already described in connection with the Nacht und Nebel Decree, sabotage acts, the dropping of agents by parachute, the parachuting of arms, ammunition, explosives, radio sets and small groups of saboteurs reached greater and greater proportions. They were dropped at night from aircraft in thinly populated regions. This activity covered the whole area governed by Germany at that time. It extended from the west over to Czechoslovakia and Poland, and from the East as far as the Berlin area. ”

“ As the saboteurs are to be annihilated immediately, unless their statements are first needed for military reasons, it is necessary that not only all members of the Armed Forces must receive instructions that these types of saboteurs, even if they are in uniform, are to be annihilated but also all departments of the home staff, dealing with this kind of questions, must be informed of the course of action which has been ordered. ”

“ One attempt at actual violence, defeated, would create a rigidity of defense that would make others impossible. If a successful attempt at violent sabotage was to be made, the efforts of all groups would have to be timed to the first, or abandoned.
“I could—uh—set up a sort of smoke screen,” said Mike. “We’ll fake we’re going to smash something—and let those saboteurs find it out. They’ll see it as a chance to do their stuff with us to run interference for them.—Sally, does your father sure-enough trust us?” ”

“ Finally, Page 31, Paragraph 2:
“Violation of the laws of war by terrorist or sabotage troops is in the future always to be assumed when individual assailants as saboteurs or agents, regardless of whether they were soldiers or whatever their uniform might be, place themselves outside the laws of war by committing surprise attacks or brutalities which in the judgment of our troops “are inconsistent with the fundamental rules of war.” ”

“ Establishing or continuing a sympathetic association with a saboteur, spy, traitor, seditionist, anarchist, or revolutionist, or with an espionage or other secret agent or representative of a foreign nation, or any representative of a foreign nation whose interests may be inimical to the interests of the United States, or with any person who advocates the use of force or violence to overthrow the government of the United States or the alternation of the form of government of the United States by unconstitutional means. ”

“ They were all arrangements for getting regular destructive items—bombs or rockets or whatever—where they could explode and smash things. The saboteurs were adding destructive items to various states of things. But there was one trick that was different.”
“Yes?” said the Major, on the telephone.
“Putting explosive gas in the CO2 bottles,” said Joe painstakingly, “wasn’t adding a new gadget to a situation. It was changing something that was already there. The saboteurs took something that belonged in a plane and changed it. ”

“ But you know, you know in practice, do you not, that there were several instances where Commandos were captured by the Navy and handed over to the SD under this order? Do you not know that?
WAGNER: No.
COL. PHILLIMORE: Well, let me just remind you. Would you look at Document 512-PS.
That is also in that bundle, My Lord, as United States Exhibit 546 (USA-546) . It is the second document. According to the last sentence of the Führer Order of 18 October:
“Individual saboteurs can be spared for the time being in order to keep them for interrogation. ”

“ Try to commit acts for which large numbers of people could be responsible. For instance, if you blow out the wiring in a factory at a central fire box, almost anyone could have done it. On-the-street sabotage after dark, such as you might be able to carry out against a military car or truck, is another example of an act for which it would be impossible to blame you. ”

“ The ordinary citizen very probably has no immediate personal motive for committing simple sabotage. Instead, he must be made to anticipate indirect personal gain, such as might come with enemy evacuation or destruction of the ruling government group. Gains should be stated as specifically as possible for the area addressed: simple sabotage will hasten the day when Commissioner X and his deputies Y and Z will be thrown out, when particularly obnoxious decrees and restrictions will be abolished, when food will arrive, and so on. ”

“ Every now and then a man pitched forward and lay still; or muttered a curse as he felt the sting of something in his arm. A section on the left dropped suddenly, only to worm on again by ones and twos, trying to avoid the dreaded toc-toc—slow and menacing—of a German machine-gun. Then the bombers were there. Crouching back, a man would pull the pin out of his bomb, run forward, and hurl it into the trench where the Germans were huddled in groups. ”

“ A listing of specific acts follows, classified according to types of target. This list is presented as a growing rather than a complete outline of the methods of simple sabotage. As new techniques are developed, or new fields explored, it will be elaborated and expanded.
(1) Buildings
Warehouses, barracks, offices, hotels, and factory buildings are outstanding targets for simple sabotage. They are extremely susceptible to damage, especially by fire; they offer opportunities to such untrained people as janitors, charwomen, and casual visitors ”

“ A hawser of any size commands a big price second hand.”
“How do the thieves get the ropes, Jerry?”
“Oh, they wait for a dark or foggy night and then slip up to an unguarded boat and cut her loose.”
“Why, that’s a form of sabotage!” Penny cried indignantly.
“Sure, it is. The boats float free and unless they’re spotted, they’re likely to collide with other incoming vessels. Only last week an empty coal barge was cut loose. She crashed into an oil tanker and rammed a hole in her.”
“Then Carl Oaks really has an important job,” Penny said thoughtfully. ”