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still dodging around the country when the armistice was signed and for a year after that.
His $150,000 Hoax
But the authorities had not forgotten. They were watching the Bergdoll home in Philadelphia, feeling
certain Grover would yield to a desire to see the home and the aging mother he had left behind. He did, and Jan. 7, 1920, Bergdoll was
nailed on a visit to that home.
He was taken to Governor's Island, N. Y., court-martialed, and sentenced to five years in prison.
They set him to peeling potatoes at Fort Jay, but in May, Bergdoll came out with a strange story of $150,000 in gold buried in the
mountains in Virginia. He wanted to get it before beginning to serve his sentence. That seemed fair enough, and Bergdoll was sent to
his home in Philadelphia under guard of two sergeants to dig up the mystic treasure.
There were rumors, never proved, that the money was to go to certain army officers to obtain his
release -- bribery, in other words. But apparently it was all a hoax. For Bergdoll, sneaked out of the house and into a waiting
automobile.
Then his second flight began. WIth Eugene Stecher, his chauffer, Bergdoll drove west to Indiana,
and then swears he went east to Washington and got large sums of treasury notes cashed into gold at theTreasury istelf. With a tin
can full of gold in the tonneau, Bergdoll related they toured west to Minnesota and crossed into Canada. Easily obtaining fake
passports, the two sailed for Germany and took up residence in Eberbach
."The Fighting Slacker"
There Bergdoll attained a certain popularity, mostly by throwing money around
freely among the inhabitants. But he was homesick, hunted, and went armed at all times. Eberbach is not far from the Rhineland, where
American troops were still quartered with little to do, and there was resentment against the slacker Bergdoll living on the fat of the land
nearby.
Two ex-sergeants, Carl Naef and Frank Zimmer, planned to capture Bergdoll themselves. They went
to Eberbach, held Bergdoll up at pistol point as he sat at the wheel of his car as host to a wedding party. But Bergdoll, a big,
powerful man, earned the name of the "fighting slacker." |
Bergdoll knocked the pistol from Naef's hand with a quick blow and sped away in the car. A shot
fired after him slightly wounded the bride, and the two Americans were caught and nearly mobbed by the crowd which gathered. The
were given short prison sentences, but were speedily released.
A second attempt to kidnap Bergdoll was more serious. It came in 1923, and the alleged leader
was former Lieut. Corli Hooven Griffs, Eugene Neilson, Roger Sperber, Karl Schmidt, Swiss, and Prince Gargarin, Russian. Schmidt
and Sperber concealed themselves in Bergdolls room; the others waited below, a car ready to rush the kidnapped man two hours' ride
away over the French occupation lines.
Schmidt and Sperber jumped Bergdoll as he entered his room and there was a terrific fight in the dark.
Bergdoll bit off the end of Sperber's thumb and then managed to draw his gun and fire blindly. The shot killed Schmidt.
The remaining conspirators were captured and given jail sentences.
In Constant Fear
Bergdoll, who was shot at several times in addition to those adventures, lived in constant dread of
plots, and homesickness for the country he had deserted grew stronger within him. Appeals to his aging mother in Philadelphia for his
return were always answereed hopefully, but he did not come.
In 1927 he applied for an American passport at Stuttgart, but the American officials calmly informed
him that he didn't need a passport to return to America, and that he coudn't have one to go anywhere else.
He was once reported to have gone to Switzerland, and later changed his residence to Weissberg.
There, he married a German girl, Berta Frank, and despite his constant fear of attack, is reported to be
living happily with her. Stecher returned to America a year or so ago, and there have been many rumors that Bergdoll might return also.
It is certain that he has several times tried to obtain promises that the charges against him be dropped. if he would would return. But the
government's only word has been that his stains remains that of an escaped prisoner who would be returned to prison to serve out the
rest of his sentence if caught.
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Thus lives Grover Cleveland Bergdoll, fighting slacker and fugitive, a man without a country whose
flight from home a homeland has occupied nearly fifteen years. A hunted man, trusting nobody, his thoughts always turning towards the
home he spurned, and from whose call he ran away.
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