SOMERTON MAN: A TALE OF TWO SPIES , CAUGHT AND TRIED IN ADELAIDE

THE SPY INTERNEES

In July 1943, two men, German internees, were brought to trial in Adelaide for the offence of 'Recording in a manner prejudicial to the defence of the Commonwealth, information regarding Defence means which was likely to be useful to an enemy'

As you can read above, Paul Pichtmeir was found not guilty and he was returned to internment but the man, Karl Oswald Thierfelder was found guilty and sentenced to 5 years imprisonment in Yatala Goal, Adelaide.

Effectively, it was thought that Thierfelder was part of a larger spy ring and he was forwarding his information on to others who remained unknown but then again, perhaps they were dealt with by other means. We will be posting on just what that may mean in the near future.

BACKGROUND

Clive has done some great digging on both men and from their histories below you can see that Thierfelder spent time in Loveday in South Australia, Tatura and Wayville in Adelaide for a short period of time.

Those of you who followed earlier posts on Tibor Kaldor, will be able to see that both TK and Karl were in Tatura at the same time. the difference between these two men is that Tibor arrived in Australia on the Dunera in 1940 whereas Karl had arrived from Germany as an immigrant in 1938. he was interned, then released and then interned again. here are Clive's notes:

Karl Oswald Thierfelder: 

Born 02-10-10 at Zachopau, Saxony. 5'11'', 12 Stone, Hair=Fair, Eyes=Brown,  (Small scar on Left cheek).  Single

Job: Mechanical Engineer.  Arr. at Fremantle  08-03-1938 on board 

"Narkunda".  Home address: 178 Orrong Rd, Toorak, Bus. address: 103 

William St, Melbourne.

Interned on 16-03-39 Melbourne, Released on parole 05-04-40, re-interned 

15-04-42 at Loveday, SA, to Broadmeadows SA (Near Elizabeth) 02-05-42, to tribunal at 

Wayville 01-08-42,

to Loveday 08-08-42, on 05-06-43 at Barmera Base Hospital-out on 

10-07-43, detached to Wayville near Keswick Barracks Adelaide and sentenced to 5 yrs. 24-07-43 

imprisoned on civil charge, (Espionage)

on 27-11-43 to Sheriff Supreme Court, Adelaide, imprisoned at Yatala, 

SA, on 10-02-45 transf. Yatala to Tatura, Vic,  By 04-11-46 from Yatala 

to Tatura

30-01-47 to No 3 Rushworth, released on 09-08-47,  Working at Regent 

Motors, 86 Sturt St, Melbourne,   24-11-47 repat. to Germany.  (no 

photos/fingerprints on NAA)

We are still digging into other information related to this man, it is interesting that he was passing information on military movements including ships to another person, that person would have had access to Internees in SA either directly or by mail.

To a recent comment regarding dates, there are a number of dates from 1941 through to 1945, I would suggest that those interested should go to the TROVE website and enter the following keywords into the search box:
ship movements spy

no need for any inverted commas, this will give you a broad search and you will see many articles a lot of which are duplicated information between various publications.