The Story of 6 Executed Nazi Spies - and the Hidden Tribute to Them on Federal Land
Image: nazi-memorial-c512e1e0-586f-11e7-ba90-f5875b7d1876.jpg
A memorial stone commemorating Nazi spies sits in storage at the National Park Service in Maryland. The Abwehr was the German intelligence service in the World War II period. (Washington Post photo by by Bonnie Jo Mount)
Author: John Woodrow Cox, The Washington Post
WASHINGTON – A team of power company workers were trudging through a seldom-visited thicket in Southwest Washington when they spotted something odd in a ditch.
Protruding from the grass was a rectangular slab of granite.
They looked closer, and an inscription on the surface came into focus. What they saw astonished them.
It was a memorial. In honor of Nazi spies. On U.S. government property.
“In memory of agents of the German Abwehr,” the engraving began, “executed August 8, 1942.”
Below that were six names and below those was another cryptic line: “Donated by the N.S.W.P.P.”