I was watching "Hitler's Secret Attack on America" and they talk of 4 German spies that happened to land on the only beach within 100 miles that was patrolled 24/7. They were then caught by the law enforcement officers, tried, and executed (and apparently all pretty hidden from the public). Is there any truth to this?
I have not seen that documentary, but did it mention Operation Magpie: Gimpel and Colepaugh?
William Colepaugh was a disgruntled MIT grad who eventually fled to Germany and volunteered to come back to the US as a spy. Of course they problem with assets with that kind of motivation is that they tend to be very erratic, so they paired with with a professional operator and clandestine radioman, Erich Gimpel. Gimpel understood that his task was to keep this flake on track.
Colepaugh convinced the SS that he could infiltrate the Manhattan Project, but needed a suitcase of small USD today worth a half million and 99 diamonds for when the US economy collapsed and the USD was no longer accepted. He justified this by overstating the cost of living the US by almost an order of magnitude. The Germans having typically never seen life beyond East Coat high society, believed him.
So on November 29, 1944 the two men successfully landed in rural Maine... adorned in German Naval Officer uniforms stripped of insignia. Surprisingly, the insertion and initial cover story actually worked. They claimed to be travellers whose car broke down and they hailed taxi's and trains all the way through Boston and into Manhattan. They successfully rented an apartment in Times Square.
They settled in Manhattan, but the Christmas festivities may have taken their toll on Colepaugh. Having already argued with Gimpel about wanting time to watch New Yorkers ice skate and go carolling, Colepaugh went to Grand Central Station on December 21, 1945 and boarded a train to visit an old college buddy.
On December 23, 1944 he confessed to his friend, who promptly turned him into the FBI. Colepaugh told the FBI everything and they rolled up Gimpel. (Interestingly enough, Colepaugh already had a record with the FBI back to 1940 when he was first caught making contact with the Germans while in the US Naval Reserve.) Operation Magpie fell apart after less than a month on ground.
As spies, both were sentenced to be hanged on Valentine's Day, 1945. However, both their executions were stalled by the death of FDR, as it was tradition not to perform executions during a time of mourning. By the time the state of mourning was over, VE day had happened, and Truman decided life in prison was a more appropriate sentence, and they both were sent to Alcatraz.
Gimpel would obtain a full parole in 1955, and returned to West Germany. Colepaugh was paroled in 1960, and resettled in PA, where he opened an office furniture shop, based on the carpentry he learned in prison.
Both men were still alive until fairly recently. Colepaugh became a pillar of the community in a small town in PA until his death from Alzheimers in 2005. Gimpel wrote several books about his work as a German spy and eventually resettled with the German ex-pat community in Sao Paulo, Brazil. After 9/11, there was a new found interest in spies and traitors, so some of his work has been republished fairly recently. He also did an episode of "War Stories with Oliver North" in 2003, "Agent 146: Spying for the Third Reich." Gimpel died in 2010.
The FBI declassifed much of the casework on Colepaugh. "Counterintelligence in World War II" did almost an entire chapter on him: http://www.fas.org/irp/ops/ci/docs/ci2/2ch1_a.htm#cole
If you're looking for a bit lighter read, America in WWII also did an article: http://www.americainwwii.com/articles/nazi-spies-come-ashore/
The operation in question was Operation Pastorius in June 1942. Four operatives were landed by U-boat on Long Island, and another four in Florida, with orders to carry out sabotage operations against economic, industrial and other civilian targets in the mainland US. The team on Long Island were spotted by a Coast Guard patrol and aroused suspicions, but managed to escape. The operation was blown when one of the agents (George John Dasch) turned — he contacted the FBI, which led to the arrest of the rest of the would-be saboteurs.
The operatives were all tried by a special military tribunal, established by presidential order (Executive Proclamation 2561). The executive order reads:
Now, Therefore, I, Franklin D. Roosevelt, President of the United States of America and Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the statutes of the United States do hereby proclaim that all persons who are subjects, citizens, or residents of any Nation at war with the United States or who give obedience to or act under the direction of any such Nation and who during time of war enter or attempt to enter the United States or any territory or possession thereof, through coastal or boundary defenses, and are charged with committing or attempting or preparing to commit sabotage, espionage, hostile or warlike acts, or violations of the law or war, shall be subject to the law of war and to the jurisdiction of military tribunals; and that such persons shall not be privileged to seek any remedy or maintain any proceeding, directly or indirectly, or to have any such remedy or proceeding sought on their behalf, in the courts of the United States, or of its States, territories, and possessions, except under such regulations as the Attorney General, with the approval of the Secretary of War, may from time to time prescribe.
An attempt by the defence counsel to have the case tried by a civilian court was rejected by the Supreme Court. All eight were convicted of espionage and violating the laws of war, and sentenced to death. Dasch and fellow conspirator Ernst Peter Burger, who cooperated with the prosecution, had their sentences commuted by Roosevelt, and were imprisoned. The other six were executed by electric chair on 8 August 1942.
Edit: typo.
This documentary may refer to Operation Pastorius. Michael Dobbs wrote a full length book about it in 2004 called "Saboteurs: The Nazi Raid on America" Peter A Hansen wrote a ten page article about this story called "Hitler's Rail-wreckers" in the Winter 2001 issue of Classic Trains magazine. There is also this web-site http://www.damninteresting.com/operation-pastorius/ which is an even more condensed version of the only serious attempt by Nazi Germany to land covert agents in the USA during WWII.
Short answer: yes. The event mentioned in the documentary was Operation Pastorius, in which eight German spy-saboteurs were landed in the United States (although all were captured shortly after landing).
But that was just the tip of the iceberg of German espionage operations in the United States during the war. The largest known German spy ring in the United States, the Duquesne Spy Ring had over 33 known members. The ring was ultimately broken up after the FBI managed to turn one of its members, William Sebold into a double agent. In all, 33 members of the ring were arrested and convicted. Although none were executed, several were given long prison terms.
The German Abwehr intelligence service also attempted to infiltrate several other agents into the United States and Canada, although most efforts failed due to bad luck, incompetence, or effective counter-intelligence work. Werner Jankowski landed in Canada in November 1942 aboard U-518, but was compromised after he carelessly left a Belgian-made matchbook in his hotel room, arousing suspicion that lead to his arrest.
And between 1943 and 1944, the FBI arrested four groups of German agents who had been operating the the US since 1941. The German Abwher also used Spanish and Portuguese sailors (both were neutrals during WWII) to gather US newspapers and report on US shipping movements.
Sources:
*http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/history/famous-cases/the-duquesne-spy-ring