133 West 188th Street

Frederick Wirth Jr. (no relation) is the brothers James and Hugh McLoughlin's longtime business partner in their international law firm with offices in New York City, Berlin, Paris, Geneva, and London, a bit of a mercinary on-again off-again State Department official, and helpfully, unlike the brothers, somewhat prone to self-promotion and over-explanation in legal documents ostensibly intended to engender trust.

There are at least three separate instances of Mr. Wirth's passport applications being flagged for further scruitiny that managed to be preserved in the archives. The suspicions placed upon him were probably not helped with quotes like the following:

"I need hardly add that I am prepared to give any assurances which may be required that neither Mrs. Wirth nor myself will do anything incompatible with the best interests of the United States or which may be contrary to our laws. I have too much at stake to even think of doing any such thing."

In one instance someone in the State Department made the following note:

"I do not approve of this special [passport] for a clerk in [an] embassy."

In another application a State Department official flags his application for futher review, and an official initialed LLW responded with:

Dear Mr. Flournoy

Attached herewith are all the Wirth papers. Please look at my confidential memorandum to Mr. Hengstler. That sums the matter up so far as I am concerned and embodies my sentiments. You can use your own discretion. I know all about Wirth and his wife.

LLW is Lawrence Lanier-Winslow, the private secretary of James W. Gerard the American ambassador to Germany before WWI, and afterwards the secretary of John W. Davis the American ambassador to Great Britain. I have searched all over the National Archives for this missing dossier, and I have not located it. However, the first official all but says his concerns are regarding the associations with Wirth's native German father and wife, and this was a period of time where anti-German bigotry was at a peak. I do not think Wirth was a German spy though. As a professional reference Wirth provides future Secretary of the Treasury under FDR and author of the Morgenthau Plan Henry Morgenthau Jr. as a professional reference, a man well known for his dislike of Germany, and there is a related tragedy in his story at the end.

I think it is fairly obvious from his habits that the answer is probably more mundane than spycraft — he was possibly slightly corrupt in the sense that he leveraged his connections and access at the State Department and embassy in Berlin to funnel contracts to his private law practice. At the very least, some of his peers found this behavior annoying. You can see in his passport applications, like when after he ostensibly left public service he "loses" his passport and was flagged for requesting a diplomatic one again, and most of their firm's work was in and out of the Berlin American embassy.

Regardless, he is an extremely useful research springboard. James B. McLoughlin's passport application cover letter was more or less a sentence about "going to Europe to do law." Wirth's on the other hand paints a much clearer picture about what they were working on in a two page letter: 

"I have the honor to request that passports be issued to my and self in order that we may proceed to Europe, for the following reasons:

(1) During the last ten years while engaged in the Diplomatic and Consular Service of the United States, I have spent considerable of my spare time in the study of international civil, commercial and maritime law. An opportunity now presents itself to form connections with a prominent New York Law Firm for the purpose of practicing this branch of the law. My part in the association would amount to the establishment of law offices in a country known for its international bodies and congresses and it was decided that Switzerland would be the most advantageous. I would there act as an American attorney (specializing in the field of law mentioned) and have as my correspondents my New York associates. American firms and business men have often expressed to me the need of American attorneys abroad (I was admitted to the New York Bar in 1906) to ensure the full protection of their interests. The reconstruction period which is about to begin will call for the services of men who prosess a knowledge of the languages and customs of the peoples of Europe.

(2) It will take some time to establish permanent offices and I would therefore appreciate the delivery of the requested passports in order that we might leave New York the latter part of April.

(3) For the present, my work will probably call for visits to England, France, and Italy; but if, for any reason, the issuance of permits to visit all of these countries would not be feasible at the present time, I would limit my request to France or Italy (through which countries I must pass) and Switzerland."

Through Wirth we are able to establish the addresses of their offices in the 1920s. In Switzerland (9-11 Place de la Fusterie, Geneva), France (25 Rue Taitbout, Paris), Germany (Lützowufer 17, Berlin), and England (3 & 4 Great Winchester Street, E. C. 2, London). We can also infer from newspaper articles the firm likely frequented the Hotel Esplanade Berlin, and had Prince Christopher of Greece as a client.

In the end though, Mr. Wirth had a very noble end. He is well documented in the Rahn family collection, a set of papers from a Jewish family that escaped Germany in WWII immediately before America entered the war, where he was instrumental in securing the family visas to flee Germany and getting the husband out of Nazi prison. I cannot draw a firm connection yet to this incident, but very shortly afterwards Frederick Wirth was imprisoned for five months by the Nazi government which exacerbated a pre-existing medical condition. Soon after being released from prison he died of liver failure in 1941.

It was unusual at this time for an American embassy employee to be imprisoned in Nazi Germany. I assume his private practice muddied the waters enough to make him a soft enough target, but reading his correspondence afterwards I do not get the sense he felt especially unsafe despite his prior trials. The State Department records regarding his death relay he was indebted and lacked funds, and at this time it was also difficult for Americans to get across the border. All of these factors together probably contributed to him not fleeing for the safety of New York, when from the vantage point of 2026 we know 1941 was absolutely the time to go.

I also do not yet have employment history for James and Hugh McLoughlin after 1930, so whether or not he was still working with them in 1941 is a mystery for now. I do not believe he was working with James and Hugh by the time he was assisting the Rahn family.