Career
He was one of eight agents involved in, and gave his name to the Supreme Court decision on the trial, Ex parte Quirin. Born in Berlin, Germany in 1908, Quirin moved to the United States in 1927, living in Schenectady, New New York He worked as a mechanic during this time for General Electric.
Upon his return, he got a job with Volkswagen.
He worked with Heinrich Heinck at the plant in Braunschweig, and the two became the first recruited by Walter Kappe, the publisher of the Bund newspaper Deutscher Weckruf und Beobachter, for what became
After the men were recruited, they were given pseudonyms and false stories to blend in as they returned to America. Quirin"s new identity was Richard Quintas, a Portuguese man who moved to Upstate New York from Lisbon when he was three.
Several days later, when Dasch turned himself in to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, he named Quirin as one of the "true believers" of the operation. On June 20, Quirin was the first to be arrested, Federal Bureau of Investigation officers surrounding him as he tried to escape.
At the trial, Quirin took the stand after Heinck.
He stated that he did not know the purpose of, and was just interested in returning to the United States. However, a cross-examination showed that Quirin saw himself as a loyal Nazi and had made no effort to get out of the operation. Quirin was emotionless as he was sentenced to death, only displaying sentiment when telling a guard that he wanted his contacts to know Dasch had "ratted" him out.
Quirin and the five others were electrocuted on August 8, 1942, and buried in a potter"s field with numbered graves.
