Who's Who - Karl Boy-Ed Karl Boy-Ed (1872-1930) served as
Germany's naval attaché to the U.S. until his eventual expulsion
as a saboteur shortly before the U.S. entered the war in 1917.
Boy-Ed, who entered the Germany Navy at a young age of German
parentage (his father was a merchant in Lubeck), and was
something of a protégé of Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz, worked
with the Naval Secretary in seeking to boost the overall size of
the Navy, a strategy that played dividends with the ambitious
(and frustrated) Kaiser Wilhelm II. As a Captain Boy-Ed was
despatched to the U.S. in 1911 as his country's naval attaché.
With war underway in Europe from August 1914 Boy-Ed worked
closely with Franz von Papen in establishing a spy ring and a
group of saboteurs, each determined to hinder U.S. economic aid
to the Entente Powers. Von Papen was effectively expelled from
the U.S. in 1915 although Boy-Ed remained. Nevertheless his
activities grew both in scale and in notoriety, to the point
where the peaceable U.S. President Wood