Reinsch, Henry Gustave

Henry Gustave Reinsch was born in Germany on July 4, 1888, "a day when Americans were celebrating their freedom." After immigrating to the United States in 1906 and obtaining citizenship in 1912, Reinsch became well known in the lumber business, earning $10,000 a year as a buyer for the Northwest Door Company. He married an American woman named Bernice with whom he had at least two children. Although he maintained contact with family in Germany, Reinsch took his new citizenship to heart, registering for the draft during the First World War.

Ten months into the Second World War, however, on October 13, 1942, Agents Doig and Shafter of the FBI called on Reinsch at his Tacoma office. The agents had been instructed to interview the Reinschs as part of the FBI's Custodial Detention Index (CDI). Started by FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover in the 1930s, the CDI was intended as a means of categorizing possible subversives from "most dangerous" to "least dangerous." Leads were developed through "citizen reports ... subscription lists of German, Italian, and Communist newspapers, membership in proscribed organizations, and informant and agent reports on meetings and demonstrations" (Fox, 2000). Technically unauthorized (Attorney General Francis Biddle condemned the index when he found out about it), CDI agents were not to be taken lightly (Stone, 1980): "[I]f you don't want to cooperate with us we'll take you up to headquarters," Doig warned. "We want your wife to be present at this questioning also." Reinsch brought Doig and Shafter home with him unannounced so that Bernice would not have a chance to destroy any evidence before the agents arrived.

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