Hermit of Horse Creek

No man in the U. S. more persistently scandalizes the name of the Nazis than does the Chicago Times's columnist who signs himself "B. E. Lucas." Berlin in turn denounces him as a "money-changers' agent." But his material, which packs a wallop in the Midwest, is derived from a source that even Goebbels should hardly object to: the short-wave propaganda broadcasts from Germany.

High up on a mountainside near Estes Park, Colo., "Lucas" has ensconced himself in a rustic listening post from which five times a week he wires his findings to the Times. Known in Colorado as "the hermit of Horse Creek," in Chicago as something of a minor mystery man, "Lucas" last week agreed to reveal his identity, which he has kept a secret since he took to the air in October 1939. His name: Siegfried Henry Ernest Wagener, onetime member of the German Reichstag. His sister Hilda, an intimate of many a Nazi bigwig, is a favorite at the Burgtheater in Vienna.

"Lucas' " identity is probably no news to the Nazis. Wagener, at least, thinks they know who and where he is, keeps three formidable dogs in his hideaway. He is no pushover himself. Stocky, arrogant and tough, he has a career of truculence behind his 42 years. Born of peasant stock in Germany, he entered the Army in 1916 with little enthusiasm for either Kaiser or his war. To get out of the Army, he shot one of his superiors. His able military lawyer got him off on the plea of "juvenile insanity." Young Siegfried sat out the rest of the war in a lunatic asylum.

A member of the first democratic assembly of the German Republic, Wagener wearied of politics in a couple of years, became a magazine publisher. While he was laid up by an auto accident, a chum double-crossed him out of the publishing business. Thereupon he lit out for the U. S.

In 1932 Wagener, then correspondent for three Vienna newspapers, decided to hermit in a cabin near Estes Park. There he got a name with park authorities as a prickly fellow. When Hitler announced (in January 1939) that he would swamp the world with propaganda if foreign nations didn't stop sniping at the Fatherland, Wagener bought a short-wave set, began to listen to German programs. Soon he evolved the plan of analyzing what he heard, sold the idea to the Chicago Times after World War II broke loose.

As a one-man rival of such powerful outfits as the listening posts of NBC, CBS and Princeton University, Wagener has one big advantage: he is up high (8,415 feet). Princeton is now trying to work out a partnership with him. Wagener understands German, English, Dutch, Danish, Norwegian, Afrikaans, French. He boasts that he told his readers all through 1940 that there would be no invasion of England, is now trying to convince them that Great Britain will inevitably win the war. Irritated by English propaganda before Dunkirk, he says it has been improving ever since, ranking in accuracy next to the U. S. news services. Nazi propaganda he now regards as hopelessly fallacious.

Married since 1935 to the art supervisor of the Chicago Board of Education, Wagener sees his wife only in the summer, when she visits him in Estes Park. He has a fine contempt for genealogical hoopla. Few years ago Sister Hilda clambered up the family tree, was gratified to discover no Jewish blood, annoyed to find two illegitimate greatgrandparents. Not at all annoyed was Brother Siegfried. "They're authentic bastards," he points out, "which is more than you can say for the Nazis."

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