# Baby, I Was Born to Run: the Grover Cleveland Bergdoll Story

An episode of [Ridiculous Crime](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1608230191), 6 Jan 2026, 1 h 02 min.

Audio: https://podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/0b4bcc39-7ba2-453f-aaac-ae510011dd80/6a320473-7a3e-49d6-86a9-b3c901549f36/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=3a4c50f5-ff69-4807-aa26-ae510011dd8e

When the first World War kicked off, Grover Cleveland Bergdoll, a notorious daredevil and rich kid playboy, decided armed combat wasn't for him. And so, rather than serve, he decided to dodge the draft. He would spend the next two decades begging for a pardon as he evaded justice and the many men sent to capture him. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:00] Speaker 1: Ridiculous crime. It's a production of iHeartRadio.
[0:03] Speaker 2: And there she is here. I am missus ridiculous Howdy dooties.
[0:08] Speaker 3: So I got a question for you, Elizabeth Dutton, is
[0:11] Speaker 3: do you know it's ridiculous?
[0:12] Speaker 4: I do. It's a mashup.
[0:14] Speaker 3: I can tell from your face that I'm not gonna
[0:15] Speaker 3: like this.
[0:16] Speaker 4: It's a up esther on Instagram.
[0:20] Speaker 3: Esther.
[0:21] Speaker 5: She sent this, and she and I were kind of
[0:27] Speaker 5: on the same page with how this is just kind
[0:30] Speaker 5: of not al right.
[0:31] Speaker 3: Oh well, that's at least that you guys are coming around.
[0:34] Speaker 4: Yeah, I saw.
[0:34] Speaker 5: I saw like what she had typed in about, you know,
[0:37] Speaker 5: the emojis and what the interns emoji dot it. Basically
[0:43] Speaker 5: it was like this this Instagram reel by and I
[0:47] Speaker 5: think it was originated on TikTok by this food influencer
[0:52] Speaker 5: eats by Nat.
[0:54] Speaker 4: I'm familiar whatever, Yeah, it's I am not the audience
[0:58] Speaker 4: for this.
[0:58] Speaker 5: Like she's one of those ones has those long, pointy
[1:01] Speaker 5: fake nails and taps them on things and then when
[1:05] Speaker 5: she eats things, she puts.
[1:06] Speaker 4: It right up.
[1:06] Speaker 5: I don't want to look while you're like really going
[1:09] Speaker 5: to town on something.
[1:10] Speaker 3: I've been sent to videos I just can't.
[1:12] Speaker 4: I can't with any of that stuff. It's just all garbage.
[1:15] Speaker 5: Everybody garbage, everything's garbage. So the garbage that she was
[1:20] Speaker 5: slinging was that she had Panda Express with her.
[1:24] Speaker 4: I don't know if I've ever had Panda Express.
[1:26] Speaker 3: Really yeah, California, and you just jumped out, You're just
[1:29] Speaker 3: like I never dained.
[1:32] Speaker 4: I just just it dawned on me when I was
[1:34] Speaker 4: watching it. I was like, Oh, that looks like Safeway,
[1:36] Speaker 4: like grocery store Chinese.
[1:38] Speaker 3: No, it's more like mall food court Chinese food. It's
[1:42] Speaker 3: as good as grocery store.
[1:44] Speaker 4: Because I have a soft spot for cheap grocery store Chinese.
[1:47] Speaker 3: Yeah. No, that's better than mall food.
[1:49] Speaker 6: Yeah.
[1:49] Speaker 5: So she was like horfing on some But what she
[1:51] Speaker 5: was pulling out and tapping her nails on is there's
[1:53] Speaker 5: this company Campartis, and I think I've talked about them before.
[1:57] Speaker 5: There there are frequent flyers on here. They're you know,
[2:01] Speaker 5: they've done time with me before. Chocolate company. Oh, they
[2:06] Speaker 5: have a selection of Panda Express chocolate bars. That doesn't
[2:09] Speaker 5: seem No, they're twelve bucks a pop. There's Fortune Cookie
[2:13] Speaker 5: and then honey Walnut. Okay, those aren't so bad. White
[2:17] Speaker 5: chocolate though.
[2:19] Speaker 3: Gross.
[2:20] Speaker 5: Then there's orange, like the orange chicken, and that was
[2:23] Speaker 5: what she was mowing down on and apparently just tastes
[2:25] Speaker 5: like orange sauce.
[2:26] Speaker 3: That's what I would imagine.
[2:27] Speaker 5: No chicken in the chocolate. And then there's like a
[2:31] Speaker 5: Kung pao chicken, which I would imagine is just like
[2:34] Speaker 5: peanuts and a spice to it.
[2:37] Speaker 4: Yeah, so that's what I did. Today's Aaron, What did
[2:40] Speaker 4: you do today? Elizabeth? Oh?
[2:42] Speaker 5: I looked at this and then I got really mad
[2:44] Speaker 5: about a lot of things in life. Welcome to I
[2:47] Speaker 5: got mad about not at esther for recommending this never ever.
[2:52] Speaker 5: I got mad about influencers. I got mad about those
[2:56] Speaker 5: long ass nails and they took it a tap tap
[2:58] Speaker 5: tap and like dragging their fing along the packaging of
[3:01] Speaker 5: things like knock it off, stop it, I don't care,
[3:05] Speaker 5: stop it, and then like you know, forcefully putting this
[3:09] Speaker 5: huge thing in her mouth of chicken.
[3:11] Speaker 4: I didn't need to see that.
[3:13] Speaker 5: And what I do for you, s Sarin, and what
[3:16] Speaker 5: I do for this show, I demand respect.
[3:20] Speaker 3: You're like a moderator just to look the most heinous
[3:23] Speaker 3: stuff I am.
[3:24] Speaker 5: I'm like, yes, I sometimes when I look at these mashups.
[3:27] Speaker 5: I'm like, you know what, this is what it must
[3:29] Speaker 5: be like to work for Inner pol and have to
[3:31] Speaker 5: look at really upsetting images and be like, okay, where
[3:35] Speaker 5: would that that package in the back? Can I narrow
[3:38] Speaker 5: it down to a specific country?
[3:39] Speaker 3: Mm hmm.
[3:40] Speaker 4: The psychological scarring that happens.
[3:44] Speaker 3: I have a hard time with just eating on camera.
[3:46] Speaker 3: And I saw recently this person who like they went
[3:49] Speaker 3: to eat something and they were like, Oh, I'm gonna
[3:51] Speaker 3: try this this. It was a waffle, and I knew
[3:54] Speaker 3: the waffle house, I knew the waffles. I was like,
[3:56] Speaker 3: those are good waffles. And then I watched him go
[3:58] Speaker 3: to take a bye. He's here's a little butter on there,
[4:00] Speaker 3: and he's like, you know, i'd cover these things in syrup.
[4:03] Speaker 3: And I was like, okay, that's that's your own problem, right,
[4:06] Speaker 3: And then he goes and he takes like, you know,
[4:07] Speaker 3: imagine like a quarter of a waffle and that's his
[4:10] Speaker 3: bite and he's just shoveling it into his mouth. I'm like, bro,
[4:15] Speaker 3: you turned a waffle into four bites.
[4:17] Speaker 4: That's disgusting.
[4:18] Speaker 5: I don't know if you remember, but one time we
[4:20] Speaker 5: were here at work and I had a burrito and
[4:24] Speaker 5: you weren't eating, and you were sitting at the table
[4:26] Speaker 5: and you were looking at me. As I told you
[4:28] Speaker 5: to turn around, don't watch me eat this burrito. You
[4:33] Speaker 5: were like, what, Like, no one should watch someone eat
[4:35] Speaker 5: a burrito. You're about to see something unholy.
[4:42] Speaker 3: I have to admit I don't remember that, but it
[4:43] Speaker 3: does sound like us.
[4:47] Speaker 4: And your honor insummation. That's ridiculous.
[4:51] Speaker 3: Gabble, gabble, gabble. We agreed. By by the way, sit
[4:55] Speaker 3: back down, because I got something ridiculous for you.
[4:58] Speaker 4: I'm so mad.
[4:59] Speaker 3: Go ahead, being the most famous draft dodger from a
[5:03] Speaker 3: world war and that's not even the most interesting part
[5:05] Speaker 3: of your life.
[5:06] Speaker 2: Oh really, this is Ridiculous Crime A podcast about absurd
[5:32] Speaker 2: and outrageous.
[5:34] Speaker 3: Capers, heists, and cons. It's always ninety nine percent murder
[5:40] Speaker 3: free and one hundred percent but ridiculous. Woo oh, Elizabeth.
[5:47] Speaker 3: Now I say this often, but this is a wild one.
[5:50] Speaker 3: My goodness, and I need to give credit for credit
[5:53] Speaker 3: as due. A rude dude emailed us this story as
[5:56] Speaker 3: a tip. Oh really, Alexandra Spurlock, wrote deer producer d
[6:01] Speaker 3: great start. By the way, Alexandra that's how they're supposed
[6:04] Speaker 3: to go. And then Alex, because that's she later on
[6:07] Speaker 3: signed the email, Yeah you're nasty to write quote. I'm
[6:12] Speaker 3: reading this book called Burg Doll Boys about a rich
[6:15] Speaker 3: brewery family in the early nineteen hundreds who were daredevil
[6:18] Speaker 3: race car drivers, early flyers of right airplanes, and committed
[6:22] Speaker 3: a series of ridiculous crimes to evade the draft in
[6:25] Speaker 3: World War One. And I was like, you got me?
[6:28] Speaker 5: Yeah right, Like that's that's so custom made for It
[6:31] Speaker 5: was engineered in a lab for you.
[6:33] Speaker 3: For real. It was like if you were going to
[6:35] Speaker 3: make like a baited hook for a fish, that hook
[6:39] Speaker 3: was so well baited.
[6:40] Speaker 5: I if I wanted to trap you, I would put
[6:42] Speaker 5: a giant box and prop it up with a stick
[6:45] Speaker 5: and I would put that book inside the book.
[6:47] Speaker 3: Yeah, you just got me. So I looked into the
[6:50] Speaker 3: story and thank you, Alex. Just a great one. Is
[6:54] Speaker 3: Alex is a doozy, a full dews in Burg. So
[6:59] Speaker 3: in order to from spiraling this into a multi part series,
[7:03] Speaker 3: we will focus on just one of the Burg Doll Boys,
[7:05] Speaker 3: the one that they named Grover.
[7:07] Speaker 4: Cleveland Burg Doll Get out of town.
[7:09] Speaker 3: Swear to God, I'm staying in town. He was the
[7:12] Speaker 3: son of a wealthy family of brewers, as Alex noted
[7:15] Speaker 3: in the Philadelphia area, the family owned City Park Brewery
[7:19] Speaker 3: rap City Park Brewery, as well as the aptly named
[7:22] Speaker 3: Bergdhal Mansion. More on that later. Now, Grover Cleveland Burghdahll
[7:27] Speaker 3: had an older brother, So good, say one more time,
[7:29] Speaker 3: Grover Cleveland Burgdall, Yes, thank you. He had an older
[7:32] Speaker 3: brother named Erwin with an E.
[7:35] Speaker 4: Erwin Burgdal, Yeah, I know someone named Erwin with an E.
[7:38] Speaker 3: Yeah. Thus the book told the burg Doll boys. Now
[7:41] Speaker 3: Erwin Bergdahl was born June twenty fourth, eighteen ninety and
[7:45] Speaker 3: his baby brother, Grover Cleveland Bergdahl, was born October eighteenth,
[7:49] Speaker 3: eighteen ninety three. Okay, now, fun fact, I had to
[7:53] Speaker 3: keep typing brother the twins, Yes in your mind, Yes,
[7:57] Speaker 3: I had to keep typing Grover Cleveland over and over
[7:59] Speaker 3: again as I was researching this story, which reminded me
[8:03] Speaker 3: not of the president but you know who has obviously
[8:06] Speaker 3: the same name, sure, but rather it reminded me of
[8:09] Speaker 3: the sesame Street bluefird monster character Grover, who I much
[8:13] Speaker 3: prefer to think. And Grover Cleveland, just by the way,
[8:16] Speaker 3: does he count as a Muppet. Yeah. Sure. According to Wikipedia,
[8:20] Speaker 3: he is a blue Muppet character.
[8:22] Speaker 4: Sesame Street Guy Muppets.
[8:24] Speaker 3: Yeah, because that's like Jim Henson's name for the puppets
[8:27] Speaker 3: he created were muppets.
[8:29] Speaker 4: Right, Okay, man puppets.
[8:31] Speaker 3: Now. The reason I ask about this is that Kermit
[8:34] Speaker 3: the Frog, who is both a Muppet Show alum and
[8:37] Speaker 3: a Sesame Street character, yeah, seems to be named after
[8:41] Speaker 3: the grandson of Teddy Roosevelt. Kermit Roosevelt. Right, Kermit Roosevelt
[8:47] Speaker 3: was a CIA guy, and as such, he oversaw the
[8:50] Speaker 3: overthrow of Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadek in Iran.
[8:53] Speaker 5: Wait, he's literally that was what Kermit the Frog. Kermit
[8:56] Speaker 5: the Frog was named after. I don't know for fair,
[8:59] Speaker 5: you're just making this.
[9:00] Speaker 3: Well, here's my supposition. So, Kermit Roosevelt, he overthrows Prime
[9:05] Speaker 3: Minister Mohammed Mosadek in Iran in nineteen fifty three, Okay,
[9:09] Speaker 3: and that and then that he arranged the installation of
[9:11] Speaker 3: the Shah of Iran, which indirectly relates to the Iranian Revolution.
[9:15] Speaker 5: Right.
[9:15] Speaker 3: Coincidentally, Kermit the Frog was created in nineteen fifty five.
[9:19] Speaker 4: Fifty five.
[9:20] Speaker 3: It seems interesting that Kermit, who's in the news in
[9:22] Speaker 3: fifty three, and then we have Kermit in fifty five.
[9:26] Speaker 4: Wait, so that you didn't find any other sources connecting them.
[9:30] Speaker 3: I don't think Jim Henson would want to admit.
[9:31] Speaker 5: To this your piece of red thread from the picture
[9:35] Speaker 5: of Kermy.
[9:36] Speaker 3: Yes, me doing the full Charlie Day like this is
[9:39] Speaker 3: look at all this. I got the wall of red thread.
[9:41] Speaker 4: Now, miir.
[9:42] Speaker 5: I was like, wow, that's fascinating. Would you read that
[9:44] Speaker 5: in the in the biography of Jim Henson?
[9:48] Speaker 3: No, this is just but I got more. My point
[9:50] Speaker 3: is with Grover and Kermit, it made me wonder how
[9:54] Speaker 3: many muppets were named after US presidents or their descendants.
[9:57] Speaker 4: Well, I mean there's snuffle Up, I guess yeah.
[10:00] Speaker 3: But there is another one, Roosevelt Franklin, which is obviously
[10:04] Speaker 3: a reverse of Franklin, Roosevelt Ak and my man. Roosevelt
[10:08] Speaker 3: Franklin was a black Muppet character, even though he had
[10:11] Speaker 3: reddish magenta skin, but he was clearly black or like
[10:14] Speaker 3: black coated. In fact, he was introduced in the nineteen
[10:17] Speaker 3: seventies as a response to criticism that Sesame Street was
[10:20] Speaker 3: too white, so they created Franklin Roosevelt, and he was
[10:23] Speaker 3: voiced by the original actor who played Gordon, who was
[10:25] Speaker 3: a black man, and he would as this little muppet.
[10:28] Speaker 3: He would spit little raps and rhymes about up and down,
[10:30] Speaker 3: here and there Africa, sure and fun fact. I also
[10:36] Speaker 3: learned just while I was doing this research trying to
[10:38] Speaker 3: decide how many muppets are named after presidents or their descendants.
[10:42] Speaker 3: The character of Grover isn't called Grover around the world,
[10:45] Speaker 3: like in Puerto Rico and much of Latin America, Grover
[10:48] Speaker 3: is known as Archibaldo, and in Spain he's known as Coco,
[10:53] Speaker 3: and his superhero alter ego, Super Grover is known as
[10:56] Speaker 3: Super Coco Super.
[10:58] Speaker 4: I forgot about the Super Grover.
[11:00] Speaker 3: I thought you might wait, Bert and Ernie.
[11:01] Speaker 4: Are they they're from It's a.
[11:03] Speaker 3: Wonderful Yeah, the cab driver and the cop.
[11:06] Speaker 4: Okay, I'm trying to I'm just running through Oscar the Grouch.
[11:11] Speaker 3: No. I think he was named on his after the
[11:13] Speaker 3: award show, Yes, exactly. You ever seem like d of
[11:18] Speaker 3: how he fills more than the cardage can. He goes
[11:22] Speaker 3: down into the ground and spreads out and he's just like,
[11:24] Speaker 3: oh yeah, giant monster body, great ses Street totally just insane.
[11:29] Speaker 3: It's like a it's like an acid trip. But like
[11:31] Speaker 3: for people who'd never take an acid, they just felt like,
[11:33] Speaker 3: you know, I just think like this.
[11:35] Speaker 5: You know, it wasn't not not too long ago. I
[11:37] Speaker 5: watched Follow that Bird, did you Yeah, with my nephew.
[11:40] Speaker 5: Oh okay, I mean sometimes private viewings on my own.
[11:44] Speaker 5: I'm not called bird and I'm not ashamed of that.
[11:48] Speaker 5: Bo And I watched Follow that Bird.
[11:50] Speaker 4: But Waylon Jennings, isn't it?
[11:52] Speaker 5: Oh yeah, totally, And like all my nephew was suddenly
[11:56] Speaker 5: singing along to like he picked up the words really quickly, and.
[11:59] Speaker 4: I was like, this is the greatest movie. It's a
[12:02] Speaker 4: great movie.
[12:02] Speaker 3: Anything with Whalen.
[12:03] Speaker 4: I'll watch right me too.
[12:04] Speaker 3: Anyway, back to the Start Today show, Grover Cleveland Burke Dall.
[12:09] Speaker 3: Now he's this early twentieth century rich kid, and he
[12:13] Speaker 3: lived like it. Like being a rich kid afforded him
[12:15] Speaker 3: all sorts of opportunities to chase after his dreams, which
[12:18] Speaker 3: were for him basically daredevil dreams. So he loved to
[12:22] Speaker 3: go fast. He's like my kind of guy, right.
[12:24] Speaker 4: That's you. I go slow, you go fast.
[12:26] Speaker 3: So he owned like mini fast cars. And this is
[12:29] Speaker 3: like when cars were like, you know, like open wheeled racing,
[12:31] Speaker 3: like old school cars. Sure, and so he was known
[12:34] Speaker 3: to speed whenever he could, which I respect so much
[12:38] Speaker 3: so that he was arrested numerous times.
[12:40] Speaker 4: For speeding arrested.
[12:41] Speaker 3: Oh yeah, and he was so reckless that he was
[12:43] Speaker 3: also in a few car accidents. In just one of
[12:47] Speaker 3: his accidents that I found, he injured six different people.
[12:50] Speaker 4: Oh my god.
[12:51] Speaker 3: He was arrested on multiple occasions for his speeding habit
[12:54] Speaker 3: and for his crashing. He eventually became locally famous for
[12:57] Speaker 3: his antics behind the wheel, and he was nicknamed the
[13:00] Speaker 3: speed Fiend by the local press.
[13:02] Speaker 4: Grow over the speed Fend, right, It was.
[13:04] Speaker 3: Like, I mean, I just love anytime you can put
[13:06] Speaker 3: like speed, and like this person's basically like a heroin junkie,
[13:09] Speaker 3: but for speed, but not the kind that you can,
[13:11] Speaker 3: you know, snort or something you have to like use
[13:14] Speaker 3: your foot. There you go now, Like I said, dude
[13:18] Speaker 3: was born in eighteen ninety three, which means when he
[13:21] Speaker 3: was eleven years old, the Right brothers flew their first
[13:23] Speaker 3: plane at Kittie Hawk and young Grover Cleveland Birg Doll
[13:27] Speaker 3: was amazed by this feet like, can you imagine being
[13:30] Speaker 3: an eleven year old boy when the first plane flew,
[13:32] Speaker 3: or really just being an eleven just regardless of gender, Like,
[13:36] Speaker 3: if you love to go fast like he did, you
[13:38] Speaker 3: would just be so geeked on airplane.
[13:40] Speaker 4: Yeah you can go.
[13:41] Speaker 5: Fast in the sky now, right, I mean that wasn't
[13:44] Speaker 5: really going fast at that point.
[13:46] Speaker 4: It was like, oh god, we're like eight feet off
[13:48] Speaker 4: the ground.
[13:48] Speaker 3: Well yeah, not the very first.
[13:50] Speaker 4: The very first you could see kitty hawk, baby, you.
[13:52] Speaker 3: Can see where it's going.
[13:54] Speaker 5: I would be an unimpressed eleven year old. You know
[13:58] Speaker 5: you're not going where eagles dare to fly.
[14:00] Speaker 4: Get back to me when you are.
[14:02] Speaker 3: You're a tough one. I am so Grover Cleveland burg Doll.
[14:06] Speaker 3: He grows up fascinated by this new fangled invention the airplane,
[14:09] Speaker 3: and being a rich kid. He eventually goes to the
[14:12] Speaker 3: Right Brothers and he's like, teach me to fly. Oh,
[14:14] Speaker 3: you're kidding, And since he was rich, they're like, yes,
[14:16] Speaker 3: we will, sure. So Grover Cleveland Burgdall is one of
[14:19] Speaker 3: the lucky one hundred and nineteen people who got to
[14:21] Speaker 3: train at the Right Brothers Flying School. Really, they had
[14:25] Speaker 3: their own school from nineteen ten to nineteen sixteen, where
[14:28] Speaker 3: they basically taught the first generation of pilots.
[14:30] Speaker 5: This is like Jeff Bezos and has going to space
[14:33] Speaker 5: stuff like he's basically Katie Perry.
[14:36] Speaker 3: Way cooler, Jaale King so much cool.
[14:39] Speaker 4: No, this is exactly like that.
[14:41] Speaker 3: To this point, he likes flying so much he buys
[14:44] Speaker 3: one of their early planes. He buys the right model
[14:46] Speaker 3: B for five thousand dollars.
[14:49] Speaker 4: Which what was up today? Did you even did bother
[14:52] Speaker 4: for you?
[14:52] Speaker 3: Elizabeth? Of course conversion match. I had to look this
[14:55] Speaker 3: up because you know, the US inflation calculator only goes
[14:59] Speaker 3: to nineteen fourteen. Oh not the one I use invention
[15:01] Speaker 3: of you know the irs and all the changes.
[15:04] Speaker 4: I he use a special one. I'll give you the link.
[15:06] Speaker 3: No, I have a couple, give me the link. So anyway,
[15:11] Speaker 3: it was one hundred and sixty seven thousand dollars to.
[15:15] Speaker 4: A young guy.
[15:16] Speaker 3: He's about eighteen maybe nineteen years old, and his parents
[15:18] Speaker 3: were like, here's one hundred and sixty seven thousand dollars
[15:21] Speaker 3: to buy an experimental aircraft hopefully you know. Anyway, since
[15:25] Speaker 3: he'd already had his driver's license taken away once he
[15:28] Speaker 3: earned his pilot's license. That became his new favorite place
[15:31] Speaker 3: where he got his kicks for going fast, and his
[15:34] Speaker 3: neighbors in Philly were like, I don't know, maybe it's
[15:36] Speaker 3: safer up there for him. I mean, there are fewer
[15:38] Speaker 3: of us up there for him to hit, right, This
[15:41] Speaker 3: could be a game changer people. But being him, he
[15:43] Speaker 3: also got into trouble up there. He was known for
[15:46] Speaker 3: reckless flying. He was charged by the police with quote
[15:50] Speaker 3: recklessness and air navigation. They're like making up like something
[15:53] Speaker 3: for him.
[15:54] Speaker 4: They had to, they didn't have it yet totally.
[15:56] Speaker 3: And he's a precedent center pretty much that you look
[15:59] Speaker 3: back and Fillliadelphia's law and it's like, okay, here's the
[16:01] Speaker 3: burg Doll Amendment. So Grover, the Philly police they bust
[16:07] Speaker 3: him for one of his daredevil moves where he would
[16:09] Speaker 3: come in flying too low over the city and not
[16:11] Speaker 3: just like always scaring barnyard animals, he's scaring the fine
[16:13] Speaker 3: people of.
[16:14] Speaker 4: Philadelphia's rushing rooftops.
[16:16] Speaker 3: Oh literally, like you know that in Philadelphia there's a
[16:18] Speaker 3: statue of William Penn on top of the City Hall
[16:20] Speaker 3: build right. Well, he would go and my man Grover
[16:23] Speaker 3: Cleveland burg Doll would give the old like Tom Cruise
[16:25] Speaker 3: as Maverick fly By, but he would buzz the William
[16:28] Speaker 3: Penn statue. Oh no, he ends up taking seven hundred
[16:36] Speaker 3: and forty eight flights and not once did he killed
[16:40] Speaker 3: himself in some tragic crash.
[16:42] Speaker 4: Total success, kill anybody else?
[16:44] Speaker 3: No, did not good for this. Yes, Eventually, thanks to
[16:48] Speaker 3: his fabulously wealthy family, all of his antics behind the
[16:51] Speaker 3: wheel of a speeding car, his daredevil moves in the biplane,
[16:55] Speaker 3: his behavior, and his place in society, it earned this
[16:58] Speaker 3: scion of wealth a new nickname. Eventually was called the
[17:01] Speaker 3: Playboy of the Eastern Seaboard. Oh yeah, he's he's single, ladies.
[17:07] Speaker 4: So playboy.
[17:09] Speaker 3: He goes off to college at the University of Penn.
[17:11] Speaker 3: Now he gets into the ivy leagues. It's like the
[17:14] Speaker 3: college in town, and there he gets thrown out for
[17:17] Speaker 3: publishing a newspaper that was deemed offensive. I tried to
[17:20] Speaker 3: look up find what made it offensive. I'm just going
[17:23] Speaker 3: to assume it was like racist or anti Semitic, or
[17:25] Speaker 3: like against women. I don't know. I couldn't find it.
[17:27] Speaker 5: If it was just so raunchy, it could be all
[17:30] Speaker 5: of it. It was just early, you know, punhouse letters.
[17:33] Speaker 3: Yeah, it's like a zine of porn, but like just
[17:35] Speaker 3: stick drawings. Somehow it's offensive. I don't know. But anyway,
[17:40] Speaker 3: but by this point, his big brother had already gone
[17:43] Speaker 3: out into the world and was making a name for
[17:45] Speaker 3: himself in early auto racing from nineteen going on in
[17:49] Speaker 3: this they Love Speed Elizabeth. From nineteen oh nine to
[17:52] Speaker 3: nineteen fourteen, his brother raced professionally and his baby brother,
[17:56] Speaker 3: this is a grover. He also obviously speed right, and
[18:01] Speaker 3: he wanted to join his big brother as a race car.
[18:03] Speaker 4: Brother's name uh Erwin oh right, right, right right.
[18:06] Speaker 3: And so he went to join his big brother who
[18:09] Speaker 3: was like, you know, driving on the circuit. So he
[18:12] Speaker 3: becomes a professional driver from nineteen eleven to nineteen sixteen.
[18:15] Speaker 3: In fact, he got so good he tried to qualify
[18:18] Speaker 3: as a driver for the nineteen fifteen Indianapolis five hundred race.
[18:23] Speaker 3: We're talking like early yeah, I.
[18:25] Speaker 5: Mean they were getting up to speeds of what forty
[18:27] Speaker 5: four forty five?
[18:29] Speaker 4: Yeah, they were.
[18:31] Speaker 5: My grandpa told me once that when he was a
[18:34] Speaker 5: little boy that they thought that if cars went too fast,
[18:37] Speaker 5: you wouldn't be able to breathe.
[18:38] Speaker 4: Yeah, And I was like, what's too fast. He's like
[18:40] Speaker 4: forty five.
[18:41] Speaker 5: Seriously, I was like, that makes sense, That's how I
[18:44] Speaker 5: feel when I drive that fast.
[18:46] Speaker 3: But also you have to remember they they didn't have windshields,
[18:49] Speaker 3: really a piece of glass to like keep the bugs
[18:51] Speaker 3: at your eyes squatting.
[18:53] Speaker 5: Behind that even with the full windshield. Yeah, windscreen for
[18:57] Speaker 5: our friends across the pond. True, I hit forty five
[19:00] Speaker 5: and I'm like, I can't breathe.
[19:01] Speaker 3: I can't breathe.
[19:01] Speaker 4: Grandpa, I like, my skin's pulling back from my face.
[19:05] Speaker 3: He's turning blue.
[19:06] Speaker 4: Yeah, as I pass out now.
[19:09] Speaker 3: At this point, I don't know if Grover Cleveland BERGDLL
[19:12] Speaker 3: was like a nuisance for his older brother, or maybe
[19:14] Speaker 3: he was sabotaging his big brother and his racing career,
[19:17] Speaker 3: or maybe he was just genuinely unwell. But either way,
[19:20] Speaker 3: that same year, in nineteen fifteen, his big brother Irwin
[19:23] Speaker 3: tried to have his baby brother committed. Oh yeah, he
[19:26] Speaker 3: attempted to have him declared legally insane, but it didn't work.
[19:32] Speaker 3: I guess Mama gave him money for the lawyer because
[19:34] Speaker 3: he's like, no, we're keeping him out.
[19:36] Speaker 4: So just like we only do that to the ladies
[19:38] Speaker 4: in the.
[19:38] Speaker 3: Family now, despite as many crashes, the litany of people
[19:42] Speaker 3: he's injured, his ongoing troubles with the law, his daredevil
[19:46] Speaker 3: dodging of death. Things were going well for Grover Cleveland
[19:49] Speaker 3: Burgdhal right up until nineteen seventeen. Okay, Elizabeth, you want
[19:53] Speaker 3: to guess what happened in nineteen seventeen that changed everything
[19:56] Speaker 3: for the playboy of the Eastern Seaboard. Uh, you're gonna
[19:59] Speaker 3: have to that's right, Elizabeth. On April sixth, nineteen seventeen,
[20:04] Speaker 3: the US entered World War One. And no, yes, truly,
[20:09] Speaker 3: you're kid. It was the first of the World wars.
[20:12] Speaker 3: Really they called it the Great One.
[20:13] Speaker 5: No, at the time, they said it's World War One,
[20:15] Speaker 5: because we know this is going to happen again.
[20:19] Speaker 3: Now, being that he was just twenty three years old
[20:20] Speaker 3: at the time, Grover Cleveland Bergdal was drafted into the
[20:23] Speaker 3: Armed Forces to go and fight against the Kaiser soldiers
[20:26] Speaker 3: and the killing fields in France. Right, so he and
[20:28] Speaker 3: his brother they both get drafted, and both being rich kids,
[20:31] Speaker 3: they were like, no, I don't want to go. Well, flat,
[20:34] Speaker 3: I don't want to go.
[20:35] Speaker 4: They are good for them, Dulce at the Kora mess.
[20:38] Speaker 3: Seriously, right, but the fat that the family was ethnically
[20:41] Speaker 3: German might have also colored their thinking. Yeah, either way,
[20:45] Speaker 3: they both decide, let's dodge the draft. Like that sounds fun.
[20:48] Speaker 5: That goes over well at home to be ethnically German
[20:50] Speaker 5: and dodging the drum right.
[20:52] Speaker 3: So, first up, Grover Cleveland burg Doll skips out on
[20:55] Speaker 3: his physical, Then he fails to show up for his
[20:57] Speaker 3: intake questionnaire, and finally, on the day he he's due
[21:00] Speaker 3: to be inducted officially, he's also a no show. Three strikes,
[21:03] Speaker 3: He's out. It took a few months for the army
[21:05] Speaker 3: to catch up on paperwork, but finally, nineteen eighteen, Grover
[21:08] Speaker 3: Cleveland burg Doll gets declared an official deserter and for
[21:12] Speaker 3: the next two years he has to evade police and
[21:15] Speaker 3: the military police in order to continue to dodge the draft. Wow,
[21:19] Speaker 3: his big brother, Irwin wasn't so lucky. He was caught.
[21:21] Speaker 3: He was locked up in prison for three years for
[21:24] Speaker 3: violating the Selective Service Act of nineteen seventy.
[21:26] Speaker 4: So they just put him in jail. They didn't send
[21:28] Speaker 4: him over to fight the jerry.
[21:29] Speaker 3: No, they don't think they trusted him at that point.
[21:31] Speaker 4: Yeah, probably now.
[21:32] Speaker 3: Meanwhile, the US government. They decided to turn this draft
[21:35] Speaker 3: dodging rich kid into a cautionary tale, and so they
[21:38] Speaker 3: make wanted posters. They create them, they circulate them around
[21:41] Speaker 3: the country and declare that Grover Cleveland burg Doll is
[21:44] Speaker 3: a wanted man. So where is Grover Cleveland burg Doll?
[21:48] Speaker 3: Is he? Great question, Elizabeth, After this short commercial break,
[21:52] Speaker 3: which we have nothing to do with, by the way,
[21:53] Speaker 3: so don't blame us if you don't like the ads,
[21:55] Speaker 3: so we don't select them. We will catch back up
[21:58] Speaker 3: with the draft dodging rich kid, who it'd soon become
[22:01] Speaker 3: the most hated man in America. We're back, Elizabeth. There
[22:26] Speaker 3: are you ready to catch up with Grover Cleveland berg Doll.
[22:28] Speaker 4: I have been waiting my whole life for this.
[22:30] Speaker 3: So where do you think this cocky rich kid is
[22:33] Speaker 3: hiding out while other young men his age are being
[22:35] Speaker 3: shipped off to war in Europe.
[22:37] Speaker 4: In tunnels under the city of Poughkeepsie.
[22:39] Speaker 3: Well, I don't know, Elizabeth. I can tell you this
[22:41] Speaker 3: I did where I can tell you where he gets caught.
[22:44] Speaker 4: At your mom's house.
[22:45] Speaker 3: No close guests though. In nineteen twenty, after spending two
[22:49] Speaker 3: years on the LAMB, during which time he was sending
[22:51] Speaker 3: letters to taunt the draft board, what from various places
[22:55] Speaker 3: like in the southern United States. Some letters were postmarked
[22:58] Speaker 3: from Mexico see the zodiac just pretty much just not
[23:01] Speaker 3: as ambitious. So clearly, why why would you right? You?
[23:06] Speaker 3: Like I said, some cocky ridge can't catch me. So
[23:11] Speaker 3: eventually the authorities they discovered that Grover Cleveland burg Doll
[23:14] Speaker 3: was presently hiding out at his parents' house. Not my
[23:17] Speaker 3: mom's house, Elizabeth. His mom's house is the Burgdll Mansion
[23:23] Speaker 3: now Elizabeth. This place lived up to the hype. It
[23:26] Speaker 3: was a twenty four room greystone like they have in Pennsylvania. Greystone, yeah,
[23:31] Speaker 3: castle in a suburb of Philadelphia. It was a big
[23:35] Speaker 3: ass home. It wouldn't be easy to find him hiding
[23:38] Speaker 3: in there, that's how big the house is. Oh I'm sure,
[23:41] Speaker 3: but scratch that. It wasn't easy getting in to look
[23:43] Speaker 3: for him.
[23:44] Speaker 5: Into the house, they've got like gates and moats and alligators.
[23:48] Speaker 4: And his mom and his big old mama.
[23:50] Speaker 3: With a pistol. When the federal agent showed up in
[23:54] Speaker 3: the twenty four room castle, his mother, Emma Bergdahal, was
[23:58] Speaker 3: there to greet them, and she was packed heat, like
[24:00] Speaker 3: she was Mab Barker. She came out onto the steps
[24:03] Speaker 3: and like aimed a thirty eight caliber pistol at the
[24:05] Speaker 3: federal agents and said, you can't have my baby boy.
[24:09] Speaker 3: According to the New York Times, Mama Bergdall quote threatened
[24:12] Speaker 3: to shoot the officers and was disarmed after a rough
[24:15] Speaker 3: and tuble fight.
[24:16] Speaker 4: So she put up a hot fight with.
[24:18] Speaker 3: Like more than a dozen federal agents.
[24:21] Speaker 5: You know, those are the good old days when you
[24:22] Speaker 5: could hold federal agents at gunpoint and not get lit
[24:25] Speaker 5: up on your own front porch.
[24:26] Speaker 3: Yeah, for real though, So eventually the more than a
[24:29] Speaker 3: dozen federal officers were able to overpower and disarm the mother,
[24:33] Speaker 3: and then they raided the castle from the front and
[24:36] Speaker 3: the back. As the New York Times reported, strategy was
[24:39] Speaker 3: used and the front and rear entrances were forced at
[24:41] Speaker 3: the same time. So once they enter the home and
[24:44] Speaker 3: search the premises of federal agents do end up locating
[24:47] Speaker 3: old Grover Cleveland. Where they found him was he was
[24:50] Speaker 3: hiding out in a window seat, buried beneath a few blankets.
[24:53] Speaker 3: But that kind of undersells it. Back to the New
[24:56] Speaker 3: York Times quote, a search of the house revealed grover
[24:59] Speaker 3: hiding a a window box seat on the second floor
[25:02] Speaker 3: of the house. The seat was covered with neatly folded blankets,
[25:05] Speaker 3: and on top of these were thick plush curtains. The
[25:08] Speaker 3: hunted man lying inside the box was covered with a
[25:11] Speaker 3: blue cloth. He made no resistance as he was instantly
[25:14] Speaker 3: covered by several pistols. I guess it's all up. I'm
[25:17] Speaker 3: glad it is over, but I am no deserter, was
[25:21] Speaker 3: all berg Doll would say when captured.
[25:23] Speaker 4: You know that he was like, this is the best
[25:26] Speaker 4: hiding spot.
[25:26] Speaker 5: Totally, Mom, put the blankets in the tot on me
[25:29] Speaker 5: close the top stack all these blankets, pull the drapes.
[25:32] Speaker 3: Yeah, they'll never look in the box seat.
[25:34] Speaker 4: Why don't they have secret rooms?
[25:36] Speaker 3: And like I'm sure they don't.
[25:37] Speaker 4: The tunnel system.
[25:38] Speaker 3: I just don't think that he got to those in time,
[25:41] Speaker 3: like they might have been just like hanging out playing peanuckle.
[25:44] Speaker 3: And also the.
[25:46] Speaker 4: Exactly yelling at the front so that he can hear
[25:49] Speaker 4: in the.
[25:49] Speaker 3: And the staff can like get the one last blanket
[25:52] Speaker 3: and placed on top. So after the authorities discover the
[25:55] Speaker 3: wanted man in the aforementioned window box seat hidden beneath
[25:58] Speaker 3: the blankets. They also found the family was holed up
[26:00] Speaker 3: with a small cache of weapons, and I'm talking like
[26:03] Speaker 3: a three foot tall stack of German propaganda pamphlets. Oh yeah,
[26:09] Speaker 3: they're like a little cell of like pro Kaiser sentiment. So,
[26:13] Speaker 3: according to the New York Times quote, in addition to
[26:15] Speaker 3: a three foot stack of pro German pamphlets, the federal
[26:18] Speaker 3: agents found in the dining room a twelve gage automatic
[26:21] Speaker 3: pump gun with a large supply of shells. Handy on
[26:24] Speaker 3: the oak buffet were seven boxes of shells for the
[26:27] Speaker 3: thirty eight caliber revolver with which she threatened the invaders.
[26:31] Speaker 3: There was also an automatic rifle with a silencer attachment,
[26:34] Speaker 3: a large dagger, and other weapons. All were confiscated. Oh wow, Elizabeth,
[26:41] Speaker 3: they had like a Tommy gun with the sockey.
[26:42] Speaker 4: Yes, and it's like a sleeper cell.
[26:45] Speaker 3: Family don't play.
[26:46] Speaker 4: I guess they all get locked up now.
[26:50] Speaker 3: No, No, they did not. They're rich people, Elizabeth did.
[26:53] Speaker 3: They're like, how many lawyer fights do we want to
[26:56] Speaker 3: get into? They can get the boy dead to rights,
[26:57] Speaker 3: But mama is like, well she's protecting No.
[27:00] Speaker 4: Like pro German propaganda champhlets.
[27:04] Speaker 5: It's not They got all their German zines and their
[27:06] Speaker 5: German porn zines.
[27:08] Speaker 3: Weird leather porn. So, as you might imagine, the rest
[27:11] Speaker 3: of the former playboy of the Eastern Seaboy becomes national news. Meanwhile,
[27:16] Speaker 3: his race car driving brother is still at large. Remember
[27:19] Speaker 3: they are both draft dodged at the same time. Now,
[27:22] Speaker 3: when he gets asked about his big brother, Grover Cleveland
[27:24] Speaker 3: burg Doll tells authorities that they'd gone their separate ways
[27:27] Speaker 3: and that quote he saw his brother Irwin only once
[27:30] Speaker 3: and that was in Cincinnati six months ago. So his
[27:33] Speaker 3: brother Irwin would later be apprehended and jailed on his own.
[27:37] Speaker 3: These are not pacifists, No, no, they're not principled in
[27:41] Speaker 3: the least. Their principle is I don't want to go.
[27:43] Speaker 3: You can't make me. I like the Kaiser. So meanwhile,
[27:46] Speaker 3: Grover Cleveland burghdal he stood trial for his draft dodging.
[27:50] Speaker 3: He was tried in a military court martial because he
[27:52] Speaker 3: was technically a soldier who'd gone a wall and shocking
[27:56] Speaker 3: no one, he was found guilty of desertion and sentenced
[27:58] Speaker 3: to five years in prison. Yeah, However, before he could
[28:02] Speaker 3: be sent to prison, he cut a deal with the military.
[28:05] Speaker 4: What I didn't know you could do that.
[28:07] Speaker 3: Well, here's the deal he cut Elizabeth. He explained to
[28:11] Speaker 3: the military the officers that he had a huge cash
[28:14] Speaker 3: of gold that he'd buried in a secret location somewhere
[28:17] Speaker 3: near Hager'stown, Maryland, and if the army would let him
[28:21] Speaker 3: go to collect his buried treasure, he would hand it
[28:23] Speaker 3: over to help fund the war effort, and in return,
[28:26] Speaker 3: the army would shorten his prison sentence. The army officers
[28:30] Speaker 3: heard this deal, They're like, you got a deal. Yeah.
[28:32] Speaker 5: I guess they were desperate for I mean, they were
[28:34] Speaker 5: hawking war bonds at this point pretty much.
[28:36] Speaker 3: Yeah, and this sounds like, you know, like hundreds of
[28:38] Speaker 3: thousands of dollars which would be to us for this.
[28:41] Speaker 3: So he gets released from the military prison.
[28:44] Speaker 5: He's like, I have to go by myself. This is
[28:46] Speaker 5: a very personal journey. This is my quest.
[28:51] Speaker 3: It's practically that bad. He's taken underguard two guards to
[28:56] Speaker 3: go dig up his buried treasure. But before the guards
[28:58] Speaker 3: take him to Hager's town, was like, yo, guys, I
[29:01] Speaker 3: need to stop off right quick at my mom's house,
[29:03] Speaker 3: I mean her castle. So is that cool? And like,
[29:06] Speaker 3: I don't know if he was like, yeah, I need
[29:08] Speaker 3: to get a pick and a shovel or whatever. Yeah,
[29:12] Speaker 3: ask my questions, like did you have like like a
[29:14] Speaker 3: crayon treasure map. We're a pot of gold under the
[29:18] Speaker 3: X whatever he said. It worked right because these two
[29:21] Speaker 3: like MP's are really there were sergeants. They took the
[29:24] Speaker 3: prisoner to his mom's house, and you remember how she
[29:27] Speaker 3: was last time the authorities showed up her house on
[29:30] Speaker 3: the downs. Anyway, he arrives at his mom's castle with
[29:33] Speaker 3: his armed military police as his guards, and he's like, hey, mom,
[29:36] Speaker 3: me and the boys want to like get some meals.
[29:38] Speaker 3: And we're maybe like tomorrow or maybe later today, we're
[29:41] Speaker 3: gonna they're gonna take me to Maryland to go dig
[29:43] Speaker 3: up my secret bury treasure. So like, don't shoot him, Mom.
[29:46] Speaker 3: She's like, oh, I'm not. She puts her guns away
[29:48] Speaker 3: or whatever. Now why anyone thought this whole idea was
[29:52] Speaker 3: a good idea is beyond me reading about it. I'm
[29:54] Speaker 3: like they did what yeah?
[29:56] Speaker 4: Wow.
[29:57] Speaker 3: Like, for instance, he wasn't wearing a prison uniform. Instead,
[30:00] Speaker 3: they didn't want to call attention to themselves, so Grover
[30:02] Speaker 3: Cleveland Bergdall was given a uniform that's identical to the
[30:06] Speaker 3: ones worn by the two sergeants who are guarding him.
[30:10] Speaker 3: Not only that, Elizabeth, he's not handcuffed for the same
[30:13] Speaker 3: reason they call attention to him. So we're gonna have
[30:15] Speaker 3: him dressed just like us, not handcuff him. We're gonna
[30:18] Speaker 3: take him to his mom's castle.
[30:20] Speaker 5: I mean, it's one thing to be like, we don't
[30:21] Speaker 5: want to put him in the old prisoner stripes totally,
[30:24] Speaker 5: but we're gonna give.
[30:26] Speaker 3: You a sergeant's uniform. Yeah. So they go, and then
[30:29] Speaker 3: he talks to these guards once they're off base into
[30:31] Speaker 3: going to his mom's place, and they're like, yeah, totally,
[30:33] Speaker 3: let's go.
[30:34] Speaker 5: Do you think he said, I'll pay you off, like,
[30:36] Speaker 5: we'll have like money for you if you take me
[30:38] Speaker 5: over there.
[30:38] Speaker 3: I'll skip ahead to tell you they court marshaled these
[30:40] Speaker 3: two sergeants and they found them clean. They said that
[30:44] Speaker 3: there was nothing wrong, that they did everything according to
[30:47] Speaker 3: apparently military orders. To me, the whole trip is hanky,
[30:51] Speaker 3: yeah yeah, or it's an embarrassment. Your choice. I'm gonna
[30:54] Speaker 3: have to go with embarrassment in this case. Right now.
[30:56] Speaker 3: I should add. Some reports say that his pot of
[30:59] Speaker 3: gold was buried in the Appalachian Mountains in West Virginia,
[31:02] Speaker 3: which is not close to Hagerstown, Maryland like Gettysburg is
[31:06] Speaker 3: closer to that than West Virginia is. But whatever doesn't matter.
[31:09] Speaker 3: What does matter, Elizabeth? It's May nineteen twenty, So burg
[31:13] Speaker 3: Doll's like, hey, guys, before we go dig up my
[31:15] Speaker 3: buried pot of gold, how about we hit up a burlesque.
[31:18] Speaker 3: And the two Army sergeants are like, yeah, it's still
[31:22] Speaker 3: I love it. I love seeing that.
[31:23] Speaker 4: Count me in.
[31:24] Speaker 3: So after some light in frisky entertainment, the US Army esports.
[31:30] Speaker 5: And then one of them they walk out and one
[31:32] Speaker 5: of them has a feather bow on other.
[31:35] Speaker 3: One has a pasty on his face. So burg Doll
[31:37] Speaker 3: he takes them to his next arranged stop, which is like, hey,
[31:40] Speaker 3: let's go see my mom. So they go burlesque, then
[31:42] Speaker 3: they go to.
[31:43] Speaker 4: The Mass priorities.
[31:44] Speaker 3: And then when baby boy Burgdall in his two uniform
[31:47] Speaker 3: guard show up at his mother's house, she was like, oh,
[31:49] Speaker 3: I'll have the house staff serve the men breakfast, because
[31:52] Speaker 3: they apparently they showed up early enough for breakfast. Sure,
[31:54] Speaker 3: I don't know what burlesque you're seeing at six am
[31:57] Speaker 3: I overnight exactly. So then after breakfast, she has the
[32:02] Speaker 3: staff make them a big extravagant lunch, meanwater breakfast. After breakfast,
[32:06] Speaker 3: they eat a break big breakfast. They hang out a
[32:08] Speaker 3: while longer, they have a big lunch. After that, the
[32:12] Speaker 3: men all retire to the billiard's room in the castle
[32:14] Speaker 3: and they play a few games of pool. Meanwhile, the
[32:17] Speaker 3: purp not handcuff just kind of sneaks off. Oh my god,
[32:21] Speaker 3: what do you think happens next, Elizabeth?
[32:23] Speaker 4: The mom comes down into the pool room.
[32:25] Speaker 3: Wow, if you said the former daredevil makes a break
[32:30] Speaker 3: for it, you win today's grand no prize. Apparently, while
[32:35] Speaker 3: his US Army sergeant escorts are busy playing pool and
[32:38] Speaker 3: the mom's giving her feather boa like seven Vales dance
[32:41] Speaker 3: Grover Cleveland, burg Doll slips out of a window, hops
[32:44] Speaker 3: in a car with his chauffeur, mind you, and together
[32:47] Speaker 3: they speed off. Jeez. Yeah, this escape of Bergdoll launch
[32:52] Speaker 3: is a second nationwide man hunt for him because he
[32:56] Speaker 3: was gone for two years before. She's like, oh, no,
[32:59] Speaker 3: darn it, this is to be bad. So it turns
[33:01] Speaker 3: out the chauffeur driven car didn't like go you know,
[33:04] Speaker 3: drifting around the country. Instead, he didn't stop speeding until
[33:07] Speaker 3: they got to the Canadian border.
[33:09] Speaker 4: Wow.
[33:10] Speaker 3: From there, Bergdahll arranged passage on a ship to Europe
[33:13] Speaker 3: and he fled to Germany. That's where Grover Cleveland Burgdhal
[33:18] Speaker 3: linked up with his wife, who was the daughter of
[33:21] Speaker 3: the gardener at his mom's castle. Stop why it sent
[33:25] Speaker 3: her ahead.
[33:25] Speaker 4: And apparently I'm just learning of this now.
[33:27] Speaker 3: The US military in the State Department missed that his
[33:30] Speaker 3: wife was clearing customs and going to Germany.
[33:32] Speaker 4: And they're like, no, she's probably married the daughter of
[33:35] Speaker 4: the gardener.
[33:35] Speaker 3: Yeah, and then sent her to Germany ahead of him,
[33:37] Speaker 3: and then made his escape and then she met up
[33:40] Speaker 3: with her. So at this point he finds safe refuge
[33:43] Speaker 3: in a town of Aberbach now where he resides in
[33:46] Speaker 3: a lap of luxury at a hotel owned by his
[33:49] Speaker 3: uncle or his cousin. I found differing reports so his
[33:52] Speaker 3: family newspaper accounts, you know, they are a little unreliable
[33:56] Speaker 3: from the nineteen early nineteen hundreds. Regardless, either way, how
[34:00] Speaker 3: this scion of wealth and privilege, he's living it up
[34:02] Speaker 3: in Germany while the Allies are waging war against the
[34:05] Speaker 3: Kaiser in France. However, being him, can't stay still he
[34:09] Speaker 3: just loves speed, Elizabeth, so he keeps popping back to
[34:12] Speaker 3: the United States for secret tricks.
[34:14] Speaker 4: Are you kidding me?
[34:16] Speaker 3: Soon enough, there are scattered reports from people who spotted
[34:19] Speaker 3: berg Doll all across the US, even down in Mexico.
[34:23] Speaker 3: He just back in Mexico. He's getting this point, say,
[34:25] Speaker 3: the Germans love Mexico. I think it's the upp I
[34:30] Speaker 3: like the Accordion. You like the Accordian. I like a
[34:32] Speaker 3: good who.
[34:34] Speaker 4: We are Sympetico.
[34:36] Speaker 3: So the colossal failure to take Bergdal to prison and
[34:39] Speaker 3: the whole hey help me dig up my buried treasure bill,
[34:42] Speaker 3: It makes it into the newspapers of the day, which
[34:44] Speaker 3: causes a congressional investigation into what happened? How could you
[34:48] Speaker 3: mess up this badly? And he escapes to Germany. The
[34:51] Speaker 3: American public, they grow angry at this symbol of draft
[34:53] Speaker 3: evasion while all these young men are going to die,
[34:56] Speaker 3: and even though the war is at this point now
[34:59] Speaker 3: over in nineteen twelve, veterans back home they despise berg
[35:03] Speaker 3: Doll not just for being a coward afraid to do
[35:06] Speaker 3: his part in the war, but they also come to
[35:07] Speaker 3: think of him as a trader. This is when he
[35:09] Speaker 3: becomes known as the most hated man in America.
[35:12] Speaker 4: Yeah yeah.
[35:13] Speaker 3: In fact, American soldiers still stationed in Europe after the
[35:16] Speaker 3: war decided to make it their private mission to go
[35:18] Speaker 3: capture burg Doll now bring him back to the US
[35:21] Speaker 3: to stand trial. The first attempt goes down in nineteen
[35:25] Speaker 3: twenty one, and true to his nature, it's a daredevil affair. Elizabeth,
[35:29] Speaker 3: close your eyes.
[35:30] Speaker 4: My eyes are closed.
[35:31] Speaker 3: I want you to picture it. It's January twenty sixth,
[35:40] Speaker 3: nineteen twenty one. You are waiting for a train at
[35:43] Speaker 3: the station in Aberbach, Germany. You are here in Germany,
[35:46] Speaker 3: a couple of years after the end of what everyone
[35:48] Speaker 3: is calling the Great War, what you are now calling
[35:51] Speaker 3: the Great Reset, because you've come to Germany to shake
[35:54] Speaker 3: off the ugliness of the war by adopting some dogs
[35:57] Speaker 3: that have no safe place to call their home. If
[35:59] Speaker 3: you can rescue them from the countryside and take them
[36:02] Speaker 3: back with you to Paris, you feel like you have
[36:04] Speaker 3: done something good to offset the many ugly realities of
[36:08] Speaker 3: this war. Anyway, you're waiting for a train and it's
[36:11] Speaker 3: about to arrive. Unbeknownst to you, there is also an
[36:15] Speaker 3: internationally wanted criminal also at the station. Only he is
[36:19] Speaker 3: enough to know good or doing any suspicious behavior, and
[36:22] Speaker 3: a bad wig and a phony mustache. Quite the contrary.
[36:25] Speaker 3: At the moment, Grover Cleveland Bergdal is in a car
[36:28] Speaker 3: with his friend and bodyguard along with a young newlywed couple.
[36:32] Speaker 3: The two men have agreed to drive to the train
[36:34] Speaker 3: station so they can meet their wedding party. Finally, the
[36:38] Speaker 3: train arrives, A long whistle announces its approach. The train
[36:41] Speaker 3: pulls into the station and slows to a stop. You
[36:45] Speaker 3: are growing ever more excited now that the last train
[36:48] Speaker 3: you need for your journey has arrived. Meanwhile, the internationally
[36:52] Speaker 3: wanted man waits in the car with his bodyguard while
[36:55] Speaker 3: the newlywed couple walks over to the platform to meet
[36:58] Speaker 3: the disembarking passengers. The newlywed couple catches your eye because
[37:02] Speaker 3: of the joyous meeting between them and their wedding party
[37:05] Speaker 3: that's just arrived. They're all smiles and joyful tears. You
[37:09] Speaker 3: love to see people so happy. It makes you happy.
[37:13] Speaker 3: You watch the couple in their wedding party guests as
[37:15] Speaker 3: they make their way back to the waiting car, and
[37:18] Speaker 3: that's when you hear it. The loud purring engine of
[37:22] Speaker 3: a car speeding toward them. You can count six men
[37:26] Speaker 3: huddled inside the approaching car. You've seen trouble before, and
[37:30] Speaker 3: that's what it looks like. Your instincts are sound. It
[37:33] Speaker 3: is trouble. The newlyweds are busy climbing back into the
[37:36] Speaker 3: waiting car with the driver notices what you just saw,
[37:40] Speaker 3: the car with the six men racing towards him. He
[37:43] Speaker 3: does what most bodyguards in his position to do. He
[37:46] Speaker 3: slips the key back into the ignition as fast as
[37:48] Speaker 3: you can. It starts the car. However, you spy the
[37:52] Speaker 3: car racing at him as it slams on its brakes,
[37:55] Speaker 3: and the six men all hop out like American cops
[37:58] Speaker 3: used to hitting in gunfights withootlegging racketeers back in Chicago.
[38:02] Speaker 3: The six men surround the vehicle. One of the men,
[38:05] Speaker 3: clearly an American soldier based on his haircut and how
[38:08] Speaker 3: he's dressed, draws a pistol and aims it into the vehicle.
[38:12] Speaker 3: He points the gun at the head of the man
[38:15] Speaker 3: riding in the passenger seat. He orders the driver to
[38:18] Speaker 3: turn off the car's ignition as his eyes shift to
[38:21] Speaker 3: the driver to see if he's complying. You see the
[38:24] Speaker 3: passenger swat the gun from his head. Now in German.
[38:28] Speaker 3: He orders the driver to drive off, which is exactly
[38:31] Speaker 3: what he does. The driver punches it, the car speeds off.
[38:35] Speaker 3: The men surrounding the car leap out of the way.
[38:37] Speaker 3: The gunman, who aimed his pistol at the head of
[38:39] Speaker 3: the passenger, squeezes off a few rounds of the fleeing car.
[38:43] Speaker 3: He looks to be aiming at the car tires. You
[38:46] Speaker 3: wonder if that ever works outside of the movies. In
[38:49] Speaker 3: this case, it does not. He misses the car tires,
[38:52] Speaker 3: but he does put one bullet into the car's passenger compartment,
[38:56] Speaker 3: and the bullet strikes the bride. You gasp, not it's
[39:00] Speaker 3: a bride, you think, not on her special day. But
[39:03] Speaker 3: she's fine, It's only a flesh woman. She's been shot
[39:06] Speaker 3: in her hand. Meanwhile, the six men all load back
[39:09] Speaker 3: up into their car and they give Chase what a
[39:13] Speaker 3: totally unexpected and thrilling moment to happen At a German
[39:16] Speaker 3: train station in the middle of nowhere, you notice one
[39:19] Speaker 3: of the train goers runs towards the car before it
[39:23] Speaker 3: gets up to speed. He leaps and hops onto the
[39:25] Speaker 3: car's running board. Standing alongside the car, the man is
[39:29] Speaker 3: able to reach into the open window and yank the
[39:32] Speaker 3: emergency brake. The car's break engages and it screeches to
[39:35] Speaker 3: a heart. Turns out that brave young man is the
[39:38] Speaker 3: cousin of the internationally wanted man. You don't know this,
[39:41] Speaker 3: but you'll learn it later on once the gossip and
[39:44] Speaker 3: stories are getting shared by eyewitnesses. At the moment, you
[39:48] Speaker 3: have a new concern. The six men in the car
[39:50] Speaker 3: that had its emergency break yanked are now being surrounded
[39:53] Speaker 3: by an angry mob of Germans. From their accents and
[39:57] Speaker 3: haircuts and clothing, you determine the two of the men
[39:59] Speaker 3: are a man Americans and the other four are Germans.
[40:02] Speaker 3: The crowd figures this out too. The angry mob begins
[40:06] Speaker 3: to shout insults at the six men, saving their hottest
[40:09] Speaker 3: anger for the two American servicemen. They begin to beat
[40:13] Speaker 3: the men with fists and kick them both. You and
[40:16] Speaker 3: the two Americans are happy to see the local German
[40:19] Speaker 3: police arrive just in time to save the two men
[40:22] Speaker 3: from the anger of the German mob. Still apparently a
[40:26] Speaker 3: bit heated about losing the World War.
[40:30] Speaker 4: Oh my goodness, but.
[40:31] Speaker 3: There you go, Elizabethankness. You came to Aberbach to save
[40:34] Speaker 3: some popular and you leave with the story about American
[40:37] Speaker 3: dough boys who almost lost their lives in Germany to
[40:39] Speaker 3: an angry mob of bitter losers. So the story is
[40:43] Speaker 3: two US sergeants, Carl Naff and Franz Zimmer, who were
[40:46] Speaker 3: stationed at a nearby American headquarters for the occupying US
[40:49] Speaker 3: Expeditionary Force. They left their base and they attempted to
[40:53] Speaker 3: enlist four German men to help them kidnap Bergdal bring
[40:56] Speaker 3: him back to Allied controlled territories or Bergdal could face
[40:59] Speaker 3: just for his draft dodging and traitorous acts such as
[41:02] Speaker 3: his offer to join the Kaiser's Air Force, because remember
[41:05] Speaker 3: he's a flyboy, and he's like, I can bomb Americans,
[41:07] Speaker 3: give me a Plane's like, I don't trust you with
[41:09] Speaker 3: my plans. But when their abduction fails and a German
[41:12] Speaker 3: bride gets shot in the hand, it causes this major
[41:15] Speaker 3: international incident. And you see that after that failed attempt
[41:19] Speaker 3: to capture Grover Cleveland berg Doll that you witness fail,
[41:22] Speaker 3: the major result is that the American sergeants are arrested
[41:25] Speaker 3: by German authorities for attempt at kidnapping, which is totally legit,
[41:29] Speaker 3: which then leads to the international row and the two
[41:32] Speaker 3: American servicemen had to be negotiated over like a pair
[41:35] Speaker 3: of prize spies.
[41:36] Speaker 4: Oh wow.
[41:37] Speaker 3: Eventually they are released thanks to the US government and
[41:40] Speaker 3: their German counterparts. Now, Elizabeth, as the old saying goes,
[41:44] Speaker 3: when you fail once, what are you supposed to do?
[41:48] Speaker 4: Fail again?
[41:48] Speaker 3: That's right, try try again, And that's exactly what US
[41:52] Speaker 3: soldiers did. After these messages, we'll hear about the second
[41:56] Speaker 3: extraordinary rendition of Grover Cleveland Burgdal. And we're back, Elizabeth,
[42:20] Speaker 3: we are back. So you ready to hear about this
[42:23] Speaker 3: second attempt to capture Burber Cleveland Bergdal and bring him
[42:26] Speaker 3: back to the US. Yes, please, all right. In August
[42:29] Speaker 3: of nineteen twenty three, Just two years later, Corliss Hoven Griffiths,
[42:34] Speaker 3: that's with an S, not a thh. Corliss, Corliss Hoven, Griffiths.
[42:39] Speaker 4: Cordless Hoven Griffish.
[42:42] Speaker 3: Let a secret raid into Germany backed by a team
[42:44] Speaker 3: of four men, Roger Sperber, John Nielsen, Faus Gagerian and
[42:49] Speaker 3: Carl Schmidt.
[42:50] Speaker 4: You're making this stuff, No I'm not.
[42:52] Speaker 3: And with names like that. I hope at least one
[42:54] Speaker 3: of them spoke German. So unlike the first attempt, the
[42:57] Speaker 3: second attempt was more straightforward, right to the point, and
[43:00] Speaker 3: rather than attempt some public kidnapping at a busy German
[43:03] Speaker 3: train station, this second crew they opted to grab Bergdahl
[43:06] Speaker 3: at his hotel in Aberbach. And better than that, they
[43:09] Speaker 3: planned to grab him from his hotel room, not even
[43:11] Speaker 3: like where to get him in the lobby right totally.
[43:14] Speaker 3: The team they meet up in Paris and they plan
[43:16] Speaker 3: their extraction. They would grab Bergdahl from the hotel, snatch
[43:20] Speaker 3: him up, toss him in the trunk of a fast car,
[43:23] Speaker 3: and then race over the German border get back to Paris.
[43:25] Speaker 3: Then they'd hand him over to US officials for his
[43:27] Speaker 3: rendition home to stand trial. Eazyps right now. According to
[43:32] Speaker 3: reporting at the time, the raid was organized and run
[43:34] Speaker 3: by a mystery man named Count Romanoff. It was alleged
[43:42] Speaker 3: that he was an agent of the American Secret Service,
[43:45] Speaker 3: and as The New York Times reported, he was working
[43:47] Speaker 3: with Victor Nielsen and Lieutenant G. H. Griffith with a
[43:51] Speaker 3: thh who were then later they're determined to be John
[43:56] Speaker 3: Nielsen and cordless Griffith with a s out at thh Anyway,
[44:01] Speaker 3: it's not really totally matter. But the plan was Count
[44:04] Speaker 3: Romanov was the wheelman and he would wait in the
[44:07] Speaker 3: car outside the hotel. He would act as the lookout.
[44:09] Speaker 3: Once he spied Bergdahl returned to the hotel, he would
[44:12] Speaker 3: signal the men hidden inside. They would sneak into the
[44:15] Speaker 3: hotel room so that way they would know when to
[44:17] Speaker 3: expect him, and once he set foot in his hotel room,
[44:19] Speaker 3: they grab him. And then that's where the two of
[44:22] Speaker 3: the men, Carl Schmidt and Roger Sperber, would be waiting.
[44:25] Speaker 4: I wish I knew the real identity of Count Romanov.
[44:28] Speaker 3: Totally same, right, So the trouble was Bergdahl was somewhat
[44:31] Speaker 3: onto them and had begun to suspect he was being
[44:34] Speaker 3: tailed by American agents, so he started to stay away
[44:37] Speaker 3: from it. He didn't think that exactly you got Count Romanov,
[44:40] Speaker 3: Well you.
[44:41] Speaker 4: Just like you almost got grabbed in a train station.
[44:43] Speaker 3: Yeah, totally, but this also two years later, and he said,
[44:46] Speaker 3: you know, he has to be suspicious, but I mean
[44:49] Speaker 3: I think that they basically tip their hand, like just
[44:50] Speaker 3: staring at him from across the cafe across the like plaza. Anyway,
[44:55] Speaker 3: at this point he starts staying in a village not
[44:57] Speaker 3: too far away that's like just his family. So if
[44:59] Speaker 3: you came in, everybody would know like one of those.
[45:02] Speaker 3: And so he would only come to the hotel, which
[45:04] Speaker 3: is also owned by his family, in the daytime to
[45:07] Speaker 3: visit his uncle cousin whoever. This goes on for months,
[45:11] Speaker 3: so Count Romanov is out there every night acting as
[45:14] Speaker 3: the lookout, waiting in the car for any side of Bergdal.
[45:17] Speaker 3: I'm like, did he at least think to get a
[45:18] Speaker 3: cab because otherwise any other.
[45:20] Speaker 5: Car and it's like a packard. It's like totally an American.
[45:25] Speaker 3: Big American car. Finally, one night, around midnight, Count Romanov
[45:29] Speaker 3: spots Grover Cleveland Bergdll and when he's like showing up
[45:33] Speaker 3: that the hotel in Aberbach and it's so late at night,
[45:36] Speaker 3: it's like around midnight. Clearly he intends to spend the night.
[45:38] Speaker 3: He not there to see his uncle slash cousin. So
[45:41] Speaker 3: Count Romanov he gives the signal to his men hidden
[45:43] Speaker 3: inside the hotel. I'm like to believe it was not
[45:46] Speaker 3: just I hit the car horn, but he just leans
[45:49] Speaker 3: on it. So they wait in Bergdahl's hotel room. He
[45:51] Speaker 3: eventually goes to his room intending to bed down for
[45:54] Speaker 3: the night, only these two soldiers leap out and surprise him. Now,
[45:58] Speaker 3: remember how I described the weapons that his mother kept
[46:01] Speaker 3: in their home back in Philadelphia. No, well, I guess
[46:04] Speaker 3: it was a family trade, Elizabeth, because Grover also kept
[46:06] Speaker 3: some weapons on him. So when the soldiers jump out
[46:09] Speaker 3: to surprise him, he gets in a fight with them.
[46:11] Speaker 3: They just start scuffling, right. Burndall is desperate not to
[46:14] Speaker 3: be caught, so he's fighting dirty. In fact, for one instance,
[46:18] Speaker 3: he bites off Roger Sperber's thumb, his thumb, just like
[46:23] Speaker 3: right down through the meat.
[46:24] Speaker 4: And that's a lot of tendon and bone.
[46:26] Speaker 3: Yeah, but there's a lot of biting power in a
[46:28] Speaker 3: male jaw. I get I've been doing something, you know. No,
[46:32] Speaker 3: I have all those surgery sites that I follow on Instagram,
[46:35] Speaker 3: and they they've been having a bunch of stuff recently
[46:37] Speaker 3: that I've not been related to the bite. And I
[46:40] Speaker 3: was like, wow, the human the human male bite is
[46:42] Speaker 3: really strong, Like you could you can tear open like
[46:44] Speaker 3: a like a throat. No, I've never bitten anybody.
[46:48] Speaker 4: Have you anyone's throat off.
[46:50] Speaker 3: No, never like throats and thumbs where they are a
[46:55] Speaker 3: little nibbling about.
[46:56] Speaker 4: A big toe. Have they ever bitten off another man's
[46:59] Speaker 4: big toe once? But I've questioning uncomfortable.
[47:03] Speaker 3: Yes it is, but I've never been as desperate as
[47:04] Speaker 3: Grover Cleveland Bergdal. So it's easy for me to say
[47:07] Speaker 3: that standing over here. But that's not all Elizabeth. At
[47:10] Speaker 3: one point, Bergdal he manages to get to a revolver
[47:13] Speaker 3: and that he just had out on a table, and
[47:15] Speaker 3: what's he do? He grabs it starts blasting. He's like, yeah,
[47:19] Speaker 3: like Danny DeVito, and then started blasting right so, right
[47:22] Speaker 3: there in the darkened hotel room, he's setting off shots.
[47:25] Speaker 3: Bergdhal shoots both men. H it was bad, Elizabeth. He
[47:29] Speaker 3: shot Roger Sperber and he also shot Carl Schmidt. And
[47:32] Speaker 3: this was a one percent incident.
[47:34] Speaker 4: This is like you're doing a lot of one percent.
[47:36] Speaker 3: Sorry, it's not graphic. Schmid did not make it out
[47:39] Speaker 3: of the hotel room. I'll leave it at that.
[47:41] Speaker 4: Meanwhile, we's been lost their lives.
[47:43] Speaker 3: With both World War One veterans down for the count
[47:46] Speaker 3: one out permanently, Bergdahl tries to flee the hotel. However,
[47:50] Speaker 3: there are two more American veterans waiting for him downstairs.
[47:54] Speaker 3: They managed to overtake Bergdhal. They get him to the
[47:57] Speaker 3: car where Count Romanof is waiting, and they of them
[48:00] Speaker 3: into the car and they now speed off.
[48:02] Speaker 4: And just leave their fallen. I thought you never leave
[48:05] Speaker 4: a man behind.
[48:06] Speaker 3: Well, he wasn't moving fast enough at that point. But
[48:09] Speaker 3: the guy with the not thumb is like moaning, like
[48:11] Speaker 3: you look, what did to me. It's like all of
[48:12] Speaker 3: a sudden, like yeah, it's bad. By this point, the
[48:15] Speaker 3: hotel staff phones the local police, so they come in,
[48:18] Speaker 3: lights flashing, sirens going. Now we have a high speed
[48:22] Speaker 3: pursuit in the German countryside with the Americans and Count
[48:25] Speaker 3: Romanov racing for the border, with the German police chasing
[48:28] Speaker 3: them on motorcycles. Try as they might, the American vets
[48:31] Speaker 3: and Count Romanov were unable to make it to the
[48:34] Speaker 3: French German border before they're overtaken. The men are seized
[48:38] Speaker 3: and they're arrested and the car is searched. The German
[48:42] Speaker 3: police discovered that the car contains rifles, revolvers, ropes, numerous
[48:48] Speaker 3: bottles of chloroform. So now the Americans and count Romanov.
[48:52] Speaker 3: They don't really need to tell their side of the story.
[48:54] Speaker 3: It's all right there. Yeah, And they get arrested and
[48:57] Speaker 3: returned to Aberbach and they're jailed. So so oh the irony, Elizabeth,
[49:02] Speaker 3: you go there to capture a draft dodger and bring
[49:05] Speaker 3: him back to justice, and stead you get captured and
[49:07] Speaker 3: brought to face justice completely. So the men they're tried,
[49:10] Speaker 3: convicted and sentenced to time behind bars in a German prison.
[49:14] Speaker 3: Oh boy, still kidnapping. So I guess it's not like oh,
[49:18] Speaker 3: these is you know, war games. So however, the one
[49:22] Speaker 3: American veteran, Griffiths, who he ends up getting portrayed as
[49:25] Speaker 3: a hero and the press back in the States, so
[49:28] Speaker 3: people get so heated that this like honored American soldier
[49:31] Speaker 3: is getting jailed for what they see is doing his
[49:33] Speaker 3: duty to bring a trader back to face justice. At home,
[49:37] Speaker 3: there are petitions for his release and they circulate around
[49:40] Speaker 3: the country. This petition is signed by so many people.
[49:44] Speaker 3: I read accounts that the petition was twenty three miles long.
[49:48] Speaker 3: What I didn't know you could ever measure a petition
[49:51] Speaker 3: in miles.
[49:53] Speaker 4: Twenty three miles.
[49:54] Speaker 3: Had two million signatures, of different Americans. Wow, yeah, I
[49:58] Speaker 3: don't know if the signatures are bigger.
[50:00] Speaker 4: Back that's an exaggeration.
[50:02] Speaker 3: I think so too. But that's where I saw a reported.
[50:04] Speaker 5: Two hundred million signed it. Two thousand billion people.
[50:12] Speaker 3: Signed it, all the Americans, everyone.
[50:14] Speaker 4: And had ever been existing throughout history.
[50:18] Speaker 3: So at this point you have to understand emotions were
[50:20] Speaker 3: running high. For instance, when there was a congressional hearing
[50:23] Speaker 3: about how Bergdhal had escaped to Germany, one of Bergdal's
[50:27] Speaker 3: brothers he was brought in and questioned on the floor
[50:29] Speaker 3: of Congress. One congressman got so mad at his rich
[50:33] Speaker 3: boy answers that the New York Times reported that quote
[50:36] Speaker 3: he nearly drew a pistol on the witness. Imagine that. Yes. So,
[50:41] Speaker 3: my point is that the twenty three mile long petition
[50:44] Speaker 3: was enough to express the will and the emotion of
[50:46] Speaker 3: the people and forced the US government to act. After
[50:49] Speaker 3: much negotiation, the imprisoned soldier was released by the German
[50:53] Speaker 3: authorities and returned to the US. Meanwhile, Bergdhal stayed put
[50:57] Speaker 3: in Germany. A few years later he was to go
[51:00] Speaker 3: to a sanitarium because by then the Germans had determined, oh,
[51:03] Speaker 3: he's a pain and so they sent him there. And
[51:06] Speaker 3: by the way, at the sanitarium, this is where he
[51:08] Speaker 3: meets his next wife.
[51:09] Speaker 4: Oh, the first one.
[51:11] Speaker 3: I just didn't didn't work out apparently. I guess this
[51:13] Speaker 3: second wife was a productive pairing because the two had
[51:16] Speaker 3: five children together. Okay, so they really hit it off.
[51:20] Speaker 3: The interesting thing is that despite all the international intrigue
[51:23] Speaker 3: and attempts to bring him back to the US, that
[51:25] Speaker 3: didn't stop him from coming back to the US on
[51:27] Speaker 3: his own.
[51:29] Speaker 4: What is well, he needs to be locked up for
[51:31] Speaker 4: his own right.
[51:32] Speaker 3: Even the Germans knew it. Yeah. In nineteen twenty nine,
[51:35] Speaker 3: when the stock market crash, Bergdhal snuck back into the
[51:38] Speaker 3: US to grab some spending money, some getting around paper money.
[51:41] Speaker 3: So remember his pot of gold? Oh yeah, yeah, turns
[51:45] Speaker 3: out that part was true.
[51:46] Speaker 4: You're kidding.
[51:47] Speaker 3: Yes, there really was a buried treasure. Only it wasn't
[51:50] Speaker 3: hidden in the Appalachian Mountains in West Virginia. It wasn't
[51:53] Speaker 3: outside the Hagerstown area of Maryland. The buried treasure was
[51:56] Speaker 3: hidden at his mother's house.
[51:57] Speaker 4: Of course.
[51:58] Speaker 3: It was aka the family castle right there in the
[52:00] Speaker 3: suburb of Philly. It was hidden in a closet in
[52:03] Speaker 3: the house secreted away behind some concrete. Once he grabbed
[52:07] Speaker 3: his hidden loot, he stayed in the US for a while.
[52:09] Speaker 3: There's some debate about how long he stayed and when
[52:12] Speaker 3: he returned to Germany, but according to him, he made
[52:15] Speaker 3: another trip back to the US in nineteen thirty three,
[52:18] Speaker 3: and then again in nineteen thirty five. And meanwhile, between
[52:21] Speaker 3: those two trips, in nineteen thirty four, he asked recently
[52:25] Speaker 3: elected President Franklin Dono Roosevelt for a pardon. He's like, hey,
[52:28] Speaker 3: you're in your first term. You mind hook him brother
[52:30] Speaker 3: up before people get mad?
[52:31] Speaker 4: Are you kidding?
[52:32] Speaker 3: Sadly, his pardon was summarily denied. Yeah, in nineteen thirty five.
[52:36] Speaker 3: The next year, his wife came and asked for a
[52:38] Speaker 3: pardon on his behalf, like maybe we need a feminine touch.
[52:41] Speaker 3: I can't tell if they came back together in thirty
[52:44] Speaker 3: five or if it was separate trips, but either way, again,
[52:46] Speaker 3: his request for a pardon was denied.
[52:48] Speaker 4: Yeah.
[52:49] Speaker 3: In nineteen thirty eight, he could read the writing on
[52:52] Speaker 3: the wall and hear the drums of war beginning to
[52:54] Speaker 3: beat in Germany. By now, he's in his forties, He's
[52:58] Speaker 3: not interested in living through another world war, especially inside
[53:01] Speaker 3: Nazi Germany. He may have been cool with the Kaiser,
[53:04] Speaker 3: but he was definitely not down with har Hitler. So
[53:06] Speaker 3: he attempts to flee back to the US in the
[53:08] Speaker 3: spring of thirty nine. It's like no spring time for
[53:11] Speaker 3: Hitler for me. So he hoped that the anger about
[53:15] Speaker 3: his draft dodging had cooled off by them, like y'all
[53:17] Speaker 3: still mad?
[53:18] Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, The pro German sentence was an all time high, right.
[53:24] Speaker 3: So the Americans, you know, they were largely though, in
[53:27] Speaker 3: an isolationist mood in nineteen thirty nine. So he was
[53:30] Speaker 3: hoping that they would see that he was right to
[53:32] Speaker 3: not want to go fight in the first of the
[53:35] Speaker 3: another bloody European war, and that they would forgive him
[53:39] Speaker 3: and welcome him home. And you'd be like, oh, you
[53:41] Speaker 3: were so wise, your sagacity, but so Grover Cleveland Bergdll.
[53:45] Speaker 3: He announces publicly that he plans to, as The New
[53:47] Speaker 3: York Times reported, returned to the United States and surrender
[53:51] Speaker 3: to military authorities and then throw himself on their ability
[53:55] Speaker 3: to forgive. Now is the New York Times reporting makes
[53:58] Speaker 3: clear berg Doll's read of mood of the Americans seemed
[54:01] Speaker 3: to be sound because as The Times reported quote. Some
[54:05] Speaker 3: people even opined that his only crime was having the
[54:08] Speaker 3: foresight to realize that World War One would not be
[54:11] Speaker 3: a war to end all wars quote. Any coward can
[54:15] Speaker 3: fall into a draft line and march off to a
[54:17] Speaker 3: foreign slaughter, two women wrote to the Milwaukee Journal in April.
[54:21] Speaker 3: Only a real hero can resist and fight against mob hysteria,
[54:25] Speaker 3: as did Burgdall. Anyone can follow the wild mob, but
[54:29] Speaker 3: few have the grit and real patriotism to oppose the
[54:32] Speaker 3: bloodthirsty mob. The revision is in this But it's interesting
[54:38] Speaker 3: because Milwaukee Journal so big german part of is Milwaukee
[54:43] Speaker 3: in the nineteen thirty so I'm thinking they might not
[54:46] Speaker 3: have been announcing that they were kind of a little
[54:48] Speaker 3: bit u on the side of the kaiserthetic. Yeah, no,
[54:52] Speaker 3: it's interesting. In the spring of thirty nine, Burgdall he
[54:55] Speaker 3: bounds the ship headed back to the US as new
[54:57] Speaker 3: circulates of his imminent return, and then his wife and
[55:00] Speaker 3: five children had already emigrated back to the States, and
[55:03] Speaker 3: Bergdahl was claiming that, you know, I'm broke, I'm homesick,
[55:06] Speaker 3: and like any reasonable person, wanted to get the hell
[55:09] Speaker 3: out of Nazi Germany. So he believes America will take
[55:12] Speaker 3: pity on him and accept him home Instead. A fight
[55:15] Speaker 3: breaks out in Congress one Congressman Forrest Harness. He attempted
[55:20] Speaker 3: to pass new legislation. They wanted to make a new
[55:24] Speaker 3: law to keep this dude from the country. They wanted
[55:27] Speaker 3: to prohibit Bergdall from entering the United States even as
[55:30] Speaker 3: a refugee, since he was still technically a draft dodger
[55:33] Speaker 3: and a trader. Legislation did not pass. Instead, when his ship,
[55:37] Speaker 3: the SS Bremen, came into New York Harbor, this middle
[55:40] Speaker 3: aged draft dodger was arrested aboard the ship before he
[55:44] Speaker 3: set foot in America. As in New York Times reported,
[55:47] Speaker 3: when the Bremen arrived in New York on the afternoon
[55:49] Speaker 3: of May twenty fifth, nineteen thirty nine, a Coastguard cutter
[55:53] Speaker 3: met the vessel before it docked. A group of immigration
[55:55] Speaker 3: officials came aboard and found Nash loitering in the smoking lounge.
[56:00] Speaker 3: When asked for his identification, the man replied, I have
[56:03] Speaker 3: no passport. I am Bergdahll. So that Elizabeth is how
[56:08] Speaker 3: Grover Cleveland Burgdall finally returned to the US to face
[56:11] Speaker 3: justice for his crimes in World War One. He gets tried, convicted,
[56:16] Speaker 3: and sentenced to spend four years at the Federal Prison
[56:18] Speaker 3: of Fort Leavenworth in Kansas, which is like the early supermax.
[56:23] Speaker 3: So there he stayed until nineteen forty four. And get this, Elizabeth,
[56:27] Speaker 3: when he was released in forty four, the US to
[56:29] Speaker 3: government decided to return eighty percent of the property that
[56:33] Speaker 3: they had confiscated under the Harding administration way back in
[56:36] Speaker 3: nineteen twenty. So now he's sitting on a fortune again.
[56:39] Speaker 4: Sure.
[56:40] Speaker 3: Interesting side note, As I told you earlier, his brother
[56:42] Speaker 3: Irwin was tried, convicted and sentence for draft division. But
[56:46] Speaker 3: also Bergdahl's eldest son, Alfred, was also found guilty of
[56:51] Speaker 3: draft division in nineteen fifty for skipping out on World
[56:55] Speaker 3: War Two, and he was also sentenced to five years
[56:58] Speaker 3: in prison. The whole family's a bunch of cowards and traders, right,
[57:02] Speaker 3: of course, I say this knowing full well and good.
[57:05] Speaker 3: If I was drafted and I did not support the
[57:07] Speaker 3: war I was sent to fight, I would have also
[57:09] Speaker 3: skipped out and dodged the draft. But at least I
[57:12] Speaker 3: would have done it on principles, that's the thing, and
[57:14] Speaker 3: not just because I'm a rich prick and have better
[57:16] Speaker 3: things to do.
[57:17] Speaker 4: Is the thing.
[57:18] Speaker 5: That's the thing that it depends on the on the
[57:21] Speaker 5: principle of it. That's you know, are you a conscientious objector?
[57:25] Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm a muhammed.
[57:28] Speaker 4: That statement. You think about it too? Is it?
[57:31] Speaker 5: Every almost every small town I've ever been in in
[57:34] Speaker 5: this country has a war memorial with names from World
[57:39] Speaker 5: War One? And it's like that, it's so far reaching,
[57:43] Speaker 5: you know, the loss of it all. And then this
[57:47] Speaker 5: cat like he's just a rich goofball. He's not doing
[57:51] Speaker 5: it on a principal stance, you know, he's a sympathizer.
[57:55] Speaker 3: Elizabethous.
[57:57] Speaker 4: That's my take away.
[57:58] Speaker 3: That's good. It's not particularly rediculous, but it's good.
[58:00] Speaker 4: I'm ridiculous.
[58:02] Speaker 3: My ridiculous takeaway here is nobody asks the Grover Cleveland
[58:06] Speaker 3: if I'm not mistaken the president yet Dodger in the
[58:10] Speaker 3: Civil War paid to have his family paid to have
[58:13] Speaker 3: him not.
[58:13] Speaker 4: Go to waridding.
[58:15] Speaker 3: So it's just ironic that. Yeah, And there's a there
[58:17] Speaker 3: was a number of presidents that was true of yah
[58:19] Speaker 3: for the Civil War. They all skipped out.
[58:21] Speaker 4: That's true for a lot. If you had any kind
[58:23] Speaker 4: of cash at all.
[58:24] Speaker 3: Yeah, so you in the mood for a talk back?
[58:26] Speaker 3: Washed this all down?
[58:27] Speaker 4: You be.
[58:32] Speaker 3: Oh god, I went.
[58:43] Speaker 6: From New Zealand. It's not I have been really enjoying
[58:46] Speaker 6: your show for a long time. It's Christmas stead here
[58:50] Speaker 6: and I've just finished making winter suit. Go on, Ovan,
[58:57] Speaker 6: it's a boost in a well chocolate. Hopefully it will work.
[59:01] Speaker 6: That noises my interune Honey who just liked both men
[59:05] Speaker 6: think about honey? Of course she does.
[59:09] Speaker 3: I loved that. That's awesome.
[59:11] Speaker 4: What a lovely Christmas.
[59:14] Speaker 3: I felt like I was there with the Dan and
[59:16] Speaker 3: the dog.
[59:17] Speaker 4: Incredible. That's incredible.
[59:19] Speaker 3: I'm glad you have a really competent intern to help
[59:21] Speaker 3: you out.
[59:21] Speaker 5: They're so helpful to have a good intern. I'm Merry Christmas,
[59:26] Speaker 5: that's true.
[59:26] Speaker 3: Merry Christmas. And uh what is it? Uh that sounds
[59:31] Speaker 3: like Orthodox Merry Christmas in the twelve days of Christmas?
[59:33] Speaker 3: Aren't those all about to be? Yeah?
[59:35] Speaker 4: Anyway, what is it April? Now?
[59:37] Speaker 3: Yeah? What is that velvet? So, as always, you can
[59:42] Speaker 3: find us online Ridiculous Crime on Blue Sky and Instagram,
[59:45] Speaker 3: so go check those and we have the Ridiculous Crime
[59:48] Speaker 3: pod account on YouTube. You can go and listen to
[59:51] Speaker 3: the videos there if you like that. If you're into
[59:53] Speaker 3: that kind of thing, we have our website, ridiculous Crime
[59:56] Speaker 3: dot com, which is in an incredible website. You should
[59:59] Speaker 3: go there, get merch you should like, you know, just
[1:00:01] Speaker 3: check it out. You can go to oh hey, leave
[1:00:06] Speaker 3: us a review or like, go and like go check
[1:00:09] Speaker 3: the reviews that are there and just amuse yourself. But
[1:00:12] Speaker 3: go to like the Apple app or the podcast app.
[1:00:15] Speaker 3: Check those out. So yeah, and also if you're into apps,
[1:00:18] Speaker 3: there's the iHeart app. You can download it, leave a
[1:00:21] Speaker 3: talk back and maybe hear your voice here. We would
[1:00:24] Speaker 3: love to hear it. We do enjoy your talkbacks, and
[1:00:27] Speaker 3: also email us. We love the It's obviously this came
[1:00:30] Speaker 3: from an email. This story I just told so email
[1:00:32] Speaker 3: us if you want a Ridiculous Crime at gmail dot com.
[1:00:35] Speaker 3: We would like to do an email like a bag
[1:00:38] Speaker 3: episode where we read some of your emails. So, if
[1:00:41] Speaker 3: you have a good confession, not something that you know
[1:00:43] Speaker 3: statute of limitations is a problem, but if you know
[1:00:46] Speaker 3: a good story, if you just came across one one
[1:00:49] Speaker 3: you've always wanted to share with somebody, we would like
[1:00:51] Speaker 3: to be that person. So hit us up. Email us
[1:00:54] Speaker 3: at Ridiculous Crime atmail dot com. Thank you for listening
[1:00:58] Speaker 3: and we will catch you next. Crime. Ridiculous Crime is
[1:01:07] Speaker 3: hosted by Elizabeth Dutton and Zarren Burnett, producer and edited
[1:01:10] Speaker 3: by my Man with the Map to Canada Dave Coustin
[1:01:13] Speaker 3: and starring Annale Rucker as Judith. Research is by the
[1:01:17] Speaker 3: lead mechanics at the Wright Brothers' Flight School, Marissa Brown
[1:01:20] Speaker 3: and Jabari Davis. Our theme song is by our house band,
[1:01:24] Speaker 3: Mama bergdll's Tommy Gunn Surprise aka Thomas Lee and Travis Dutton.
[1:01:30] Speaker 3: The host wardrobe provided by Botany five hundred, guest Haron,
[1:01:33] Speaker 3: makeup by Sparkleshot and mister Andre. Executive producers are the
[1:01:38] Speaker 3: heads of Octoberfest for US Expeditionary Forces and Occupy Germany,
[1:01:42] Speaker 3: Ben Bohlen and Noel Brown. Reds CUI say It one
[1:01:53] Speaker 3: More Times Crime.
[1:01:57] Speaker 1: Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts
[1:02:00] Speaker 1: my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
[1:02:03] Speaker 1: wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

Shows are listed from Apple Podcasts' charts and directory, and Podcast Index where it is used. Every show and episode belongs to its publisher and plays from the publisher's own feed; this site hosts none of them.