Nazi Spy Ohana
by J.P. Atwell, Island Intelligencer
Books about true espionage events in Hawaii surface infrequently. Island dwellers have been blessed with two such works in the past few years, though.
Ghosts of Honolulu (Harper Select, 2023) chronicles the activities on Oahu of three men before, during, and after the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor: famed Japanese Navy 3rd Bureau (intelligence) officer Takeo Yoshikawa, Japanese Hawaiian U.S. naval counterintelligence officer Douglas Wada, and FBI Honolulu’s first Special Agent in Charge, Robert Shivers. (See my review, Hawaii’s Cloak-and-Dagger Lore, Herald-Tribune 02 Sep ’24.)
Ghosts also briefly introduces us to a Hawaii-based Axis spy straight out of Hollywood central casting, the Nazi Otto Kuehn, and his conspiring wife and daughter (former mistress of Hitler’s propaganda chief, Joseph Goebbels). Like Yoshikawa, the Kuehns played a critical role in collecting human intelligence on the Pacific Fleet for the war planners in Tokyo who brought about the “date which will live in infamy.”
Employed by the Abwehr, Berlin’s military intelligence service, the spies were handled by staff in Japan’s Honolulu consulate, the one still in use today. Now, they are subjects of Family of Spies (Celadon, 2025), penned by Otto’s granddaughter. It is a fascinating, well-crafted tale about a journey of discovery, spycraft, family secrets, and Hawaiiana that remains unfamiliar to many kama’aina.
Christine Kuehn discovered her family history by accident in the late 1990s when contacted by a historian and a screenwriter for details about her grandparents’ treason. Alarmed, she embarked on a mission to uncover her family history, including long conversations with her father, Eberhard (Punahou High School grad (’44)) and a distant aunt, who had buried the family’s past. A dive into the National Archives surfaced historical memos about her relatives drafted by the FBI and Office of the Military Governor of Honolulu. (Her book includes photographs of such documents, news clippings from island papers of the day, and the Kuehn family.)
In a macnut shell, here are some highlights of her discovery.
Like many Weimar Republic middle-class citizens, Otto’s family was swept up in a wave of nationalistic excitement fostered by a charismatic leader’s promise to make Germany great again. The family went all-in on Hitler’s far-right movement. (One son, who lived out his life in Deutschland, joined the Brown Shirts, participated in violence against Nazi Party political enemies and Jews, and was a propagandist under Goebbels.)
Otto’s gateway into intelligence work began in 1928, when the Nazi party was in its infancy, with a job running informants against Communist elements for the Navy secret police. Recognized for his work, in 1931 he was summoned to Munich by SS Chief Heinrich Hemmler to competitively interview for a job as counterintelligence division director against the man who landed the job, Reinhard Heydrich, the infamous “Butcher of Prague,” architect of the holocaust.
To avoid spoilers, let’s fast forward to 1935, when Otto and his wife arrived by boat at Aloha Tower to scenes of old Hawaii, complete with leis, long boards, outdoor tropical fruit markets, and shave ice. They established a beach house in Lanikai and another home along the Pali Highway near Kalama, from where they could signal Japanese subs using lights from windows and laundry hung out to dry in coded patterns, as well as entertain Pearl Harbor brass to elicit information. They also established a beauty salon near Kaneohe to tap into the rich network of military wife gossip. (As early as 1936, FBI knew of the existence of “Tokyo’s Man in Hawaii,” a haole agent, but could not fully identify him until after the attack.)
Like other spies discovered in our country—Maui-based Noshir Gowadia, arrested in 2005, for instance—Kuehn was outed partly by poor tradecraft: traveling with and depositing in the Bishop National Bank large sums of cash from Japan; indiscreet personal contact with Japanese handlers; storing at home photographs of military bases and open source reporting (news clippings from the Honolulu Star Bulletin and Advertiser) about ship maneuvers, staffing, etc.; and a poorly supported cover story.
These operational security lapses, combined with tips from a double agent run by London’s MI6, allowed the FBI and Army Corps of Intelligence Police to build the case they needed to make arrests. The entire Kuehn family spent time in military camps on Sand Island and in Honouliuli Gulch and a holding pen at Schofield, eventually facing a military tribunal under martial law at the federal building. (I won’t spoil the ending.)
Family of Spies, just released in paperback, is an entertaining, engaging, and quick read that is suitable for wiling away afternoons on the lanai or in a hammock. It deserves a spot on the bookshelf of anyone interested in the islands’ history, espionage, or WWII.
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(Originally published in the Hawaii Tribune-Herald on 10 November 2026. Reprinted with permission.)