Born on May 28, 1879 in Schneidemuehl (located in the province of Posen, Germany), Felix A. Sommerfeld grew up in a middle class Jewish household as the youngest son of Pauline and Isidor Sommerfeld. After finishing high school, young Felix went to Berlin, where he began his studies as a mining engineer. But for reasons unknown, he dropped out… and came to the United States in 1898 to visit his brother.
In the excitement over the outbreak of the Spanish-American War that same year, the 19-year-old Sommerfeld joined the army… but deserted a few months after. In 1900, Sommerfeld again went to war in China to put down the Boxer Rebellion… but this time as a Meldereiter (horse messenger) for the German Army.
Felix completed his mining engineering studies in 1901 and returned to the United States one year later. After briefly staying with his brother Julius in Chicago, Sommerfeld set out for the West as a prospector. He worked his way through Arizona to Sonora and Durango (both in Mexico) In 1905, Sommerfeld returned to Chicago completely broke.
Not much is known about the German adventurer between 1906 and 1908. It is possible that Sommerfeld returned to Germany and received secret service training in Berlin.
In 1908, Sommerfeld turned up in Chihuahua, Mexico… again working as a mining engineer. But in truth, he became an informant for the German government. Chihuahua was ripe for rebellion, and Sommerfeld did all he could to discover any and all information about the anti-reelection movement led by wealthy Coahuila landowner, Francisco I. Madero.
After the fraudulent elections that brought Porfirio Díaz yet another term as president, the Mexican Revolution began in November 1910. It became an extended sequence of armed regional conflicts over the next ten years.
When the revolt began, Sommerfeld worked ostensibly for the Associated Press, but he also filed regular intelligence reports for the German government. When Madero succeeded in overthrowing the Mexican dictator Porfirio Diaz in May 1911, Sommerfeld firmly joined the former’s entourage. He initially became a personal assistant to Madero, then was named chief of the Mexican Secret Service (under the direction of Francisco’s brother Gustavo A. Madero). In the latter capacity, Sommerfeld helped put down the Orozco uprising in the spring of 1912… during the course of which he led the largest ever foreign secret service organization operating on American soil. The group Sommerfeld assembled included Mexican-Americans, Mexican expatriates, other German agents such as Horst von der Goltz and Arnold Krumm-Heller, as well as two of the most notorious soldiers of fortune of the decade, Sam Dreben and Emil Lewis Holmdahl.
In February 1913, Madero was overthrown and killed… which led to the rise of Victoriano Huerta. Sommerfeld promptly left Mexico under the protection of German ambassador Paul von Hintze. He traveled to Washington, D.C. where Sommerfeld received funds from lawyer and Madero supporter Sherburne Hopkins. Felix signed up with the rebel movement assembled to overthrow Victoriano Huerta. The governor of Coahuila, Venustiano Carranza, was against the Huerta regime and created the Constitutionalist revolutionary movement. He sent Sommerfeld to Texas (namely El Paso and San Antonio) to organize weapons for the revolutionaries. Access to arms was a key element in a successful military movement. Northern Mexico’s access to the border made procuring arms easier than in the south, where the Zapatistas operated.
Sommerfeld also functioned as a liaison between the American government and Carranza. But in the spring of 1914, Felix began working closely with successful Constitutionalist Army General Francisco “Pancho” Villa, commander of the División del Norte. Huerta was defeated by Villa and Carranza in July 1914.
Soon, the tandem split their alliance, and a civil war of the winners ensued! Sommerfeld stayed with Villa as his chief weapons buyer in the United States. He also lobbied the American government on Villa’s behalf to receive diplomatic recognition. This task brought Sommerfeld close to General Hugh Lenox Scott and U.S. Secretary of War, Lindley Miller Garrison… both of whom he assisted numerous times when American nationals found themselves in trouble in Mexico. Sommerfeld was questioned following the mysterious disappearance of prominent writer Ambrose Bierce, who had attached himself to Villa’s forces… but then vanished without a trace.
When the First World War broke out in August 1914, Sommerfeld moved to New York ostensibly to represent Pancho Villa’s interests. Truthfully, he was working for German Naval Attache Karl Boy-Ed. In his function as a specialist on Mexican affairs, Sommerfeld helped the German government sell off arms and ammunition they had bought to keep them out of the hands of the Entente.
Felix also had great knowledge of American munitions factories, their capacities, order status, and so on. His intelligence reports had a great influence on the formulation of Germany’s war strategy vis-a-vis the United States. In May 1915, Sommerfeld informed the German government that he could create an incident which would provoke a war between the United States and Mexico. He funneled large amounts of arms to Pancho Villa; the value was estimated to be $340,000 (about $7 million in the present time).
Despite having large numbers of arms, Villa was decisively defeated by Constitutionalist Army General Álvaro Obregón in a series of battles in the Bajio, the most famous of which was the Battle of Celaya in 1915. Villa’s huge army of movement, largely using massed cavalry charges, fell before Obregón’s superior strategy and tactics of trenches improvised from agricultural irrigation ditches and machine guns. Villa’s División del Norte ceased to exist, and he became a guerrilla leader rather than the general of a major army of movement.
In March 1916, Villa attacked the city of Columbus, New Mexico. The Battle of Columbus resulted in civilian casualties and prompted the United States to send General John J. Pershing on a punitive mission, which was unsuccessful in its attempt to capture Villa.
Sommerfeld immediately became a prime suspect in the raid on Columbus, New Mexico. However, no investigator or historian has been able to prove his involvement. A little over two years later (June 1918), Sommerfeld was interned in Fort Oglethorpe, Georgia as an enemy alien… but was released the following year.
A few trips back and forth to Mexico have been recorded in the 1920s and early 1930s. However, the German agent known as Felix A. Sommerfeld disappeared soon disappeared without a trace… though he did show up in 1942 at the age of sixty-three residing at 117 West 17th Street in New York City.
But again soon after, Sommerfeld’s whereabouts remain unknown…