Biography
Wilhelm von Brincken was a German diplomat and military attaché who in 1915 was assigned to the German Consulate in San Francisco. He was arrested on April 8, 1917 along with Consul-General Franz Bopp and Vice-Consul Eckhardt von Schack. At the Hindu-German Conspiracy trial (November 20, 1917 - April 24, 1918) he was convicted and sentenced to two years in federal prison for plotting to foment an insurrection against British colonial rule in India. The two-year sentence was set to run concurrently with a similar conviction for his alleged participation in bombing and dynamiting plots against the government of Canada. After his release in 1920, he became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1921 and went on to a long Hollywood career as a character actor specializing in stiff Prussian military officers, appearing in roughly 90 films across the silent and talkie eras and serving as a technical advisor on the Academy Award-winning All Quiet on the Western Front (1930). He died in 1946. His mug shot was published in Butterick's Delineator (July 1918) in the Huns, Spies and Traitors gallery.
1920s remaining-entry review: The Oregon Sunday Journal, January 11, 1920, printed page 2 of this section (archive image22), carries a United Press report datelined Tacoma, January10. It explicitly says von Brincken left McNeil Island prison the previous afternoon, took the pauper oath later that day, and boarded a train for San Francisco that night. Physical release is therefore January9,1920, not merely an anticipated discharge or an immigration hearing. The complete newspaper page was visually inspected. Existing photograph retained. The first custody/admission date remains unresolved; release is not back-calculated from the sentence.
