Military service and New Jersey State Police After receiving a commission as a
second lieutenant in the
U.S. Cavalry, Schwarzkopf was sent to
Europe as part of the
American Expeditionary Forces. He was gassed with
mustard gas, making him susceptible to respiratory illnesses for the rest of his life. During the occupation, he served as a
provost marshal, partially because of his organizational skills and partially because of his fluency in German, He personally trained the first 25 state police troopers and organized the state police into two troops: a northern troop, utilizing motorcycles, to patrol the
Mafia-controlled narcotics, whiskey, rum-running, and gambling rings in the
New York City area; and a southern troop, with troopers on horseback, to crack down on
moonshiners. On April 6, 1926, he was commissioned a lieutenant colonel in the
New Jersey National Guard, being assigned to the staff of the
44th Division. He also held a commission as a major in the
Organized Reserve from January 10, 1924, to May 17, 1926.
Lindbergh kidnapping On the evening of March 1, 1932,
Colonel Schwarzkopf, then 37, and the first chief of the
New Jersey State Police, was among the officials called to the
East Amwell residence of
Charles Lindbergh, following the
kidnapping of his 20-month-old son, Charlie. He arrived on the scene with his
second-in-command, Major Charles Schoeffel, and established a police command post in the three-car garage on the side of Lindbergh's house opposite the nursery, but he found it impossible to protect the area from contamination. Further complicating the investigation was that the controlling Lindbergh used his fame and influence to exert authority over matters, which meant that Schwarzkopf had to essentially work around him, despite ostensibly being in charge of the investigation, a fact for which Schwarzkopf has been criticized by experts such as FBI profiler and author
John E. Douglas. Schwarzkopf requested a list of all the employees who worked on Lindbergh's house, which was constructed following Charlie's birth, as well as those who worked in the house and at Next Day Hill, the palatial
Englewood estate of Lindbergh's inlaws,
Dwight and
Elizabeth Morrow, where the Lindberghs stayed during the week prior to the completion of their own home. Although they stayed in the incomplete home only on weekends, they did not return to Next Day Hill by Tuesday, March 1, because Charlie was ill. Schwarzkopf believed the kidnappers were local and nonprofessional, based on their apparent familiarity with the Lindbergh house, the location of the nursery from which the infant Charlie was abducted, and the relatively modest ransom request of $50,000. Schwarzkopf (right) with
Charles Lindbergh, following grand jury testimony. Schwarzkopf suspected gang involvement, as kidnapping was a common criminal enterprise during the
Great Depression, and wanted to contact members of the underworld, but during the course of the investigation, John F. Condon, a 72-year-old retired
Bronx schoolteacher, became an intermediary between Lindbergh and the kidnappers after he placed an ad in
Home News, to which the kidnappers responded. Schwarzkopf wanted to place a trace on Condon's telephone, but Lindbergh overruled him, and setting up a trap would have been made difficult or impossible by Lindbergh's management of the case. Schwarzkopf reluctantly agreed to keep law enforcement away from the arranged ransom drop. Although the man to whom Condon gave the ransom money in
Saint Raymond's Cemetery in the Bronx on April 2 gave Condon a note describing a boat where Charlie could be found, no such boat was found. When Charlie's skeletonized corpse was found by a truck driver on May 12, Schwarzkopf inspected the shallow grave, four miles from the Lindbergh home, whose lights were visible from the site. Following the identification of the corpse as Charlie, and the determination from the level of decomposition that he was killed immediately after abduction, Schwarzkopf informed Charlie's nursemaid, Betty Gow, and Elizabeth Morrow, who then informed Charlie's mother, Anne Lindbergh. Charles Lindbergh's need for control over the case was now over, and by the time the case had been months old, and trails had gone cold, Schwarzkopf was the target of widespread and recurring criticism. Following the suicide of Violet Sharpe, a maid for the Morrows who had been acting suspiciously before the incident and during its investigation, some, such as Violet's sister, Emily Sharpe, accused Schwarzkopf and
Jersey City Police Department investigator Harry Walsh of harassing her to death with their rough interrogations, but experts such as Douglas have disputed that notion. Schwarzkopf was inducted into federal service with the
44th Division in September 1940, briefly commanding the 57th Infantry Brigade in 1941 before being posted to
Iran in 1942 through the efforts of
Mohammad Vali Mirza Farman Farmaian and assigned to organize the Iranian national police after the
British-
Soviet intervention that made Iran an
Allied protectorate. Schwarzkopf was appointed by New Jersey Governor
Robert B. Meyner to "examine and investigate the management by
Harold G. Hoffman," a former governor of the state and director of the division of employment security. Both Schwarzkopf and Hoffman were active members of the
Adventurers' Club of New York.
Death Major General Schwarzkopf died on November 26, 1958 at his home in
West Orange, New Jersey of a perforated ulcer. His body was cremated at
Rosedale Cemetery in
Orange, with his ashes buried at the
United States Military Academy's
West Point Cemetery in
West Point, New York. ==Personal life==