Fetch the Devil: The Sierra Diablo Murders and Nazi Espionage in America

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51 The pressure was now on the remaining cohort of spies to shut down operations in the United States and start making good on escape plans. Kunze informed Ebell that he and Willumeit would conclude the final, grand tour of the western states in El Paso. Once they arrived, they would use the El Paso pipeline to smuggle their trove of secrets and themselves into Mexico and, finally, back to the fatherland. The trip took on new urgency when, in rapid order, President Roosevelt made moves that appeared to be propelling the country toward war. The day Kunze and Willumeit set out on the last spying expedition, U.S. troops were debarkingatportsinDanish IcelandandGreenland,at theinvitation of local government officials, despite the fact that the Germans occupying Copenhagen ruled under a puppet Nazi government. On the same day Japan took Indochina from the Vichy French, the American president announced an embargo on all U.S. oil and petroleum products to Japan. The next day, August 1, Roosevelt declared gasoline rationing for the entire United States, a serious hardship for anyone trying to traverse the vast stretches of West Texas from the isolated city of El Paso. Still, many American leaders did not believe Hitler’s aggression in Europe and Emperor Hirohito’s aggression in Asia threatened the national interest, or that it justified getting the country into the fight. Charles Lindbergh thundered at an America First rally that “the British, the Jewish, and Roosevelt” were all “pressing the country toward war.”342 Mass deportation of German Jews to concentration camps in Poland began shortly thereafter, but it would still be some time before Americans acknowledged these deportations were occurring. Kunze and Willumeit surreptitiously continued the grand espionage tour of the West Coast into the autumn, unhindered and unnoticed by existing security around the military bases. The spies had quickly lost their FBI tails after leaving Chicago and dropped completely out of sight. an enemy within 289 Ebell,whohadreturnedtoElPasoaftertheChicagomeeting,had,toall appearances, settled back into the normal routine of a hometown doctor. He even paid a visit to the El Paso FBI office, on the pretext of inquiring whether or not it was all right for him, as a German American, to make charitablecontributionstoGermanyatthetime.343 Ebellwasboldlytesting the waters to see if he or his group had attracted the feds’ attention. The brazennessoftheKunze-Vonsiatsky-Ebellspycliqueneverfailedtoastound the FBI agents directly involved in tracking them. The men in this last vestige of a spy cell ridiculed the U.S. counterespionage efforts and held them in the highest disdain. Perhaps not without reason, since there had been no move by Hoover’s men to arrest any of them. They figured that they, too, would have already been arrested if the operation was compromised. The FBI special agent in charge (SAC) of the El Paso office was Delf A. “Jelly” Bryce. He wanted to go ahead and pick up the arrogant doctor, but the Justice Department felt the case for espionage was still too weak to authorize the arrest of an American citizen.344 Bryce feared the spy might try to make a run for it. The local deputies assisting the bureau had come across information that Ebell was telling some of his patients they might soon have to find another doctor, as he wasanticipatinganextendedtripawayfromtheareainthenot-too-distant future. The Justice Department attorney advised SAC Bryce to try to get the sheriff ’s office to arrest Ebell on some local charge, if it appeared he was at risk of fleeing into Mexico before a proper case for espionage could be compiled against him. Prior to losing contact with Willumeit and Kunze, FBI agents had learned of growing tensions between them. The touring pair did not get alongwellfromthebeginning.Willumeit,aneducatedandimperioussort, loathedthecrudeformertruckdriverwhohadrisentothetopoftheBund and held a higher rank with the Abwehr masters in Germany. “Kunze and Dr. Willumeit, during the trip, are not getting along amiably together,” an FBI agent reported. “The principal cause of the friction between the two men is the fact that Kunze insisted on mixing love affairs into the official business with which they were concerned.”345 Despite their petty rifts, they finished the mission. On November 8, 1941, at 7:00 p.m., a 1940 Ford sedan bearing New York license plate num- 290 fetch the devil ber C9246 pulled up to Ebell’s residence with three road-weary occupants. The men entered Ebell’s home carrying several suitcases. An El Paso deputy sheriff...