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

[54]

54 As days passed after the Japanese surprise attack without any sign that he was suspected of spying, the smug Wolfgang Ebell must have enjoyed the thought that the inept Americans were not aware of his still-intact underground railroad. Behind the scenes, the Nazi doctor was very much in the crosshairs of the FBI, even though his status as a naturalized citizen had delayed a move against his operation. It was ten days after the attack before the Justice Department approved the local FBI agent’s request for an arrest warrant. Far frominept, specialagentJellyBryce, headingtheElPasoFBI team,had requestedthewarrantthedayafterPearlHarbor,asevidencemountedthat the spy might be planning to flee. In the interim, Ebell and key members of his ring in El Paso and across the border in Juarez had been under constant watch while the legal issues were sorted out. Finally,afederalarrestwarrantchargingtheNazidoctorwithespionage came through. “A warrant was issued this morning [by the Justice Department] for the arrest of Dr. Wolfgang Ebell,” FBI legal counsel D. M. Ladd reported in a memo to his supervisor, E. A. Tamm, in Washington.360 Agent Bryce was notified by phone on December 17 that he was cleared to make the arrest of the El Paso master spy and to search and seize evidence at the doctor’s home and office. “Bryce inquired as to what publicity could be given out concerning the matter at this time, and I told him to give only a brief statement based on limited facts,” the FBI lawyer wrote. The telephoned authorization for the arrest was followed immediately by a confidential teletype confirmation from the FBI office in El Paso to Director J. Edgar Hoover. It stated, in part, “This subject [Ebell] is beyond any doubt the leading Nazi agent in this division, and plans are being made to cause his apprehension at his home near El Paso tonight.”361 On Wednesday night, ten days after the Japanese sneak attack, the FBI 300 fetch the devil and local authorities, including deputies from the El Paso sheriff ’s office, surrounded Ebell’s house in the quiet Rio Grande River valley suburb of Ysleta. At exactly 9:00 p.m., the net closed when lawmen kicked in the front door of the doctor’s modest home. The raiders were perhaps a bit more zealous than necessary in their enforcement of the warrant. Graphic images of the smoldering U.S. fleet were freshly impressed upon their minds by the front-page photographs that were saturating the newspapers as they were finally allowed to take action. The Axis spies, traitors, and sympathizers still in the country in the immediate aftermath of Pearl Harbor bore the brunt of American fury for their henchmen who had already fled. As G-men swarmed the residence, other agents and deputies broke into the doctor’s downtown office on the sixth floor of the Abdou Building, a block away from the ritzy Hotel Cortez. Military maps, Nazi medals, and two guns were seized as evidence. The feds knew what they would find in Ebell’shomeandofficebecausethesheriff’sdeputieshadalreadycatalogued these items in stealthy break-ins, several months earlier. The Nazi doctor’s arrogance had prevented him from disposing of the incriminating cache of records and correspondence with his spymasters that he had amassed over the years. Faced with the ferocity of the angry arresting officers, the doctor, who hadonceboasted,“Hitlerwillruletheworld,”meeklysurrendered,without so much as a whimper of protest. A Japanese doctor named Sadakayu Furugochi was also arrested by the FBI in El Paso that night. He was accused only of being in contact with enemy agents and was not formally linked to the Ebell ring.362 Several Nazi agents in Mexico who had been observed in prior contacts with Ebell were arrested by Mexican authorities. When word spread of the roundup, other agents and their lackeys fled deeper into Mexico, attempting to escape to South America. FernandoGoeldner, the chief Juarez contact who had helped the fleeing Abwehr agent Kunze, and whose name the German so badly botched in several letters as “Ferinand,” was one of the successful escapees. SAC Bryce was particularly angered at losing this agent, as he had hoped through interrogating him to track down Kunze’s Mexico hiding place.363 an enemy within 301 Cross-border legal problems and the long delays had prevented the FBI from moving immediately on the arrest, and their Mexican counterparts had somehow let the important spy escape. However, the Mexican federal...