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

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38 The self-proclaimed member of the ex-tsar’s family who played such a large role in the Frome investigation, Romano Trotsky, was never more than a minion in the White Russian Fascist organization. Despite his claims of having served the imperial Japanese cause, there was no evidence that the pretender had any ideology other than his own enrichment. The self-proclaimed count, Anastase Vonsiatsky, was another matter altogether. He affiliated himself and his organization with any anti-Soviet cause or group that might assist in the demise of the Red Russians. The White Russian Fascist leader had been on the payroll of the Japanese for yearsbythetimehejoinedintheunholyconspiracywithvonKillinger.The German spy apparatus, in turn, viewed the gregarious Russian as a useful tool. The newly invigorated Nazi organization quickly assumed command of all Axis espionage on the West Coast. ThenextstepforthenewNazispymasterwastoacquireasecure,permanent operations center for the West Coast network. At about the time of the Frome murders, von Killinger brazenly purchased an imposing edifice in San Francisco’s posh Pacific Heights district. Conspicuousforaspynest,thefortresslikeWhittierMansionwasoneof the first structures in California built to withstand earthquakes. Erected in 1896, the fourteen-thousand-square-foot, four-story mansion was thought to be impervious to outside eavesdropping devices because of its thick stone walls set on a steel frame. The severe-looking Romanesque structure with turrets at each corner offered unobstructed views of San Francisco Bay, with all its busy naval and commercial maritime traffic conveniently sailing under the Golden Gate Bridge in plain sight. Except for its presence atop a high overlook, the new German consulate made a perfect spy’s nest. The huge price paid for it in 1938—about forty -five thousand dollars—by a cash-strapped Germany, was an indication of just how important the San Francisco espionage outpost was to that country. 220 fetch the devil Baron von Killinger’s invigoration of a West Coast spy operation was, from the outset, closely coordinated with the spy agency of the empire of Japan to meet the intelligence needs of that Axis ally. Coincidentally, with the activation of the Nazis’ expanded U.S. operations in 1937, Count Vonsiatsky was beefing up his own espionage network on behalf of his friends in the Imperial Japanese Army, particularly its intelligence efforts against the U.S. Navy. When the Russian married a wealthy American heiress in 1922, he acquired control of her vast family estate in Connecticut and set up his headquarters there. He used his fake identity of former Russian count not only to woo the older woman but also to claim leadership rights among the diaspora of eastern Europeans ousted by the Russian Revolution. The count also held a leadership position in White Russian organizations in Japanese-occupied Manchuria, where skirmishes between the Japanese and Soviet armies were already taking place. His Russian Revolutionary Party was formed in the early 1930s.235 There was a strategic branch of the White Russian organization in the Bay Area from the beginning. After an earlier, aggressive expansion on the West Coast, a strange thinghappened,inlate1938,intheGermanconsularservices.TheGermans suddenly went quiet. At the peak of activities to mobilize the West Coast spy network, Baron von Killinger was inexplicably, and without public announcement, recalled to Berlin in November. No reason was given for his removal, either in Berlin or at the local consulate in San Francisco. His recall came seven months after the Frome murders, at a time when Texas investigators—including Chris Fox and, later, two Rangers—had been on well-publicized visits to the Bay Area, looking for links to the crime. The Nazi baron was given no new assignments of note for more than a year after his recall. PerhapsvonKillinger’ssuddenrecalltoGermanywasmerelycoincidental to the Frome case queries; however, it came after Fox and the Rangers did extensive snooping for information on Pop Frome’s business and social activities.236 As a result of the sheriff uncovering the Frome blackmail by the German gang, Berkeley detectives had begun asking questions about its members’ activities in San Francisco. an enemy within 221 In an even odder twist, von Killinger was not immediately replaced in the San Francisco post. Four months passed before Hitler’s personal friend and aide-de-camp, Captain Fritz Wiedemann, was sent to fill the position.237 The appointment of a second high-ranking Nazi insider to what might be considered a relatively symbolic post further suggests how important the San Francisco consulate was to...