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

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39 Atlas Powder Company and Hercules Powder Company, another spinoff ofDuPontintheexplosivesandchemicalsfield,becameearlyprimetargets for Nazi penetration.243 Prior to his assignment as San Francisco consul, Hitler’s aide-de-camp Captain Fritz Wiedemann was personally sent to the United States on a “vacation.” His real purpose was to speed up spying activities against America’s industrial colossus. He told one of the top spies in America at the time, Guenther Gustav Rumrich, that it was of vital interest to the German war effort to place agents in affiliated companies of DuPont chemical and Bethlehem Steel and their suppliers’ plants across the country.244 Even though Atlas and Hercules were technically independent companies , both maintained their headquarters virtually across the street from DuPont in Wilmington, Delaware. And both were rife with incestuous cross-breeding in top management with the former parent company. The high explosives manufactured at the Giant, California, plant and the western-region, military, construction contracts administered by Frome from his Montgomery Street headquarters came under the scope of espionage efforts being run from the San Francisco consulate. That spy network had tentacles capable of monitoring a target’s every move, from its headquarters on the East Coast to its operations in the Pacific region. Atlas Powder was just such a Nazi target. Atlasdevelopednewblastingpowder,gelatins,andotherchemicalcompounds , which made it one of the preeminent explosives suppliers in the world. But the company studiously avoided publicly revealing the military applicationsofitsproducts,whethertoprotecttradesecretsoratthebehest of U.S. or foreign-government military customers. Throughout the 1930s, Atlas made a point of denying, in its annual reports, that the company was involved in defense work. So secret was the company’s contribution to the national defense effort that Atlas, along with other chemical and explosive firms, did not even report this lucrative 224 fetch the devil share of the business to stockholders. For example, its 1938 annual report toMoody’sManualofInvestmentsincludedthisdisclaimer:“Thecompany does not manufacture rifle or ordinance powders, and its only connection with war work was through the manufacture and sales on a large scale in 1915–1918 of acids and chemicals, which were used in the manufacture of munitions.”245 Such feeble protestations would not dissuade the Nazi spy apparatus from pursuing Atlas Powder’s secrets. The Germans knew exactly what the American powder companies were working on: for years they had participated in numerous, profitable joint ventures with IG Farben, the German munitions and chemical monopoly. Evenhadthedisclaimersbeentrue,whichtheywerenot,Germanagents could not have ignored Atlas Powder as a prime target of interest. In the lead up to World War I, Atlas was the largest supplier of explosives to the British and French, annually providing thirty-seven million pounds of ammonium nitrate and tons of explosive acids and nitro cotton. Atlas was America’s largest supplier of the material used in Amatol, the primary detonating chemical in munitions. When America entered World War I, Atlas had fifteen plants manufacturing explosives material for the U.S. government ; in 1918, the company contracted to build a single plant with the capacitytomanufactureonehundredmilliontonsofammoniumnitrate.246 In the 1930s, Atlas Powder Company and Hercules Powder Company were still very much in the business of developing and supplying high explosives chemicals and components for use by government arsenals in all types of munitions. Atlas developed and acquired numerous patents for everything from smokeless powder used in artillery shells and small-arms ammunition to super-high-explosive chemicals invented in its research laboratories across the country, including the facility at Giant, California. Early in the murder investigation, Sheriff Fox had determined that Weston Frome downplayed both his position in the company and Atlas Powder’s key role in America’s defense industry. He had stumbled across this well-kept secret while digging into the family background for clues to the motive for the murders. Once again, his connections with fellow law enforcement agencies on the West Coast gained him unique access to inside information. “It may be well to note at this time that Mr. Frome holds the dual posi- an enemy within 225 tion of sales manager of the Pacific Coast Division of Atlas Powder Company and is also general manager of their plant at Giant, California,” the sheriff noted in his file, after his first investigative trip to California in May 1938. “Atlas Powder Company is a very large concern, with headquarters in Wilmington, Delaware. It manufactures dynamite that is used in mining and construction work, and also is a large...