Rachel Maddow’s "Ultra" (2022) & Emily Hall Tremaine (previously Von Romberg - Spreckels)

Top left: After a year-long second marriage, Emily Hall Tremaine (previously Spreckels) sues for divorce (7 Sept 1940; New York Daily News. Top right: Three months later, Adolph B. Spreckels declares "I’m not the Nazi, SHE is" (10 December 1940, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette). Bottom right: Ellis M. Zacharias, head of SoCal area naval intelligence and main recipient of SoCal Nazi intelligence, who sent the information to J. Edgar Hoover in Washington, DC (left). Not known until January 2023, Emily’s family were close associates of Ellis Zacharias, both professionally and personally, and Emily may have been an occasional spy.

In Ultra, episode three spotlights the German / US Nazi threat in Southern California and US Naval Intelligence is mentioned. There are more interesting histories in this sphere.

Have you heard about the posh lady in Montecito— with a swastika on her house?

Click the photo of her in the sidebar to the right to learn more, and remember, like a soap opera, peeling the onion reveals a fascinating history.

R. J. Preece in the author of the forthcoming book Nazis in California: Danger, madness and decadence in high society, 1933-45 (2025).

For more information, see Section I. Mystery, danger & misunderstandings: Emily Hall Tremaine in the 1930s on the Emily Hall Tremaine / Collection compilations and documentation overview page.

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