included Jews, Bolsheviks, and Masons. Through Anna Wolkoff, a
naturalized British citizen and the daughter of a White Russian ad-
miral, Kent met Antonio del Monte, the assistant Italian military at-
taché, known to him as Mr. Marcaroni. It was del Monte who formed
the link to Berlin, although the Italian operation had in all likelihood
been penetrated by the Soviet Union.
On 20 May 1940, Kent was arrested at his London residence in
Glouster Place, where MI5 officers found 1,929 secret documents
along with two duplicate sets of keys to the embassy coderoom and
the names of various people under surveillance by British authori-
ties. Although U.S. Ambassador Joseph P. Kennedy had agreed be-
forehand to waive Kent’s diplomatic immunity, he first underwent
interrogation in the ambassador’s office, explaining that his actions
had been calculated to prevent Prime Minister Winston Churchill
and President Franklin D. Roosevelt from conspiring to bring about
America’s entry into the war. At a closed trial in the Old Bailey, Kent
was found guilty of violating the 1911 British Official Secrets Act
and given a seven-year sentence. Wolkoff was arrested as well and
received a 10-year sentence. In September 1945, Kent was released
and deported to the United States. Despite his pronounced anticom-
munist views, the Federal Bureau of Investigation conducted six in-
vestigations of a possible Soviet connection but found no conclusive
evidence.KERSTEN, FELIX (1898–1960). The physical therapist of Heinrich
Himmler who sought the release of Nazi concentration camp prison-
ers during World War II, Felix Kersten was born in Dorpat, Estonia,
on 30 September 1898, the son of a Baltic German family. After
earning a degree in agricultural engineering in Schleswig-Holstein,
he was drafted into the German army during World War I but vol-
unteered to join a special legion of expatriate Finns fighting against
Russian domination of their homeland. Despite being granted Finn-
ish citizenship, Kersten returned to Berlin for training as a physical
therapist after the war. As his career prospered, his main residence
shifted to The Hague, where Prince Hendrik of the Netherlands was
one of his main clients. After the outbreak of World War II and
the flight of the Dutch royal family, Kersten resumed his career in
Germany, becoming a physical therapist to Himmler, who needed
228 • KERSTEN, FELIX