SS Brotherhood of the Bell: The Nazis’ Incredible Secret Technology

by Joseph P. Farrell

  First, as the lead scientist involved with the Bell project, and as a loyal Nazi, Gerlach would have been privy to the curious and strange results of the Bell’s operation and possibly have even personally witnessed some of these effects. As we shall see, these effects would have frightened any rational human. So, one explanation – the one that seems to be implied by Nick Cook, in fact – is that Gerlach saw or witnessed something in the very project he headed that had frightened him into postwar silence.

  But there is a second, and I think, more plausible explanation for Gerlach’s apparent fright-into-silence. Indeed, it is an explanation that would seem to give a factual basis to Cook’s speculation that Gerlach was “frightened” into postwar silence on these admittedly esoteric topics. As Cook himself notes, following Witkowski’s research, the SS shot the sixty-some scientists and their assistants who worked on the project, rather than let any of them fall into Allied or Russian hands.15 As we shall see, there appear to be only a few scientists, two of them well-known in their way, that survived the SS’ massacre: one was Kurt Debus (about whom more below), and the other was Walther Gerlach.

  This allows us to undertake something of a reconstruction, speculative though it will have to be. First, it would appear that the SS, by murdering the project’s scientists with the exception of Debus, Gerlach (and one must assume, possibly others), is intent on preserving the project’s independence by preventing its secrets from falling into any Allied hands. That this is the most rational conclusion is evident from the fact that if the SS had bargained with the Allies or Soviets to exchange this project in return for their lives, then the process would be self-defeating, if the Soviets or Allies were denied the very technicians that made the project possible. Such scientists and technicians would have been in the Soviet’s or Allies’ “intelligence targets acquisitions and booty” list, so to speak. By its actions, in other words, the SS is clearly signaling that it has no intention of letting the project fall into Soviet hands, and it is equally possible that it has no intention of letting it fall into Allied hands either.16

  So why did Gerlach and Debus escape? They escaped simply because of their sheer notoriety and value to the project.17 For the SS to have murdered these men, and dumped them unceremoniously into an unmarked mass grave in Silesia, would have inevitably attracted Allied and Russian interest……and questions, after the war. And those questions, in turn, would have inevitably led back to the Bell. Gerlach and Debus, moreover, represented a level of expertise and involvement beyond the mere day-to-day testing and experimentation involved in the project. Gerlach, in particular, was the theoretician, capable of formulating the “big picture” of whatever it was the Nazis had discovered with the Bell. Such men would be needed after the war if the project were to be continued and advanced. Indeed, as will be seen later in this chapter, it may have been Gerlach or someone in his close circle of friends and associates in the physics community, that initiated the Bell project.

  So what frightened Gerlach? Very simply: perhaps the SS “allowed” Gerlach and Debus – and any other big name scientist that might have been involved with the project – to witness the executions of their comrades. Or perhaps the SS communicated their fates to Debus and Gerlach in some other fashion. In either case, the message was clear: “keep quiet on this subject, and keep cooperating.” If that was the message to the two men, then it certainly worked, for Gerlach never even intimated in the Farm Hall Transcripts of his involvement with any project during the war that involved his specialty: gravitation.18 And as for Kurt Debus, he apparently never mentioned the more exotic technologies to his new employer after the war, as we shall see below. In any case, I believe the SS murders of the Bell’s scientists are the best explanation for Nick Cook’s observation that Gerlach never touched the subject of spin polarization and gravity after the war, acting as if “something had scared him beyond all reason.”

  Prof. Dr. Walther Gerlach at Farm Hall

  c. The Mysterious Dr. Elizabeth Adler

  So far, we have encountered in Witkowski’s list of Bell personnel two rather well-known scientists, and one very obscure four star SS general. But there is yet another expert involved, and here, one is confronted again with something of a mystery:

  Within the context of one of the people (involved in the project) the problem of “a simulation of damping of vibrations towards the centre of spherical objects” appeared. In this case it concerned Dr Elizabeth Adler, a mathematician from Königsberg University (this name appeared only once). 19

  Who was Dr Elizabeth Adler? What was her specialty in mathematics? No one seems to know. My own attempts to find out by contacting the University of Kaliningrad, modern day Königsberg, ended in a wall of stony silence.

  But her presence – even if she is only mentioned in connection with the Bell once – is in itself a significant indicator of something. Since Gerlach was himself a capable mathematician and theoretical physicist, Adler’s presence must indicate a very rarefied form of mathematical expertise was required at some point. This in turn means that the Bell represented no ordinary project. For the SS to have apparently “consulted” a mathematician outside the project must indicate that Elizabeth Adler’s mathematical skills were unique. Find her area of mathematical expertise, and one will have a significant clue into the nature of the physics that the Germans were investigating with the Bell.

  d. Otto Ambros of Auschwitz „Buna” Fame

  As if this list of personnel was not already strange enough, Witkowski, in the same context in which he mentions the involvement of Dr. Elizabeth Adler, then recounts how another name, again one well-known and somewhat imfamous, was involved at some stage in the project:

  In descriptions of “the Bell’s” effect on living organisms on the other hand the notion of “ambrosism” (“Ambrosismus”) occurred. This was perhaps invented to honour one of the scientists, who admittedly was not a member of the research team, but was in some sense connected with the whole project. It concerned Dr Otto Ambros – then chairman of the so-called “S” committee, responsible for chemical warfare preparations in Speer’s Armament Ministry.

  I must admit that from the beginning the plot connected to Ambros was totally belittled by myself, as not matching the whole picture. As it was to become evident a few years later, this was a big mistake – although there was never any doubt that chemical weapons were not responsible for “the Bell’s” operation, or any kind of chemical agent.20

  This is the same Otto Ambros that was also appointed by I.G. Farben director Karl Krauch to oversee the construction and operation of its huge “Buna” synthetic rubber plants at Auschwitz, a plant that Carter Plymton Hyrick has quite persuasively argued was not a Buna plant at all, but a huge uranium enrichment facility.21 Thus, while Witkowski does not seem to be aware of the state of recent German and American research into the actual state of German A-bomb development, his mention of Ambros in this context is for that very reason all the more significant.

  If Ambros was intimately involved with the SS in the enrichment of uranium, and presumably in the recovery of other exotic isotopes, then he would certainly be involved in the Bell project if any aspect of that project required the use of radioactive isotopes. This last condition, radioactive isotopes, I believe is one of the significant clues into the nature of the device and what the Germans were hoping to accomplish with it, as will be seen subsequently in this and later chapters. The fact that his position at the Farben “Buna” plant also placed him in the orbit of secret SS research and security jurisdiction of the Auschwitz camps is also another connection that would seem to corroborate Witkowski’s revelations that Ambrose was somehow involved with the Bell project.

  Dr. Kurt Debus’ POW Card

  e. Dr. Kurt Debus

  Debus and Von Braun at NASA

  From the standpoint not only of the various scientific disciplines but also from that of the various postwar relationships and themes explored here, Dr. Kurt Debus is the most intere
sting big name scientist allegedly involved with the Bell, not the least because he is one of the high profile scientists brought to the United States as part of Operation Paperclip. Due to this fact, Debus is also perhaps an indicator that if any of the Allied powers became privy to the secrets of the Bell, then it most likely was the United States, since Debus, curiously, became a director of the Kennedy Space Flight center at Cape Canaveral!

  Debus’ involvement with the Bell project is made the more curious because of the fact that he was intimately involved with the Peenemünde team of Wehrner Von Braun and, as has been mentioned, continued to be deeply involved with postwar rocket projects in his sensitive position in America’s space program. So what, then, is a rocket scientist doing in a project like the Bell?

  According to Witkowski’s meticulous research, Debus was not a rocket scientist at all, but rather, was interested in the extremely avante garde notion (even for today) of magnetic fields separation.22Moreover, he had apparently designed the power supply for the Bell.

  His parent institution was the institute of High Voltages at Darmstadt Polytechnic (Technische Hochschule). In 1942 he was transferred to the research institute of the AEG consortium in Berlin – Reinickendorf, in addition he also cooperated with the centre in Peenemünde. He was the author of several publications and patents regarding high voltage measurement technology. He developed among other things instruments for high pressure measurement and high voltage discharge parameters measurement. At the AEG research institute he constructed a power supply unit, supplying over 1 million volts current and took part in the equipping of a supersonic wind tunnel. He also took part in the development of measurement instruments for the V-2 test launch pads.23

  Needless to say, such interests would not only have made Debus an invaluable contributor to the Nazi rocket program, but more importantly, such experience in the measurement of high voltage discharge parameters would have made him an expert in phenomena of a wholly different nature, a phenomena that one might qualify under the broad label of “Teslian.”

  But it was Debus’ character as a loyal Nazi, much like Gerlach, that led Witkowski to discover and corroborate one of his informer’s crucial pieces of information: that the Bell was considered to hold such potential that it was given its own unique classification among all the Third Reich’s admittedly exotic secret weapons projects. Debus, according to Witkowski, had informed on one of his co-workers at AEG, one Richard Crämer, to the Gestapo, in 1942. Crämer was sentenced to two years in prison.

  But Crämer was apparently no ordinary German, much less an ordinary engineer, for the chairman of the AEG Research Institute, Prof Dr. Carl Wilhelm Ransauer, wrote a letter to the Gestapo:

  Mr. Engineer R. Crämer from the AEG transformers factory in Oberschöneweide is developing together with the AEG Research Institute a project concerning high voltages (Hochspannungsprojekt), which was contracted to AEG by the Ground Forces Armament Office (Heereswaffenamt) and is being realized under the codename “Charite-Anlage”, as a secret device important for the war. The realization of this project is in half dependent on Mr. Crämer, who as the sole employee of AEG possesses necessary qualifications, concerning this special field of electricity. Without the cooperation of Mr. Crämer further realization of this project is not possible. The research and development work must be carried out with full energy, at least until the end of the war.

  The “important for the war” or “decisive for the war” importance of this project results from the following issues:

  1. The project is realized under special priority SS/1040, which is only granted in special cases.

  2. Mr. Ministerial Director Prof. Dr. E. Schumann, director of the Research Division of the Ground Forces Armament Office has granted this project the highest level of urgency, which has been described as “decisive for the war” (compare the protocol from the briefing of 21.07.42, which may be submitted upon request).

  3. The Plenipotentiary of the Marshal of the Reich for Nuclear Physics, councilor of State Prof. Dr. A. Esay, President of the Physical-Technical Reich’s Office (Physicalisch-Technische Reichsanstalt)… has explained the signing below, that in addition he will prove the necessity of carrying out this work in the interest of the war.24

  Thus, were it not for Debus’ ardent Nazism and denunciation of Crämer, one would never have known even of the existence of the classification “decisive for the war,” or Kriegsentscheidend, at all.

  (1) „Kriegsentscheidend”

  As for the term Kriegsentscheidend, Witkowski notes that this term was highly unusual. While the term “important for the war” (Kriegswichtig) was a technical term implying a lifting of administrative restrictions in order to procure necessary war material,25 the term “decisive for the war” (Kriegsentscheidend) occurs only in this document and only in connection with whatever research the A.E.G., Dr. Debus, and Mr. Crämer, were conducting. Witkowski notes that he “personally analyzed in depth cubic meters of German documentation referring to technology and never came across this term in a different context – as an official designation of any other research project or activity.”26

  What is significant in this context, however, is the fact that none other than Martin Bormann, whenever he corresponded with Gerlach, mentioned the Wunderwaffe.27 Gerlach also wrote Bormann at the end of 1944 that the project on which he was working would be “decisive for the war!”28 But most importantly, Witkowski uncovered the work of a Polish historian, Herbert Lipinski, who had some access to the Farm Hall Transcripts in their pre-declassification form. From Limpinski’s descriptions of the transcripts, as compared to their “public consumption” declassified version, “something completely different followed” whenever Gerlach was present and the subject of conversation turned to physics. For “the topics of conversations were most often: ‘atomic nuclei’, ‘extraterrestrial space’, ‘magnetic fields’ and ‘the earth’s gravitation.’”29 Clearly, Gerlach and Company were involved in something more rarefied than mere atom bombs.

  Debus’ involvement with the Bell raises yet another disturbing series of questions. What was such an ardent Nazi doing as a director of the Kennedy Space Flight center in Cape Canaveral, a post which he was appointed to in 1963? And why would he even be interested in mere rockets when the Bell held so much more potential not only for propulsion, but for so many other things? Why did someone, whose expertise was in the distinctively Tesla field of high voltage electricity discharge measurement, not only find himself involved both in the semi-secret V-2 program and the much more secret Bell project during the war, but after the war why was this electrical engineer involved as a director of the Kennedy Space center?

  4. Dr. Hermann Oberth Takes a Trip with some Friends

  Dr. Kurt Debus is not, however, the only Nazi “rocket” scientist who was involved with the Bell. Another is the well-known Dr. Hermann Oberth, who, like the Russian Konstantin Tsiolkovsky and American Robert Goddard, is one of the three founding fathers of modern rocketry. Oberth’s involvement remains a mystery, for some time between September 15th and September 25th 1944 he apparently took a “business trip,” along with other “Bell” project scientists Herbert Jensen, Edward Tholen, and the enigmatic Dr. Elizabeth Adler, from Prague, to Breslau, and eventually to the region where the Bell itself was being tested.30 Of course, readers familiar with Tom Agoston’s work on the Kammlerstab,31 or with my previous book on Kammler’s super-secret black projects “think tank,”32 will recognize immediately the significance of Prague as the home of a number of Nazi secret weapons projects, and its significance for its close proximity to the headquarters of Kammler’s secret weapons “think tank” at the Skoda Works in Pilsen. And readers familiar with the “Nazi Legend” of the UFO will likewise immediately recognize Breslau as the home of the alleged secret “flying saucer” research being conducted there. So it is indeed curious, from a prima facie standpoint alone, that Oberth, a relatively well-known figure, should be accompanying an obscure mathematician whose
specialty is unknown, and two other scientists of relative obscurity, on what is apparently a “fact-finding” mission to the centers of the Third Reich’s most sensitive – and still unknown – secret weapons projects!

  But Witkowski’s commentary on Oberth’s involvement is perhaps even more unsettling:

  Like earlier in the case of professor Gerlach this information reveals to us a certain unusual and significant fact – significant for the work being carried out. Namely that in principle it is unknown what Prof. Oberth was engaged in during the war. One could have the impression that this is some kind of light at the end of the tunnel, which until now has been cloaked in the darkness of night. After all it is known for sure that Oberth was not connected with the centre in Peenemünde, since in this case he would have undoubtedly held at least one of the positions of command, in other words the fact of his engagement would have been known (thousands of specialists employed there worked after the war in other countries, from the USA and USSR to even Egypt and so is out of the question that a possible secret of this kind could not be kept hidden). So it seems that some kind of alternative program had existed, being carried out for a long time, and quite a serious one at that.33