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Die Glocke (conspiracy theory)

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For other uses, see The Bell (disambiguation). For Schiller's poem "Das Lied von der Glocke", see Song of the Bell.

Die Glocke (German for "The Bell") is the name of a purported top secret Nazi scientific technological device. The only source for this is the books of Polish aerospace defence journalist[1] and military historian[2] Igor Witkowski, which claims it to be a secret weapon, or Wunderwaffe. The topic has been popularized by military journalist and author Nick Cook as well as by conspiracy theory writers such as Joseph P. Farrell. Farrell and others associate it with Nazi occultism and antigravity or free energy research. However, other researchers such as aerospace expert David Myhra view it merely as a rumor of a peculiar rocket design without a mystical background akin to the V-2 rocket program.[3]

History

The device was first claimed to exist by Igor Witkowski, in his Polish language book Prawda O Wunderwaffe (The Truth About The Wonder Weapon) (2000, reprinted in German as Die Wahrheit über die Wunderwaffe), in which he refers to it as "The Nazi-Bell". Little was known or reported on regarding the device until it was popularized in the English-speaking Western world by journalist, author, and former British aviation editor for Jane's Information Group's, Nick Cook, in his book The Hunt for Zero Point. Interest grew, and Witkowski's book was translated into English in 2003 by Bruce Wenham as The Truth about the Wunderwaffe. Further speculation about the device has appeared in books by the American fringe authors Joseph P. Farrell, Jim Marrs, and Henry Stevens.

In a newspaper interview given in the mid-1950s, German engineer George Klein stated that he worked on a flying saucer device prototype that achieved a speed of 1,300 miles per hour in 1945. He also said that the Nazi government destroyed all traces of the project to keep the research out of the hands of advancing Soviets.[3]

"The Bell" has become a "popular subject of speculation", according to a National Geographic article. Thus, a following akin to science fiction fandom exists around it and other obscure real or alleged Nazi “miracle weapons” of Wunderwaffen.[3]

Background

The Bell is said to be an experiment carried out by Third Reich scientists working for the SS in a German facility known as Der Riese ("The Giant")[4] near the Wenceslaus mine. The mine is located 50 kilometers away from Breslau a little north of the village of Ludwikowice Kłodzkie (formerly known as Ludwigsdorf) close to the Czech border. Cook and Witkowski visited the site for the UK Channel 4 documentary UFOs: the Hidden Evidence (aka An Alien History of Planet Earth).

The device is described as metallic, approximately 9 feet wide and 12 to 15 feet high with a shape similar to a bell. It allegedly contained two counter-rotating cylinders filled with a substance similar to mercury that glowed violet when activated, known only as Xerum 525[5]. It has been speculated to be red mercury.[6] When active, the bell would emit strong radiation, which was said to lead to the death of several unnamed scientists[7] and various plant and animal test subjects.[5]

According to Igor Witkowski, the Polish aerospace historian who researched this craft for 20 years and was interviewed for the Discovery Channel documentary Nazi UFO Conspiracy, "...The external appearance... was such that it was [a] ceramic cover, bell shaped, which housed a kind of core or axis, around which rotated two cylinders, around the axis in opposite rotation. And after connecting to high-voltage current, the cylinders start spinning in opposite directions... Everything suggests.. it could have been a way to master gravity."

Farrell states:

The Bell was considered so important to the Nazis that they killed 60 scientists that worked on the project and buried them in a mass grave and the only reason we know about the Bell is that the SS General that was tasked with the murders, Jakob Sporrenberg, was tried after the war by a Polish War Crimes court for murdering his own people on what subsequently became Polish soil. So it's his Affidavit that gives us the story of the Bell.[8]

What might have happened to The Bell, had it existed, were it to have been evacuated out of Germany is unknown, however there has been some speculation: Witkowski speculated that it ended up in a Nazi-friendly South American country, Cook speculated that it ended up in the United States as part of a deal made with SS General Hans Kammler and Farrell speculated that it did not reach the United States until it was recovered in the Kecksburg UFO incident.[9] It has also been speculated that the technology came to the US through German scientists moved over during the war and the Kecksburg UFO was a prototype of this technology. It has also been speculated that there is a prototype in the unopenable chamber in one of the Project Riese sites, as seen on the History Channel program UFO Hunters.

Function

While the purpose of The Bell is unknown, there is a wide range of speculation from anti-gravity to time travel.[10]

Jan Van Helsing claims in his book Secret Societies that, in a meeting that was attended by the members of various secret orders (Vril Gesellschaft, Thule Society, SS elite of Black Sun) and two mediums, technical data for the construction of a flying machine was gathered along with the messages that were said to have come from the solar system Aldebaran[11]

One of Cook's scientist contacts in The Hunt for Zero Point, was a "Dr. Dan Marckus". (Cook states in his book that he has "blurred" Marckus' name[12] and that he is "an eminent scientist attached to the physics department of one of Britain's best-known universities".[13]) Dr. Marckus claimed that The Bell was a torsion field generator and that the SS scientists were attempting to build some sort of time machine with it.[14]

Controversy

The original claims about the existence of the experiment were spread by Igor Witkowski, who claimed to have discovered the existence of the project after seeing secret transcripts of an interrogation by the KGB of SS General Jakob Sporrenberg.

According to Witkowski, he was shown some classified files in August 1997 by a Polish intelligence officer (whose identity Witkowski keeps confidential), who had access to Polish government documents regarding Nazi secret weapons. This officer unveiled to him for the first time the details of the testimony of SS Officer Jakob Sporrenberg,[2] who provided details of this secret sub-program during a questioning by Polish military officials in 1950/51, when he was imprisoned in Poland. Witkowski provides lavish details of this in his book The Truth about the Wunderwaffe. Although no evidence of the veracity of Witkowski's claims have ever been produced, these claims reached a wider audience when they were used by British author Nick Cook in his popular non-fiction book The Hunt for Zero Point.[10]

The origin, and only evidence of the story, lies solely on Witkowski's testimony of seeing secret transcripts of Sporrenberg's interrogation and his comments on it. These documents have never been made public and Witkowski claims that he was only allowed to transcribe them and was not allowed to make any copies. No other evidence has come to light.

The Henge (Fly Trap)

Among Witkowski's other speculations was that a nearby structure dubbed "The Henge"[15] may have been a test rig for the anti-gravity propulsion generated by the Bell. Witkowski said that an industrial complex at the nearby Wenceslas mine was the testing site for the Bell.

In August 2005 German investigator, and GAF Staff Officer, Gerold Schelm (aka "Golf Sierra")[16] visited "The Henge" and released his findings in November of that year. He claims to have debunked the "Henge" part of the story, demonstrating that a similar structure he discovered in the Polish city of Siechnice is merely the frame for a cooling tower, and shows both Witkowski's image and his of the completed cooling tower together for purposes of comparison.[17]

Schelm goes on to state that:

The similarities between the concrete structure known as "The Henge" and the base structure of this cooling tower in Siechnice are obvious. Despite the number of columns does not match (12 at Siecnice and 11 at Ludwikowice), I am sure, that even their dimensions are almost the same. The construction features are exactly the same, leading to the assumption that the cooling tower and "The Henge" once were built using the same plans, maybe even the same construction company. I had no luck in finding out when the cooling tower in Siechnice was erected, but is in very good condition and I think it was built after WW II, maybe in the 60's or 70's.[17]

Witkowski had pointed out to Cook some metal bolts, which were visible on the top of the structure, right above every column. Witkowski concluded that those bolts had once absorbed the physical force of a heavy apparatus that must have been placed in the middle of the structure, possibly the Bell.

Schelm states that:

comparing the details of both "The Henge" with the Siechnice cooling tower, the purpose of the bolts mentioned by Witkowski becomes clear: The upper metal construction of the cooling tower is resting on exactly those 12 bolts, being visible just on top of every column like they can be seen at "The Henge". Sorry, Mr. Witkowski, but at this point your theory goes down the drain. The concrete structure that you referred to as a possible "test-rig" for carrying the "Nazi-Bell" inside is no more than the remnant of a cooling tower. And, taking this fact into consideration it appears very plausible that the power plant at the northern end of the valley, next to the "Fabrica", would have had a cooling tower, and a good place to erect that cooling tower would have been the bank right next to the "Fabrica". The "Fabrica", whatever it may have produced, of course would have needed huge amounts of electricity, and this in a very remote location. It would have been feasible to build a power plant next to the factory, producing the required electricity from the coal coming from the in-place Wenceslas Mine. As Cook wrote himself, there was a power plant at the end of the valley, and Witkowski showed it to him.[17]

When Cook asked Witkowski what it was, Witkowski said "I am not sure. But whatever it is - whatever it was - I believe the Germans managed to complete it. In this light it is difficult to see, but some of the original green paint remains. You do not camouflage something that is half finished. It makes no sense." Later, he stated that he believes it to be a test-rig.[18] Cook later stated that "I didn't buy Witkowsk's test-rig thesis, but then again I wasn't dismissing it either."[19]

Witkowski went on to show Cook that[20][21]"the ground within the structure has been excavated to a depth of a metre and lined with the same ceramic tiles that Sporrenberg describes in the chamber that contained the Bell."[21] Schelm stated that "I had brought a small foldable spade with me and started digging at three or four places within the circumference of "The Henge". I didn't find anything, only bare earth, full of worms and bugs and weed roots."[17]

Witkowski is not believed to have commented on the similar structure in Siechnice.

Schelm does comment on the paint on the structure in Ludwikowice, stating "when I looked between the columns, I noticed on the south-eastern edge the remnants of what might have been a concrete rim, reaching around "The Henge" at a slightly larger diameter and about 3 meters outside the circle of columns. A portion of the rim of about 4 meters was left, the rest of the rim was either not accessible due to bushes or had been demolished long time ago. The concrete rim had been painted with the same turquoise paint that had been used for the whole structure."

In 2006 Joseph P. Farrell commented in his book, SS Brotherhood of the Bell, "a very odd object that looks like a large concrete henge, self-evidently a test rig of some sort." Farrell goes on to state:

Witkowski also provided this author with more information that was not available when his book was published. Rainer Karlsch, a German historian who recently published a book in Germany on Hitler's nuclear program, also 'Mentioned in his book that a team of physicists from a German university (in Giessen has carried out a lot of research in Ludwikowice, namely in (the Henge). The result is such that there are isotopes in the construction (in the reinforcement), which can only be the result of irradiation by a strong beam of neutrons, thus that there must have been some kind of device accelerating ions, rather heavy ones. It could be calculated what was the intensity of the radiation in 1945 and generally it was very high.' "In other words, whatever had been tested at the Henge - and there is every indication that it was the Bell - it not only required a sturdy structure to keep it down but also it gave off strong, heavy, radiation."[22]

Eyewitness

In his book, Hitler's Suppressed and Still-Secret Weapons, Science and Technology, Stevens wrote about a conversation in the early sixties between a friend's father and his boss at NASA, Otto Cerny, a German scientist from Operation Paperclip. At first Cerny was only vague about his previous work, dismissing it as "weird experiments on the nature of time". However, he later drew a structure made of a circle of stones with a ring around the top along with a second ring from which something hung. At some point during the conversation Cerny described similar to a concave mirror on top of the device allowing "images from the past" to be seen during its operation. He claimed that it was possible to "go back and witness things", but not to go forward.[23]

Books

Films

Music

Video Games

  • Call of Duty: World at War - Included in the Nazi Zombies level "Der Riese" for Map Pack 3 as teleporters. There is also a futuristic/electric super weapon in Nazi Zombies called the "Wunderwaffe-DG2", capable of killing multiple zombies with one shot. The DG could stand for Die Glocke. A Henge like structure known as the "Fly Trap" is also included.
  • Wolfenstein - Included special Nazi projects

See also

Notes

  1. ^ Cook 2001, p. 267
  2. ^ a b Farrell 2006
  3. ^ a b c Kiger, Patrick J. "Nazi Secret Weapons". National Geographic. Retrieved July 23, 2010.
  4. ^ Stevens 2007, p. 249
  5. ^ a b Cook 2001, p. 192
  6. ^ Stevens 2007, p. 250
  7. ^ Cook 2001, p. 193
  8. ^ Farrell 2007
  9. ^ Farrell 2004, p. 335
  10. ^ a b Kleiner 2002
  11. ^ Farrell 2006, p. 111
  12. ^ Cook 2001, p. vii
  13. ^ Cook 2001, p. 81
  14. ^ Cook 2001, p. 228
  15. ^ Image of The Henge
  16. ^ pxarchive personal 'Philedelphia Experiment' website with biography
  17. ^ a b c d Schelm 2005
  18. ^ Cook 2001, pp. 285-6
  19. ^ Cook 2001, p. 293
  20. ^ Cook 2006
  21. ^ a b Cook 2001, p. 286
  22. ^ Farrell 2006, pp. 164-6, referencing Igor Witkowski, personal correspondence to the author, July 23, 2005. Witkowski wrote this quote in The Truth About The Wonderwaffe, p. 235.
  23. ^ Stevens 2007, p. 251-252, 255

References

Further reading

In date order

Literature

Articles

Documentaries

Audio

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