BBC Focus Magazine

[Thinker]

What was Die Glocke or 'The Bell'?

[Pandora]

Hadn't heard of it before, but found this. It sounds fascinating:-

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 claim it to be a secret weapon, or Wunderwaffe. The topic has been popularized by Nick Cook, Joseph P. Farrell and conspiracy theory websites, associating it with Nazi occultism and antigravity or free energy research.

The device was first claimed to exist by Igor Witkowski, in his Polish language book Prawda O Wunderwaffe (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.

"The Bell" has become something of a legend among believers in zero-point energy, perpetual motion machines, anti-gravity devices, reality shifting, reanimation, and time-space manipulation.

[M Paul Lloyd]

Strange, I pride myself on knowing quite a lot about WW2 Nazi technology and I have never ever heard of this........ it wouldn't be some retrospective 'history' like the Nazi Atomic Bomb would it??

[Shadowwolf]

Well most historians would list their sources in their publications. If the only source is his book it suggests that there is no further source for the claims, possibly indicating that it is more hearsay than fact. Especially if the free energy and conspiracy cranks are involved.

[Shadowwolf]

Yes, just had a look and apparently the only source is that lads testimony, I'm thinking bunk myself.

[The Beige Avenger]

These contraptions that seem to promise the impossible... will they ever cease to be the science equivalent of Michican J Frog?

[Thinker]

A bit of scrounging on google found this http://discaircraft.greyfalcon.us/DIE%20GLOCKE.htm, dunno if it's credible but it seems to hint that they were trying to make a time machine.

Probably a load of cods wallop, but I'm sure its all the hype on a conspiracy forum.

[Shadowwolf]

Well Mr Thinker I believe the word 'credible' and that site are not even aware of each others existence, unsubstantiated rubbish and science fiction. Undoubtedly it is most beloved of many a conspiracy forum and other places that 'credible' is an unknown entity.

I like this line "All the scientists and witnesses who saw or worked on the Bell were murdered by the SS as the war neared its end."

How convenient that those scientists and witnesses were shuffled off the mortal coil but the nuclear, jet and rocket scientists were let live to eventually raise up the post war superpowers capabilities.

[M Paul Lloyd]

Something operation 'paperclip' missed we must presume.

[Shadowwolf]

Ah well you see, Operation Paper Clip was instigated after wars end and the SS had murderised these special fellas who were developing an utterly unique aspect of physics on their lonesome, near wars end. They was all dead see.

[M Paul Lloyd]

Well according to my sources operation paperclip began as early as 1943 when intelligence about Nazi secret weapons began to be taken seriously in the west.

Or are we dealing with a 'men in black' situation here?

[Shadowwolf]

Oh in planning it was but the actual extraction was after wars end and the murderising.

[M Paul Lloyd]

I suppose it did all get rather messy towards the end.

[Piesander]

Something operation 'paperclip' missed we must presume.

No not at all. Paperclip recruited Dr Kurt Debus a particularly nasty SS officer and electrical engineer who worked on the Bell project. He eventually worked for NASA on Saturn V launches for the Apollo Missions.

Because Debus denounced collegue and AEG electrical engineer Richard Cremer to the Gestapo, one of Cremer's friends, a senior scientist in the Nazi nuclear program Carl Ramsaur wrote a letter to the Gestapo seeking Cremer's release which survives in the Berlin Document Centre referencing the Bell project. Ramsauer talked of Projekt SS/1040 (also codenamed Charite Anlage by the SS Armaments Research Office or FEP) and how critical the project was to germany winning the war. Indeed Ramsaur suggested Cremer was uniquely vital as the only expert in his field.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Ramsauer

Others scientists or engineers involved were:

Carl Ramsaur
Walther Gerlach
Ronald Richter (exile in Argentina)
Otto Cerny (recruited by Paperclip)
Elisabeth Adler
Otto Ambros
Herman Oberth (recruited by Paperclip)

If you understand what the respective expertise of these individuals are then you can interpret what the actual project was for. Gerlach and Adler for example famously worked on the spin polarisation of atoms in 1925. Richter recreated the Nazi Bell project in Argentina for Peron from 1948-1952.

Originally the project was under the control of Heereswaffenamt as Projekt Thor, led by Gerlach whose role was procurement of enriched Uranium for the German A-bomb. Following the failed assasination attempt against Hitler on 20 July 1944 the SS took control of all nuclear projects on 22 July and at that point the project became Projekt SS/1040 Charite Anlage.

The Nazi Bell was nothing to do with UFOs, or anti-gravity except in the imaginations of impressionable people. It was however the most top secret arm of nazi nuclear research and as a result of secrecy or ignorance, many people have filled in the blanks with their imaginations.

Whilst the project has been embellished by flights of fancy there was a very real project and about 45,000 prisoners of Gross Rosen Concentration camp gave their lives for the Nazi Bell project. The 66 scientists executed were in fact mainly captured Soviet engineers and scientists indentured to work on the Bell.

[M Paul Lloyd]

Thanks for the insight Piesander, most interesting, I know the work of Adler and especially Oberth very well indeed so I can see that it was pretty cutting edge stuff.

[Piesander]

You're absolutely welcome. The Nazi Bell was a spherical Tokamak plasma generator. The Nazis were using it for transmuting Thorium 232 to Uranium 233 (and possibly Uranium 238 to Plutonium 239) using photo fission.

The Nazi Bell was a method which they got very serious about from May 1944 onwards when the bell was first spun up. It bypassed the difficulties of enriching natural Uranium.

Tell me please I have struggled to find references to Elisabeth Adler, or maybe you know her by her former name in the 1920s?

Please can you tell me what you know of her background?

[M Paul Lloyd]

Sadly I seem to have confused my Adler's ... I am possibly thinking of Der 'Adler' Tag, Dieselpunk, German Secret Weapons, that sort of thiung.... old age can do that to you I find. Sorry to dissapoint.

Hermann Oberth on the other hand was something of a hero in rocket propulsion circles and I recall his work very well indeed.

[Shadowwolf]

Ummm best as I can tell, this Bell never existed at all, not the fantastic anti-grav device or as a fusion reactor, there is no evidence, there was no Bell.

However despite my interest I do feel that any discussion on its existence may constitute an historical discussion which is not really at home here. I'm not saying this to avoid supporting my words or to protect some predetermined belief, just noting that this is a science and technology forum and whilst if it existed the Bell would be both, the proof of existence is not.

[M Paul Lloyd]

I only have a small knowledge of WW2 German nuclear research but I'm pretty sure that the German Nuclear Physics program never managed to produce a critical nuclear reactor, despite the best efforts of Werner Heisenberg and Kurt Diebnereven.

It therefore seems highly unlikely that they would be capable of creating a working Tokamak plasma generator which didn't become a reality until well into the 1950's, the name Tokomak is actually derived from the Russian which itself is an acronym made from the Russian words toroidal'naya kamera v magnitnykh katushkakh and was the work of Soviet physicists Igor Yevgenyevich Tamm and Andrei Sakharov inspired by an original idea of Oleg Lavrentyev.

I'm sorry but the Germans had no input at all.

[Piesander]

A Tokamak is not a nuclear reactor. It is a plasma generator. Ever heard of photo fission?

Prof Walther Gerlach said at Farm Hall:

It is not true that we neglected the separation of isotopes. On the contrary, we discussed the whole thing at Tubingen in February and there was a meeting at Munich. Clusius, Harteck and I said that this photochemical thing must be done. It took til the end of the year before the people who could do it were got togetherand the spectrograph obtainedand special accommodation acquired, as the Litz Institute had been smashed up.

Bernstein, Jeremy. “Hitler’s Uranium Club. The Secret recordings at Farm Hall.” pp.134-135

Notes: by Bernstein re Photochemical Process at page 159 of his book:

“The reference to “photochemical” must be a misprint or mistranslation, since no such process seems to exist. It occurs several times in the manuscript.”

At a lecture of the group by Heisenberg on 14 August 1945 the following discussion occurred:
After mentioning the Clusius Dickel tube method, Harteck said...

The other way is photo-chemical, that you just go on trying at it with a big staff. As soon as one has the photo-chemical process, it is much cheaper than the mass spectrograph and in any case naturally for any other purposes you would want to try out the Isotope Lock (Bagge’s Isotope Sluice?) and the centrifuge and such methods, for one should not rely on one method. If you consider theis whole program of work with the heavy water and low temperatures and the photochemistry and all that involves, I’m not certain these fellows (Americans) can do it at all.

I'd be grateful then if you gentlemen would care to explain what Gerlach was talking about?