Georg Bell

Georg Bell (21 July 1898 - 3 April 1933) was a German engineer, counterfeiter, and spy. A close friend and ally of Ernst Röhm, Bell most notably worked as a personal agent of Röhm's to help build a large-scale Sturmabteilung (SA) network.

Born in Nuremberg to a family of Scottish descent, Bell graduated from the Higher Technical School of Nuremberg in electrical engineering in 1921, where he first met Röhm as both were members of the paramilitary organization Reichsflagge. Although for a few years he worked as an engineer in Munich and Nuremberg, his personal life was upended after the revelation of the Chervontsen Affair in 1928. The affair alleged that Bell and other right-wing German spies attempted to destabilize the Soviet Union by triggering extreme inflation by flooding the state with counterfeit Chervonets. After a lengthy and public trial, Bell was found guilty and was issued a small fine, although it led to a wider consequence of senior Nazis having a negative impression of Bell. Subsequently, in 1929, an arrest warrant was issued against Bell in Bavaria for another trial. This time the trial was for betraying military secrets, which reportedly happened after Bell tried to unmask a French spy. The trial ended with Bell getting charged, although much of the details of the trial were destroyed. By 1930, Bell was considered heavily undesirable due to his double convictions, and had significant trouble finding work as an engineer.

In November 1930, Bell and Röhm reunited and subsequently in April 1931 a formal pact was made for Bell to be Röhm's personal agent. He was instructed to set up a large-scale SA spy network, create an SA press office and newspaper, establish a propaganda office, and distance the SA from the rest of the NSDAP. Bell did this through the rest of 1931 into the spring of 1932. During this time he was also reportedly involved in a plan to assassinate Hitler, according to a testimony by Martin Schätzl, but Bell backed out after making a pilgrimage to Konnersreuth. In the spring of 1932, Bell started breaking away from Röhm due to a multitude of reasons, and finally resigned on 8 October 1932. Afterward, he started working for anti-Nazi journalist Fritz Gerlich, digging up plans by Röhm to overthrow Hitler. Finally, in April 1933, SA officers caught up with him while he was in exile in Austria in an inn, and he was shot dead by a revolver.

Although largely still obscure, Bell has received notable attention due to The Brown Book of the Reichstag Fire and Hitler Terror. The book, which extensively mentions Bell, alleges that Bell kept a list of people he had procured for Röhm as his pimp, including Marinus van der Lubbe, who was the cover-up for the Reichstag fire. Although now discredited, especially since certain dates on where Bell would have been don't add up, it played an important role in bringing a wider attention to Bell.

Early life (1898-1927)

Bell stated multiple times that he was the nephew of Gertrude Bell (pictured here in 1909), although this has now been disproven. Georg Bell was born on 21 July 1898 in Nuremberg in the German Empire. He was the son of Emil G. Bell (1867–1932), who was the director of a watch factory in Laufamholz, and Babette Bell (née Seiferth; 1874–1920). Bell was ethnically Scottish through his father. Due to his father's surname, Bell stated that an aunt of his was Gertrude Bell, a highly influential archaeologist, although this came from a disproved 1948 article and the Society of Genealogists said that this was not possible. He would also later acquire a step-mother when Babette died in 1920, as his father remarried to Karoline Bell (née Rieger).

In 1919, after the end of the war, he began attending a course on electrical engineering at the Higher Technical School in Nuremberg, which he graduated from in 1921. During his time as a student there he first became active in right-wing circles. In 1919 he joined the paramilitary organization Reichsflagge, where the organization's leader, Adolf Heiß, introduced him to Ernst Röhm when Röhm was an I.A. officer in the organization. Afterward, from 1921 to 1927, he worked as an electrical engineer for various companies in Nuremberg and Munich.

Bell was charged alongside two Georgian exiles, Shalva Karumidze and Basilius Sadathieraschwili, with Karumidze claiming that oil magnate Henri Deterding had financed the information. Max Hoffmann and Wolfgang Stresemann were also put under suspicion in the trial, but the former died before the trial could end. The trial was delayed multiple times, especially in February in 1928, when the defense requested an amnesty decree. Again, on 29 July 1928, another amnesty decree was also applied because of the Law on Immunity from Punishment, and the Regional Court ruled to temporarily discontinue the investigation against Bell alongside his arrest warrant. The regional court finally ruled that amnesty for foreigners who had acted against foreign countries was out of question, and that the case was not merely political against Bolshevism but was profit-seeking.

On 6 January 1930, the trial was opened in Moabit with the presiding judge being Judge Wartenberger. Bell was placed in the dock, where the defense lawyers stated that the case was out of jurisdiction since most of the crimes had taken place in Bavaria. Karumidze revealed that in 1927 he had asked for 15,000 marks from circles close to Bell, which he received from Pavel Bermondt-Avalov and other sources, but alleges he did not know that Bell had secretly deposited 1,000 marks at a German bank. An appeals court two years later upheld this. By the time Bell met again with Röhm he was considered heavily undesirable due to his double convictions in the 1929 Chervontsen and Wendt trials, and he had great difficulty finding work.

On 21 April 1931 at 3:00, Bell made a formal pact with Röhm to be his personal agent in the presence of Karl Leon Du Moulin-Eckart. The contract set out Bell's duties and his salary which was 350 Reichsmarks and victuals.

During the rest of 1931 and beginning of 1931, Bell was an informer to Röhm and made numerous trips abroad. With Bell's support, Röhm made numerous contacts in London and Paris to create an independent SA. He was also the one to have broken the news to Hitler about Geli Raubal's death and take him from Nuremberg to Berlin He also approached Sefton Delmer, asking him to report on what the British government's reaction was to reports on the SA and accused him of already being a spy.

Alleged assassination plot against Adolf Hitler An alleged testimony from Martin Schätzl, a victim of the Night of Long Knives, stated that Bell belonged to a group that planned to assassinate Hitler, even though Röhm never thought Hitler was mentally ill or wanted him murdered.

The plan was initiated because the group felt like the attempt to seize power by electoral means that Hitler employed in the July 1932 German federal election was misguided, and instead, it was necessary to return to violent coups like that of the previous Beer Hall Putsch. However, Bell made a pilgrimage to Konnersreuth, where Therese Neumann lived, which made him abandon the plan to kill Hitler.

Dornheim says the plot may have been true, because there was already "Reich without Hitler" plans between Deterding and Röhm. However, there is debate over whether this plan ever existed. In the book Ernst Röhm: Hitler's SA Chief of Staff, historian Eleanor Hancock says she was skeptical about Schätzl's document and the validity of the claims. With the reorganization of the SA, Bell started gradually distancing himself after Rohm refused to listen to his criticisms of Eckart's work and because he did not pay him properly or punctually. In a letter to the Brown House, Bell stated his reasons for resigning which included: the destroyed relationship between him and Röhm, the difference between Bell and other Röhm associates, and the straining between him and Röhm since Bell was not homosexual.

Exile and work for Gerlich After his departure from the NSDAP, Bell began working for anti-Nazi journalist Fritz Gerlich (pictured here in 1929).

The so-called Röhm and Deterding agreement refers to an alleged arrangement that proposed replacing Adolf Hitler with Ernst Röhm. According to claims connected to investigations by Fritz Gerlich, it was reported that Julius Uhl had been designated as the individual tasked with eliminating Hitler should the plan have been finalized. However, the scheme fell apart with Röhm's death during the Night of Long Knives. On 7 March 1933, Bell went with Gerlich to the residence of Eugen Bolz in Stuttgart to deliver the originals of the papers with the information about Röhm and his plan against Hitler, in the hopes that it would enlighten Paul von Hindenburg that the Nazi leadership was unstable. However, a governor of Hitler's was at the gates of Stuttgart and they were forced to turn around, and the papers were then given to Bolz's brother, Konstantin von Waldburg-Zeil, who lost them. Unbeknownst to them, SA hordes had stormed through the office, and arrested Gerlich upon their arrival while Bell escaped through the roof window, who then decided to flee to Austria the next morning. He also met with Willi Münzenberg at the Vorarlberg/Swiss border to discuss information which would be turned into the book The Brown Book of the Reichstag Fire and Hitler Terror.

Röhm was reported to have said, "Bring me Bell alive or dead! I prefer to be alive," to the SA officers that left to get Bell. Although Röhm was generally considered the person to order Bell's death, sometimes Reinhard Heydrich is stated as the client, which most historians view as highly unlikely since Heydrich would have wanted him alive in order to get information on Röhm.

Murder On 3 April 1933, the three automobiles with the SA officers arrived near the Austrian border with Rosenheim. The executioner - Uhl - showed the Austrian border guards a card bearing the stamp of the political police of Munich and they were allowed to pass through and arrived at the Plattl Inn in Durchholzen. Bell then talked to the first group which included one of his former students, while four or five more officers got out of the automobiles, presumably including Uhl. This group then cut the telephone wires, went up the stairs, and announced that the police in Munich had something to say. They then elaborated that he was in custody but he would be released if he returned to Germany. However, when Bell tried to resist, Uhl shot him five times with a revolver. In the comic album The Black Island, written in 1938, Bell is believed to be loosely personified as the antagonist, Dr. J.W. Müller. Hergé was believed to have taken inspiration from a February 1934 issue of Le Crapouillot, where an article by Antoine Zischka mentions Bell and his attempt at counterfeiting, as Dr. Müller is also engaged in the practice.

The Brown Book Bell is extensively mentioned in The Brown Book of the Reichstag Fire and Hitler Terror. The book alleges that he was the pimp for Ernst Röhm, maintaining a list of people he had procured for Röhm to compromise the Nazi Party, and that he had procured Marinus van der Lubbe for him in September 1931. It also states a group of gay stormtroopers set the Reichstag fire while van der Lubbe was used to cover it up and Bell was murdered because of this. Although one of the book's authors, Willi Münzenberg, did meet with Bell in March 1933 at the Vorarlberg/Swiss border, Münzenberg and his group constantly changed Bell's role through the editions. In the first edition of the book, he was still part of the Nazi circle, instead of maintaining a list to compromise the party, and made propaganda phone calls after seeing the fire even though he was not at the Reichstag when it burned down on 27 February 1933.