Die Glocke (German for "The Bell") was a purported top secret Nazi scientific technological device, secret weapon, or Wunderwaffe. First described by Polish journalist Igor Witkowski, it was later popularized by military journalist and author Nick Cook as well as by writers such as Joseph P. Farrell. Farrell and others associates it with Nazi occultism and antigravity or free energyresearch.
According to Patrick Kiger writing in National Geographic, Die Glocke has become a "popular subject of speculation" and a following similar to science fiction fandom exists around it and other alleged Nazi “miracle weapons” of Wunderwaffen. Mainstream reviewers such as former aerospace scientist David Myhra express skepticism that such a device ever actually existed.
History
Arguments about the existence of Die Glocke originated in the works of Igor Witkowski. His 2000 Polish language book Prawda O Wunderwaffe (The Truth About The Wonder Weapon, reprinted in German as Die Wahrheit über die Wunderwaffe), refers to it as
"The Nazi-Bell". Witkowski wrote that he first discovered the existence of Die Glocke by reading transcripts from an interrogation of former Nazi SS Officer Jakob Sporrenberg. According to Witkowski, he was shown the allegedly classified transcripts in August 1997 by an unnamed Polish intelligence contact who said had access to Polish government documents regarding Nazi secret weapons.Witkowski maintains that he was only allowed to transcribe the documents and was not allowed to make any copies. Although no evidence of the veracity of Witkowski's statements have been produced, they reached a wider audience when they were retold by British author Nick Cook, who added his own views to Witkowski's statements in The Hunt for Zero Point.[edit]Description
Allegedly an experiment carried out by Third Reich scientists working for the SS in a German facility known as Der Riese ("The Giant") near the Wenceslaus mine and close to the Czechborder, Die Glocke is described as being a device "made out of a hard, heavy metal" approximately 9 feet wide and 12 to 15 feet high having a shape similar to that of a large bell. According to Cook, this device ostensibly contained two counter-rotating cylinders which would be "filled with a mercury-like substance, violet in color. This metallic liquid was code-named "Xerum 525" and was otherwise cautiously "stored in a tall thin thermos flask a meter high encased in lead". Additional substances said to be employed in the experiments, referred to as Leichtmetall (light metal), "included thorium and beryllium peroxides". Cook describes Die Glocke as emitting strong radiation when activated, an effect that supposedly led to the death of several unnamed scientists and various plant and animal test subjects. Based upon certain external indications, Witkowski states that the ruins of a metal framework in the vicinity of the Wenceslas mine (aesthetically dubbed "The Henge") may have once served as test rig for an experiment in "anti-gravity propulsion" generated with Die Glocke; others, however, dismiss the derelict structure as simply being a conventional industrial cooling tower.
[edit]Supposed whereabouts
Witkowski's statements along with Cook's views prompted further conjecture about the device from various American authors, including Joseph P. Farrell, Jim Marrs, and Henry Stevens. Farrell says that the device was considered so important to the Nazis that they killed 60 scientists that worked on the project and buried them in a mass grave. In his book, Hitler's Suppressed and Still-Secret Weapons, Science and Technology (2007), Stevens states that Die Glocke contained red mercury and describes stories alleging that a concave mirror on top of the device provided the ability to see "images from the past" during its operation. Witkowski stated that Die Glocke ended up in a "Nazi-friendly South American country". Cook, on the other hand, states that it was moved to the United States as part of a deal made with SS General Hans Kammler. Farrell stated that it was recovered as part of the Kecksburg UFO incident. This last theory was dramatized in 2009 by The Discovery Channel and again in 2011 by The History Channel's Ancient Aliens series.
[edit]In popular culture
The books Black Order by James Rollins, 2005, Swastika by Michael Slade, 2005, The Shadow Project by Scott Mariani, 2010, and Echo of the Reich by James Becker, 2012, have Die Glocke as their central theme.
Four films have been produced that deal with this subject either directly or indirectly: Hellboy by Guillermo del Toro, 2004. Outpost by Steve Barker, 2008, The Day the Earth Stood Still by Scott Derrickson, 2008, and Iron Sky by Timo Vuorensola, 2012. In Hellsing, by Kouta Hirano, 1997 - 2008, the character of Schrödinger seems to have been created using Die Glocke. The song Die Glocke by Cage, 2009, in the album Science of Annihilation also deals with this subject.
Several video games also make use of Die Glocke. One video game Call of Duty: World at War, included in the Nazi Zombies level "Der Riese" for Map Pack 3 as teleporters. There is also an electric super weapon in Nazi Zombies called the "Wunderwaffe DG-2," originally found in the level "Shi no Numa" for Map Pack 2. It was capable of killing multiple zombies with one shot (the electricity arcs between several at one time.) The "DG" stands for Die Glocke. A Henge like structure known as the "Fly Trap" is also included. Another video game Call of Duty: Black Ops, The Hardened and Prestige editions, along with the Rezurrection Map Pack, featured "Der Riese", along with the other World at War zombie maps as an exclusive. The map "Kino der Toten" also features the MDT (Multi-Dimensional Teleporter) on stage in the theater. Based on the comic strip that appears while the map loads as well as many other backstory clues, Die Glocke is capable of teleportation and time travel moving the original characters from World at War from 1945 to 1960. In a third video game, Iron Sky: Operation Highjump, the prequel to the movie will feature many references to obscure and occult technologies attributed to the Nazis.
