Israel Beer

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Israel Beer in the middle. He is accompanied by two policemen outside the courtroom.

Israel Beer (* 1912 in Vienna ; † May 1966 in Tel Aviv ) was an Israeli military historian and expert, at times confidante of Prime Minister David Ben Gurion and an unmasked Soviet agent .

Life

According to his own biography - which is believed to be most likely fake until the 1940s - he was born the son of a Viennese Jew. After school he graduated from the Theresian Military Academy in Wiener Neustadt . In 1934 he took part in the uprising against the clerical-fascist dictatorship of Engelbert Dollfuss (see Austrofascism ) and was a leader in the Republican Protection Association of Austrian Socialists. From 1936 he was a member and battalion commander of the International Brigades in the Spanish Civil War . After the annexation of Austria in 1938 he emigrated to Palestine , where he took part in the Israeli war of independence in 1948 . During this time he also met David Ben Gurion, who trusted him so much that he let him read his personal diaries and later also gave him access to the secret archives of the Israeli Defense Ministry . Gurion therefore also called him the Thucydides of the Israeli-Arab war .

In 1950 Beer was adopted as a colonel in retirement. He began a political career and at the same time became a lecturer at the Israel Defense Forces Officers School . Due to his excellent military knowledge, he was also often invited to lectures in training facilities of the German armed forces and Swedish military staff.

In 1953, for the first time, suspicions arose from Isser Harel , the head of the Mossad at the time, who spoke of Beer's possible espionage activity for the Soviet Union . In 1955, Moshe Dajan and Harel opposed Beer's re-entry into the Israeli army.

Questionable identity

In the late summer of 1960, the Federal Defense Ministry expressed further doubts about Beer's identity after the then Defense Minister Franz Josef Strauss contradicted Beer's assertions that he was a close confidante of his. This prompted the Israeli secret service, which had long been aware of Beer, to review the contradicting representations, including those relating to his biography. As a result, it turned out that the Theresian Military Academy was attended by only two Jews between 1918 and 1938, both of whom served in the Israeli army in 1961. An alleged study at the University of Vienna could not be confirmed either, since the checked doctoral lists did not contain any doctoral students of this name. Furthermore, the former leader of the Republican Protection Association and former general in the Spanish Civil War Julius Deutsch denied that Beer had been regimental commander there. Other surviving leaders of the former Republican Protection Association said they could not remember Beer.

As a result, the Israeli security services assumed that Beer might be a con man, and Ben-Gurion ordered that he be denied any further access to military secrets.

Condemnation

At the end of February 1961, Ben-Gurion was informed by the British secret service MI5 that agents had been exposed, including Beer. This report was preceded by the arrest of the KGB spy Gordon Arnold Lonsdale , where lists of the names of the informants were found. After the ex-colonel was monitored for this, this suspicion was confirmed at the end of March 1961 when Beer met with the Soviet embassy counselor Sokolow in a forest on the banks of the Jarkon . Beer was immediately arrested because the Israeli security authorities believed he could reveal details of the Israeli-French cooperation prior to the Sinai campaign in connection with the Suez Crisis in 1956, as well as Israeli secrets about building their own atomic bomb to the Soviets. Although he had a gun in his hand when he was arrested, he later stated that he did not want to commit suicide because he had nothing to regret.

Immediately after Beer's arrest, Ben-Gurion denied that he had ever had any particular confidence in Beer. This protection claim did nothing to change the fact that it became public that Israel's security apparatus had failed. Attempts were made to conceal the delicate matter, but failed due to the large media presence of the simultaneous trial of the war criminal Adolf Eichmann in Tel Aviv .

In 1961, Beer was sentenced to 10 years in prison for high treason in a closed trial in Tel Aviv Jaffa . The sentence was later increased to 15 years in prison due to a successful appeal by the prosecutor. Beer died of a heart attack in prison in May 1966 .

True identity

Despite all the efforts of the Israeli security authorities, e.g. B. Viennese registration lists and Schutzbund files were checked, its true identity, as well as the origin of the name used, is still unclear today. The very fact that he was espionage for the Soviet Union has been proven beyond doubt.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Israel Be'er. Retrieved May 10, 2018 .
personal data
SURNAME Beer, Israel
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Israeli agent for the Soviet Union
DATE OF BIRTH 1912
PLACE OF BIRTH Vienna
DATE OF DEATH August 1966
Place of death Tel Aviv