In 2008, at the University of Göttingen, in Germany, I came across a century-old dissertation written by Winthrop Bell. I instantly knew the unpublished manuscript, which examined the thoughts of America’s then most prominent philosopher, Josiah Royce, was of significant value to scholars of philosophy, pragmatism, and phenomenology. The professor directing the student’s dissertation was Edmund Husserl, who was becoming Germany’s most important philosopher.
Strangely, the work was missing two pages. The lost part, I learned, was in a classified archive in Canada, at Mount Allison University. Intrigued, I requested access to the archive. There, I not only found the missing pages and a treasure trove of philosophical documents, but was also astounded to learn that the mysterious author was a spy who issued early warnings about Adolf Hitler. In fact, in 1919, Bell was the first person to warn about the Nazis’ plans for World War II, 20 years before the conflict began.
In public life, Bell was a charming and intelligent Harvard philosopher. Secretly, as a British spy code-named “A12,” he evaded assassins, gunfire, and explosions to bring news of an anti-Semitic conspiracy to intelligence leaders and the public.
Working undercover in post–World War I Germany as a Reuters reporter, Bell created a plan to save the country from its terrorists. But, in early 1920, the U.K. Foreign Office blundered by keeping his plan classified, despite his request. He was disappointed but kept his eye on the rising threat.
In the fall of 1939, he became the first to warn against Hitler’s plan for worldwide genocide. Bell’s articles about Hitler ran in an influential Canadian newspaper called Saturday Night, three years before the next news of the Holocaust appeared in the English-language press. He warned that first the Nazis would kill all Jews worldwide, then they would massacre Slavs, Blacks, Asians, and all non-Aryan indigenous people on earth. They would be “quite literally, exterminated.”
As a British spy code-named “A12,” Winthrop Bell evaded assassins, gunfire, and explosions to bring news of an anti-Semitic conspiracy to intelligence leaders and the public.
I made another surprising find in my research. In 1917, the newspaper Jüdische Rundschau announced a secret German plot for an anti-Semitic World War—Weltkrieg—slated to begin on Armistice Day. We think of November 11, 1918, as the end of World War I. Astoundingly, it was also meant to be the first day of World War II.
In early 1919, Winnipeg’s volunteer Jewish intel community warned Canada’s prime minister, Robert Borden, of a massive anti-Semitic attack across Europe. Borden told David Lloyd George, prime minister of the United Kingdom. As a result, Britain defunded the racist German militias that pretended to fight communism while actually targeting Jews. Meanwhile, in Germany, Bell’s 1919 intel reports revealed attacks on Jews and Jewish-owned businesses throughout the country. It was the template for Kristallnacht, in 1938, and proof the Nazis were well armed and well funded long before Hitler was in the movement.
In addition to the historical importance of Bell’s warnings, the archive also has lessons for how to fight racism today. It’s a reminder that a race war that begins by targeting the Jews does not end with them. Additionally, Bell calls attention to postwar economic desperation in vanquished nations. The newly unemployed soldiers are dangerous young men who are likely to become terrorists if economic conditions deny them opportunities to become productive citizens.
Aid from the victors and neutral nations can steer the losers toward a better path. It is worth remembering as we plan for the day after the current wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, lest the vicious cycle of recriminations begin again.
Jason Bell is a professor of philosophy at the University of New Brunswick