Georg Gyssling

Georg Gyssling (16 June 1893 – 8 January 1965) was German consul to the United States from 1927 until 1941, since 1933 in Los Angeles. He was a member of the Nazi Party from 1931.^[1]

Early Life

Gyssling was born in 1893 in Walce, Opolskie, Poland, then a part of Germany. He enlisted in the German army and after the war earned a doctorate of law. He became a diplomat and in 1927 arrived in the United States as the German Consul.^[1]

Olympic Career

He was also a bobsledder who competed in the early 1930s; he finished seventh and last in the four-man event at the 1932 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid, New York.^[1][2]

Hitler’s man in Hollywood

Gyssling was the Third Reich’s diplomatic representative in Los Angeles, and was sometimes referred to as ‘Hitler’s Hollywood consul’. He had a specific brief to monitor the activities of the studios, and by all accounts he was extremely diligent and effective in his duties. Nevertheless, later documents revealed that Gyssling despised Hitler and the Nazi party, gave intelligence information to American spies before World War II began, and yearned for a return to a more democratic (albeit nationalistic) Germany^[1][3]

Personal Life

Gyssling was married in 1925 to a German woman named Ingrid Horn, with whom he had two children, Georg and Angelica. Gyssling and Ingrid eventually divorced, and he died in Southern Spain on January 8, 1965.^[1]

References