Georg Gyssling

Gyssling was born in 1893 in Walzen, Germany, now part of Poland. He enlisted in the German army during World War I, 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.[2]

Gyssling was also a bobsledder who competed in the early 1930s. The German team finished seventh and last in the four-man event at the 1932 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid, New York.[2][3]

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.[2][4]

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.[2]