Israel Beer

Israel Beer was born in 1912 in Vienna

Beer was born in 1912 in Vienna. He said he came from an assimilated Jewish family and had studied at the Austrian military academy, earned a doctorate at the University of Vienna and fought in the Spanish Civil War. Investigators later found no record of these claims, and his true identity remained unknown.

He came to Palestine in 1938 and enrolled at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem as a research student. He joined the Haganah and wrote articles on military subjects, which earned him a place on its permanent staff in 1940. Moshe Dayan doubted his combat story after he showed a lack of basic field skills.

After the IDF was founded, he served as a lieutenant colonel and headed planning in the Operations Division. He asked to leave in 1949 after he was not promoted, and was discharged in July 1950. He then led the security department of the Mapam party.

Later he worked for the Ministry of Defense writing a history of the 1947 to 1949 war. On March 31, 1961, he was arrested on suspicion of spying for the Soviet Union and was convicted. He never admitted working for the KGB, and he died in 1966.