This week marks the 70th anniversary of a plot whose success might well have spared millions of lives, while claiming that of history’s most infamous mass-murderer, Adolf Hitler.
The elaborate conspiracy centered on Claus von Stauffenberg was the most well-prepared and organized attempt to put an end to Hitler, but it was scarcely the first. The number of serious attempts on Hitler’s life would fill a book and indeed have; Roger Moorhouse’s Killing Hitler (2006), for example, covers the ground of several such attempts from the moment Hitler came to power in 1933, at which time his security detail was remarkably small and haphazard. Early, amateurish attempts, however, put him on his guard and before the Second World War had begun, Hitler never moved anywhere without a phalanx of security. Weaknesses in his security were nonetheless identified and exploited by attempted assassins –– yet fortune favored Hitler.
Thus, one of the most remarkable attempts on Hitler’s life was carried out in November 1939, just weeks into the Second World War. The idea was brilliantly conceived, painstakingly prepared, carried into execution and ought to have succeeded but, because it failed, its author is largely forgotten today. Johann Georg Elser, a carpenter from a humble family of lumber traders, had decided Hitler was a menace to Germany and the world who had to be eliminated. He conceived his plan the previous November in Munich, watching commemorations of Hitler’s abortive Beer Hall Putschof 1923. This event was a fixture of the Nazi calendar and thus followed a fixed, ceremonial pattern which included Hitler delivering an address in the Bürgerbräukeller.
Elser planned to kill Hitler at the next commemoration during his speech. In the course of the next twelve months, Elserstole gunpowder, obtained a job which gave him access to explosives and detonators, and taught himself the rudiments of their use. He dined nightly at the Bürgerbräukeller, secreting himself upstairs when it closed, and set to work by night, hollowing out a cavity in the pillar beside the dais used by Hitler each year in order to instal a bomb inside it. Elseringeniously modified a clock to enable him to have a timer that could be set 144 hours in advance, and lined the cavity with cork to conceal the sound of its ticking, before sealing the cavity and sedulously concealing all evidence of his work. He timed the bomb to detonate at 9.20 PM on November 8, 1939, in the middle of Hitler’s speech.
Elser’s bomb worked perfectly, exploding punctually and bringing down the gallery supported by the detonated pillar on the appointed date at 9.20 PM –– except Hitler had altered his schedule, shortened his speech, delivered it early and thus departed the scene 13 minutes earlier. Taken in for questioning at the Swiss border while seeking to cross it, Elser’s possessions were self-incriminating and under interrogation he eventually confessed all. He was kept as a special prisoner until April 1945 when, in the dying days of the war, he was murdered along with other special prisoners warehoused by the Third Reich.
