November 8, 1939 marked the 16th anniversary of the so-called Putsch from the brewery , the failed coup carried out by the Nazi party in the city of Munich. Like every year, Hitler's supporters gathered in the same place where this attempt to seize power began with the intention of remembering the event and paying tribute to their fallen comrades during the coup. Many celebrated this first National Socialist attempt to seize power.
Many, but not all. Those attending the event that day were unaware that a person not only did not agree, but had proposed to end these celebrations and the leadership of the Nazi party with a single stroke of the pen. The act would begin with German punctuality at 9:00 p.m. The bomb was scheduled to go off at 9:20 p.m.
A man against the system
Georg Elser was born in a small town in the state of Wütemberg called Hermaringen in 1903. His childhood was not particularly happy. He was the youngest of a family with 6 children, where his father, Ludwig, was a poor farmer and drinker.
Despite everything, he was able to study at the local school and at the age of 16 he entered as a carpenter's apprentice in a factory in a neighboring town. Over the next few years he jumped from one job to another, always as a carpenter. His social position as a worker led him to join the shock troops of the German Communist Party in 1928, where he would serve until the party was banned in 1933 after the Nazi party came to power.
The attack that almost killed the Führer
Adolf Hitler was always a great orator. His comrades in the trenches during the First World War already attested to this in the interviews he conducted with them after the conflict. He was not only a good speaker, but he also enjoyed declaiming in front of an audience that he managed to charm. On November 8, 1939, another of those great acts was to take place where Hitler would captivate the masses with his special talent. It was not going to be just any act, it was the commemoration of the failed coup attempt of 1923. Every year this was an event marked on the Nazi party calendar, but this year would be special, since it would be the first time that would produce this meeting after the start of the war on September 1.
At that time, Georg Elser, who believed that Hitler and his henchmen were going to destroy Germany, had already prepared everything to put an end to National Socialism in his country.
On September 30, 1938, the agreements had been signed in the city of Munich by which Germany would take the Sudetenland, at that time a large region of the young Czechoslovakia, in exchange for promising that it would not demand any more territory on the European continent. Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain celebrated it as a great success, where Nazi Germany would have been stopped by British diplomacy. As Winston Churchill told him a few days later in the British parliament –«he was given the choice between dishonor and war. He has chosen dishonor and will have war ».
Winston Churchill saw it clearly. Georg Elser did too and decided not to sit idly by and act as quickly as possible. However, there was a big problem:he was just a man, How could he finish off Hitler by himself?
One point in favor that Georg Elser had when planning his attack against Hitler is the predictability of the Germans. Thanks to this characteristic of the German people it was possible to plan an attack with such precision. Having made the decision to act, Georg Elser spent days consulting old newspapers in a newspaper library with the intention of finding a pattern of behavior of the leaders of the Nazi party. It didn't take him long to figure out the perfect opportunity to carry out his bombing:November 8, at the Bürgerbräukeller beer hall in Munich. The time, 21:00.
The plan was simple, place a bomb in the place where the event would take place and kill Hitler and the higher party officials, the better. As a carpenter he had knowledge of watchmaking, so he himself, thanks to some explosive charges bought from a miner friend and communist comrade, was able to build a precision time bomb. To plant the bomb he went to Munich, where saying he was an immigrant looking for work he got permission from the waiters of the Bürgerbräukeller brewery to spend the night there after closing. Thus for weeks he was patiently able to dig a large enough hole in the column in front of which the speakers' stand would be placed. After finishing the job, two days before the attack, he placed the bomb ready to explode at 9:20 p.m.
The fate of the Führer
Adolf Hitler he always thought that divine providence had brought him to the position he held and that his role in history was to defeat Bolshevism and exterminate the Jews from the face of the Earth, ushering in a new golden age of the Aryan race . Whether Adolf Hitler was touched by divine providence or not is something that remains for the beliefs of each one. What is certain is that on the night of November 8, 1939, luck saved the life of the self-proclaimed Führer.
The act had undergone several changes. Two days before the celebration of the same, Hitler had decided not to appear in Munich due to the need for his presence in Berlin for military reasons. However, in the end it was decided that he would appear in an abbreviated speech between 8:30 p.m. and 10:00 p.m. Due to the change of weather during the day, the Führer's return by plane to Berlin was cancelled, a fact that was communicated to him during the rally. Due to this coincidence, and in order to be able to take a train that would take him to the capital during the night as soon as possible, Hitler decided to finish his speech shortly before 9:00 p.m., at which time he began to say goodbye and took the road to the station. of train At 9:07 p.m. he crossed the threshold of the brewery, and 13 minutes later the bomb went off killing eight people and injuring more than sixty.
Georg Elser's bad luck
The same day of the attack, Georg Elser had left in the direction of Konstanz, on the Swiss border. After saying goodbye to his sister that morning, Georg Elser arrived at the border at 8:45 p.m., a few minutes before the bomb exploded. Surely due to the stress caused by everything he had done, he tried to cross the border illegally, for which he was arrested and locked up by border officials. At first he did not arouse suspicion, but the next day, when the Gestapo began their investigation, Georg Elser's luck changed.
On November 9 he was transferred to the city of Munich, where in the Gestapo headquarters and under torture he confessed that he had participated in the attack that almost cost Hitler his life. Due to his clear involvement, he will be transferred to Berlin, where he will continue the investigation.
At first, the Gestapo considers that the attack has been perpetrated by a British command of several members, so they will interrogate Elser in this regard. Despite the different blackmails that they do to him, such as threatening to kill his family, or the heavy torture carried out, Elser will always maintain the truth:that he had planned and carried out the whole plan.
Finally, the Gestapo will accept this story and Georg Elser will be brought before the town court, which will sentence him to life imprisonment in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp, where he will remain isolated from the rest of the inmates until January 1945, when he will be transferred to the Dachau concentration camp. On April 9, 1945, Georg Elser will be executed by express order of Heinrich Müller, head of the Gestapo.