Georg Elser - Misplaced Pages

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Johann Georg Elser (born 4 January 1903 in Hermaringen, Württemberg, Germany; died 9 April 1945 in Dachau concentration camp) was a German opponent of Nazism. He became famous for a failed assassination of Adolf Hitler.

Vocational career and social life

Georg Elser was born as the illegitimate child of Ludwig Elser and Maria Müller, who married one year after Georg's birth.

Georg attended elementary school in Königsbronn from 1910 to 1917 and showed ability in drawing and the handicrafts. His father was a farmer and lumber dealer, and expected his son one day to succeed him in this trade, but Georg, who had hitherto helped his father in his work, instead chose develop his own talents. He began an apprenticeship as a lathe operator in a foundry which he had to cancel for health reasons two years later. He began an apprenticeship as a carpenter, which he finished in 1922 as the best of his year. After that, he worked as a carpenter in several joineries in Königsbronn, Aalen and Heidenheim. From 1925 to 1929 he worked in a watch factory in Konstanz where he acquired knowledge making him able to build the time fuse of his bomb. From 1929 to 1932 he worked as a carpenter in Switzerland.

After his return to Königsbronn, he worked with his parents. From 1936, he worked in a fitting factory in Heidenheim. Through this job, he became familiar with the Nazis' rearmament program.

Elser was a quiet yet sociable man, joining in different cultural societies, e.g. a Tracht club. He played the cithara and the double bass for the local choir and also on dancing occasions. He also loved to hike together with his friends.

In 1930 his girlfriend Mathilde Niedermann gave birth to his son Manfred. This pregnancy was not planned and somewhat mirrors Elser's own birth, but unlike his parents, Elser did not marry Mathilde but separated from her soon afterwards. He was obliged to pay for his son's upbringing, which he did with some resentment and not always on time.

Political and philosophical thinking

Elser's political thinking was first stirred during his years as an apprentice. He became a member of the federation of wood workers union. He believed that one is supposed to join a union and gave this reason for his own membership. In 1928, a colleague persuaded him to join the Red Front Fighters' Association, a militant organization affiliated with the Communist Party. Elser did not devote much time to these memberships. Though he was not a convinced Communist, as other utterances show, he voted for the Communist Party until 1933, as he considered them to be the best defenders of workers' interests.

Elser was opposed to Nazism from the beginning, and after 1933 refused to perform the Hitler salute, or to join others in listening to Hitler's speeches broadcast on radio. Neither did he vote in the Third Reich's bogus elections.

His opposition was initially motivated by his concerns about working conditions, and the lowering of working wages. His understanding of politics was influenced strongly by his longing for personal freedom; hence he detested the restrictions on civic rights. He especially despised Nazi restrictions on workers' freedoms, such as the choice of employment and the right to organize. Equally, he loathed Nazi propaganda and it's perversion of the education system, as well as the curtailing of religious freedoms.

Regarding his religious beliefs, Elser was a Protestant of a simple, non-intellectual and traditional brand. His only prayer was the Lord's Prayer, which he said daily, and which he said sustained him in the burdensome preparations for his assassination attempt.

The assassination attempt

In autumn of 1938, Europe was on the verge of war because of the Sudetenland Crisis. After the experience of World War I, Germans were anxious about another war and Elser shared this anxiety. Though War was averted at the last minute, Elser mistrusted Hitler's peace proclamations and decided to travel to Munich on 9 November, to listen to Hitler, as he was giving his traditional speech on the anniversary of the failed Hitler Putsch. Not only did the speech fail to convince Elser, but the same night the craftsman from Königsbronn also witnessed the outbursts of anti-Jewish violence during the Kristallnacht. This experience convinced Elser that a leadership which could incite such violence would plunge Germany into a major war and that only Hitler's death could stop this move into catastrophe.

Reflecting on how to implement his plan, Elser chose the next anniversary of the Hitler Putsch, when Hitler would return to Munich, and decided to kill him by a bomb during his speech. After he had prepared the bomb, Elser travelled to Munich again. Since the Bürgerbräukeller was badly guarded, Elser managed to stay behind after closing hours each night for over 30 days, during which time he hollowed out the pillar behind the speaker's desk and placed the bomb in it.

In the midst of these troublesome and clandestine preparations, World War II broke out on 1 September, 1939, which proved his estimations correct. Elser however, being focused on his work, hardly noticed this. Unbeknown to Elser, Hitler had cancelled that years' speech because of the demands of warfare, but had then changed his mind and agreed to attend the anniversary after all, on condition that he could return to Berlin the same night. Since bad weather prevented a flight, Hitler decided to take the train to Berlin, which meant finishing his speech earlier than expected. On 8 November, 1939, the bomb exploded at 21:20, exactly as Elser had planned, but Hitler had already left the room thirteen minutes earlier. Eight people died and sixty-three were injured, sixteen of them seriously, but Elser's plot to assassinate Hitler had failed.

Arrest and custody

Elser was arrested by accident at 20:45, about 35 minutes before the bomb exploded, by the customs border police in Konstanz when he tried to cross the border into Switzerland. At first the officers did not suspect his involvement in the assassination attempt, but then they found picture postcards from the Bürgerbräukeller in Elser's coat. Elser was transferred to Munich, where he was interrogated by the Gestapo. Elser was silent and denied any involvement in the incident, but the evidence pointing to his complicity became increasingly clear. What finally revealed Elser as the would-be assassin were his bruised, scraped knees. As it turned out, the hollow space in the column where the explosives had been hidden could only have been reached by an assassin crawling on his knees. Waitresses then identified Elser as a frequent patron of the Bürgerbräukeller, and he eventually confessed.

After confessing to the crime in Munich, Elser was taken to the headquarters of the German Reich's security agency in Berlin, where he was severely tortured by the Gestapo. The SS chief Heinrich Himmler was not satisfied that a diminutive Swabian, a craftsman with a grade-school education, could have almost managed to assassinate the Führer without accomplices. The protocol from the Gestapo was recovered at the end of the 1960s. These 203 pieces of paper are the most important sources of information about Georg Elser. During these interrogations and later, neither his son nor his son's mother was molested.

Elser was imprisoned in Sachsenhausen and Dachau concentration camps. Alhough he consistently claimed to have been acting on his own, the Nazis, especially Goebbels persisted in suspecting a British-led conspiracy and intended to stage a trial exposing this alleged plot after the war. Elser was kept in special custody. The mystery about the identity of this "special security prisoner" sometimes led to malicious rumors among his fellow inmates. Even after the war, Martin Niemöller, also in custody at Sachsenhausen, claimed that Elser had been a member of the SS and that the whole assassination attempt had been staged by the Nazis to portray Hitler as being protected by providence. However, historical research (Anton Hoch, 1969) has confirmed that Elser acted completely by himself, while no evidence for any involvement of the regime or outside groupings has been found.

Death

In April 1945, as German defeat was imminent and Allied troops were drawing nearer to Dachau, Hitler ordered the killing of the "special security prisoner Eller", by which name Elser was called in Dachau. The head of the Gestapo, SS-Gruppenführer Heinrich Müller delivered the order for this killing to the Commandant of the Dachau concentration camp, Obersturmbannführer Eduard Weiter.

Following order has arrived: At one of the next terror attacks on Munich area of Dachau, "Eller" has a deadly accident. I ask you to liquidate "Eller" without attracting attention after such a situation appears. Also take special care that only a few people who are specially bound come to know of this. The message for me then shall be something like...

On...caused by a terror attack on.... security prisoner "Eller" fatally injured"

Georg Elser was killed by shooting on 9 April 1945 in Dachau concentration camp, just a few weeks before the end of war. The plaque below is dedicated to his memory. It is to be found in Königsbronn.

"I wanted through my deed to thwart even greater bloodshed".

"In remembrance of Johann Georg Elser, who spent his youth in Königsbronn. On 8 November 1939, he wanted to thwart genocide with his assassination attempt on Hitler. On 9 April 1945, Johann Georg Elser was murdered at Dachau concentration camp."

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