Johann Georg Elser (; 4 January 1903 – 9 April 1945) was a German carpenter who planned and carried out an elaborate assassination attempt on Adolf Hitler and other high-ranking Nazi leaders on 8 November 1939 at the Bürgerbräukeller in Munich (known as the Bürgerbräukeller Bombing). Elser constructed and placed a bomb near the platform from which Hitler was to deliver a speech. It did not kill Hitler, who left earlier than expected, but it did kill 8 people and injured 62 others. Elser was held as a prisoner for more than five years until he was executed at Dachau concentration camp less than a month before the surrender of Nazi Germany.

Background

Family and early life

Georg Elser (the name normally used to refer to him) was born in Hermaringen, Württemberg, to Ludwig Elser (1872–1942) and Maria Müller (1879–1960). His parents married one year after his birth, and Maria moved to Königsbronn to live with Ludwig on his smallholding. His father was a timber merchant, while his mother worked on the farm. Georg was often left to care for his five younger siblings: Friederike (born 1904), Maria (born 1906), Ludwig (born 1909), Anna (born 1910) and Leonhard (born 1913). He attended elementary school in Königsbronn from 1910 to 1917 and showed ability in drawing, penmanship and mathematics. His childhood was marred by his father's heavy drinking. Elser recalled in his interrogation by the Gestapo in 1939 how his father habitually came home late from work drunk.

Career and social life

In 1917, Elser worked for half a year assisting in his father's business. Seeking independence, he started an apprenticeship as a lathe operator at the smelter in Königsbronn, but had to quit for health reasons. Between 1919 and 1922, he was apprenticed to master woodworker Robert Sapper in Königsbronn. After topping his class at Heidenheim Trade School, he worked in the furniture factory of Paul Rieder in Aalen. In 1925, he left home to briefly work at the Wachter woodworking company in the small community of Bernried, near Tettnang. Exploring along Lake Constance on foot, he arrived at Friedrichshafen, where he found employment shaping wooden propellers for the fledgling aircraft-manufacturer Dornier.

"In the following weeks I slowly concocted in my mind that it was best to pack explosives in the pillar directly behind the speaker's podium," Elser told his interrogators a year later. He continued to work in the Waldenmaier armament factory in Heidenheim and systematically stole explosives, hiding packets of powder in his bedroom. Realising he needed the exact dimensions of the column to build his bomb he returned to Munich, staying 4–12 April 1939. He took a camera with him, a Christmas gift from Maria Schmauder. He had just become unemployed due to an argument with a factory supervisor.

Unknown to Elser, Hitler had initially cancelled his speech at the Bürgerbräukeller to devote his attention to planning the imminent war with France, but changed his mind and attended after all. As fog was forecast, possibly preventing him from flying back to Berlin the next morning, Hitler decided to return to Berlin the same night by his private train. With the departure from Munich's main station set for 9:30 p.m., the start time of the reunion was brought forward half an hour to 8 p.m. and Hitler cut his speech from the planned two hours to a one-hour duration.

  • Maria Henle (30), cashier and waitress at the Bürgerbräukeller
  • Franz Lutz (53), SA-Sturmhauptführer
  • Wilhelm Kaiser (50), SA-Sturmhauptführer, deputy leader of NSKK Regiment 86
  • Wilhelm Weber (37), SA-Mann, radio equipment technician
  • Leonhardt Reindl (57), Nazi member since 1923, awarded with the Honour Chevron for the Old Guard for being part of Alte Kämpfer
  • Emil Kasberger (54), long-time Nazi member, flautist in Traditionsgau München-Oberbayern
  • Eugen Schachta (32), SA-Mann, radio equipment technician, Haupteinsatzleiter for
  • Michael Schmeidl (73), Nazi member since before 1930 and retired Oberamtmann; died 13 November from arm injuries

thumb|"The solemn act of state in front of the Feldherrnhalle in Munich (11 November 1939) for the seven victims of the criminal bomb attack in Bürgerbräukeller on 8 November 1939" (original caption)

Honouring the victims

In Munich on 9 November, the annual guard of honour for the sixteen "blood martyrs" of the NSDAP who died in the Beer Hall Putsch of 1923 was held at the Feldherrnhalle as usual. Two days later, at the same location, an official ceremony for the victims of the Bürgerbräukeller bombing took place. Hitler returned from Berlin to stand before seven flag-draped coffins as Rudolf Hess addressed the SA guard, the onlookers, and listeners to Grossdeutsche Rundfunk ("Greater German Radio"). In his half-hour oration, Hess was not short on hyperbole:

After "Der gute Kamerad" was played, Hitler placed a wreath of chrysanthemums on each coffin, then stepped back to lift his arm in the Nazi salute. The very slow playing of "Deutschland über alles" ended the solemn ceremony. Buried in the German archives in Koblenz until 1964, this report is now considered the most important source of information on Elser. The report did not mention the interrogation of Elser's family members and Elsa Härlen in Berlin, as the report contains only the answers Elser gave to his interrogators. On the vital question that he was the sole instigator, Elser had this to say:

On 9 April 1945, four weeks before the end of the war in Europe, Georg Elser was shot dead and his fully dressed body immediately burned in the crematorium of Dachau Concentration Camp. He was 42 years old.

In 1954, SS-Oberscharführer Theodor Bongartz, the man in charge of the crematorium at Dachau, was determined to have been the murderer of Georg Elser, during a German court proceeding in which SS-Unterscharführer Edgar Stiller was on trial as an accessory to murder. As the SS man in charge of the special prisoners at Dachau from 1943 to 1945, Stiller was accused of escorting Elser to the crematorium where he was allegedly shot by Bongartz. Theodor Bongartz was not brought to account as he had died of an illness in 1945.

In 1969, historical research by Anton Hoch based on The Gestapo Protokoll (interrogation report) dated 19–23 November 1939, found that Elser had acted alone and there was no evidence to involve the Nazi regime or any outside group in the assassination attempt.

Memorials

thumb|right|Berlin on [[Wilhelmstrasse]]

In contrast to the conspirators of the 20 July 1944 assassination attempt on Hitler, Elser was barely acknowledged in the official commemorative culture of the Federal Republic of Germany until the 1990s. A breakthrough to a positive way of looking at Elser came with the publication of a biography by Hellmut G. Haasis in 1999 followed by an expanded and revised edition in 2009. Since 2001, every two years the Georg-Elser Prize is awarded for courage, and on the occasion of Elser's 100th birthday in January 2003, Deutsche Post issued a special stamp.

There are at least 60 streets and places named after Elser in Germany and several monuments. Welt journalist wrote in 2005: "That he was for so long ignored by the historians of both East and West Germany, merely goes to show just how long it took Germany to become comfortable with honestly confronting its own history. Johann Georg Elser, though, defied ideological categorization—and for that reason, he is a true German hero."

In 2008, a music venue called Georg Elser Hallen was demolished in Munich. However, as of 2014, there were five venues in Munich bearing the name Georg Elser Hallen. In 2011, a steel sculpture of Georg Elser was unveiled in Berlin, by German playwright Rolf Hochhuth. The memorial, which cost 200,000 euros, was built on Hochhuth's initiative, after the city authorities dismissed the project as too expensive. In the end, the Berlin state senate financed the Elser sculpture, alongside a 50,000 euro donation by an anonymous benefactor. In September 1979, the Bürgerbräukeller was demolished. On its site now stands the GEMA Building, the Gasteig Cultural Centre and the Munich City Hilton Hotel. A plaque in the pavement at the entrance to the GEMA Building marks the position of the pillar that concealed Elser's bomb. 8. November 1939 is the name of the Johann Georg Elser Memorial in Munich to commemorate the resistance fighters fighting against the Nazis. The monument is located in the Maxvorstadt district.

The story of Elser is commemorated in the 1989 film Seven Minutes () directed by Klaus Maria Brandauer, and the 2015 film 13 Minutes (), directed by Oliver Hirschbiegel.

The Georg Elser Prize was established in 2001. It is awarded every two years to individuals who have demonstrated civil courage or civil disobedience against injustice committed by the state.

See also

  • List of assassination attempts on Adolf Hitler

References

;Notes

Further reading

  • Evans, Richard J., The Third Reich at War. Penguin Press, 2008, pp. 109–111.
  • Moorhouse, Roger, Killing Hitler: The Third Reich and the Plots against the Führer. Jonathan Cape, 2006, pp. 36–58.
  • Steinbach, Peter and Tuchel, Johannes, Georg Elser. Der Hitler-Attentäter. Berlin: Be.bra-Wissenschafts-Verlag, 2008, .
  • Ferry, Tom, "GEORG ELSER: The Zither Player", 2016,
  • Ferry, Tom, "Remembering Georg Elser", 2025,
  • Haasis, Hellmut G., "Bombing Hitler", 2013,
  • Tom Ferry, Georg Elser Detailed documentation at georgelser.info

<!-- dead link: * http://www.dhm.de/lemo/html/biografien/ElserJohannGeorg/ -->

  • Georg Elser und das Attentat vom Bürgerbräukeller 1939<!-- bot-generated title --> at shoa.de
  • Heilige – Selige – Ehrwürdige – Namen – Geschichten – Ökumenisches Heiligenlexikon<!-- bot-generated title --> at heiligenlexikon.de
  • "The Carpenter Elser Versus the Führer Hitler" Der Spiegel, 8 November 2005
  • Mike Dash, One Man Against Tyranny , 18 August 2011