Bombing Hitler
BOMBING
HITLER
BOMBING
HITLER
The Story of the Man Who Almost
Assassinated the Führer
HELLMUT G. HAASIS
TRANSLATED BY WILLIAM ODOM
Copyright © 2001, 2013 by Hellmut G. Haasis
Originally published in Germany in 2001
English language translation copyright © 2011 by William Odom
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10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Haasis, Hellmut G., 1942
[Hitler jag’ ich in die Luft. English]
Bombing Hitler : the story of the man who almost assassinated the führer / Hellmut
G. Haasis ; translated by William Odom.
p. cm.
Translation of: Den Hitler jag’ ich in die Luft.
ISBN 978-1-61608-741-8 (hardcover : alk. paper) 1. Elser, Johann Georg, 19031945. 2. Hitler, Adolf, 1889-1945-Assassination attempt, 1939 (November 8) 3. Anti-Nazi movement-Germany-Biography. 4. Germany-History-1933-1945. I. Title.
DD247.E6H3313 2012
943.086092-dc23
[B]
2012017676
ISBN: 978-1-61608-741-8
eISBN: 978-1-62087-954-2
Printed in the United States of America
This translation is dedicated to the indomitable spirit of Georg Elser
CONTENTS
I. Hitler Speaks Under a Ticking Time Bomb
II. The Assassin Is Foiled at the Border
III. The Explosion
IV. Searching the Rubble
V. Reaction to the Attack
VI. The Evidence Mounts
VII. From Kõnigsbronn to Berlin
VIII. Confession and Interrogation
IX. Cult of Death: The Official Ceremony of November 11
X. The Search for the Instigators
XI. Assassinville
XII. Elser’s Youth and Working Years in Kõnigsbronn
XIII. A Freer Life at Lake Constance
XIV. Back to Kõnigsbronn
XV. Assassination: The Decision
XVI. The Preparations
XVII. Night Work in the Bürgerbráukeller
XVIII. In the Concentration Camp at Sachsenhausen
XIX. The End in Dachau
XX. The Long Road to Recognition
Acknowledgments
Bibliography
I
Hitler Speaks Under a
Ticking Time Bomb
AS THEY HAD done for several years, the “Old Soldiers” (Alte Kämpfer) gathered on November 8, 1939, in the Bürgerbräukellerbeer hall in Munich, arriving around six in the evening. At least once a year, these otherwise powerless participants in the Beer Hall Putsch of 1923 could seize an opportunity to bask in glory. In earlier years, the brown shirts of the SA had dominated the hall; now it was the field gray of soldiers, about fifteen hundred of them. Since September 1, 1939, Germany had been at war. Most of those participating in the traditional celebration had been drafted into the military, but they were on leave that evening. On the podium at the front of the hall, a band was playing march music. The pub tables were filled with beer mugs. The only thing distinguishing this gathering from one of the many beer festivals held here was the presence of red Nazi flags.
For weeks, foreign printed materials—English and French leaflets—had been fluttering down over Germany, delivered by balloons or thrown from airplanes. Reading them was considered dangerous, and the Gestapo had school classes gather up the leaflets and turn them in. In October 1939, a flyer from England was distributed that stated:
Herr Hitler rejected all offers of peace until he crushed Poland as he destroyed Czechoslovakia. It will be impossible to accept any conditions for peace which approve acts of aggression. The proposals made by the Chancellor of the German Reich in his speech are extremely unclear and indefinite.
The leaflet went on: “Experience has shown that there is no relying on the promises of the current German government.” Therefore Germany would have to deliver “convincing proof of its commitment to peace” or Britain would have to fulfill its obligation—meaning war against Nazi Germany. The last line of the leaflet was, “The choice is up to Germany!”
The Alte Kämpfer gathered in the Bürgerbräukeller had already made their choice back in 1923: war against democracy and the rest of Europe. And Nazi society was far removed from any concerns about peace. As Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels noted in his diary on November 5, 1939: “Politically, all is absolutely calm. But this is probably the calm before the storm. It’s even hard to find material for propaganda purposes.”
In a meeting with Hitler shortly afterward, however, the mission was made clear to Goebbels: “He [Hitler] is of the opinion that England needs to receive a knockout punch. And this is true. Eng-land’s power is just a lingering myth—it’s no longer a reality. All the more reason it must be destroyed. Until it is, there can be no peace and quiet in the world.” After Hitler had achieved his first goal of revising the Versailles Treaty of 1919, he started fantasizing about a more comprehensive objective. According to Goebbels, “Perhaps the Führer will succeed—and sooner than all of us thought—in undoing the Peace of Westphalia. Historically, that would be the crowning achievement of his life.” This would mean undoing the Reformation, and repartitioning Europe under the hegemony of a far-reaching German Reich—truly delusional speculations.
On November 7, Goebbels noted the murky mood of the regime: “There are the wildest rumors going around all over the country about what will happen next.” Rumors played a fundamental role in public opinion in Nazi society, which was so manipulated that nobody knew any longer what was and was not propaganda. Even Goebbels trusted less and less in the reports of the SD (Sicherheitsdienst—”security service,” the intelligence arm of the SS).
The following day, Goebbels flew to Munich with Hitler. On board, while Hitler dictated the speech that he would give there to his secretary, Goebbels was reading the screenplay of the anti-Semitic propaganda film Jud Süss (Jew Süss) by Veit Harlan.
After stopping by his Munich apartment, Hitler went to a café, then proceeded to the Bürgerbräukeller, arriving at precisely 8:00 p.m. Normally, he would have arrived at 8:30, the historically accurate time.
It was at exactly this time on November 8, 1923, that Hitler and his heavily armed rebels had stormed the meeting of the Bavarian cabinet at the Bürgerbräukeller. Like a hero in a Western, he had charged into the hall and up onto the podium with his pistol drawn, firing into the air and proclaiming the “national revolution.” Every year since 1933, at exactly the same time and in the same place, in what amounted to a Party religious service, he reaffirmed this “brown revolution” with a two-hour speech. That evening, however, the Party faithful would have to make do with a speech only half as long without receiving an official clarification of the reason for the change.
/> Because of the impending French campaign, Hitler wanted to get back to Berlin right away; however, the weather conditions were uncertain and his personal pilot, Hans Baur, thought there would be fog. In all likelihood, Hitler would not have been able to fly out the next morning. The railway administration saw only one possibility for working Hitler’s private train into the schedule—by leaving at 9:31 that same evening. Hitler would have to get to the station with his entourage on time. Forced to adapt to the schedule change, he revised his speech to take only an hour.
***
When Hitler arrives with his entourage, the “Blutfahne” (Blood Flag) is paraded in before him; this was the flag from the 1923 Putsch, supposedly spattered with the blood of those shot by police during the confrontation. This piece of cloth enjoyed cult status, and every new Party flag had to be brought into contact with this “holy banner” so that it too could acquire such sacred character.
Filing in behind Hitler are the Party dignitaries. The only high-level officials missing are Goring and Himmler; however, Goebbels, Heydrich, Hess, Ley, Rosenberg, Streicher, Frank, and Esser are present. Christian Weber, a National Socialist city councilman in Munich, who as one of those who marched in 1923 always appears with the top brass, introduces Hitler in a provincial Lederhosen style: halting, awkward, inarticulate, and inadvertently humorous—to be expected when combining a sense of mission and an ordinary beer festival.
“My Führer, today we have once again fallen in for roll call”—in reality they are all sitting there with their beer steins—”to the day or to the deeds of the memory of November eighth and ninth, 1923.” Weber starts floundering. He has chosen to speak extemporaneously and starts rambling: “Today everything becomes unnecessary. You see, my Führer, that our hearts speak.” He tries to save himself with repetition, speaking again about the “roll call,” stating that Hitler has “rushed here” and thanking him “from the bottom of [his] heart.” Six times, waves of Sieg Heil roar through the hall. They all rise to their feet, shouting Heil three more times. Then Weber tries to take charge, shouting “Sieg,” but in an instant the crowd takes over and yells Heil three times in a row. The attempt at coordinating the response is spoiled.
Now the speaker’s platform in front of the center pillar—the load-bearing pillar for the entire hall—is free for Hitler to take over. He lowers his gaze to the text he has brought with him, which has been previously distributed to selected journalists and will be printed in its entirety in the Völkischer Beobachter. In reality, however, Hitler frequently does not stick to the words of the text; so the only authentic record of the speech is the recording at the German Radio Archives.
At first Hitler speaks haltingly, frequently pausing in odd places. There is a method in this: He doesn’t want to stir up the crowd until later because he knows that once the applause starts there will be no holding it back. In a subdued voice, he informs his well-trained audience that now is not the time to applaud. From the start, he primarily employs devices of a simple speaking style: redundancy, repetition, and empty rhetoric.
The very first sentence comes off as overblown and pompous, and the speech continues in this vein: He, Hitler, wants to celebrate “the remembrance of a day which was of great importance for us.” That would actually be sufficient, but since Hitler is so inspired by the throng, he gratuitously adds more: “Which was of importance for us, for the movement, and therefore for all the people.” In this way, he can play for time and maximize the effect.
The scene at the Bürgerbräukeller is similar to a religious ceremony: The preacher, styled by Goebbels as the Messiah of the downtrodden German people, need only allude to the sacred event, and the believers will know and understand. A concrete description of how events unfolded at the Putsch of 1923 would only interfere with the hallowed mood of the moment. “It was a difficult decision that I had to make at that time”; these are the words in the written text—no mention of the fellow combatants who are sitting here in front of him and know full well that he wasn’t the only one involved. While standing there at the lectern, Hitler, apparently sensing a need for scruples, adds spontaneously: “And, together with many comrades, I acted upon this decision.” This could continue now, but the ritual demands deep reverence here, best achieved by repetition: “a difficult decision, but one which had to be risked.”
In order to put the best face on the present, Hitler first revisits the negative past: “A dreadful catastrophe had befallen our country.” The defeat of 1918, perhaps? No, it was the war that had been thrust upon us. Not a word of regret for Germany’s role in the war—at most regret at not having done everything possible to build “national strength” and at having started the war too late. In order to obscure the causes of the war of 1914, Hitler engages in some reckless logic, saying that “Germany had to be dragged into war.” He is aware of just how odd the phrase “had to” sounds here and therefore throws himself into it unctuously, with the full power of his voice.
From this point on, the structure of the speech becomes jumbled. Hitler suddenly lights on the enemies, apparently trying to prove their culpability for the two world wars by labeling them “the same powers.” They incited war against Germany “with the same slogans and the same lies.” The defeat of 1918 was not a defeat at all, he says; it was only a clever maneuver by the adversary. Hitler doesn’t even have to resort to the legend claiming that the military was “stabbed in the back” by domestic forces (Dolchstosslegende). “It took a great lie to rob our people of their weapons.” So apparently, the armies were simply conquered by a lie, and the English and the French could never have “forced the Germans into submission on the battlefield.”
Here Hitler’s extreme belief in the power of will becomes evident; he even thinks he can change history by willing it to happen. The devastating consequences of yet another defeat loom—but Germany is invincible on the battlefield, and the real struggle takes place in the arena of the will. The logical consequence of such thinking is clear: In the end, he is willing to sacrifice his own country, to the point of complete annihilation.
Freely associating, Hitler again jumps track, right in the middle of a paragraph. What is the source, he asks, of his “great self-confidence”? Now Hitler gives his undivided attention to his veterans, to the soldiers seated before him; he fires them up, yet simultaneously he is driving them to their deaths. He, himself, found his self-confidence he says, “on the field of battle.” Death becomes a great companion. No enemy has been superior to German soldiers. And why? Again, because of will: “Neither the French nor the English had more courage; neither summoned up more deadly force than the German soldier!”
Hitler then loses the thread, so takes to repeating himself. But the audience is working up a head of steam, which it is accustomed to letting off by clapping. When Hitler first says that today Churchill is facing “a different government” than in 1914, he cannot prevent the applause.
The ice is broken. From this point on, the speech is interrupted by salvos of laughter and storms of applause—sixty-three times during the final fifty minutes, an average of once every forty-five seconds. Hitler gathers momentum—it does him good to be applauded by the Party faithful. His tone becomes lighter, he starts using irony, even sarcasm; he demonstrates his acting skills. At some points he turns the Bürgerbräukeller into a cabaret—a Bavarian one, to be sure. Of Germany’s enemies, only England is mentioned. Hitler doesn’t seem to realize that he’s the one who picked this fight called a world war. England is subjected to ridicule—the audience is delighted. Amusement and beery spirits usher in the war.
Again and again Hitler returns to the First World War, and then to the humiliating Treaty of Versailles. When moving on to the claim that England’s greatness is due to its colonies, he becomes dramatic, speaking faster and shouting. The audience catches on: The applause is more frequent—four times in one minute. Hitler pins his many broken promises on England—England can’t be trusted, he says.
Hitler jumps
around, relying on whim. He returns to Germany’s catastrophe—at first he meant by this the outbreak of war, now he means the postwar period. He interprets the defeat only in terms of national expansion. He laments Germany’s loss of its colonies, of trade, of its naval fleet, of its territories—in the process making the maudlin declaration: “We were thrust into deepest misery.” This provides an ideal opportunity to bring up the Party: “And out of this misery arose the National Socialist movement.” In fact, it was not until 1929 during the Great Depression that many citizens, insecure and concerned, grasped at his party like a straw, out of opposition to the left—a detail that Hitler obscures by casting his “movement” as a chronicle of redemption.
The increasing volume of Hitler’s voice indicates that a raw nerve in his power complex has been exposed. He roars when the subject turns to renunciation of force, calling it “renunciation of life.” He can only imagine life as constant struggle, as an uninterrupted series of acts of violence. For this reason he wants to assure that “the life” of the German people “will prevail.”
At this point Hitler’s ideas about expansion—”Lebensraum”— start coming through. Any limit to this expansion is not discernible—infinite territory on all sides. A nation is exploding, right in the middle of Europe.
Closing scene of Hitler’s address at the Bürgerbräukeller on November 8, 1939. The swastika flag behind Hitler obscures the pillar with the bomb.
Around the middle of this memorable speech, Hitler’s megalomania manifests itself. Germany is strong, Hitler shouts—the actual standard of living is of no interest to him; Germany is the greatest military power. During these passages one wave of shouting and applause after another washes through the hall. The crowd goes wild, stirred up not only by the speaker but by its own enthusiasm. The Alte Kämpfer want to go to war. The people are united as never before, says the supreme commander.
Hitler takes yet another shot at England, claiming that the English hate Germany because of its progressive social policies. When he then states that the English hate “the Germany that has eliminated class differences,” it is not quite clear what the brown-shirted veterans will find to applaud about. But the content no longer matters here, just tough words spoken in a shrill voice by the agitator in chief. In the course of one segment he hammers home the word “hate,” repeating it eighteen times as he recounts everything that the English supposedly hate about Germany. In a calmer setting, the tone of voice alone would be enough to establish who exactly is consumed by hate. He resorts to even the most banal sort of prejudice, claiming that the English don’t wash their children and let them become lice infested.