Bombing Hitler Read online

  Georg Elser’s father Ludwig at his wood storage site in Königsbronn, around 1920.

  A photograph taken around 1920 shows Ludwig Elser at his wood storage site in Königsbronn. Standing in front of some large woodpiles is a short, stocky man—all the Elsers were small. During this time Georg had to constantly help his father, who, it must be said, did not have a real knack for the wood business. He was abrupt, ill-tempered, ambitious, and easily provoked. At wood auctions he would arrive with a few beers under his belt, so competitors— sometimes as a joke, other times on purpose—took advantage of him by pushing his bids higher than he could justify from a business perspective. At the end of the auction, Elser looked like the winner, but then incurred losses upon selling that ate away at the family estate. Situations like this may well have provoked his drinking and taking out his rage on his family.

  In 1910, when Georg was seven years old, Maria had finally had enough and took her children to her parents’ wagon shop in Hermaringen. A week later, Ludwig’s sister managed to work out a reconciliation, and Maria and the children returned. Georg’s early experiences with his father’s violence probably gave rise to his strong sense of justice, which was a major motivating factor in his anti-Nazi views.

  It was widely known in the community that the parents’ marriage was a disaster. In 1959, as a journalist was tracking down Elser’s background in Königsbronn, he met Anton Egetemaier, a tailor and mailman who had been in the zither club with Elser in the 1930s. According to Egetemaier, Elser’s father was “extremely hot-tempered, inconsiderate, and violent. . . . At the slightest provocation he would fly into a rage, grab the nearest thing to use as a club, and then wale away indiscriminately at the whole family. This likely included his wife.” In 1950, Maria said nothing about the grim family circum-stances, but she lavished praise on Georg in a belated effort at reconciliation with her eldest son, who had been driven away. “Georg was an obedient boy and gave us no trouble. He was fairly quiet—almost too quiet, we thought.”

  As the eldest, Georg was in every way the most severely affected. Since the next of his siblings were girls, he was the only one who had to work in the wood business, as well as the farm that his mother ran. He didn’t even get an allowance for his labor—yet his father found money to squander in the taverns.

  In addition, Georg had to be “nursemaid” to his younger siblings. As was often the case with farm families, Georg was able to do his homework only after he had finished his chores. His parents had no interest in his schoolwork—they never even asked about his grades. Later, during the interrogation in Berlin, Georg Elser recalled that such treatment had made learning “rather difficult” for him. The only way he could develop his talents was autodidactically.

  In school, things were not quite as difficult for Georg as they were at home, but he liked only the subjects that he did well in—penmanship, arithmetic, and drawing. There was no shortage of beatings at school—but Georg was simply inured to them. “I didn’t get any more beatings than the others, and I only got them when I hadn’t done my homework properly.” And since he had to work on the farm, this was frequently the case. Most of the teachers, Elser recalled, were fair—for him an important factor in judging people’s character. In the interrogation in Berlin he said of his first teacher: “As far as I know, he administered beatings only when they were called for.”

  It was a different story with his teacher in the fourth and fifth grades, who “would sometimes just beat everybody in the whole class.” But such behavior was the exception, even back in those days. It was during this very period that Elser was rewarded on two occasions—even though it was in a typically modest Swabian way: One time, he received a notebook for a drawing he had done, and another time he got ten pfennigs for his good performance in arithmetic.

  Maria’s only respite—and only comfort—was in attending Bible study on Sunday afternoons, which took place at the Protestant Church. The Bible study harkened back to the days of Württemberg Pietism, but was not a Pietist “lesson” as such. This may have had an influence on Georg because as he became more nervous during his preparations for the bomb attack, he sought solace in reciting the Lord’s Prayer in a quiet church, regardless of the denomination. Throughout his life, his only other comfort lay in his handicraft and in music.

  Someone who could identify with Georg Elser’s traumatic childhood was his girlfriend Elsa Härlen. She had been through a marriage similar to that of Elser’s mother: Her husband was a drunkard, worked only sporadically, and then drank up the money. She called her marriage her “martyrdom.” Georg Elser was able to pour out his heart to her, as Elsa Härlen recalled twenty years later. He had never had a real home; his father frequently drank away the family income, and Georg, as the eldest, had to look after his mother and his siblings. “He must have had a dreadful childhood,” Elsa concluded. Elsa enjoyed baking pastries, which Georg ate with particular gusto, having never had anything of the sort at home. “My mother didn’t even have the money to buy half a pound of sugar once in a while,” he said.

  At the start of World War I, Elser’s father was ordered to Ulm as a driver for the construction work on the fortress. Toward the end of each year during the war, the Elsers suffered from hunger. A certain portion of their farm production had to be given up, and they were allowed to keep only a small amount for themselves, which had to last them for the entire following year. For Georg Elser, the war constituted a dramatic and portentous turning point, even though he was not drafted into service. Later on, the Gestapo had difficulty under-standing why someone like Elser, who had not been a soldier, would try to prevent war.

  Because of his family, which was on the social fringe in Königsbronn, and because of his troubled life, Georg Elser did not exactly enjoy great popularity among his young peers. But his best friend Eugen Rau sat next to him at school from the first grade on and played an influential role in Georg’s first choice of occupation; he also lived next door to him on Wiesenstrasse, where the family’s second house was located. During the interrogation in Berlin, in which Elser strove to divert the suspicion of the Gestapo away from everyone he knew, he pulled off a clever move. Rau could consider himself fortunate that Elser downgraded their friendship, calling it no longer very close, and then craftily named Hans Scheerer, who had emigrated to America and not been heard from again, as his only friend. Elser was successful in concealing the names of other friends, such as the Communist Josef Schurr.

  In 1917, Elser finished seventh grade, the final year of elementary school. While waiting to start an apprenticeship in the fall, he worked at his father’s wood business and on his mother’s farm; he received room and board, but no wages. His thriftiness, which was to stand him in good stead during the preparations for the assassination attempt, took on a quality of stinginess, as Robert Sapper, his foreman in Königsbronn, later remarked. Elser didn’t know the meaning of spare time. The first chance he got to develop his own skills outside the family came later on, at Lake Constance.

  On the advice of Eugen Rau, Elser started an apprenticeship as a lathe operator at the Königsbronn Iron Works, one of the oldest industrial plants in Württemberg. The deciding factor for Elser in choosing this occupation over the objections of his father was that Eugen was working at the same plant. Elser considered it worthy of note that he had not received a beating from his father for this decision. His father advised against it, but his mother supported him. Ludwig wanted the boy to continue working at home—as unpaid help, to be sure. Then he managed to get Georg to turn over all of his wages as an apprentice. Only when Georg wanted to buy something specific did he receive any money—and then it was the precise amount he needed for the purchase.

  At the trade school in Heidenheim, Elser was quite successful, receiving one of three commendations given in his class. He clearly possessed technical talent. His pride in his work, which he displayed even at Gestapo headquarters on Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse, had its origins here. He also acquired basic skills in
metalworking, which were to be of use to him during the construction of his explosive device.

  In the lathe shop, Elser soon developed fevers and headaches. The dirty conditions were affecting his health. After a year and a half, he had to quit and seek out a new trade. Following his inclination, he went into woodworking. He had become familiar with this trade in his neighborhood back home. When he used to go after work to pick up sawdust and wood shavings for the farm, he would stay and watch the work going on at the woodworking shop and began to like it more and more. On March 15, 1919, he became an apprentice to the master woodworker Robert Sapper. It was a small shop—besides the boss, the staff consisted of a journeyman and three apprentices.

  During the interrogation at State Security Headquarters, when Elser was asked about his apprenticeship, he spoke more freely. At the beginning of his apprenticeship he made simple things: He built boxes, stools, and footstools; he cut out the wood, planed it, and assembled the pieces. Even at this stage the work appealed to him, and he was clearly very talented. The tasks became more difficult, and by the end of his apprenticeship he was able to produce large and complex pieces of furniture completely on his own. During this period he also occasionally worked in the construction branch, but the work was generally dirty and he didn’t care for it. He was more interested in the more challenging work of furniture making, and liked to call himself a Kunstschreiner, an “artist in woodworking.” His weekly salary in the first year of his apprenticeship was one mark, in the second year two marks, and in the third year three or four marks. It was enough so that he could now buy himself clothes as well as tools for use on his own projects. Elser’s tool collection was his lifeblood, his pride and joy—and in 1939 in Stuttgart, it was to become the undoing of his sister Maria Hirth.

  At home as well, Elser demonstrated his skill and industriousness. In what was probably his first attempt to build a room, he converted a cellar into a living space.

  Georg Elser as a young man.

  Elser finished the Heidenheim Trade School at the top of his class. Now at least his parents could be satisfied with him. Since the apprenticeship with Sapper paid so little, he soon gave notice and moved on to Aalen to work in the Rieder Furniture Factory (now the Hotel Antik). His boss Sapper did not want to let him go—this skilled craftsman was irreplaceable. Even as an apprentice he had worked overtime when it was necessary. After he gave notice a second time, Elser simply didn’t return to work. Independence and determination were trademarks of Elser’s character throughout his life.

  Elser then worked in Aalen until the fall of 1923. Soon thereafter, inflation plunged him into the first crisis of his working life. The precipitous fall of the currency diminished his pay week by week at first, then hour by hour. With the amount in today’s pay packet, one could barely manage to buy a loaf of bread tomorrow. So Elser decided to give notice and return to working in his father’s wood business and on his mother’s farm—as before, in exchange for room and board and without any allowance.

  In the summer of 1924, Elser found a new job in Heidenheim with the furniture manufacturer Matthias Müller, another small shop with four or five journeymen and one or two apprentices. The company produced custom-made furniture for the home. For the most part, Elser built kitchen cabinets and wardrobes. He was able to carry out these projects from start to finish, working completely alone, as was his wont. Elser’s independence, of which he was very proud, was being threatened by the advent of modern furniture factories with their mass production. Individual craftsmen like Elser were able to survive mainly in rural areas because of the proximity to their customers as well as lower wages. Elser’s self-reliance was a key factor that differentiated him from others who opposed Hitler. The idea that one man could eliminate Hitler on his own apparently did not occur to the members of the military resistance.

  At the beginning of 1925 Elser gave notice once again. Like Elser’s previous boss, Matthias Müller also didn’t want to let him go. Elser left the company without permission and went back to working at home. But he couldn’t stick it out there for long: “I really wanted to get away and get more training in my trade.” His mother reflected after the war: “As far as his occupation was concerned, Georg was very ambitious; he wanted to get ahead and continue learning.” His lifestyle, she said, was very respectable—he didn’t smoke and he didn’t drink. Georg’s aversion to alcohol certainly traced back to his grim experiences with his father.

  Georg Elser had other objectives: he wanted to get away from the misery of his parents’ fighting, the constant control over his life and his wages, and the obligation as the eldest to always be at the family’s beck and call. “He never wanted to have anything to do with girls while he was living here in Königsbronn,” his mother claimed, and unknowingly touched on a sore spot. As a twenty-two-year-old, Georg surely felt that the situation had to change, but he saw no opportunity for romantic experimentation under the watchful eye of his mother. Upon his return from Konstanz seven years later, he fell in love with a woman who was still married and, like his mother, deeply troubled. When he took the woman to his room, his mother threw him out of the house.

  XIII

  A Freer Life at Lake Constance

  GEORG ELSER, BRANDED by posterity as an eccentric and a loner, struggled for weeks at the beginning of 1925 with his desire “to get away.” But he didn’t know where to go. On one of his Sunday walks with Eugen Rau, he met a woodworker at the Zum Hirsch tavern in the neighboring town of Oberkochen. The man had himself gone away and recommended his old employer, the Wachter Company, a small woodworking shop in Bernried near the Swabian town of Tettnang.

  After applying for a position by mail, Elser received approval to begin work on March 15, 1925. He took the train to Tettnang, then walked two hours to get to Bernried, a small spread-out community consisting of only a few houses.

  The Wachter Company is still in business today, run by the grandson of the owner back in Elser’s day. At that time the equipment at the shop was very simple. Everything was still done by hand, somewhat to Elser’s dismay. The only machine was a circular saw, which the master had built himself. There wasn’t even a workbench—the pieces had to be planed by hand. Since Georg was the only employee, he was taken into the family. He had a room in the attic and took his meals with the family. Room and board were free, and he received a weekly wage of eight to twelve marks. All in all, it wasn’t bad compensation, but Elser felt very isolated. After six weeks, he gave his notice. The owner was reluctant to let him go.

  At the beginning of May, Elser simply took off into the wild blue yonder, with no new job in sight. For the first time in his life, he was out traveling on his own. He took his time, first hiking along Lake Constance, perhaps through Kressbronn and Langenargen, but in any case headed for Friedrichshafen. It took him a week to cover this stretch of about fifteen miles. Although his mother knew him only as a hard worker who spent many Sundays at home working in his shop, he now discovered personal freedom and the pleasure of idleness. For a work-obsessed Swabian, this represented a subversion of the traditional values. The shackles of the repression and constant fighting that had marked his life started to loosen.

  He didn’t need to ask for money along the way, and with his savings he was able to stay at inns. He always asked around about work, but had no success. Through the employment office in Friedrichshafen he found a position as a woodworker at Dornier Metal Works in the neighboring community of Manzell. It’s hard to imagine a more dramatic technological shift for that time: from simple carpentry executed by hand to a modern airplane industry expanding by leaps and bounds and producing one sensational product after another.

  At his plant, which had been founded only recently in 1923, Claude Dornier produced a series of flying boats called “The Whale.” Everything was still in a pioneer stage. In 1925 alone—during Elser’s time there—the new seaplane set twenty-five world records. Inter-national air travel, which was still in its infancy, depended largely on Dornie
r planes, primarily “The Whale.” Although the flying boat was constructed of metal, the propellers were fashioned out of wood. Since the work required great precision, it was right up Elser’s alley. Perhaps it was here that his well-known “check-o-mania,” which people were to make fun of later on, got its real start. The wood was glued together in layers, cut out roughly with a circular saw, and then planed with painstaking patience to the prescribed curved shape. The work was not boring, because the propellers varied in shape, the number of blades, the kinds of layers, and in diameter. And in this modern plant, the compensation was appropriately high. With piecework and much overtime, Elser earned more money than ever before.

  However, he was still not satisfied with his personal circum-stances. Since Lake Constance attracted many vacationers in the summer, he was not able to find a room in Friedrichshafen and had to take a room at an inn in Kluftern, which was located near the rail line between Friedrichshafen and Markdorf. At Dornier, he became friends with Leo Dannecker, who played the clarinet and wanted to join a music organization in Konstanz. This idea appealed to Elser, who had enjoyed playing music since his school days. The two of them found work as cabinetmakers with a clock manufacturer in Konstanz and gave notice at the much more promising Dornier Works.