The Lone Assassin Page 12
Elser now continued up Rosenheimer Strasse, straight toward the illuminated entrance of the Bürgerbräu Beer Hall. Inside, a small group of brownshirts was finishing the last round of beer. Stuffy, thick air hung over the chairs and benches. Just a short while ago, almost three thousand National Socialists had been listening to the Führer’s speech, euphorically applauding his remarks and hateful tirades. At the end, the excited listeners burst into shouts of “Heil,” their right arms extended in front of them in the “German salute.”
Now the staff was busy clearing the beer mugs and glasses from the tables. As they did every year, the resourceful waiters sold the glass from which the Führer had drunk during his speech to the highest bidder among Hitler’s numerous female admirers, who had paid homage to their beloved Führer by rapturously kissing the large swastika flag hanging down from a pillar behind the lectern.
Elser went from the main entrance through the coatroom, directly into the hall. He proceeded to the middle of the hall and gathered his first impressions, as he described later during his interrogations:
I observed the hall, determined the location of the lectern, and viewed the decorations. I did not go onto the gallery itself. While I was there, I did not consider the best way to carry out an assassination in the hall.
After I had examined the layout of the hall, I went from there through the coatroom into the so-called Bräustüberl of the Bürgerbräu Beer Hall, where I sat down at the first table for dinner.
Around midnight he left the Bräustüberl and headed to his accommodations. There he proceeded to the room assigned to him, lay down on the sofa, and tried to fall asleep.
It occurred to him that the hall was not guarded in any way, that there was no security inspection at all, and that it was apparently possible to enter at any time. Could the organizers be that careless? Did they feel that safe?
At nine o’clock in the morning on November 9, he said goodbye to his hosts after breakfast. For the accommodations, he voluntarily paid them one reichsmark. He then walked the now-familiar route to the Bürgerbräu Beer Hall to see the start of the parade commemorating the “fallen of the movement.” Three years earlier, in the course of a pompous ceremony that had since become a ritual, Hitler had for the first time honored those who had lost their lives in the march to the Feldherrnhalle on November 9, 1923. The architect Ludwig Troost had been commissioned to design a worthy memorial for the sixteen sarcophagi of the “martyrs.” Since then, the National Socialist commemorative procession, with the Führer at the head, had made an annual pilgrimage from the Bürgerbräu Beer Hall to Königsplatz, where two immense, classicistic temples had been erected as National Socialist places of worship.
On this November 9, too, loudspeakers repeatedly broadcast the Horst Wessel Song along the route of the march, while thousands of National Socialists with countless flags and standards proceeded silently through the rows of onlookers. Elser was at once impressed and repelled. On the one hand, he was experiencing firsthand the dramaturgy of a Nazi mass spectacle. The uniformed silent march seemed to him like an endless funeral procession—a march to ruin. More clearly than ever, he felt his opposition, his resistance. Thoughts were going through his head that had long provided fertile ground for his assassination plans:
The dissatisfaction I had observed among the workers since 1933 and the war I had assumed to be inevitable since the fall of 1938 constantly preoccupied my thoughts. I no longer recall whether this was before or after the September crisis of 1938. I considered on my own how the circumstances of the workers could be improved and a war avoided. No one urged me to do so or influenced me in that direction; nor had I ever heard conversations along those lines. Not even from the Moscow radio station had I heard that the German regime should be overthrown. My considerations led to the conclusion that the circumstances in Germany could be changed only through an elimination of the current leadership. What I understood by leadership were the men at the very top—that is, Hitler, Göring, and Goebbels. As a result of my thinking, I became convinced that after the elimination of those three men, other men would take office who would not make unbearable demands on other countries, who would not attempt to appropriate foreign territory, and who would ensure an improvement in the social circumstances of the workers. Neither then nor later did I think of particular people who would take over the government. At the time, I did not want to eliminate National Socialism. I was convinced that National Socialism had the power in its hands and that it would not give it up. I was merely of the opinion that the elimination of those three men would bring about the setting of more moderate political goals. I can say with certainty that I was not thinking at all of another party or organization that would have taken the reins in Germany after the elimination of the leadership. I did not speak to anyone about that point either. The idea of eliminating the leadership would give me no peace at that time, and in the autumn of 1938—this was before November 1938—I had made the decision based on my repeated considerations to carry out the elimination of the leadership myself.
In recent weeks, he had thought constantly about the political situation and spoken with Eugen about it. Would there be a war? In the wake of the Munich Agreement, Georg feared the possibility.
“Eugen,” he had said on one of their walks together, “the regime will not be content with the Sudetenland. They’ve set their sights on other countries, too.” Eugen nodded thoughtfully.
Another time they talked about the situation of the workers. “Things are worse for the workers now than they were several years ago,” Georg complained. “These days, the deductions are higher and the wages lower.”
“Yes, but what are you going to do?” Eugen replied with a shrug. “The workers vote for the Nazis. Everyone grumbles, but no one ever says his opinion out loud.”
Georg nodded in agreement. He had been repeatedly confronted with these experiences. As an unskilled laborer in the Heidenheim fittings factory, he had seen his professional ideals steadily thwarted.
The conversations between the two men largely revolved around their everyday lives. As Georg’s handicraft skills had fallen out of demand, he had been deprived of his only means of self-fulfillment. His perceptions and experiences at his job had first made him dispirited and later combative. Though he preferred not to talk about political topics, he always openly expressed his opinion, even when doing so was to his detriment, and he loathed nothing so much as quiet opportunism. In recent weeks, he had felt more and more clearly that he had to do something—to take action, resist.
After his return from Munich he came to the firm decision to put his assassination plans into action. The preparations could begin.
In the weeks that followed, I had gradually worked out in my head that it would be best to plant explosives in the column behind the speaker’s podium and to detonate them with some sort of device at the right time. I did not yet have a clear conception of this detonation apparatus. I chose the column because the flying fragments in an explosion would strike the people at and around the lectern. I also thought that the ceiling might collapse. It is true that I did not know which people would be sitting around the lectern at the event, but I knew that Hitler would be speaking and assumed that the leadership would be sitting nearby. Up to that point, I had neither theoretical nor practical experience with the construction of any device with which explosives could be detonated at a particular time.
Thus he later described his initial considerations at his interrogations. He also explained how his job in the fittings factory served his purposes.
When I began working at the fittings factory in Heidenheim, there was already a so-called “special department” in which powder grains were pressed and shell detonators were produced….
For this special department, samples and designs of detonators and detonator parts arrived, which I received for the company and which were passed on to the individual foremen in the special department after the delivery was inspected. In the shipping department
, I was responsible for recording the arrival and the integrity of the deliveries.
In the powder press department, I had to deliver the received boxes and containers of powder to a worker. The name of this worker I have forgotten. There was no foreman there. From there I also had to take the empty boxes and containers back to the shipping department. I brought them to a room on the ground floor, where I gave them to a worker. The two assistants who had been assigned to me also helped with the delivery of the received orders of material. I was not friendly or more closely acquainted with the foremen or any worker employed in the special department. I knew those people only by sight. No one in the special department showed me how detonators are assembled and constructed. Nor did I ever watch how such detonators were constructed. This was prohibited by the factory management. In the special department, I was only to deliver the received material and then leave immediately….
Though I was not allowed to watch how detonators were assembled, I saw various component parts that passed through my hands, such as the pins for the detonation, and also often held in my hands drawings on which the exact measurements for the control gauges were indicated.
Without anyone noticing, Elser managed to steal two hundred packets of powder and hide them in his attic room. He later said:
As long as I was living at home, I kept the increasing supply of powder in my closet. I had wrapped the powder in paper, placed it at the bottom of the closet, and covered it with linens. No one in my family discovered the powder. I always locked my room.
There were reasons for his mistrust, as there had been disharmony in the house for months. It had all begun with the marriage of his brother Leonhard, who later recalled the cause of the conflict:
In 1938 I got married, and I had a quarrel with Georg at the time because I told him he had to leave the house. According to the entry for the house in the title register, a third belonged to me, a third to my father, and a third to my mother. Georg had no share in the house, and the dispute revolved around financial matters, because I wanted Georg to pay us rent, which he never did.
Their mother suffered most from the feud. She tried several times to propose a compromise, but Georg refused. After all he had done for his family over the previous years, he felt slighted and wronged. That’s when Georg stopped talking to us, his mother later recalled.
Georg ultimately left his parents’ house on hostile terms. The break was final. The family would not see each other again until the Gestapo interrogations in Berlin.
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On April 4, 1939, at a counter in the Königsbronn train station, Georg bought a ticket to Ulm. There he boarded the express train to Munich. No one took particular notice of this journey. In March, he had quit his job in the Heidenheim fittings factory.
The reason I quit was a quarrel I had with the foreman of the apprentice department, who had repeatedly made rude remarks to me that I did not put up with because I was not subordinate to him. I was to open a package urgently that had arrived for him in the shipping department, which I did not consider necessary. It was not the case that I left the company only because I was afraid I would not be able to steal enough explosives. The factory manager did not accept my resignation. At that time, he became ill, and I turned to his deputy, who gave me my papers several days later after a number of appointments.
There was no reason for him to mention his journey at home; he had decided that he would move out of his parents’ house for good as soon as he was back from Munich. He did not even speak with Eugen about his plans and preparations. And with Elsa?
In the previous weeks, he had kept his contact with her to a minimum. Was it the lack of time? Had he lost interest in her? Or was he once again aware of the absence of prospects for their relationship? Was he distancing himself in order to avoid drawing Elsa into things she wouldn’t understand? But who would understand?
A few days ago, he had begun to make his first sketches of an explosive device in his attic room. Once I had worked out the rough design of the apparatus in my head, he later stated, I realized that it was necessary to have the exact measurements of the column in which I wanted to plant the apparatus. So he had to go to Munich again. There he rented a room at an inn near Rosenheimer Platz under his real name.
No one took particular notice of the quiet guest. In the morning, he had his breakfast alone in a corner of the dining room. After that, he left and did not return until late in the evening. The innkeepers scarcely paid attention to him—and why should they? As long as a guest paid for his room and did not create any disturbance, he was welcome and you didn’t ask about his comings and goings. The somewhat shy-seeming guest had paid in advance the overnight cost of two reichsmarks for eight days, and thus the taciturn man was among the innkeepers’ favorite customers.
Elser had a lot to do. On the second day after his arrival in Munich, he went to the Bürgerbräu Beer Hall once again to make the necessary sketches. This time, too, the doors to the hall were open.
I no longer needed to consider where I would place my explosive device. I was already certain that it would be above the base of the gallery, so I proceeded immediately to the gallery. As far as I can remember, I went the shortest way, by the stairs to the left of the entrance. On the gallery, I then took the measurements of the column in question with a folding meter stick I’d brought with me and entered the dimensions in my notebook—that is, I made a small sketch in my notebook and marked the measurements on the sketch. I don’t think that there was anyone else in the hall at that time—at least I can’t remember seeing anyone. I left the hall again through the main exit. I might have spent about five minutes there in all.
After leaving the hall, he went into the Bräustüberl, which was to the left of the main entrance, and ordered a cup of coffee. Shortly thereafter, the busboy sat down at Elser’s table to have a meal. The two of them struck up a conversation. The busboy told him that he had to join the military soon, which he was in no hurry to do, because he would certainly lose his job. Elser nodded thoughtfully. It occurred to him that it would be advantageous for the preparation of the attack if he could get the job opening up. “Can I become an busboy?” he asked, to his young tablemate’s surprise. The busboy promised to ask the manager about it.
On the way back to his accommodations, Elser thought about what a stroke of luck it would be to get the job, for he would be able to save a lot of money. True, he had saved almost four hundred reichsmarks from his earnings at the Heidenheim fittings factory and from the sale of wood, some tools, and his upright bass, but he would have to budget well. With the busboy job, he could save the overnight costs in Munich and earn some additional money.
Elser began visiting the Bräustüberl daily. He would have his meal there and then check whether the doors to the hall were open and whether there were people inside. If he saw the busboy, he would remind him about his promise to talk to the manager. When the busboy still had no information for him on the fifth day, Elser decided to ask the manager himself, as he testified in his interrogations.
He was very surprised to hear that his busboy was required to report for military service, and apparently, after his conversation with me, he scolded the busboy for keeping it from him. The busboy told me that afterward and reproached me for asking the manager without having warned him. Later, when I was sitting in the Bürgerbräu Beer Hall, the manager came to my table and told me that the job prospect would probably come to nothing, because he was hoping that his busboy’s military service would be deferred. After that, I spoke to the busboy a few more times about the matter, treated him several times to a glass of beer, and ultimately promised him twenty reichsmarks in writing, later raising it to fifty, if he would get me the job in the event that he had to report for military duty after all.
The young busboy was puzzled. “Why is the job so important to you?” he asked at their last meeting. Elser told him that it had always been his dream to move to Munich. The busboy was content with that answer.
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On April 12, Elser rode third class on the train back to Königsbronn. He had gotten what he had needed: usable sketches of the column with the exact measurements, as well as some photographs of the inside of the hall. Shortly after his arrival in Heidenheim, he would bring the film to a photographer with whom he was acquainted.
In May 1939, Elser moved to Schnaitheim, where he lodged with the Sauler family as a tenant. He had met their daughter, Maria, at his job in Heidenheim. They developed a warm friendship that was soon in secret competition with his relationship with Elsa. Now divorced from her husband, Elsa was living with her two children at her parents’ home in Jebenhausen.
With the Saulers, Georg felt at ease. They accepted his withdrawn nature, but they nonetheless always invited him to participate in their domestic life. Some evenings, though rarely, Georg gladly accepted the invitation to dinner. They would all sit together in the kitchen playing cards, chatting, or listening to the radio—even the so-called enemy stations.
The radio was there in the kitchen. On that radio, we—that is, whoever was in the kitchen at that moment—often listened to the Strasbourg station, as well as a Swiss station. In the evening, when the family was in bed, I would sometimes turn on the Moscow station and listen to German broadcasts by myself. The name “Moscow” was not marked on the radio. I did not listen to other stations there with the exception of German radio stations and perhaps once or twice an English station. I’m not familiar with the Freedom Station 29.8 or other stations of that sort. In the family circle, there would be discussions of the content of the broadcasts. I can no longer recall the details of those conversations, but I remember that we dismissed particular news items that were obviously false and talked about whether others might be accurate.