He wanted to stop the war ..

21:20 November 8, 1939 in Munich, during the celebration of the anniversary of the National Socialists "Beer Hall Putsch" in Bürgerbräukeller there was an explosion, which killed eight and injured 63 people.
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A time bomb, which worked exactly on time and was placed in a column, so that had to kill a man who was giving a speech in the immediate vicinity, laid Georg Elser, a simple craftsman.

Due to bad weather, the traditional Hitler's speech was cut, and he left the room for 13 minutes before the explosion, as was forced to travel to Berlin by train rather than plane.

Elser was accidentally arrested at the Swiss border shortly before the explosion.

During the interrogation, the Gestapo, he said: "I wanted to prevent the war».

There was a guy

Georg Elser against Adolf Hitler

The history of resistance to Nazism in Germany is known quite well. Many know the tragedy of the "Red Orchestra" (1938-1942), "White Rose" (1942-1943), the military conspiracy (1944), and others. But the assassination attempt on Hitler in Munich in November 1939 for the first time became known only recently. It was arranged a traveling exhibition dedicated to the heroism of Georg Elser. There were photos, texts on the stands, copies of the protocols of interrogations and from newspaper articles. Still, many have not been able to fully understand how this quiet, middle-aged worker could decide on this alone. In search of an answer, as always, we appeal to his biography.
There was a nice German guy ... January 4, 1903 to a peasant family in Swabia was born Johann Georg Elser. As a child, a boy standing with passion something painted and master. After graduating from school, for reasons of health he was unable to work for Hardware Plant and willingly went to the disciples carpenter. Soon George reached excellence, loved his profession, and proud of it, was uncompromisingly honest and independent, acted freely. This is partly why he often had to change jobs. Elser was musical, perfectly played the zither, flute and bass, performed with the orchestra at festivals, folk festivals, weddings. Here he is pictured in 1926 - in the Bavarian hat with a feather in a leather jacket and short pants, smiling lightly. He had a friend with whom he entertained and traveled to his native country. George liked many girls, but his life's companion was the married woman who gave birth to him in 1930, his only son. Once again, left without work, he returns to his parents, helping them to farm. George built a house carpentry shop and tried to start their own business, but again failed.

He had little interest in politics, but a heightened sense of justice prompted him in 1928 to join the "Red Front Union". In the election he became a vote for the Communists, naively believing that they are better than others defend the interests of workers. Nazi dislike of rabid chauvinism, aggressiveness and demagoguery. Hitler came to power deeply disappointed him and cast into despair. George resented the poverty and powerlessness of the workers, the oppression of believers, persecution of the Jews. In an atmosphere of total terror, he withdraws into himself, becoming extremely cautious. However, not wanting to adapt to the Nazi regime, Elser has his passive resistance: does not participate in demonstrations and rallies of solidarity with the Fuhrer, the principle does not listen to his hysterical speeches on the radio, persistently evades greeting "Heil Hitler!". But this did not satisfy him, it seems insufficient, and it seeks to actively oppose an inhuman system.

"I wanted to prevent the war." In the fall of 1938, after the annexation of Austria and the Sudetenland to Germany, Elser came to a radical conclusion: in order to avoid a new world war, it is necessary to physically remove the tip of the Third Reich. Unable to find like-minded people who could be fully trusted, he decides to act on your own risk. But how? Where and when? Where to start? ..

Answers to these questions are "prompted" the Nazis themselves. Elser was often in Munich and looking into the largest beer hall where Hitler's elite regularly gathered to celebrate the anniversary of the Nazi attempt on 8-9 November 1923 to overthrow the government. In 1938, Georg freely entered their next gathering of this beer, and make sure to sabotage against Hitler and his henchmen is best to use it, this place, and should make it through the year, marking the 16th anniversary of the Munich putsch. George courageous step was not an impulsive and reckless, it was the result of a long and painful reflection of anti-fascist. Then followed carefully adjusted the calculations and actions.

The plan seemed simple: during the traditional speech of Hitler in the great hall of beer explodes support column behind the podium, and the vault of the ceiling fall on the audience. But for this it is necessary to lay a sufficient quantity of explosives to the infallible clockwork. In autumn and winter 1938 Georg intensely working on the construction of explosive devices. Working on reinforcing the factory, he was able to steal out of powder 250 tiles, which are hidden in the closet at home under the sheets, and then moved in a suitcase with a double bottom. However, the explosion of gunpowder computational power was not enough, and he gets a quarry from which blew over a hundred blasting cartridges and capsules to them. Injured on the job, Elser was able to concentrate entirely on the home manufacture of the bomb casing with two (for secure!) Watch movements of his own invention. In the garden of his parents, he conducted a test trial model. The final version of the body with explosives left quietly moved to the underground gallery at the Munich beer hall and put in the targeted column.

In April 1939, Elser again visited Munich to double-check the protection of the beer hall and unimpeded entry with a suitcase. Get a beer in this job he failed, he decided to settle in the vicinity, it was easier to maintain the installation of an explosive device. Since August, renting a room at the family Lehmann, unaware of the fact that their modest tenant stores at "infernal machine." Evening with a beer Elser arranged in a corner of the room, and before closing with a tool and a flashlight enters the underground gallery where the night quietly in the hollow cavity of the desired column size. In the morning, he goes home and makes the bag trash to the dump. This continued intermittently over 30 days until the deadly work was not completed. Now the countdown went to the hour and minute ...

On the night of the 2nd of November 3, George laid in a column last details of an explosive device and the 6th in the morning set the exact time on the clock mechanism. The explosion was planned to make the 8th in 21 hours 20 minutes, when Hitler was still standing on the podium in the beer hall. On the eve of Elser traveled to Stuttgart to say goodbye to his sister, then back to Munich again and check how the clock on the explosive device. And just making sure that everything is in order, I went to Constance to cross the border into Switzerland. A year before he had been there, and the rehearsal was successful. But this time prevented the fatal accident: Swiss customs officers found a bag Elser suspicious items and handed him over to the German border guards to check. Half an hour later in Munich, there was a powerful explosion in the ruins turned 8 dead and 63 wounded, among them - the higher ranks of the Gestapo and the SS. Hitler, who first decided to act in his stead will Hess, then still made a short speech and left the room ... 13 minutes before the explosion. The war was in full swing, he hurried to Berlin to discuss the plan of attack on the West.

Reichsfuhrer SS Heinrich Himmler ordered the Gestapo chief Heydrich Reynhadu urgently investigate the attack and punish all the perpetrators. Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels, said on the radio that the Führer has once again demonstrated his fantastic vision. The attempt was a priori announced the handiwork of British intelligence, and in search of terrorists thrown the best forces of the Gestapo, headed by Heinrich Müller. They arrested and interrogated hundreds of persons, primarily all employees of the Munich breweries. Elser was among the first of those accused only of trying to illegally cross the Swiss border. The Gestapo was convinced that the attack prepared by experienced people from an extensive organization, and no one could believe that it was conceived and executed handicraft loner. Grueling interrogations accompanied by provocations, blackmail and sophisticated torture, forced inexperienced dissident confess to the crime. He said that the assassination of Hitler wanted to prevent more bloodshed. The records of his interrogations felt calm and inflexibility, they do not have even a hint of remorse. Relatives and friends were subjected to searches and seizures, Sister Maria Muller questioned himself: it was set up a confrontation with George, whose face she saw bruising.

Attempts to denigrate and bury in oblivion the name of the hero. At the end of the investigation Elser was sent to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp and then to Dachau. After the war, show trial, he was supposed to be the main witness for the prosecution, so we kept him in solitary confinement as a "special prisoner of the Führer" in complete isolation from all others. However, he was allowed to carpentry and even make zither. Perhaps this was the reason for the hearing loss is common among inmates that if Elser - provocateur, a secret agent of the Gestapo. Pastor Martin Niemöller, a former prisoner of the concentration camp, said that George was an SS man and was acting on orders from above. This version has picked up and the Western press, it is believed that the attack staged the Gestapo to maintain the myth of the invincibility of Hitler. On the other hand, the Nazis until the last days continued to assert that Elser - English spies and saboteurs. A month before the end of the war, April 9, 1945, he was murdered in Dachau on the "highest order". On the same day shot of many heroes of the Resistance, but the name of Georg Elser for many years was forgotten and shrouded in all sorts of insinuations.

Only in 1950, Elser was officially declared killed, but his parents did not receive any compensation, and my sister and her husband had paid only a tiny amount of damage during the arrest. The mother until her death in 1960, was forced to listen to accusations that her son was an instrument in the hands of the Nazi leadership. The newspapers of the time can be read "confession" Unterscharführer SS guarding Elser in a concentration camp, as if he himself had told him that a lot of money for a special mission carried out by the Gestapo. Or "sensation" about the fact that Elser allegedly acting on behalf of the pro-Nazi "Black Front" Otto Strasser. A certain Captain Best, the former head of foreign intelligence agent Walter Schellenberg, said that the attack was to provoke another massacre of opponents of Hitler. It was only in the late 60s, when historians Gruhmann Goch and published the results of their studies on the basis of the archives of the Ministry of Justice put an end to fables and restored the good name of the hero. The press has a very different kind of statement: Georg Elser - the "true antagonist and moral antithesis of Hitler," and "the motives of his action caused personal beliefs, give reason to put it on par with the fighters of the German resistance to Nazism."

But the encyclopedic dictionary of Joseph Meyer's name was not even mentioned, and only in the last edition of the encyclopedia "Brockhaus" there was a summary of it in four lines. One by one, out of the books and TV shows Elser. In 1983, Peter Tsal on his own script staged a play about his exploits, and in 1989 in Hollywood Klaus Maria Brandauer put it on film, which played a major role. In the name of Johann Georg Elser named streets in Munich and other cities. In 2003, the 100th anniversary of his birth, issued a postage stamp. So, sooner or later, history puts everything in its place, giving to each according to his work. Better late than never ...

According to the materials prepared by the Internet Nikolai Gorokhov





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