Inscriptions of Munich

Failed Assassination Attempt Against Hitler

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Going from the Munich cultural centre of the Gasteig to the inner courtyard of the neighbouring big hotel you will meet the following simple plaque that many people are likely to walk on without being aware of it:

To read the texts more easily click on the photo (respectively the stamp below).

Photo: Hans-Rudolf Hower, 2003

By the way, the German Post (Deutsche Post) put up for sale the following related stamp:

Original Text of the Plaque	Original Text of the Stamp
An dieser Stelle im ehemaligen Bürgerbräukeller versuchte der Schreiner Johann Georg Elser am 8. November 1939 ein Attentat auf Adolf Hitler. Er wollte damit dem Terror-Regime der Nationalsozialisten ein Ende setzen. Das Vorhaben scheiterte. Johann Georg Elser wurde nach 5 ½ Jahren Haft am 9. April 1945 im Konzentrations- lager Dachau ermordet.	“Ich hab den Krieg verhindern wollen” Georg Elser 4.1.1903 am 9.4.1945 im KZ Dachau ermordet

Translation of the Plaque	Translation of the Stamp
In this place, in the former Bürgerbräukeller, the joiner Johann Georg Elser made an assassination attempt against Adolf Hitler on november 8, 1939. He wanted to put an end to the national-socialists’ regime of terror. The attempt failed. After 5 ½ years of detention, Johann Georg Elser was murdered in the concentration camp of Dachau, on april 9, 1945.	“I wanted to prevent the war [from breaking out]” Georg Elser [born on] january 4, 1903 murdered on april 9, 1945 in the concentration camp of Dachau

Comment

Georg Elser was, according to William L. Shirer (see below, pages 598-599 of the German edition), a man who was simple, not too intelligent, professional joiner, clever with his hands, convinced communist and of sincere character. This combinaison of qualities brought him in his place in German history and his premature death by the hands of the Gestapo...

At first he was interned in the Dachau concentration camp, near Munich, as were many others, for his communist ideas. But in autumn 1939, some men unknown to him persuaded him to make a bomb in order to kill some “traitors” among the members of the party. They made him install the bomb in the Bürgerbräukeller restaurant in Munich, promising to help him escape to Switzerland the day of the explosion. The detonator set to the evening of the 8^th of november, the commemoration day of the putsch of 1923, when Hitler was used to pronounce a speech on the site. There will be 7 dead and 63 injured people, but Hitler will stay unharmed because, contrarily to his habit, he will exit the room immediately after his speech, with all important persons... In the evening of the assassination attempt, Georg Elser was actually lead away to the Swiss frontier by his accomplices (or “accomplices”?). They gave him some money – and a picture postcard showing the Bürgerbräukeller, with a cross on the column where the bomb had been installed... And which he kept ingenuously in his pockets... Obviously Georg Elser was arrested by the Gestapo and was due to spend the rest of his life in the concentration camps of Sachsenhausen and Dachau. He was even said to enjoy a rather indulgent treatment, perhaps because, objectively and unwillingly, he had been useful for Hitler who fully turned the failed assassination attempt to his profit. But this was only to last as long as the Gestapo did not consider his survival inopportune. The latter happened just before the end of the war. First they tried to make believe that Georg Elser had been a victim of allied bombing, but in the meanwhile the truth has come to light.

This seems to be the story of one of these sincere guys who become an (anti-)héros of history unwillingly, get the wool pulled over their eyes by the big bosses all life long, and are eliminated as soon as their survival virtually becomes compromising for the bosses.

And half a century later, commemoration will start for these poor guys...

Bibliography

Author / title	Notes	Info / Purchase
William L. Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich	Shirer’s book is one of the great classics of historiography concerning the 3^rd Reich. It is a big volume that follows the events almost day by day and widely takes its knowledge from the author’s own experience, because till the beginning of the war he lived in Germany as a foreign correspondent keeping close to a big number of important persons now dealt with in his book.	amazon.co.uk

Arrival by Public Transport

To go to Munich (München), see Inscriptions of Munich.

From the centre of Munich, you can go to the Gasteig by S-Bahn (station: Rosenheimer Platz) or by tram (stop: Am Gasteig). For more details, please visit the electronic information of the Münchner Verkehrsverbund (MVV).

To go from Munich to Dachau, where the whole former concentration camp has been transformed in a memorial, you should take the regional railway (S-Bahn) in the direction of Petershausen or Dachau. At the Dachau station take the bus till "Kz-Gedenkstätte" (= concentration camp memorial).

Indications concerning the arrival correspond to our personal knowledge or even experience, but we cannot assume any responsibility for their rightness. When you are reading this page, things may have changed in reality.

Hans-Rudolf Hower, 2004

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Last updated: July 19, 2010