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The forgotten German hero
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Komnenos View Drop Down
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Posts: 4361 		  Quote Komnenos Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Topic: The forgotten German hero
    Posted: 08-Apr-2005 at 19:34
Today is the 60th anniversary of the execution of Johann Elser, a German carpenter who tried to assassinate Hitler in 1938.




Johann Georg Elser was born in the German Village of Hermaringen in 1903. At the age of fourteen he was apprenticed as a (lathe) turner in a local iron factory.
In 1928-9 he joined the militant communist group "Rotfrontkaempferbund" (Red Front Fighters' Association). Except for playing in its brass band he did not engage in Communist party activities. After 1933 he was considered an ex-Communist.
In 1938 Elser was alarmed by the Munich agreements and terrified by the prospect of a second World War, having experienced the first World War as a teenager. Elser, a reserved, slow-spoken individual, in the autumn of the same year of 1938, decided to assassinate Hitler. He planned the assassination attempt meticulously, accumulating a stock of explosives, designing a special clock mechanism and hiding his apparatus in a wooden column behind the speaker's rostrum in the Munich "Buergerbraeukeller" where Hitler was due to speak on November 8, 1939, delivering his annual address before the "Old Fighters" in commemoration of the "Putsch" of 1923, which had started in the same "Buergerbraeukeller".
On November 8, 1939 Hitler was speaking at the "Buergerbraeukeller". His speech normally ended about 10 p.m., but that day he left at 9.07 to catch his special train. The bomb exploded at 9.20 destroying half the hall, killing seven people and wounding sixty-three. Next day Hitler claimed that an "inner voice" had told him to get out and on the same day he decided to launch a western offensive ! Elser was arrested the same evening of the attempt at the Swiss frontier, brought to Berlin, the Gestapo, etc. Subsequently, he was sent to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp as "Hitler's special prisoner," He was given a carpenter's bench and allowed to make what he pleased. In 1944 he was moved to Dachau and kept alive, possibly in the hope of being used in a show trial after the war. On April 9, 1945, only 29 days before the Germans surrendered, he was murdered by the Gestapo on a secret order from Himmler, and his death was attributed to an allied bombing raid. (From "Flame" magazine).

13 minutes that could have changes the course of history, or not?
What would have happened if he had succeeded?
Would the war have carried on without Hitler or would the Nazi regime have collapsed without Hitler and the war have ended shortly after?
Any ideas?
Answers on a postcard!


Edited by Komnenos
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Kalevipoeg View Drop Down
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Posts: 1458 		  Quote Kalevipoeg Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 09-Apr-2005 at 11:25

"13 minutes that could have changes the course of history, or not?
What would have happened if he had succeeded?
Would the war have carried on without Hitler or would the Nazi regime have collapsed without Hitler and the war have ended shortly after?
Any ideas?
Answers on a postcard!"

Cheers to mister Elser i say.

The war would have come anyway if a correct leader with enough fanatism would have come to power, as Dnitz for example. He was a fanatic, the only issue is if he was smarter then Hitler. If true, his preparations for war would have taken a few more years and Germanys military power would have been most certainly more potent and threatening. The west wouldn't have taken the first step anyway with all those pacifists in power at that time, so the new furhers time would have been o'plenty!

Then again, many high ranking nazis, if not to say most, were not fanatics at all, living the good life during their office. So if a guy like Gring would have gotten to being the furher, i doubt that much of a war had come out of him.

So, the balance would have lied in the fact if a Dnitz kinda fellow or a Gring kinda fellow had gotten to become Furher. That is my opinion.
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cattus View Drop Down
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Posts: 1803 		  Quote cattus Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 09-Apr-2005 at 11:49
Nah, not sure he is a nationalist hero. Infact, his imprisonment for his assasination attempt of Hitler in 1939 may be well deserved.

Perhaps Komnenos, he would have been a real hero if he had attempted it against Goebbels.

http://www.allempires.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=1622&KW= self+determinism



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Edited by Catt
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Posts: 4361 		  Quote Komnenos Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 09-Apr-2005 at 17:28
Originally posted by Catt

Nah, not sure he is a nationalist hero. Infact, his imprisonment for his assasination attempt of Hitler in 1939 may be well deserved.

Perhaps Komnenos, he would have been a real hero if he had attempted it against Goebbels.



Sorry, I'm not quite with you. Could you please elaborate your argument.
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Posts: 1803 		  Quote cattus Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 09-Apr-2005 at 18:15
hmm, was just saying not sure. Did Hitler really deserve it in 1939? He decided to kill him in '38.
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Komnenos View Drop Down
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Posts: 4361 		  Quote Komnenos Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 09-Apr-2005 at 18:40
Originally posted by Catt

hmm, was just saying not sure. Did Hitler really deserve it in 1939? He decided to kill him in '38.


Nevermind the track record of the Nazi regime after 5 years of brutal dictatorship in Germany, the only person who didn't recognise that the war was inevitably coming was Neville Chamberlain. Everybody else did, and Elser decided to act.
Was there ever a time when Hitler didn't deserve to be blown to kingdom come?
Okay, maybe he was a cute baby, but after that? The earlier the better.
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Posts: 5221 		  Quote Temujin Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 09-Apr-2005 at 18:52
i agree with Komnenos, ww2 did not come out of the nothing...and just look at what happened at the Reichskristallnacht...
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Posts: 4361 		  Quote Komnenos Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 09-Apr-2005 at 19:02
Originally posted by Temujin

i agree with Komnenos, ..


Mann, langsam! Ich waer ja fast vom Stuhl gefallen!
(Slowly, mate! I almost fell from my chair)
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Posts: 1803 		  Quote cattus Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 09-Apr-2005 at 21:15
i agree with Komnenos, ww2 did not come out of the nothing...


Well thats not exactly what he says in the thread on self-determanism I pointed to but who knows anyway.

So lets make him a hero, but lets also get to work on stripping Henry Tandey of his Victoria Cross for not pulling the trigger on Adolf in WWI.

Just being silly. Anyway, clear your mind of what is to come,at what point would the ignorant killing of Hitler relieve someone of murder.
What year do you guys really think?
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Posts: 454 		  Quote dark_one Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 10-Apr-2005 at 16:51
It is for the best that Hitler wasn't killed then. If he was, the more sensible Nazis would bring hte war to a halt, and chances are there would be a azi Germany today. I'm thankful taht Hitler was fanatical enough to ignore the possibily of peace.
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Posts: 4361 		  Quote Komnenos Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 10-Apr-2005 at 17:09
Originally posted by dark_one

It is for the best that Hitler wasn't killed then. If he was, the more
sensible Nazis would bring hte war to a halt, and chances are there
would be a azi Germany today. I'm thankful taht Hitler was fanatical
enough to ignore the possibily of peace.


That's an interesting thought. Germany and the world needed the apocalypse to rid itself from Nazism. Could be true, tragically!
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