Bombing Hitler (2 page)

The scene at the Bürgerbräukeller is similar to a religious ceremony: The preacher, styled by Goebbels as the Messiah of the downtrodden German people, need only allude to the sacred event, and the believers will know and understand. A concrete description of how events unfolded at the Putsch of 1923 would only interfere with the hallowed mood of the moment. “It was a difficult decision that I had to make at that time”; these are the words in the written text—no mention of the fellow combatants who are sitting here in front of him and know full well that he wasn't the only one involved. While standing there at the lectern, Hitler, apparently sensing a need for scruples, adds spontaneously: “And, together with many comrades, I acted upon this decision.” This could continue now, but the ritual demands deep reverence here, best achieved by repetition: “a difficult decision, but one which had to be risked.”

In order to put the best face on the present, Hitler first revisits the negative past: “A dreadful catastrophe had befallen our country.” The defeat of 1918, perhaps? No, it was the war that had been thrust upon us. Not a word of regret for Germany's role in the war—at most regret at not having done everything possible to build “national strength” and at having started the war too late. In order to obscure the causes of the war of 1914, Hitler engages in some reckless logic, saying that “Germany had to be dragged into war.” He is aware of just how odd the phrase “had to” sounds here and therefore throws himself into it unctuously, with the full power of his voice.

From this point on, the structure of the speech becomes jumbled. Hitler suddenly lights on the enemies, apparently trying to prove their culpability for the two world wars by labeling them “the same powers.” They incited war against Germany “with the same slogans and the same lies.” The defeat of 1918 was not a defeat at all, he says; it was only a clever maneuver by the adversary. Hitler doesn't even have to resort to the legend claiming that the military was “stabbed in the back” by domestic forces
(Dolchstosslegende).
“It took a great lie to rob our people of their weapons.” So apparently, the armies were simply conquered by a lie, and the English and the French could never have “forced the Germans into submission on the battlefield.”

Here Hitler's extreme belief in the power of will becomes evident; he even thinks he can change history by willing it to happen. The devastating consequences of yet another defeat loom—but Germany is invincible on the battlefield, and the real struggle takes place in the arena of the will. The logical consequence of such thinking is clear: In the end, he is willing to sacrifice his own country, to the point of complete annihilation.

Freely associating, Hitler again jumps track, right in the middle of a paragraph. What is the source, he asks, of his “great self-confidence”? Now Hitler gives his undivided attention to his veterans, to the soldiers seated before him; he fires them up, yet simultaneously he is driving them to their deaths. He, himself, found his self-confidence he says, “on the field of battle.” Death becomes a great companion. No enemy has been superior to German soldiers. And why? Again, because of will: “Neither the French nor the English had more courage; neither summoned up more deadly force than the German soldier!”

Hitler then loses the thread, so takes to repeating himself. But the audience is working up a head of steam, which it is accustomed to letting off by clapping. When Hitler first says that today Churchill is facing “a different government” than in 1914, he cannot prevent the applause.

The ice is broken. From this point on, the speech is interrupted by salvos of laughter and storms of applause—sixty-three times during the final fifty minutes, an average of once every forty-five seconds. Hitler gathers momentum—it does him good to be applauded by the Party faithful. His tone becomes lighter, he starts using irony, even sarcasm; he demonstrates his acting skills. At some points he turns the Bürgerbräukeller into a cabaret—a Bavarian one, to be sure. Of Germany's enemies, only England is mentioned. Hitler doesn't seem to realize that he's the one who picked this fight called a world war. England is subjected to ridicule—the audience is delighted. Amusement and beery spirits usher in the war.

Again and again Hitler returns to the First World War, and then to the humiliating Treaty of Versailles. When moving on to the claim that England's greatness is due to its colonies, he becomes dramatic, speaking faster and shouting. The audience catches on: The applause is more frequent—four times in one minute. Hitler pins his many broken promises on England—England can't be trusted, he says.

Hitler jumps around, relying on whim. He returns to Germany's catastrophe—at first he meant by this the outbreak of war, now he means the postwar period. He interprets the defeat only in terms of national expansion. He laments Germany's loss of its colonies, of trade, of its naval fleet, of its territories—in the process making the maudlin declaration: “We were thrust into deepest misery.” This provides an ideal opportunity to bring up the Party: “And out of this misery arose the National Socialist movement.” In fact, it was not until 1929 during the Great Depression that many citizens, insecure and concerned, grasped at his party like a straw, out of opposition to the left—a detail that Hitler obscures by casting his “movement” as a chronicle of redemption.

The increasing volume of Hitler's voice indicates that a raw nerve in his power complex has been exposed. He roars when the subject turns to renunciation of force, calling it “renunciation of life.” He can only imagine life as constant struggle, as an uninterrupted series of acts of violence. For this reason he wants to assure that “the life” of the German people “will prevail.”

At this point Hitler's ideas about expansion—
”Lebensraum”—
start coming through. Any limit to this expansion is not discernible—infinite territory on all sides. A nation is exploding, right in the middle of Europe.

Closing scene of Hitler's address at the Bürgerbräukeller on November 8, 1939. The swastika flag behind Hitler obscures the pillar with the bomb.

Around the middle of this memorable speech, Hitler's megalomania manifests itself. Germany is strong, Hitler shouts—the actual standard of living is of no interest to him; Germany is the greatest military power. During these passages one wave of shouting and applause after another washes through the hall. The crowd goes wild, stirred up not only by the speaker but by its own enthusiasm. The
Alte Kämpfer
want to go to war. The people are united as never before, says the supreme commander.

Hitler takes yet another shot at England, claiming that the English hate Germany because of its progressive social policies. When he then states that the English hate “the Germany that has eliminated class differences,” it is not quite clear what the brown-shirted veterans will find to applaud about. But the content no longer matters here, just tough words spoken in a shrill voice by the agitator in chief. In the course of one segment he hammers home the word “hate,” repeating it eighteen times as he recounts everything that the English supposedly hate about Germany. In a calmer setting, the tone of voice alone would be enough to establish who exactly is consumed by hate. He resorts to even the most banal sort of prejudice, claiming that the English don't wash their children and let them become lice infested.

The crowd has now become so sufficiently agitated and ready for war that Hitler can start to wrap things up. Even with all the rhetorical chaos, there is an inner logic to the speech: The objective is to get people fired up for war. When Hitler shouts into the hall that in this new world war “England will definitely not be the victor,” the roar from the audience is louder than at any point so far—the first vocal climax. Then follows another show of strength, at the same volume, when Hitler stumbles off into a collective death wish: “No matter how long the war lasts, Germany will never, never capitulate—not now, and not three years from now.” With the repetition of “never,” Hitler starts to rant; his voice rises rapidly, then falters and is lost in the sudden roaring of the throng. Total war is being foreshadowed here, a war until the
Götterdämmerung.
Berliners were not the first, in 1943, to shout to Goebbels that they wanted total war; in 1939 the people of Munich—those in the Bürgerbräukeller—demonstrated just how ready they were. There is one more bloodcurdling roar as Hitler makes a prophecy: “Here [in this war] only one can win—and we are the one!”

The soldiers are ready for self-sacrifice, and Hitler digs deep into his bag of mystical ideology: “Whatever may be demanded of us individually in this period of sacrifice, we know that this shall pass ... it is of no import. The crucial aim is and will remain victory!”

The church service is drawing to a close. Hitler expresses his gratitude to “Providence,” which he cloaks in a swastika. From the history of the Party he concludes that “What has happened was the will of Providence!” He expresses his gratitude to the fallen soldiers (everyone in the audience stands up; the sound of chairs scraping goes on and on). Their sacrifices helped make it possible to over-whelm Poland in thirty days. The mystique of death once more reduces Hitler's language to a muddle: “What we National Socialists have taken with us as realization and as pledge from the bloodbath of November 9 into the history of our movement, that is, that what the first sixteen died for is worth, if necessary, sending many others to die for—this realization shall not forsake us, not now nor in the future.” One must read this sentence several times before the fog clears a bit.

Hitler ends his speech at 9:07 p.m. In order to reach his private train on time he must hurry to the main station with his entourage. Besotted with thoughts of victory, Goebbels writes in his diary: “Mad enthusiasm rocks the hall. This speech will become a sensation all over the world.”

But someone else, the Swabian woodworker Georg Elser, was to steal the show from Hitler. While the supreme commander of the German
Wehrmacht
was roaring praise to the next world war, the two clock mechanisms in Elser's bomb were ticking. By this time the assassin had intended to be across the border in safety.

G
EORG
E
LSER COULD
in fact have sneaked across the border on November 6, 1939, three days before Hitler's speech, but after three months of nerve-wracking, exhausting labor in the Munich Bürgerbräukeller, he had lost his sense of urgency. Leaving his home-land was harder than anticipated. After a long period of loneliness in Munich, he longed to see family and friends again. He had originally planned to take a quick trip to Königsbronn to say good-bye to his father, who was in poor health, as well as to the Schmauder family in Schnaitheim, with whom he had lived when he began working on his explosive device. He would pay dearly for this sentimentality.

On November 6, he visited the family of his sister, Maria Hirth, who lived at Lerchenstrasse 52 in Stuttgart. He told them only that he had to go “over the fence” ( i.e., the border), but did not reveal the true reason, even after they asked. He felt no need to unburden himself, being at peace with himself and his self-assigned task. While his sister assumed that he intended to desert, Elser acted as if he simply wanted to take a trip and look for work in Switzerland. This was believable, since the time he had spent at Lake Constance had imbued him with enthusiasm for Switzerland. When asked about his reasons for leaving, he said only, “I must. It can't be changed.” Given his well-known stubbornness, there was no point in quizzing him any further.

On the evening of the 6th, Elser went to bed early. Feeling completely drained, he slept until quite late the next morning. The work was done, all the tension had left him, he had no further goals—the final one, the border, seemed a simple matter to him. He had entrusted the most important task, yet to be completed, to an ignition system which was secured against failure.

The two clocks were ticking.

From the outset, he had intended to recheck the explosive device before fleeing to Switzerland. He had a reputation among his superiors for going back to customers after a job had been completed to make sure that everything was in working order. Later they would joke about his “check-o-mania.” As a tinkerer with a tendency to perfectionism, Elser did not want to risk undermining a year's effort because of carelessness or error. As a clock expert, he knew that a pendulum clock could stop if there were even a slight inclination in the floor. Under difficult circumstances and using primitive means, he had leveled the base of the bomb chamber in the pitch-black hall, using only a flash-light covered with a dark handkerchief. He had mixed the plaster using his own urine and was not able to use a level for the finishing work.

On November 7, he took the 4:00 p.m. express train from Stuttgart to Munich, in order to arrive late. He would no longer have time for his customary supper in the Bürgerbräustübl next to the large hall, the Bürgerbräukeller. And perhaps on his last evening he didn't want to be seen by the waitresses again, who had come to know him all too well. At the end of his three-month stint working as an “inventor” (which he claimed to be throughout his stay in Munich), he arrived in Stuttgart with only ten marks in his pocket. His sister gave him thirty marks, as thanks for the tools, clocks, and clothes that he had left with her. These few possessions would prove to be a fatal gift.