HISTORKA: The Other Stories

People, Places, and Events Behind the Headlines in History

Britain’s Special Operations Executive

Formed at the outset of World War II, the Special Operations Executive (SOE) in the UK fostered and supported behind-the-scenes Resistance abroad in many ways. SOE mounted undercover and surprise offensives to thwart enemy action, engaged in sabotage, promoted labor unrest, prepared and distributed propaganda, trained and supplied operatives for quick in-and-out missions, stole weapons, bombed vehicles, disrupted power supplies and linkages and communications networks. The backbone for Resistance groups in Nazi-Occupied countries, SOE can take credit for some of the most critical actions that delayed the progression of the war and at least once put a stop to dangerous escalation.

SOE was only tangentially involved in planning or executing assassination attempts on the life of Adolf Hitler until the latter days of the war. And even then, its full-fledged, intricate assassination plan—code named FOXLEY—was never carried out.

https://alchetron.com/Special-Operations-Executive

SOE

Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), created in 1909, was split into its two well-known divisions in 1921—MI 6, which focuses on obtaining, tracking, analyzing intelligence from other countries, and MI 5, which preserves intelligence at home. (M.R.D. Foot: S.O.E. The Special Operations Executive 1940-46). SOE itself was created in March, 1939, just after armed forces from the Third Reich occupied Czechoslovakia, specifically for undercover work and propaganda. From that time until it was dissolved at war’s end in 1946, SOE worked with Resistance fighters from Albania to Turkey and in the Far East, helping coolies, farmers, peasants, railway men and rubber workers, policemen, printers, and smugglers become informers, saboteurs, and secret agents. (The Special Operations Executive).

Among its successes, SOE was instrumental in:

·         Supplying intelligence that led to a pin-point attack on Gestapo headquarters in Aarhus, Denmark, October, 1944, and another in Copenhagen in March, 1945, that allowed imprisoned members of the Danish Freedom Council to escape and carry with them a card index that identified Danes who were cooperating with the Nazis. (The Special Operations Executive, p 296)

·         Securing and protecting a 25-mile stretch of docks and gates from destruction in Antwerp in September, 1944, which accelerated the end of the war by several months. (The Special Operations Executive, p 300)

·         Running telephone lines across Ponte Vecchio in Florence, thereby allowing operatives to learn about enemy actions and smuggle in patrols to thwart them in August, 1944. (The Special Operations Executive, p 330)

·         Blowing up bridges and a viaduct in November, 1942, and June, 1943, that closed rail lines in Greece for months, interfering with Rommel’s retreat from Allied forces in Egypt (The Special Operations Executive, p 337-8)

One SOE operation, in particular, changed the entire course of the war. An SOE raiding party in March, 1942, slipped into and destroyed the Norsk Hydro Plant in Norway, the only place in the world ablable to generate heavy water on an industrial scale, and totally disrupted German scientists’ work on heavy water that was destined for an eventual atomic bomb. (https://www.businessinsider.com/how-daring-norwegian-wwii-raid-kept-nazis-from-nuclear-bomb-2021-2, The Special Operations Executive, p 298-99)

PLASTIC EXPLOSIVES AND WOLSSCHANZE

The widely known July, 1944, assassination attempt by Oberst Claus von Stauffenberg (dramatized in the film Valkyrie starring Tom Cruise) relied on SOE explosives that had been dropped into France in 1943. As part of the highly detailed plan for a coup by high-ranking German military men that would eliminate Hitler as well as other Nazi leaders, Stauffenberg placed a kilogram of plastic explosive in a briefcase that he stowed under the briefing table at the Wolfsschanze (Wolf’s Lair) Nazi headquarters in East Prussia. (Valkyrie will be the subject of a full Historka blog post in coming months.) The plastic explosive and the time pencil detonator used by Stauffenberg had been sent by SOE to a Resistance network in France and confiscated by the German military the year before.

Plastic explosives were developed by the Royal Arsenal at Woolwich before the start of World War II. The explosives mixed cyclonite with plastic material that could be molded into any number of shapes. It could be handled safely—the explosive would not detonate on its own or even if struck—requiring an embedded detonator, such as a time pencil, to set it off. The so-called Switch No. 10 Delay was made of brass with a section of copper at one end that housed a glass vial of copper chloride and a spring-loaded striker. A delay switch, which timed the device to explode ten minutes to 24 hours later, was triggered by crushing the copper section of the device to break the vial and release the chemical which would eat away at the striker and hit the percussion cap. (https://military-history.fandom.com/wiki/Pencil_detonator)

FOXLEY

An SOE plan to assassinate Hitler and other high-ranking members of the Nazi Party emerged in November, 1944, as Hitler’s support across Germany declined. Authored by Major H. B. Court, Operation FOXLEY detailed ways to eliminate Hitler including drawings, maps, and photographs of the most likely target area—Hitler’s retreat at Obersaltzberg, the Berghof.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/hitlers/3226959811/

Hitler’s retreat since 1926, the Berghof was in the Austrian mountains 70 miles from Munich and 16 miles from Salzburg. The estate grew steadily to encompass barracks and an SS guardroom, residences for Nazi leaders such as Martin Bormann, Hermann Göring, and Albert Speer, a small farm, hotel, and theater plus an underground system of bunkers. It was surrounded by chain-link fences and barbed wire as well as gates manned by Reichssichrheitsdienst (RSD) and SS escorts, but overall security was questionable. The large numbers of guards and workers increased the chances for an enemy agent or assassin to gain access disguised as one of them. (Peter Hoffman, Hitler’s Personal Security).

A 19-man team of RSD guards was installed in 1942-3, with the men making regular patrols in front of the main building and surrounding area. Another 16-man RSD unit served as guards at outer checkpoints and allowed access only to those with official visitors’ passes. (Hitler’s Personal Security, p 189). The property had anti-aircraft batteries, and regular five-minute readiness checks were conducted beginning in 1944 (Hitler’s Personal Security, p 196).

The Berghof nevertheless was the chosen site for FOXLEY. For one thing, Hitler maintained a fairly regular schedule at the retreat. He routinely took a walk between 10 and 11 from his residence through the woods to a teahouse on the grounds, and he walked alone or with a friend or colleague rather than a guard. While SS monitored him, their patrols followed only at a distance. Sentries also tracked his movements, but from 500 yards or more away from his path. (John Grehan, The Hitler Assassination Attempts).

As its first line of attack, FOXLEY proposed a sniper attack from a vantage point 100 to 200 yards away from Hitler as he took his daily walk. However, the perimeter of the grounds was not only enclosed by chain link and barbed wire, it was patrolled by guards and guard dogs minutes before the start of Hitler’s walk. If the sniper was not able to get into position in time or otherwise not able to carry out the mission, FOXLEY envisioned a two-man team firing on the Führer when he returned from the teahouse to the Berghof by car.

An aerial attack on the property itself was another option. FOXLEY envisioned an RAF sortie that bombed the residence and other buildings, especially those housing SS, followed by landing a parachute battalion of 800 men to overcome the approximately 300 SS and other German troops on site.

Attention shifted to Hitler’s travels between the Berghof and Berlin where trains were under less surveillance than they were in the occupied countries. According to FOXLEY planners, “signal boxes are not guarded as a rule… Guards at bridges and tunnels are said to consist of only two men and to be very slack in performing their duties.” (The Hitler Assassination Attempts, p 214). FOXLEY therefore surmised that a “sabotage party” could be disguised as train guards so as not to arouse suspicion. The sabotage party could then plant explosives in one of the tunnels near Salzburg or Stuttgart. Hitler’s train might also be derailed by diverting his train onto a siding where it would crash off the rails, or an operative might be able to toss a suitcase full of explosives under the train as it rolled by. The inability to get reliable advance information on Hitler’s movements ahead of time sidelined these FOXLEY options.

Other FOXLEY thoughts explored the possibility of a sniper attack as Hitler stepped out of his auto and poisoning the water supply to his train. (The Hitler Assassination Attempts, p 218-220).

In the end, FOXLEY was abandoned. In 1944 and -45, Hitler’s misguided decisions involving the war effort and willingness to overrule sound advice from his own military leaders were “help[ing] the Allied cause enormously.” The focus therefore shifted to full defeat of the German military machine, Hitler’s eventual loss of power, and the perception of him as an object of ridicule. (The Hitler Assassination Attempts, p 221).

 Sources

 M. R. D. Foot: S.O.E. The Special Operations Executive 1940-46, Arrow Books, 1984.

Peter Hoffman: Hitler’s Personal Security, Da Capo Press, 2000.

John Grehan, The Hitler Assassination Attempts, Frontline Books, 2022.

https://www.businessinsider.com/how-daring-norwegian-wwii-raid-kept-nazis-from-nuclear-bomb-2021-2

https://www.history.com/news/july-plot-hitler-assassination-attempt-operation-valkyrie

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Valkyrie

https://www.warhistoryonline.com/world-war-ii/operation-valkyrie.html

https:/encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/the-july-20-1944-plot-to-assassinate-adolf-hitler       

HISTORKA: The Other Stories People, Places, and Events Behind the Headlines in History

Resistance in Poland

In response to the brutality of the Nazi conquest and occupation of Poland in 1938, an extensive and highly effective Polish underground network planned and carried out attacks that just missed their target—Adolf Hitler—in 1939 and 1941-3.

September 1939

 A fake Polish radio news broadcast at 8:00 pm on August 1, 1939, was the excuse that propelled massive numbers of infantry across the German-Polish border and triggered rapid gunfire from the deck of the battleship Schleswig-Holstein on the port city of Westerplatte near Danzig early the next morning.

 German forces quickly overran major cities, leading to the capitulation of Warsaw less than a month later. In intervening days, the SS Death’s Head Division made the Führer’s judgment of Poles clear—“primitive, stupid, and amorphous.” (Roger Moorhouse: Killing Hitler). Death’s Head killed 800 people in one town, including Boy Scouts between the ages of 12 and 16, a parish priest, and a man too ill to stand upright on his own while he was gunned down. (Killing Hitler)

https://www.dw.com/es/polonia-y-alemania-conmemoran-los-75-a%C3%B1os-del-inicio-de-la-ii-guerra-mundial/a-17892696

  After the Soviet Union invaded Eastern Poland on September 17, the government of Poland fled initially to Romania and later to France and the UK and operated in exile. An active Resistance nevertheless remained. (The Soviet Union occupied East Poland until the Third Reich declared war in 1941 and Nazi Germany overtook the entire country.)

.Polish Resistance

Underground Resistance groups sprouted from Polish political parties that formed paramilitary units as well as the military. As many as 40 groups operated in Warsaw from September through the end of 1939, 140 by the end of the following year.

 Służba Zwycięstwu Polski (Service for Poland’s Victory), established on September 27 under the direction of General Michal Tokarzewski-Karaszewicz, was the core of Armia Krajowa or AK (the Polish Home Army), which took shape in 1942(https://www.historyhit.com/polands-underground-state-1939-90/).

 Polish underground groups were highly organized and disciplined, marshalling the work of nearly 200,000 operatives across the country. In addition to maintaining an underground press, members of the Resistance distributed anti-Nazi propaganda and prominently displayed the symbol of the movement—PW for Polska Walcząca or Fighting Poland.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/stillunusual/7761435030/

The Resistance movement also managed informants and couriers. Cichociemni or Polish commandos were trained in the UK and transferred to cities and towns in Poland to guide local Resistance groups and lead intelligence gathering and sabotage. Operatives later provided British intelligence with replicas of the Enigma encryption machine, the location of a German research facility, and a V-2 rocket that had not detonated on impact in Eastern Poland (https://warsawinstitute.org/phenomenon-polish-underground-state/).

Resistance groups sabotaged railways, supply food chains, weapons manufacturing, and fuel dumps, successfully disrupting all rail lines in and around Warsaw for two days in 1942 (Killing Hitler). Estimates indicate that more than 700 trains were blown up and 400 were set on fire between 1941 and 1944, accounting for the destruction of 14,000 train cars and the collapse of 38 bridges. (https://warsawinstitute.org/phenomenon-polish-underground-state/)

Beginning in 1943 Kedyw, the Directorate of Diversion, section of the underground focused on the elimination of traitors through intimidation, observation, underground trials, and sentences of death, and targeted German functionaries for assassination. In 1943 Kedyw members killed one German policeman a day. A year later, they were killing ten policemen a day. In the first six months of 1944, 750 members of the Gestapo were assassinated, and 1000 members of the occupying force were killed or injured each month. (Killing Hitler)

 Attempts on Adolf Hitler’s Life

 The first of several attacks on Adolf Hitler himself occurred in the early days of Occupation. As the Polish military retreated from Germany’s overpowering numbers, it still managed to stop a convoy carrying Hitler to observe the frontlines. The Polish air force dropped bombs only 3 kilometers away from Hitler’s location near the Vistula River on September 4, and a Polish sniper shot the driver of a German supply lorry, causing the truck to crash into the Hitler convoy near the town of Koronowo. (Killing Hitler)

 Former Polish general and leader of the nascent Polish underground, Michal Karaszewicz-Tokarzewski, and Maj. Franciszek Niepokólczycki planted explosives at the intersection of two streets on the victory parade route that celebrated the German 8th Army in defeated Warsaw on October 5. One load of 250 kg of TNT was placed near a bank on the western corner of Nowy Świat, the other in a building on the western corner of Aleje Jerozolimskie. Cables ran from the loads to the basement of a building in the area, and men were in position to detonate the explosives. (Killing Hitler, John Grehan: The Hitler Assassination Attempts)

https://www.flickr.com/photos/photolibrarian/51229327496/

After reviewing the lines of marching troops with his generals for more than two hours, Hitler entered his vehicle and made a tour of the city, moving slowly among throngs of soldiers and passing—safely--over the intersection where the explosives were buried.

Reasons why? Speculation abounds: Niepokólczycki could not reach the site to order detonation because streets had been closed. The officer in charge at the scene did not confirm Hitler was actually in the automobile until it had passed him by. Wiring leading to the explosives was faulty. With 12 high-ranking Polish government officials held hostage in the basement of City Hall, the risk was too great. (Killing Hitler, The Hitler Assassination Attempts)

Train Targets

Perhaps because of the Polish underground’s history of successful disruptions of railways and transportation, assassination attempts involved Hitler’s train travels in 1941, -42 and -43.

This is not to say that train travel precautions were at all lax. So-called Special train cars were built expressly for Hitler’s use in 1937, -38, and -39 and were made entirely of welded steel.  There were two versions of the Führersonderzug (Führer Special Train). The train used during times of peace or in peaceful settings had sleeping cars, a dining compartment, Pullman coach, personnel and press cars. The train used during times of conflict (known as Führerhauptquartier—Fuhrer’s Headquarters—and nicknamed Amerika) had an armored anti-aircraft car manned by a 26-member crew, a car for commandos, and conference car with teletype and communications center with a short-wave transmitter. (Peter Hoffman: Hitler’s Personal Security)

Travel plans were kept secret until a few hours before departure, and advance units were established along the route to close crossing barriers and guard track lines. Onboard railway technicians checked for defects on rail lines as well as the train cars; train stations, platforms on both sides of the tracks, under- and overpasses were heavily guarded. Other trains were sidelined or their departures delayed until the Special train had left the upcoming station, freights or maintenance trains could not run on parallel tracks, and a dummy train typically preceded the Special train that actually transported Hitler. (Hitler’s Personal Security)

 Assassination Attempts

Detachments of the Polish Home Army, AK, placed explosives on railroad tracks in West Prussia 20 to 30 minutes before any fast train was scheduled to pass by. The explosives were set to be detonated by a transmitter approximately 400 meters away. The train carrying Hitler did not arrive at the scheduled place and time in the autumn of 1941. It made an unscheduled stop at a nearby station and sat for 20 minutes while Hitler addressed Danish volunteers en route to the Eastern Front. The train that went ahead of the Führersonderzug did crash as a result of the detonations, and 430 of the German passengers were killed. (The Hitler Assassination Attempts)

 On June 8, 1942, two AK teams learned that Hitler would be traveling across Poland to Berlin to attend the funeral of the head of Nazi-Occupied Czechoslovakia who had been killed by Czech partisans. Under the code name Wiener Blut (Viennese Blood), Lt. Jan Szalewski directed one of the teams to remove railroad tracks between Tczew and Chojnice and the other to secure the wooded area nearby.

 After the apparent dummy train passed by, the team removed the tracks and waited with their compatriots in the woods. When the train they assumed to be Führersonderzug derailed and ran down an embankment, the teams opened fire and killed 200 German soldiers as they fell from the train cars. Hitler was not among them. (Killing Hitler, The Hitler Assassination Attempts)

 The deputy commander of the Zagra Lin arm of AK, Bernard Drzyzga, learned two days ahead of time that Hitler’s train would be passing through Bydgoszcz in May, 1943.  Acting on his own because of the short time frame, he planted two explosive devices along a bend in the tracks and connected them by electric wire to a detonator. He waited along the tracks at the day and time the Führersonderzug was expected to arrive. The only train to pass by was a freight. (The Hitler Assassination Attempts)

Sources:

https://www.historyhit.com/polands-underground-state-1939-90/

https://warsawinstitute.org/phenomenon-polish-underground-state/

 Grehan, John: The Hitler Assassination Attempts, Frontline Books, 2022.

 Moorhouse, Roger: Killing Hitler, Bantam Books, 2006

 Hoffman, Peter: Hitler’s Personal Security, Da Capo Press, 2000

HISTORKA: The Other Stories People, Places, and Events Behind the Headlines in History

The Outsiders

By far, the most attempts on the life of Adolf Hitler were made by Germans who acted alone, in concert with others, or as part of an organized effort.

A few attempts were made by outsiders, men from other countries: A solo actor from Switzerland followed his own erratic path, two Brits at different times in different circumstances proposed what they considered to be fool-proof plans, and a Soviet agent was establishing a cover story as a defector to Germany only to be called back at the last minute.

 Maurice Bavaud

maurice bavaud - dofaq.co

 Like lone wolf Georg Elser (last month’s blog subject), Swiss theology student Maurice Bavaud was attracted to the pomp and circumstance of the annual National Socialist Procession held every year in Munich in early November in the late 1930s. His trip was even suggested by a security aide to the chief of the Reich Chancellery, Major Karl Deckert. (Note: Deckert is identified in various sources as Karl Derkert, a captain who was connected with Hitler’s personal security, and a policeman.)

Bavaud was studying to become a Catholic missionary at a seminary in Brittany when he met Marcel Gerbohay in 1935. Together, the two created the current affairs student discussion group Compagnie du Mystére and over time agreed that Hitler had to be removed because of his persecution of the Catholic Church and tolerance of the atheist Soviet Union. (Roger Moorhouse: Killing Hitler)

In the summer of 1938, Bavaud turned thoughts into action. He left the seminary and for a time lived with his family in Neuchâtel before he began tracking Hitler. He first traveled to Berlin, then, when Hitler was at his mountain retreat in Bavaria, Bavaud journeyed to Berchtesgaden in Obersalzberg, along the way purchasing a small automatic pistol and 6.35 mm ammunition, taking long walks in the hills surrounding Hitler’s house, the Berghof, and testing his marksmanship at a range of 25 feet against the trunks of trees.

Over a meal at an inn, Bavaud was pleased to meet two local teachers of French. Speaking in his native language, he told the teachers he was a fervent admirer of National Socialism and hoped to meet the Führer. Deckert, overhearing the conversation from the next table, told Bavaud it was fruitless to try to see Hitler at the Berghof, but he might be able to secure an audience with the leader of the Third Reich by going through channels in Munich. He could at least see Hitler and his entourage at the National Socialist Procession. (Since 1935, the March through Munich was held every year on the afternoon of November 9. Marchers, including the Führer himself, made their way from the Bürgerbräu Beer Hall down city streets and through plazas to the Feldherrnhalle where wreaths were laid in commemoration of the 16 men who had lost their lives during the 1923 putsch.)

In Munich on November 3 or 4, Bavaud posed as a Swiss journalist and got a ticket for a seat on the Holy Ghost Church reviewing stand, situated at the western end of a street where marchers would turn into a narrow archway. On the day of the March, he arrived early enough to get a seat in the front row. Yet, as marchers passed in front of him, Bavaud realized Hitler would be too far away for a clear shot, his line of sight would be blocked by SA who lined up along the curb, and security men at the edges of the marchers would prevent him from moving any closer.

Undeterred, Bavaud pursued other avenues: He forged letters of introduction from the foreign minister of France and traveled back and forth from Munich to Berchtesgarden, trying to deliver the letters in person, only to find Hitler was elsewhere. Running out of money, he boarded a train bound for Salzburg and snuck onto one of the coaches destined for Paris. Caught without a ticket or the means to purchase one, Bavaud was turned over to civilian authorities for trying to ride free on Reich railways.

On December 6, he was sentenced to 60 days in jail for fraud. A month later, the Gestapo confronted Bavaud in his jail cell with information about his actions and the purchase of the handgun. He confessed after a lengthy interrogation, spent 11 months in prison while awaiting trial and another 17 months after conviction before he was executed.

Noel Mason MacFarlane, Alexander Foote

The perfect spot for an assassination: An open bathroom window across the square from the reviewing stand where Hitler watched big parades in Berlin. Osteria Bavaria, the small lunch spot in Munich where Hitler ate eggs, vegetables, and fruit three times a week.

Colonel Noel Mason-MacFarlane, British military attaché in Berlin in the 1930s, was sure he could “pick the bastard off from here as easy as winking.” (John Grehan, The Hitler Assassination Plots). ‘Here’ was a window in his flat on Sophienstrasse, just under 100 yards from the raised platform from which Hitler would be watching the parade celebrating his birthday on April 20, 1939. 

MacFarlane told Ewen Butler, Berlin news correspondent for The Times from 1937-39, “All that was necessary was a good shot and a high-velocity rifle with telescopic sight and silencer.” (The Hitler Assassination Plots, p 71). “It could have been fired through my open bathroom window from a spot on the landing some 30 feet back from the window.” And the sound of the rifle shot would have been drowned out by the cheering, marching, and music. (Peter Hoffman, Hitler’s Personal Security, p 99)

Sir (Frank) Noel Mason MacFarlane - Person - National Portrait Gallery (npg.org.uk)

 All that would be necessary for Alexander Foote, an MI6 double agent working as a Soviet spy in Munich, was a time bomb in an attaché case placed on the other side of the private room where Hitler often lunched when he was in Munich. Foote believed the prospects of successfully assassinating Hitler at the restaurant were “promising.” Security at the restaurant was surprisingly lax. Hitler’s team did not take extra precautions or intensify surveillance while Hitler was lunching. Foote even tested the idea of an assassination attempt at the Osteria with a colleague named Bill Phillips. (Other sources identify Foote’s colleague as Len Brewer.)

“One day, Bill stationed himself at the table next to the gangway, and as Hitler approached, put his hand rapidly and furtively into his pocket, and drew out a cigarette case.” Nothing happened. None of the members of Hitler’s entourage and guests or Gestapo agents even flinched. (The Hitler Assassination Attempts, p 76)

https://prabook.com/web/alexander.foote/3714455

 Neither plan made it beyond the talking stage. MacFarlane’s idea withered in London. Not yet at war with Germany, the British war ministry balked. As Butler noted, “the murder of the German Chancellor by the British Military Attaché would create a really formidable diplomatic incident.” But, MacFarlane countered, “Nobody in Germany would go to war on that account, whereas while Hitler lived war is certain.” Nonetheless, MacFarlane’s superiors vetoed the plan. One reason: “the act would have been ‘unsportsmanlike.’” (To Kill the Devil, p 48-49)

Although given an initial go-ahead by the Soviets, Foote was ordered to stand down in the summer of 1939. Germany and the Soviet Union had signed the Molotov-Ribbentrop Non-aggression Pact on August 23 and become allies. (The Hitler Assassination Plots, p 74)

Lev Knipper

Soviet thinking about assassinating Hitler shifted dramatically, at least for a brief time in 1941-43. In March, 1942, Stalin reportedly was “extremely anxious to see Hitler dead and proposed to use every effort to bring this about.” When Hitler was supposed to be in Minsk, Minsk was bombed. When the German General Staff was in Vilna three days later, Vilna was bombed. Minsk was bombed again when Hitler was reportedly in the city. (The Hitler Assassination Attempts, page 131).

The Soviets also recruited Lev Knipper, the nephew of playwright Anton Chekov and brother of a Russian actress who had immigrated to Germany and become part of the Third Reich’s cultural elite, to be an assassin.  Knipper was a very willing operative, saying “it’s not even so frightening to die” for his country. (Killing Hitler, p 182).

A composer, Knipper was spending a year in Iran researching and eventually completing Two Preludes on Iranian Themes. His objective was to defect to Germany from Iran, hook up with a Soviet agent who was posing as a defector, and use his connections with his sister to bring him and Hitler together.

The project was canceled in the summer of 1943. Getting close to Hitler was nearly impossible. For one thing, he was rarely seen in public. Even when he was, he was surrounded by security. More important, German troops had just been defeated at Stalingrad and the tide of the war was turning.

Sources

Grehan, John: The Hitler Assassination Attempts, Yorkshire, Pen and Sword Books, 2022.

Hoffman, Peter: Hitler’s Personal Security, Da Capo Press, 2000.

Molly Mason, Herbert: To Kill the Devil, New York, W W Norton & Co., 1978.

Roger Moorhouse: Killing Hitler, New York, Bantam Books, 2006

HISTORKA: The Other Stories People, Places, and Events Behind the Headlines in History

The Lone Wolf

Adolf Hitler traveled to Munich on November 8, 1939, to give the speech that commemorated the Beer Hall Putsch. He had been giving a speech on that date for the last six years to remind followers of the Nazis’ audacious attempt to overthrow the Weimar Republic in 1923 and reiterate his declaration at the time that the “National Revolution” had begun.

This year he had to improvise, however. Instead of starting the speech at 8:00 pm and ending two hours later as was customary, he began an hour earlier and ended after 60 minutes. He needed to return to Berlin that same night to finalize plans for a western offensive and heavy fog prevented a quick night flight.

Standing at the podium in front of a pillar bearing the red, black, and white swastika flags in the Bürgerbäukeller, Hitler railed against the British: “When has there ever been a people more vilely lied to and tricked than the German Volk by English statesmen in the past two decades?” And he exhorted his followers to action: “This is a great time. And in it, we shall prove ourselves all the more as fighters.” (Killing Hitler, p 64-5)

He then left the beer hall at 9:07 pm.

Thirteen minutes later, a bright light flashed, a blast roared, and a rush of air toppled tables and chairs, shattered windows, and blew out doors. The podium and pillar exploded, the dais and lectern crumpled, the ceiling crashed to the floor, and more than 50 of the men who had stayed behind were injured or dead. (Killing Hitler, p 66)

 German Resistance Memorial Center - 7 Georg Elser and the Assassination Attempt of November 8, 1939 (gdw-berlin.de)

The target of the attack learned about the incident minutes later when his train stopped in Nuremburg. At about the same time, the perpetrator approached the Swiss border. He was stopped by German guards and turned over to the Gestapo almost immediately when a postcard of the Bürgerbäukeller, sketches of a bomb, and a fuse were found in his pockets.

Five days later, the man confessed. He was Georg Elser, an ordinary German, a member of the working class expected to be a staunch supporter of the Nazi Party. Even more surprising, he had acted alone, meticulously and patiently putting the incendiary device together.

The Plan

Elser decided almost immediately that the beer hall would be the location for his assassination attempt. The speech came off every year at the same location like clockwork. The streets outside the beer hall were routinely barricaded, crowded, and afforded little chance of a good shot. And the beer hall itself was fairly easily accessible. When he visited in November, 1938, Elser noticed that the speaker’s platform was in front of a column supporting the upper gallery of the building and in the middle of the hall. “In the course of the next few weeks,” he reported in his confession, “I slowly worked it out in my head that it would be best to pack explosives into this particular pillar behind the speaker’s platform and then by means of some kind of device cause the explosives to ignite at the right time.” (Bombing Hitler, p 157)

The Bomb

Since the summer of 1937, Elser had been working at the Waldenmaier armaments factory. Because of lax security, he was able to gather 250 compressed pellets of explosive powder, secreting each of the discs in sheets of paper and covering them with clothes in his locker. Realizing he needed more explosives as well as details about fashioning a detonator, he got a job at the Vollmer quarry in Itzelberg. Elser was able to pick up cans of explosives that had been left behind after blasts and “pay a visit” to the hut that served as a supply depot, easily filing down a key to fit the lock on the iron exterior door and yank open the unlocked wooden interior door. (Bombing Hitler, p 161, To Kill the Devil)

Elser trailed explosives experts at the quarry to learn their techniques and tested four devices in his parent’s orchard in the summer of 1939. The devices consisted of three blocks of explosives mounted on a board with a spring stretched across, a rifle shell as a firing cap, and a nail as the firing pin. He placed the materials, including 110 pounds of explosives, 125 high-capacity detonators, and quick-burning fuse, in the false bottom of his wooden suitcase and carried it with him when he moved to Munich in August, 1939.  (To Kill the Devil)

The Placement

Elser began having dinner in the Bürgerbäukeller regularly. He sat at the same table served by the same waitress a little after 8:00 pm. He ate the cheapest meal, had a single beer, and left the table about 10:00 pm. He canvassed the hall by walking through the cloakroom. When he was sure no one was watching, he climbed the stairs to the gallery and hid in a storage space behind a folding screen.

Elser waited for the sound of the key turning in the lock between 10:30 and 11:30 pm, then quietly made his way along the gallery to the column that would be the backstop for Hitler’s speech on November 8. He first created a door close to the bottom of the column, then he chiseled out a chamber for the bomb using a hand drill with a chisel bit. He covered his tools with rags to minimize the noise and stopped making loud actions, such as chipping out portions of brick or masonry, until sounds from outdoors could camouflage them. He worked for several hours each night, then dozed until morning when he walked out of the beer hall soon after it opened between 7:00 and 8:00 am.

He spent three to four hours a night over the course of about a month to hollow out the pillar, insert the bomb, and set the timing device, each time sweeping up dust and debris, hiding the detritus in a storage room on the gallery until he could return with a suitcase to remove any signs of his work. He loaded explosives, made corrections to his ignition device, added wire and started the clock on November 5, setting the timer to detonate the charge 63 hours and 20 minutes later. (Bombing Hitler, To Kill the Devil)

The Man

Elser was born in January, 1903, in a small village in southwest Germany, a region known for the manufacture and sale of cuckoo clocks. After working briefly for his father, he apprenticed as a lathe operator in a smelter at age 14 and soon left because of health issues. He switched to woodworking, graduating at the top of his class from the Heidenheim trade school eight years later. He then worked in a furniture factory, a factory that made aircraft propellers, and as a carpenter building desks. He also worked for a brief time at a clock factory.

 Georg Elser: Seine Bombe gegen Hitler explodierte pünktlich – 13 Minuten zu spät - WELT

Though not part of any organized political movement, Elser was driven to take action against Hitler because of National Socialism’s failure to improve the lot of the ordinary German worker. The German economy had improved with the rise of the Nazis. Workers’ wages had dropped, however, from 1 mark an hour in 1929 to 68 pfennigs in 1938. At the same time, withholding taxes doubled from 10 to 20 percent. (To Kill the Devil) “The workers find themselves under constraint,” he wrote. “Under the new laws, for example, they cannot change the place where they work; they cannot move to another town to look for a better job. No that is forbidden.” (To Kill the Devil, p 91)

Another driving force was the fear of war and the need to take action to avoid it. He stressed that “the dissatisfaction among the workers that I had observed since 1933 and the war that I had seen as inevitable since the fall of 1938 occupied my thoughts constantly… On my own, I began to contemplate how one could improve the conditions of the working class and avoid war.” His conclusion—to remove the leadership of the country, including Hitler, Göring, and Goebbels. “I came to the conclusion that by removing these three men other men would come to power who would not make unacceptable demands of foreign countries, ‘who would not want to involve another country,’ and who would be concerned about improving social conditions for the workers.” (Bombing Hitler, p 151)

After his arrest, Elser was taken to the concentration camp at Sachsenhausen where he was beaten repeatedly and severely and drugged. In early 1945 he was taken to the camp at Dachau. Days after Hitler’s suicide, Elser was killed by a pistol shot to the back of the head.

Conspiracy Theories

Although evidence is clear that Elser acted alone, German leadership and the press believed otherwise. Among those blamed were the Nazi-opposition group organized by Otto Strasser—the Black Front—British SIS, and even Heinrich Himmler himself. Strasser, publisher of the Nationaler Sozialist, wrote in November, 1939, that he had “definite proof from a very reliable party member [that] the plot was the idea of Himmler himself, who told Hitler’s deputy Rudolph Hess that he needed an attempt on Hitler to let loose a hate offensive against the British and in order to have a pretext to attack internal enemies.” (The Hitler Assassination Attempts, p 99)

Essays and articles appearing in the 1960s and ‘70s confirmed Elser’s status as a lone wolf. A film by Klaus Maria Brandauer in 1989 made Elser and his actions well known across Germany. Most recently, the film 13 Minutes brings the man and his actions to life.

13 Minutes (2021) - IMDb

Sources:

Bombing Hitler, Hellmut G. Haasis, Skyhorse Publishing, 2013.

Killing Hitler, Roger Moorhouse, Bantam Books, 2006.

The Hitler Assassination Attempts, John Grehan, Frontline Books, 2022.

To Kill the Devil, Herbert Molloy Mason, Jr., W. W. Norton & Company, 1978.

HISTORKA: The Other Stories People, Places, and Events Behind the Headlines in History

Caught in the Act

Threats against the life of the new German Chancellor, Adolf Hitler, were not unusual. In the months after he became head of parliament, police received tips about possible assassination attempts at least once a week. (Peter Hoffman: Hitler’s Personal Security) Some were fabricated by Heinrich Himmler who was jockeying for position in the new Reich in February and March of 1933. Some were far-fetched: one would-be assassin supposedly planned to squirt poison into Hitler’s face from a bouquet of flowers, another hoped to rig a fountain pen with an explosive that would detonate in Hitler’s hand (Hoffman: Hitler’s Personal Security, page 24-25).

Others were either pranks or mistakes. A telephone call to police on the day before the Prussian State Council was scheduled to meet warned of a time bomb hidden in the coal cellar of the ministry building. A suspicious object on the cellar stairs turned out, however, to be container of packing cord left behind by workers who had maintained the building years before. (Hoffman: Hitler’s Personal Security, page 25)

 Hitler's Personal Security: Protecting the Führer, 1921-1945: Hoffmann, Peter: 9780306809477: Amazon.com: Books

A couple of incidents may have been flat-out bravado or the result of wishful thinking. Two plotters offered information about assassination plans to officials in the United States. One, in exchange for cash. In October, 1933, a man identifying himself as M. X. Kimball approached the German embassies in Chicago and Washington, D.C., and asked for money to reveal the details of a plot by American Jews to send an emissary to Germany who would kill Hitler. According to the plan, a man of Jewish extraction would travel to London where he would get information about how to meet with Hitler in his office where the murder would be committed. (John Grehan: The Hitler Assassination Attempts)

A few months earlier, another man, Daniel Stern, wrote the German Ambassador in Washington, stating he would travel to Europe and assassinate Hitler if President Roosevelt did not demand an end to the persecution of Jews in Germany. A nationwide search could find not find Stern or any links to him. (Grehan: The Hitler Assassination Attempts, page 25-26)

But many of the threats real enough to be investigated were thwarted before they got very far.

The Potsdam Day Bomb Threats

A tip from an unlikely source--a medium who obtained messages via a crystal ball--reported that a tunnel had been dug under the Potsdam Garrison Church where Hitler was scheduled to symbolize the “marriage of the old grandeur with new power” through a formal handshake with the president of the German Reich, Paul von Hindenburg, during the celebration of the reopening of the Reichstag on March 21, 1933. (An arson attack burned the original Reichstag to the ground a month before. This fire was used by Hitler as a pretext to accuse Communists of attempting to overthrow the German government and led to the Reichstag Fire Decree that suspended civil liberties throughout Germany.)

 The church described as a 'symbol of evil' - BBC News

Before the newly elected members of the Reichstag would reconvene in Kroll Opera House, Berlin, Hitler and Joseph Goebbels organized speeches, religious services, parades, and memorials in an event known as Potsdam Day. The city of Potsdam was selected for the ceremony because it had been the seat of Frederick the Great’s Prussian Kingdom as well as Otto von Bismarck’s German Empire. The date was chosen because Imperial Germany’s first Reichstag opened on March 21, 1871. In addition to Hitler and Hindenburg, dignitaries also included Crown Prince Wilhelm of the Hohenzollern dynasty and three of his brothers. (Potsdam Day-- Wikipedia)

Investigators did find that the tunnel “seen” by the medium was, indeed, being dug. But instead of being loaded with explosives, the tunnel was lined with cables so the Potsdam Day proceedings could be broadcast live over the radio. (Hoffmann: Hitler’s Personal Security, page 25)

Police intervened to eliminate two more serious bomb threats associated with Potsdam Day. The day before the event, Himmler reported that three Checkists had driven to the Richard Wagner memorial in Tiergartenstrasse, Munich, carrying bombs that would be set off as Hitler passed by on the way from the Potsdam festivities to the new Reichstag in Berlin. The men were spotted and arrested before they could plant and arm the devices, however. According to Himmler, “The authorities saw in every attempt of this kind the grave danger to public order and security. From his own knowledge of the public mood and from reports of subordinate officials, [Himmler] was convinced that the firing of the very first shot -- whether it hit the mark or not -- might lead to unequalled chaos throughout Germany and to a great programme which no power of the state or the police would be able to prevent.” (Grehan: The Hitler Assassination Attempts, page 25)

Days before Potsdam Day, Kurt Lutter, a ship’s carpenter and member of a small group of Communists, was arrested for planning to detonate the speaker’s platform while Hitler was addressing a political rally in Konigsberg on March 4, 1933. On March 3, a police informer who had infiltrated the group notified authorities, and Lutter and others were rounded up and interrogated. When none of the plotters owned up to the plan, they all were released. (Grehan: The Hitler Assassination Attempts; James P. Duffy and Vincent L. Ricci: Target Hitler)

Tight Security vs. Loose Lips

Routine security measures foiled at least one potential assassin. Hitler regularly strolled up and down the hilly walking paths near his mountain retreat on the slopes of the Obersaltzberg mountain range, talking with compatriots as he crisscrossed over public hiking trails in the open countryside. Hitler’s bodyguards grew suspicious when they spotted a stranger in an SS uniform intently watching Hitler and his entourage. After stopping and searching the man, the security detail found a loaded gun and promptly arrested him. (James P. Duffy and Vincent L. Ricci: Target Hitler; Grehan: The Hitler Assassination Attempts)

Informers sidelined other assassins. A school teacher in early 1933 told police that she had heard about a plan by Ludwig Assner, a member of the Bavarian State Parliament, to send a personal letter laced with poison to Hitler from France. On other occasions, Assner declared that he would not rest until he had shot Hitler or otherwise removed him from office. Assner’s plans were dismissed as extortion when he promised to desist if given a large sum of money. (Duffy and Ricci: Target; Grehan: The Hitler Assassination Attempts).

An elaborate plan to infiltrate the SS and gather information about Hitler’s movements was itself infiltrated by Gestapo in 1935. Led by industrialist Dr. Helmut Mylius, head of the Party of the Radical Middle Class and editor of a right-wing political and economics publication, and the retired Navy Captain Hermann Ehrhardt, 160 Radical Middle Class Party men supporters actually were able to join the SS according to plan. But the size of the group may have been its undoing. According to John Grehan, such a large group made its discovery almost inevitable, as some members of the group most likely fell into the “loose lips” category. As a result, the plan was discovered, and most of the men were arrested. Mylius himself was able to circumvent arrest by joining the army, as arranged by his friend Field Marshall Erich von Manstein. (Duffy and Ricci: Target; Grehan: The Hitler Assassination Attempts)

Plans by another potential assassin were foiled not once, but twice. Josef “Beppo” Römer in 1934 was arrested after gaining entry to the Reich Chancellery. A former member of the Freikorps paramilitary group who sought revenge for Hitler’s purge of the ranks of the SA on the Night of the Long Knives (June and July, 1934 when Nazi Party members purged SA from its ranks) and later a Communist, Römer was imprisoned for his actions at Dachau concentration camp. After his release in 1939, Römer again plotted to eliminate Hitler (or, as he said, “cut off the snake’s head”). He may have flagged his own actions, however, by dropping incriminating information about his analysis of German military action and active resistance into wastebaskets. (Grehan, page 34). Römer was arrested and sentenced to death in 1942 and executed in 1944.

A Cause Célèbre

The Stuttgart born and raised German Jew Helmut Hirsch was not able to enroll in a German university because of the Nuremberg Laws of 1935. He therefore traveled to Prague and entered the German Institute of Technology there. He soon joined the Black Front, an organization of former members of the Nazi Party and German expatriates who opposed Hitler and led underground activities.

Helmut Hirsch Collection, Robert D. Farber University, Brandeis University

In December, 1936, he was sent to Nuremburg to meet a man who would give him two baggage claim tickets for suitcases containing explosives. He traveled to Stuttgart instead to meet a friend he hoped would talk him out of participating in the plan. When his friend did not arrive, he checked into a hotel across from the railway station. There, he was arrested by Gestapo the next morning.

Although he had no explosives in his possession, he was indicted for possessing them and conspiring to commit high treason and held in solitary confinement for nine weeks. At his trial, a Gestapo double agent described the plot in detail. But while Hirsch contended he should be acquitted because he did not travel to Nuremburg or acquire the suitcases containing the explosives, he did acknowledge that he would have, if given the chance, attempted to assassinate Hitler. He consequently was sentenced to death.

Hirsch’s family engaged international organizations in an attempt to commute the sentence to life imprisonment, including the International Red Cross, human rights groups, and Quakers. The case was appealed to the League of Nations and discussed in the British House of Commons. Because Hirsch’s father was an American citizen, Helmut was granted citizenship in the US in April, 1937. Despite efforts by the American ambassador in Berlin and Secretary of State, Hirsch was decapitated on June 4, 1937. (Helmut Hirsch Collection, Robert D. Farber University Archives, Brandeis University) 

Sources

Peter Hoffman: Hitler’s Personal Security, DA Capo Press, 2000.

John Grehan: The Hitler Assassination Attempts, Frontline Books, 2022.

Roger Moorhouse: Killing Hitler, Bantam Books, 2006.

James P. Duffy and Vincent L. Ricci: Target Hitler, Praeger, 1992.

Garrison Church (Potsdam) Wikipedia.

Helmut Hirsch Collection. Robert D. Farber University Archives and Special Collections, Brandeis University.

HISTORKA: The Other Stories

People, Places, and Events Behind the Headlines in History

 Early Assassination Attempts on the Life of Adolf Hitler

The assassination of Reinhard Heydrich, head of Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia and second-in-command of the SS in 1942, was, to put it mildly, shocking, not because it was attempted but because it succeeded. (Heydrich’s assassination and its aftermath are subjects of this author’s historical novel The Pear Tree.)

The attack on Heydrich certainly was not the first attempt to assassinate a high-ranking member of the Third Reich, to be sure. Adolf Hitler had been a target of assassination from the very beginning of his rise to power. Months after he became leader of the then-fledgling Nazi Party in 1921, shots were fired at Hitler as he spoke to a crowd in a Munich beer hall. Several more attempts were made before the formation of the Third Reich with Hitler at its helm in 1933. This Historka post describes assassination attempts in the early 1920s and the historical and political setting in which they occurred.

The First Attack

Adolf Hitler joined the German Workers Party, an organization said at the time to have “no assets except a cigar box in which to put contributions,” in 1919. (Ailsby: The Third Reich Day by Day, page 9) As member of the steering committee for the group, Hitler sought to multiply the party’s membership by adopting military garb and pageantry and the swastika emblem, which he considered to be “something akin to a blazing torch.” (Ailsby, page 10)

Feeling the need to attract more attention, he relished the chance to confront his political enemies when social democrats and communists crashed a Nazi Party meeting in the Munich Hoffbräuhaus on November 4, 1921 (6 Assassination Attempts on Adolf Hitler | HISTORY). “The dance had not yet begun when my Stormtroopers, for so they were called from this day on, attacked like wolves. They flung themselves in packs of eight or 10 again and again on their enemies, and little by little actually began to thrash them out of the hall. After five minutes, I hardly saw one of them who was not covered with blood.” (Ailsby, page 10, Grehan, The Hitler Assassination Attempts, 2022, page 20)

After Hitler had spoken for an hour and a half, a man jumped up on a chair and shouted, “Freedom,” setting off a melee as beer mugs crashed to the floor, chairs were overturned, and fistfights broke out. Twenty minutes later, two pistol shots were fired at the podium where Hitler had been standing. Members of the assembled Nazis and outsiders exchanged more shots while Hitler continued speaking. (Grehan, The Hitler Assassination Attempts, 2022, page 20).

Hitler later wrote that he welcomed the attack.  “Then two pistol shots rang out and now a wild din of shouting broke out from all sides. One’s heart almost rejoiced at this spectacle which recalled memories of the war.” (Ailsby, page 10)

 Hitler Archive | Poster annoucing a speech to the young and workers n Munich's Hofbrauhaus (hitler-archive.com)

1922-1923

As a result of high-profile events, three attempts were made on Hitler’s life in 1923, all by persons unknown. (Grehan, page 20). In Thuringia shots were fired at the man as he was speaking in front of a crowd. In Leipzig and Tübingen, shots were fired at the auto that was transporting him. (Adolf Hitler Assassination Attempts Timeline 1921-1945, Grehan, page 20)

Three major events in 1922 and 1923 kept Hitler in the eye of the public and potential assassins.

The Coburg Folk Festival

The city of Coburg, 120 miles east of Frankfurt, invited Hitler and the Nazi Party to attend a folk festival on 14 October, 1922.  When city officials learned that more than 700 party members, plus a 42-piece band, were arriving on a “special train,” they sent a police captain to stop the Nazis’ planned parade into city center, but the men brushed the policeman aside and marched into town. After a 15-minute fight between Nazis and Marxist members of the crowd, the procession proceeded unimpeded.

Hitler’s fiery speech in the town hall that evening attracted the duke and duchess of Coburg, who later became active Nazi Party supporters. Marxist threats to confront the Nazis and stop the “special train” from leaving the next morning came to naught as only a few hundred Marxists even showed up. ( (hitler-archive.com), Ailsby, page 12-13)

 Deutscher Tag, Coburg, 14./15. Oktober 1922 – Historisches Lexikon Bayerns (historisches-lexikon-bayerns.de)

The First Nazi Party Day

The first Nazi Party Day, the Parteitage, brought 5000 Brownshirts to Munich to hold 12 mass meetings on January 27-29, 1923. An initial ban and declaration of a state of emergency by city officials was lifted after Bavarian General Otto von Lossow declared “suppression of the National Socialist organization [was] unfortunate for security reasons (Ailsby, page 13). At this meeting Hitler declared the swastika would become the symbol of a new Germany and proclaimed that “Germany is awakening, the German freedom movement is on the march” (Ailsby, page 13-14).

 The Beer Hall Putsch

The most prominent and remembered event in 1923 was the so-called Beer Hall Putsch.

Impressed by Benito Mussolini’s ability to seize power in October, 1922, by means of the March on Rome, (see this author’s Time Stamp blog October, 2022), Hitler believed the Nazi Party could take over the German government by force in early 1923.

Deteriorating economic conditions did threaten the stability of the Weimar Republic at the time. The government had defaulted on reparations as required by the Treaty of Versailles, leading French forces to occupy Germany’s industrial center, the Ruhr; hyperinflation and other effects of the Great Depression were rampant.  Blame fell at the feet of government leaders who had signed the treaty as well as groups that had “stabbed the country in the back” during WW I, including Communists, Jews, social democrats, and war profiteers.

Hitler’s plan to overthrow the Bavarian government, set for November 9, 1923, began in Munich’s Bürgerbräukeller the day before while the appointed governor of Upper Bavaria, Gustav von Kahr, was making a speech.  In the audience Adolf Hitler waited for 20 minutes until 25 of his armed Brownshirts burst into the hall. He then climbed onto a chair, first a shot into the ceiling, and claimed the national revolution had begun. “This hall is occupied by 600 armed men…. The Bavarian and Reich Governments have been removed and a provisional National Government formed. The army and police barracks have been occupied, troops and police are marching on the city under the swastika banner.” (Ailsby, page 15)

Kahr and other leaders of the Bavarian government, military and police were taken by gunpoint to a side room where Hitler tried to convince them to accept his leadership. The men refused to accede to the demands but were released when they agreed they would not stand in his way (Grehan, page 34). While fighting outside the building distracted Hitler and other leaders of the rebellion, German Army generals fled the hall and mobilized troops from outlying garrisons, and Kahr denounced the episode.

Nevertheless, on the morning of November 9, Hitler led 2000 men in a march toward the center of the city. By then, Brownshirts at the War Ministry were already surrounded, and police blocked streets. When police began firing, Hitler was pulled to the street and protected by his body guard and others until he could make his escape. Members of the crowd gave up their weapons and identified themselves to the police; coup plotters still on the scene were singled out and arrested; and 14 lay dead on the streets. The wounded included Hitler himself (a wrenched shoulder) and Hermann Göring (bullet wound to the groin). (Beer Hall Putsch | Facts, Summary, & Outcome | Britannica)

The German General State Commissar immediately disbanded the Brownshirts as well as the Nazi Party and imposed heavy fines on anyone working for the party.  Leaders of the coup were arrested for treason, arraigned, and imprisoned. (Ailsby, page 20)

Following the failed putsch, the Nazi Party entered what has been called the Kampfzeit or time of struggle when party members dropped from nearly 70,000 to less than 1,000. Nevertheless, some “old fighters” remained, and their message gained a wide audience. To Hitler, the putsch was major propaganda. “As though by an explosion, our ideas were hurled over the whole of Germany,” he said. (Ailsby, page 19)

1932 Assassination Attempts

In the months leading up to the July, 1932 elections, four attempts were made on Hitler’s life. In January, Hitler and others became ill within an hour after dining at Hotel Kaiserhof in Berlin. Though poisoning was suspected, no arrests were made.

A month later, Ludwig Assner, a member of the Bavarian State Parliament, sent a poisoned letter to Hitler from France. The letter was intercepted before it reached Hitler.

In March, shots were fired at the train that was carrying Hitler, Joseph Goebbels, and Wilhelm Frick (who later became Minister of the Interior in the Third Reich) from Munich to Weimar. No one was hurt.

While traveling to Stralsund, Hitler’s car was nearly ambushed by a group of men waiting at the corner of a sharp turn in the road. (List of assassination attempts on Adolf Hitler, Wikipedia, Adolf Hitler Assassination Attempts Timeline 1921-1945)

Sources:

Christopher Ailsby, The Third Reich Day by Day, Chartwell Books, 2001. This post relies heavily on this book. For more information and purchase, see: The Third Reich Day By Day: Ailsby, Christopher: 9780785826651: Amazon.com: Books.

John Grehan, The Hitler Assassination Attempts. The Plots, Places and People that Almost Changed History, Pen & Sword Books, 2022. https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-hitler-assassination-attempts-john-grehan/1140132976

(6 Assassination Attempts on Adolf Hitler | HISTORY)

  (hitler-archive.com),

 Beer Hall Putsch | Facts, Summary, & Outcome | Britannica

July 1932 German federal election - Wikipedia).

July 1932 German federal election - Wikipedia, Nazi Party - Rise to Power, Ideology, Germany | Britannica

HISTORKA: The Other Stories

People, Places, and Events Behind the Headlines in History

 The Killing of Reinhard Heydrich

The assassination of the leader of Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia, Reinhard Heydrich, has been called “one of the greatest acts of resistance in human history, and without doubt the greatest of the Second World War.” (HHhH, Binet, Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2009.)

It is thus no stranger to the silver screen. As such, it offers many opportunities for Other Stories.

Films in the Forties

Soon after the assassination itself in May, 1942, two American films made it their subject.

Hangmen Also Die!, a noir war film, was directed by Fritz Lang and based on a story written by Bertolt Brecht. Interestingly, the script was the only one of Brecht’s stories to be made into a Hollywood film. It premiered in March, 1943, and was released the following month. (Hangmen Also Die! - Wikipedia)

Hitler’s Madman, released in August, 1943, was the first American film directed by Douglas Sirk after he fled Nazi Germany in 1937. Sirk went on to direct some of the most well-known films of the 1940s and 50s, including Magnificent Obsession with Rock Hudson and Jane Wyman, the melodramas All that Heaven Allows and Imitation of Life, and what is considered by many to be his masterpiece: Written on the Wind, which garnered Oscar nominations for stars Dorothy Malone and Robert Stack. (https://www.britannica.com/biography/Douglas-Sirk).

 Perhaps because of the lack of detailed information about the assassination, the two films are highly fictionalized or for the most part tell Other Stories. Instead of the two paratroopers sent from the Czech government in exile who trained for, planned, and carried out the mission, Hangmen portrays a wholly invented surgeon/Czech patriot as a lone assassin. Instead of threats to execute 10,000 Czechs and the actual wholesale destruction of the small town of Lidice in reprisal, the film centers on a plan to execute 40 Czechs at a time until the assassin’s found.

 Of the two, Madman is more accurate. It acknowledges the role of a paratrooper in the assassination and the basics of the subsequent attack on the small Czech town of Lidice. It nevertheless depicts three assassins, two of whom are not members of the Czech Resistance but ordinary citizens: one is a vagabond and the other, the Czech paratrooper’s girlfriend. (Hitler's Madman (1943) - IMDb, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hitler%27s_Madman)

 Films of the Sixties and Seventies

It took more than 30 years before other films focused on the assassination. Atentát, a Czech film, was released in 1964, and the US production Operation Daybreak, in 1976.

Atentát has been labeled by several Czech historians as the most historically accurate (Rajlichová, Eva (27 May 2012). "Filmová zpracování atentátu na Heydricha obsahují řadu nepřesností". iROZHLAS.cz (in Czech). Český rozhlas. Retrieved 22 June 2017; Košařová, Karolína (2016). ""Filmař často vidí věc jinak než poradce," říká historik Pavel Kmoch". filmová místa.cz (in Czech). Retrieved 22 June 2017; Čech, Marek (30 September 2016). "Anthropoid: atentát na Heydricha jako akční film [recenze]". AVmania.cz (in Czech). Retrieved 22 June 2017)

Daybreak also includes many historical details, such as the assassins’ training in Great Britain and the discovery of their hiding place in a church crypt days after the assassination. Its attention to detail may have had something to do with its poor performance at the box office, however.  In addition to the less-than-star-studded cast, British director Lewis Gilbert blamed the low box office numbers on timing. By the mid-1970s, war films were more inventive or satirical than historically slanted, according to Turner Classic Movies. “It was a good story, but nobody could relate to it [at the time] ... It was made like a documentary [but] it was too late to make that kind of factual film,” Gilbert believed. (Operation Daybreak (1975) - Turner Classic Movies (tcm.com)

Films of Today

More recently have come Anthropoid in 2016 and The Man with the Iron Heart in 2017.

https://collider.com/jamie-dornan-cillian-murphy-anthropoid-interview/

Anthropoid stars a pair of up-and-coming Irish actors: Cillian Murphy, well-known to streamers as Thomas Shelby in the BBC and Netflix hit show Peaky Blinders and lead of Christopher Nolan’s acclaimed Oppenheimer, plays the assassin Josef Gabčik. (Cillian Murphy and a star’s charisma- The New Indian Express)

Jamie Dornan, noted for performances as dangerous or edgy men in The Fall and one of the highest-grossing R-rated series of all time Fifty Shades of Grey as well as the sensitive Pa in Kenneth Branaugh’s 2021 Belfast, plays the assassin Jan Kubiš.

In telling its Other Stories, the film shifts attention away from the military operation, including learning Heydrich’s daily routines and travel schedules, setbacks that complicate logistics, planning and putting operatives in place, and pulling off the attack. Rather, Anthropoid focuses on relationships between the men and two local Czech women as well as members of the Prague Resistance cell. It spends less time on the lead-up to and the attack itself and more on the shootout between the SS, the assassins, and other Resistance fighters hiding in the crypt of a church.

The Man with the Iron Heart has been called a two-for-the-price-of-one film or two short films in           one. According to one review, its first 50 minutes trace important times in the life of Reinhard Heydrich--his court martial after reneging on a promise of marriage to a woman he was sexually involved with, introductions to the Nazi Party as well as Heinrich Himmler, his steady rise in leadership of SS intelligence, participation in the Wannsee Conference, and authorship of the Final Solution. The second half shifts in focus to the Czech Resistance fighters who plot and carry out the assassination. (‘The Man With the Iron Heart’ Review – The Hollywood Reporter)

(This author has not seen nor can comment on The Man with the Iron Heart first-hand. The film has not been released and is not available for streaming in the US because its American distribution rights were purchased by the Weinstein Company just before it filed for bankruptcy in 2015.)

When Fact Is More Dramatic Than Fiction

Historically based films and works of fiction do not, of course, have to follow a straight-and-narrow approach to fact. It goes without saying that actual facts may be manipulated to underscore emotion or enhance drama.

But there may be times when facts are hard to beat dramatically.

And the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich is one of them.

There is the act itself:

·         An audacious attack in broad daylight.

·         A face-to-face encounter between assassin and target.

·         A weapon that jams.

·         A grenade that misses its mark.

 The flight that carried the assassins from Great Britain to Czechoslovakia:

·         German anti-aircraft fire.

·         Heavy fog.

·         Snow blotting out landmarks intended to identify the drop zone.

·         German radar tracking the course of the aircraft as it passed south of Prague.

·         Reports to the German Wehrmacht that parachutists and leaflets were dropped.

·         Immediate searches of the area for Allied operatives.

The on-the-ground planning:

·         A Czech Resistance operative chronicling the exact times Heydrich entered and left Prague Castle and dropping notes through the open window of a clandestine safe house.

·         A clock repairman inside the castle eavesdropping on conversations inside the castle.

 The search for the assassins after the attack:

·         House-to-house canvasses.

·         City-wide sweeps.

·         Large-scale arrests.

·         Threats and rewards.

·         Newsreels of clues left behind by the assassins--the gun, a bicycle, a briefcase.

·         Near escapes.

The shootout:

·         A firefight in the church nave.

·         The discovery of a single, 2- by 1-ft rectangular entry to the assassin’s hiding place in the crypt.

·         Calls for the Resistance fighters to surrender by the turncoat Karel Čurda and the priest met by volleys of bullets from below.

·         A plan to assault the crypt via the ventilation shaft to the exterior with tear gas and streams of water from fire hoses.

·         An hours’ long standoff.

 While the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich is the only one aimed at leaders of the Third Reich that succeeded during World War II, it is hardly the only one attempted. More than ten attacks on Adolf Hitler were mounted before and during the war. Historka: the Other Stories turns to the first of them next time.

HISTORKA: The Other Stories

People, Places, and Events Behind the Headlines in History

Two major motion pictures that competed for Academy Awards on March 4, 2018, center on the spring of 1940. 

Dunkirk recalls what has been called one of the most famous events in modern British history--the evacuation of more than 300,000 stranded soldiers by a fleet of small leisure and fishing boats on May 10 of that year. 

The film was directed by Christopher Nolan and distributed by Warner Brothers. Released in July, 2017, Dunkirk grossed $527 million at the box office. It can be streamed on Netflix, HBO Now and HBO Max. It is also available for purchase or rent on other sites. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunkirk_(2017_film)

Darkest Hour details the greatest challenge in Winston Churchill’s life--in May and June of 1940 when Hitler could have won World War II.

The film was directed by Joe Wright and distributed by Focus Features and Universal Pictures. It was released in September 2017 and grossed $150.8 million. It can be viewed on Netflix, HBO Max and HBO Now, and the Amazon Channel. Darkest Hour (film) - Wikipedia

The films, nominated for a combined 13 Oscars and winning in sound and film editing as well as the best actor award for Gary Oldman, illustrate the power that familiar stories of history can still exert. Many instantly recognize the name Dunkirk and many can recite portions of Churchill’s famous speech to Parliament (“we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender.”)

Yet the films resonate with audiences because they show other sides of these stories: the French soldier who tries to blend in and escape with British troops as ships load on the docks of Dunkirk, the father and son pair who take their small sailing vessel to sea to rescue as many soldiers as they can, the British pilot who continues the battle until his plane runs out of fuel, the Prime Minister who struggles to find the right path, the right words.

There are many not-so-famous stories, what I call Historka or The Other Stories, that are equally powerful. Some have been largely forgotten or only recently revealed in scattered or incomplete documents. Some, such as the ones I’ll be relating here in this blog, take place during the Second World War.

Assassination

The first of Historka, The Other Stories, is a series of posts that stems from the incident at the beginning of my debut novel, The Pear Tree.  In the opening pages of that book, the leader of Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia Reinhard Heydrich is attacked by a pair of Czech Resistance fighters as his limousine rounds a hairpin turn along the Vltava River in a Prague suburb in 1942. After Heydrich’s death from blood poisoning days later, the Nazi High Command exacts grievous reprisal--total destruction of the small Czech town of Lidice.

This author’s The Pear Tree uses the assassination and the destruction of the town as stepping-off points to tell individual stories of a handful of survivors who are thrust into the horrors of war and find heroism in small acts of kindness.

The assassination of Reinhard Heydrich is a highly dramatic story in and of itself, as shown in two recent films. The Man with the Iron Heart, a French-Belgian production filmed in English, stars Jason Clarke as Heydrich, Rosamund Pike as his wife, Jack O’Connell and Jack Reynor as the assassins. The film is based on the international best seller and winner of the Prix Goncourt du Premier Roman book award in 2012 HHhH (Himmler’s Hirn heist Heydrich, or Himmler’s brain is called Heydrich). Released in 2017, The Man with the Iron Heart earned $4.4 million at the box office.

Another film, Anthropoid, views the assassination through the eyes of two assassins. The film stars Jaime Dornan (Fifty Shades of Grey and The Fallen) as the Czech operative Jan Kubiš and Cillian Murphy (Peaky Blinders) as the Slovak Josef Gabčik. It was released in 2016 and grossed more than $5 million.

Older films include Operation Daybreak, released in 1974, and Hangmen Also Die from Fritz Lang in 1943.

Among many documentaries are SS-3 The Assassination of Reinhard Heydrich, (1992), Last Day of the Butcher (2021), and the Assassination of Reinhard Heydrich in Prague (2019).

Books add details about the planning and execution of the assassination: Assassination: Operation Anthropoid, 1941-1942 (2002), The Mirror Caught the Sun (2009), and You’ll Be Hearing from Us (2019).

The telling and retelling of the Heydrich assassination is not surprising. After all, it succeeded.

But there were many assassination attempts during the early days of the Nazi regime and well into the war years.

(One of these did came to the screen in 2008 as Valkyrie, the nail-biting historical political thriller that recounts Operation Valkyrie, a plan by a group of German Army officers to assassinate Adolf Hitler and launch a national emergency plan to take control of the country. The film stars Tom Cruise as the principal plotter Col. Claus von Stauffenberg and also includes Kenneth Branagh, Bill Nighy, Terence Stamp, and Tom Wilkinson.)

The other assassination attempts are little more than bullet points on Wikipedia. The times, dates, and places, individuals involved, and reasons for their failure are not all that well remembered. Historka begins its posts by filling in the details about these events.

The first post next month describes Heydrich’s assassination; subsequent posts go back in time to the first attempted assassination of Adolf Hitler in 1921 and finish with the Valkyrie plan in 1944.

In addition to factual recollections of the events, perpetrators, investigators, and reprisals, posts include fictional interpretations, when possible. The objective is to highlight the people, places, and circumstances that fall below the headlines of history by comparing fact with fiction.  

 As Historka tells these and Other Stories, it also invites readers to contribute stories of their own, to discuss the other sides of history as they are depicted in drama, theater, and literature and reveal more about well-known  as well as lesser-known events and how they are told. Historka will look for Other Stories in history and fiction and hopes readers will join the search.

Sources:

The Killing of Reinhard Heydrich, Callum Macdonald, The Free Press, 1989.

Anthropoid, Wikipedia; The Man with the Iron Heart, Wikipedia. Dunkirk, Wikipedia. Darkest Hour, Wikipedia.  Operation Daybreak and Hangmen Also Die (Wikipedia).