13 minutes that didn’t change the world

In 1939, there was a man in Germany who wanted to change the world alone. And he almost succeeded. His name was Johann Georg Elzer. He decided to kill Adolf Hitler.

Who is Hitler and why many contemporaries wished him to die, it seems that you can still read a couple of lines in history textbooks, so let's not go deeper. While the crowds were enthusiastically zigzagging to the Führer, Elzer saw in Hitler an upcoming tragedy for the country. Elder decided to stop it.

First of all, there were two questions to be solved – when and how?

From the first and simplest plan, simply to shoot Hitler out of the crowd at a rally, George refused. The plan was too risky and unreliable. He wanted to act. The bomb was more reliable. But where and where? The second question was solved the easiest. On November 8, 1923, Hitler attempted a failed coup, now known as the Beer Putsch. With Hitler's rise to power, every year a solemn rally was held at the Burgerbroukeller in Munich for the Nazi regime's bonz.

In November 1938, Elzer came to Munich and visited a beer store. It was the most suitable place. He had exactly one year to prepare.

Time and place are determined. Time to take the bomb.

Elzer was a simple carpenter and the issues of bombing were extremely distant from him. And what did he do? I went to the library. There he gathered a bunch of useful books and unwittingly took up theoretical skill in sapphire. If everything went well with the theory, where do you get the filling for the bomb?

The rapidly militarizing Germany built many military factories. On one of them, Elzer has been working for two years. He began to slowly roast the powder and take it home. George built a couple of bombs and conducted tests at his uncle's country.

Instead of a stunned grandmother, I heard a disappointing buch. It was a file. Elzerto was not a real explosive. Only by personal experience he was convinced that the dust explodes not ahti as.

“Hernia, not convincing,” said Elzer.

We had to look for alternatives to help.

I see the goal - I see no obstacles, was the slogan of Elzer. He demonstrably quarreled with the director of the factory, where he then worked and managed to settle into a stone-breaking house. There, of course, explosives were constantly carried out and the explosives were in ruins. Elzer glanced a little at the new place and began to slowly pull out of the warehouse explosives and detonators to them. How can so many explosives be stolen in a pedantic Germany, even in a period of strong totalitarian control? Oh, it was an entire special operation worthy of James Bond. Be careful: the warehouse was not guarded, the materials were not recorded, and Georg managed to open the castle with one of his old keys. and all.

Elzer conducted new tests and remained satisfied with the power.

The following problem had to be solved. Elzer knew the bomb had to be hidden in advance. Before Hitler’s speech, the Gestapo will close the hall and round every corner. We need a clock mechanism. Elzer again let go of the golden hands and smashed the timer. With German touch: the mechanism had a reserve course and a triple detonation system.

It was time to start the installation.

Elzer moved to Munich. He looked at the brewery and chose a good place – behind the tribune, where Hitler would be speaking, inside the column. How to put an explosive there? Time for the Stellar Mission. Every evening, George came to Burgerbrough, drank a glass of beer and danced with the girls. He went to the toilet and hid there. He waited until the beer shop closed and all the workers left.

George removed the wooden panel of the column and made it a door to cover the traces of his work. In total darkness and silence, for hours standing on his knees, he began to squeeze the depths in the column. At first, he worked with the shovel and had to wait until the automatic sludge in the toilet worked and did not silence the sounds of work. Then Elzer changed the tool to manual drilling and it went faster.

He worked every day for several hours, then again hiding, sleeping, waiting for more visitors to come and left as nothing happened. When the depth was large enough, he started slowly bringing the explosive there. A month of unstoppable night work was coming to an end. The last step is to set the clock mechanism. Elzer set the explosion at 21-20 and struck the clock with a traffic jamming so that no ticking could be heard. On the night of November 7th to 8th, he installed a clock with a detonator in the column and closed the door for the last time. Everything was ready.

In the morning, Elzer left Burgerbrookler for the last time. He picked up his suitcase and went to the border with Switzerland. During the day, the beer was cleaned by the Gestapo. They searched every corner and struck every wall, but found nothing. A year of unstoppable, diligent, faultless work has ended. It all collapsed in an hour.

On the evening of November 8, 1939, about two thousand people gathered in the Burgerbreukeller Hall – almost all of the old veterans of the Nazi party. At 8 o’clock Hitler entered the hall. Half an hour earlier than planned. It was ruined by cloudy weather. Hitler, in a hurry to return to Berlin, postponed and shortened his speech. He reads the speech from the tribune, and behind his back the timer counts the last minutes before the explosion. At 21.00, Hitler finished, said goodbye to his loyal supporters and left the hall. It was 21-07.

Exactly thirteen minutes later, at 21-20, the bomb installed by Elzer exploded. It collapsed so that the column was torn into pieces and the roof collapsed. Eight people, one civilian and seven members of the Nazi party were killed, sixty wounded.

At the same time, four hundred kilometers from Munich, Elzer went to the border with Switzerland with his suitcase. Everything went according to plan and he was completely calm. Suddenly the clock ringed and asked him to stop. Behind the opening of the laccan at Elzer found the badge of the "red front" and he was detained for search. George was still convinced that nothing had been heard about the explosion in the beer store. Therefore, there is no reason for increased vigilance in the guard. Unfortunately, he broke up entirely. In the workplace in the suitcase of Elzer border guards found several explosives. Which he forgot to throw away. George was arrested.

The Gestapo quickly compared one to the other and Elzer did not shut up. At no interrogation he conspired anyone, and as he did not try to beat the confession that he acted on the assignment of foreign intelligence services - Elzer stood on his own. He worked alone. I was only 13 minutes late.

Johann Georg Elzer was shot in Dachau on April 9, 1945. Twenty days before the liberation of the camp and a month before the end of the war.

In the 39th year of the interrogation in the Gestapo, on the question "why did you do this?“Elzer replied:

I just wanted to stop the war.

A bright memory, Herr Elzer. Sleep peacefully, the war is over.