Bombing Hitler (25 page)

For the next few weeks Elser strolls through the Munich district of Maxvorstadt. On Türkenstrasse he finds a cheap room. He is probably unaware, and likely doesn't even notice, that this street lies in the midst of a particularly “brown” area, which voted predominately National Socialist even before 1933. Today, standing as a small symbol of history's revenge is a Georg-Elser-Platz, located between Türkenstrasse 68 and 68a—a diminutive square, but still recognizable.

At Türkenstrasse 94, Elser sees a note hanging from the doorbell on the street: “Cheap lodging. Inquire at Lehmann, 3rd floor.” He makes a good impression: He seems quiet and modest; he asks about the price and is satisfied with the rate of four marks per week, 17.50 per month. It is really only half a room, more of a storage room between the kitchen and the front door to the apartment, but this doesn't bother him. This tiny space, measuring seven feet by sixteen feet, later on will be converted into a bathroom, with a view of the rear courtyard.

Georg Elser arrives with several suitcases and boxes, which he is allowed to store in the cellar. He keeps only the suitcase with the explosives with him, but he has to put it out in the hall because there is not enough space in his room for it. The room is big enough only for a small wardrobe, a desk, and a bed. One Sunday morning the Lehmanns return home unexpectedly early. Elser has just opened his assassin's suitcase and is looking through his sketches; startled, he throws them back into the suitcase and slams it shut.

He is a bit strange, almost spooky, this “inventor and artist in woodworking,” as he had introduced himself. Alfons Lehmann, a paper hanger and upholsterer, calls him their “private creep” because he moves around so quietly that they don't hear him. Elser is withdrawn and doesn't talk much. His being away at night doesn't seem to bother them. Then he stays in bed during the day. He manages to keep them placated by always paying his rent in advance. He has no visitors, and certainly no women visitors. He is not allowed to lock his room—Rosa Lehmann wants to clean and make the bed. He keeps all his boxes and suitcases locked. Soon Elser will need a workshop and the assistance of craftsmen.

On the night of the eighth or ninth of August 1939, he gets down to work for the first time in the Bürgerbräukeller. With his love of order he soon establishes a specific routine. As he did at the pubs in Heidenheim, he has a favorite table here in the Bürgerbräustübl, at which he has supper sometime after eight: It is the middle table, where he is always waited on by a waitress named Berta. He usually orders the simplest meal for sixty pfennigs and has one beer with it— he is not a big eater and a noticeably moderate drinker.

Around ten he pays, then strolls through the cloakroom into the hall, which is not locked. He checks the room to be sure that no one is there by carefully walking to the other end of the hall; only then does he climb up to the gallery. He quickly disappears into a storage space, which is behind a folding screen. The only things stored here are cardboard boxes, for who knows what purpose. Fortunately, there is also a chair there, on which Elser can doze for a while after three or four hours of highly concentrated night labors.

Elser appears so much to belong there that he is never stopped by anyone. Soon enough, the staff consider him one of the regulars. After war begins, there is no emergency light in the hall because of the blackouts, so Elser must use a flashlight covered with a blue handkerchief to dim its light. Soon a team of medics occupies a side room—Munich is expecting air attacks. But this group just makes coffee in the morning next to the podium where the band usually plays during special functions.

Shortly before the hall closes for the night, the cigarette girl feeds the cats that roam the hall. This poses no problem for Elser—unlike the night watchman's dog. But Elser knows how to win the trust of the dog—he brings him a piece of meat from his dinner every night. It's an extravagance that pays off and demonstrates Elser's ability to think ahead strategically. One night, the watchman sends his dog across the gallery. Recognizing Elser's scent, the dog is happy and doesn't bark; the watchman has to call him back from the dark area several times, and he comes slowly, wagging his tail. The night watchman just wants his peace and quiet, and prefers to make nothing of this behavior.

Another danger presents itself in August. Early one morning, an employee of the beer hall comes to the storage space unexpectedly to get a box; he sees Elser, but then disappears without saying any-thing. In a flash Elser recognizes the danger, goes out, and sits down at a table, pretending to write—Elser, who rarely wrote a letter. The employee returns with the manager, who questions Elser. Elser has already thought up an excuse: He says he has a boil on his thigh and wanted to squeeze it in there. All right then, why not in the lavatory? Elser's answer: He can't bring himself to—it's too embarrassing. And now, he says, he's writing a letter. He manages to pull it off and is just sent out into the courtyard, where he orders a coffee. Fortunately, he is not banned from the establishment. And now the boss knows him, too.

The hall is locked up for the night sometime between 10:30 and 11:30 p.m.; the key turning in the lock three times is clearly audible. Up until that time locals use the hall as a shortcut between Rosenheimer Strasse and Kellerstrasse. Elser waits awhile to see if anyone is hiding there, perhaps a pair of lovers or a vagrant. Only when he is absolutely certain that no one is there does he go up onto the gallery to the column located behind the speaker's platform and get to work.

In the morning, too, after the hall is opened sometime between 7:00 and 8:00, he stays hidden for a time. Later on in Berlin he will state to the Gestapo for the record the simple principle behind his camouflage: “When I was leaving the hall, I made sure not to appear cautious—so that I wouldn't arouse any suspicions.” Elser is an absolute master at feigning natural behavior.

In the initial phase of his nocturnal labors Elser creates a door in the wood paneling on the column, close to the bottom. Here the woodworker is in his element. First he loosens the wood strip on the baseboard, then he saws off the upper molding on the paneling. Now he can saw a board in the base of the column at the bottom of the paneling in such a way that the cuts are not visible when the molding is replaced. From the piece of paneling he sawed out, Elser fashions a door using hinges not visible from the outside, then installs a bolt that can only be opened by inserting a pocketknife into a slot.

According to the Gestapo, Elser gave a vivid description of the process: “It took me about three nights to build the door. But then I was able to get right down to work as soon as I opened the door, and after I was done working for the night, all I had to do was close the door in order to conceal the fact that there was any activity going on in the pillar. Even if somebody had examined the pillar closely during the day, he would not have noticed any difference at all.”

So one-tenth of his nocturnal activity is spent on creating the door. When he starts to dig out a bomb chamber in the column, Elser at first uses a chisel, but it makes too much noise. In the empty room—which has the best acoustics of any hall in Munich—the banging becomes cause for alarm. So he opts for a hand drill with a chisel bit. On three occasions, as the hole becomes deeper, he has a metalworker by the name of M. Solleder, with a shop at Türkenstrasse 59, weld an exten-sion onto the bit. He opens up side cavities using a special chisel. He is able to get everything he needs for his work with ease from local shops or craftsmen. Over the course of time he has dealings with more than a dozen small businesses. No one suspects what he is actually planning. Once when he is in the workshop of the woodworker Johann Brög, located at Türkenstrasse 59, a girl, seeing the box of gears in front of him and growing curious, asks him what they're for. Elser answers meaningfully: “They's gonna be a patent, little girl, they's gonna be a patent.”

Georg Elser progresses slowly. He has to use all his strength to press the drill into the brick and bore hole after hole. He is an artisan of delicate build, not a laborer. He wraps the tools in rags in order to minimize the sound. But when he breaks out a piece of masonry, he has to wait for some kind of noise from outside, usually the flushing of toilets, which occurs automatically every ten minutes.

Every night he is on edge, listening intently, worrying that someone might hear. By the dim light of his flashlight (he has to change the batteries frequently), Elser spends night after night kneeling because he has placed the bomb chamber as close as possible to the floor of the gallery. Given the dimensions of the opening—70 cm. by 90 cm. (27 1/2” x 35 1/2”)—it is an exhausting undertaking. After two months, he develops pus-filled sores on his knees, forcing him to seek medical treatment and then several days in bed. Because of the difficulties, it takes Elser until the end of October to finish hollowing out the chamber.

Georg Elser's reproduction of his explosive device.
Right: Side view showing the two clock mechanisms. 
Left: Side view showing the sleigh, which drives three nails into firing caps of cartridges. The powder charges in the cartridges cause the explosion.

He scrapes out the debris using a special tool, collects it on a small carpet in front of the hole, then hides it in one of the boxes in the storage room on the gallery. Every few days he shows up with a small suitcase, transfers the debris into it, and then walks down to the Isar River with it. Before he finishes his night shift he meticulously sweeps up the remaining dust from the floor. Elser is an exceptionally conscientious workman, who truly thinks of everything.

After three or four hours of this night work, Elser is exhausted and spends the rest of the night dozing on his chair. In the course of three months he spends thirty to thirty-five nights working in this way, generally coming in at three-day intervals.

During the day, after Elser has gotten some sleep, he gets down to developing his explosive device. One of the first things he does is modify the clocks. The bomb case will have to wait until he finishes boring out the chamber. At first he considers connecting the clock to the detonator using an automobile turn indicator and a battery. Then he installs a wooden cog in the clock. The hour hand strikes a tooth on the cog every twelve hours and moves the cog one-twelfth of a rotation further. With this arrangement, Elser can set his ignition mechanism no more than 144 hours in advance—six full days. The Gestapo was surprised by this system.

When the cog is struck, a lever in the clock is moved. This lever was intended in the clock mechanism to activate the striking of the clock; after Elser's conversion, it sets a gear in motion that winds a wire soldered onto a small drum. This wire releases a ratchet lever, pulls away a spring under tension, and frees a sleigh, which is a molded block of iron with three nails implanted into it. These strike the igniters of live gun shells from which the shot has been removed, setting off firing caps that cause the blasting caps to penetrate into the explosive containers, finally triggering the detonation.

But Elser still has technical concerns—his “checkomania” reasserts itself. Lacking sufficient confidence in one clock, he installs a second one. He also thinks of the possibility that someone sitting near the column during the day might hear the clocks ticking inside it. He therefore insulates the interior of the wooden bomb case with a layer of cork. Elser cannot carry out such detailed construction without workshops and the help of experienced craftsmen. His land-lady, Rosa Lehmann, observed how he won over the craftsmen: “He drove all the craftsmen in the neighborhood crazy. He needed to do something in every shop—at the locksmith or the carpenter or the mechanic. He could beg like a little child.”

If it suits his purpose, Elser can overcome his penchant for privacy and become chatty. If need be he can be downright gregarious. The strongest ties develop between him and master woodworker Brög. He has been in his good graces since helping him with the con-struction of a large heavy wardrobe for no pay. Brög couldn't afford an assistant, so in exchange Elser was allowed to work in the shop and even use the adjoining supply room to sleep in. At Brög's own suggestion, he provided Elser with a key; Elser was able to spend the night there after he vacated his room at the Lehmanns at the beginning of November.

On November 1 and November 2, Elser is at last able to fill the chamber with explosive. Conscientious as he is, he makes sure to pack every corner with dynamite. At home during the day he tests the accuracy of his clocks several times. On November 3, he arrives at the hall carrying his clocks wrapped in newspaper under his arm—and finds the hall locked for the first time. He can't go to the supply room at Brög's place because the street access is bolted. So Elser has to spend this night in the courtyard of the brewery among beer kegs, a scene that foreshadows his role as an outcast. The cold gnaws at his dwindling strength.