Bombing Hitler (6 page)

By midnight of November 9, two explosives experts had begun their investigation at the scene of the crime, supervised by Dr. Albrecht Böhme, chief of the central Kripo office
(Kripoleits-telle)
in Munich. The Munich Gestapo chief actually responsible for investigating incidents of assassination and sabotage was away at the time and was later booted out of his position. Böhme had the Kripo people undertake other investigative duties such as securing evidence, especially fragments of any kind, and using spotlights to take photographs, which would of course have to be taken again the next day in daylight. While executing the recovery of the dead from under the debris, the fire department had already discovered suspicious brass parts. This convinced Böhme to carefully sift the entire mountain of debris the next morning.

The first suspicion about the origin of the attack came from the
Alte Kämpfer,
who had to defend themselves against the accusation that they had failed to protect the hall and the people in it. They claimed that the explosion lay outside their purview—after all, it had occurred only after they had lifted the security around the hall. When the experts found pieces of the timed detonator, this claim completely fell apart. For a few days, they shored up their public image with the speculation that the explosion had taken place in an empty space above the gallery or in the roof beams. This notion flitted through the domestic and foreign press as news.

In contrast, by 4:00 a.m. on November 9, the explosives experts felt confident of their findings and in their report reached a conclusion, which largely conformed with the observations that eyewitness Frank had made on the radio: “Based on these initial findings, it was assumed that the point of the explosion must have been located here at this column, up on the gallery level.” If the explosive charge had been out in the open, then some fifty kilos would have been required. It would surely have been impossible for the assassin to smuggle so much explosive into the hall and store it unnoticed. This thought steered the experts onto the right path: “It is therefore likely that the quantity of explosive packed into the column would have totaled, in accordance with the standard formula, 8-10 kg.” The modifications necessary for the installation led to the conclusion that “the attack had been prepared far in advance.” The assassin had enhanced the effect enormously by not placing the explosive in the open but instead building it into a pillar—in technical terms, “confining” it—and on top of that, putting it into a load-bearing pillar that supported the ceiling of the hall and the roof.

The experts surmised that:

Since the gallery was covered with wood paneling, both on the side facing the hall and the side toward the exterior wall, it would have been possible for the perpetrator to work without attracting attention by repeat-edly removing the paneling and then replacing it while constructing the bomb chamber. He must, in any case, have been familiar with the conditions at the location as well as the routine procedures of the business. As soon as the bomb chamber had been completed, all that remained to do was install the timing device and then set it.

Thus the experts assumed that this was a timed detonation, calling it a
“Höllenmaschine”
(Hell's machine)—a time bomb. Fitting in with their conclusion were the “spiral springs, cogs, and other metal parts” that had been “found on the gallery floor, which was still intact. . . . Given the location where these items were found, it could be concluded that the site of the explosion was also at the level of the gallery floor.” According to the report, the charge was located behind the paneling, “approximately in the center of the pillar.” The experts were seriously mistaken about only one issue, however: They claimed that “an extraordinarily powerful explosive was used, which was far superior to the customary commercial explosives.”

Munich police chief von Eberstein, in his first report of November 9, declared enthusiastically “that this was definitely not a primitive apparatus; it was clearly the product of superior workmanship.” He then dutifully dampened his somewhat grotesque enthusiasm by expressing the suspicion that the perpetrators were “an as-yet-unknown terrorist group.” The police chief expected further revelations from interrogations of Bürgerbräu staff, sanitation department employees temporarily housed in the hall, and all companies that might have had anything to do with construction work, renovation, or interior decoration of the Bürgerbräukeller and might therefore have come into possession of the building plans.

When Dr. Böhme ordered the piles of debris searched for fragments of the explosive device that morning, the Munich watchmakers guild offered him their assistance and sent forty apprentices from the watch-making school. The men from the fire department and the Reich Labor Service carefully shoveled through the debris and secured the area against collapse. In the middle of a dust cloud, which obstructed vision and breathing, the students searched the debris with their trained eyes and skilled fingers. Police commissars plotted the locations where metal parts and other parts were found onto a plan of the hall so that it soon became clear where the explosion came from and with what force. In all, the apprentices found 300 parts made of brass and other metals. In addition, pieces of insulation were found that contained a company stamp and could thus provide an important clue as to the seller of the material and, through him, to the purchaser—the assassin.

From the very beginning, various agencies squabbled over the investigation. This was typical of the governing style of the National Socialists. By having various offices compete against each other, Hitler felt he could ensure his absolute authority. Thus at 2:30 a.m., without being called, the prosecutor general and the senior public prosecutor appeared at the scene in order to initiate the judicial inquiry. The Gestapo allowed them to proceed, until on November 15, probably after an audience Himmler had with Hitler, there came a categorical declaration, which intelligence officer Groscurth noted in his journal: “Heydrich informed Senior Reich Prosecutor Lautz that it was out of the question for Justice to participate in the investigation of the assassination attempt. Likewise, on orders from above,
Reichskriminaldirektor
Nebe has rejected the involvement of the prosecutor general in Munich.” A high-level SS officer justified the exclusion of Justice from the investigation of the assassination attempt: “It's wartime now; all crimes and other such matters should be referred directly to the Gestapo.”

There were further clashes over securing the evidence. When Police Chief Eberstein read the first report by Böhme that morning, he contemptuously tapped his forehead with his finger and lashed out at the Kripo chief: “You think you're going to find a political crime in this debris?!” He would have much preferred to have everything at the scene cleared away immediately. Böhme made clear that that would be “an inexcusable dereliction of duty.” When Böhme asked what should be done instead, his boss had no answer. The sifting continued. In the morning some
Alte Kämpfer
came by, wanting to get involved in the investigation, but they were turned away with the warning that there was “danger of collapse” of the building.

On November 9 at 11:00 a.m., Arthur Nebe arrived from Berlin by plane at Munich-Riem, with his entourage of six Kripo officers. Himmler, head of the SS and the police, had during the night ordered the establishment of a “Bürgerbräukeller Special Commission,” with a “crime scene commission” under Section Chief Hans Lobbes from the Reich Criminal Police, and a “suspect commission,” for which, after a day and a half of fruitless interrogations, a former expert for the Munich Political Police was called in from Vienna—Franz-Josef Huber, chief of Gestapo Headquarters in Vienna. Huber was a good friend of the much-feared Heinrich Müller, who had been head of the Gestapo in Berlin since 1937. The office of the Special Commission was at the Munich Gestapo headquarters in Wittelsbacher Palace at the corner of Briennerstrasse and Türkenstrasse, an area which today includes the chic and affluent district of Schwabing.

A wave of arrests, which had already started that night, went on for weeks. The total number of people detained cannot be deter-mined, but it must have been at least a thousand. That first night alone there were 120 arrests just at the border crossings. All Communists who weren't already behind bars were apprehended. Anyone hanging around the scene out of curiosity was dragged to Wittelsbacher Palace for interrogation. During the next few weeks, anyone in Germany who said anything about the attempt that didn't conform to the Party line fell into the hands of the Gestapo. There was such a bumper crop of denunciations that even the Gestapo was overwhelmed—people trying to settle old scores were reporting their enemies. At first, all names were checked at the Reich security office in Berlin, where a central catalog of suspects was established. In addition, Himmler ordered the employees of the Bürgerbräu—approximately fifty—to be arrested and interrogated. The waitress Maria Strobl was able to avoid arrest only because of her injuries. Instead, Gestapo people, armed with a typewriter, sought her out at home and for days asked her the same questions over and over again, then despite her objections dragged her to Wittelsbacher Palace five or six times for inter-rogations. Many of those involved, most notably the innkeeper of the Bürgerbräukeller, remained in custody for three months.

Kripo director Nebe, who for years had maintained loose contacts with the military opposition, initially feared that rebellious firebrands from the General Staff might have acted on their own. The timing of the attempt would appear to indicate this, because in the event of war with France, assassination plans had already been worked out by an opposition group within the general staff. But General Staff Chief of the Army Franz Halder thought and thought, hemmed and hawed and delayed, then pushed the job off on Chief of Intelligence
(Abwehr)
Canaris, but he, in turn, was too patriotic and scrupulous. Intelligence officer Groscurth wrote in his personal diary: “These indecisive leaders make you sick.” On November 1, Major General Hans Oster, the head of Army Intelligence and one of the most active of the military resistance fighters, declared to the diplomat Erich Kordt: “We don't have anybody we can get to throw the bomb and liberate our generals from their scruples.”

Nebe became even more concerned when he heard on the radio that morning that British explosives had been used in the attempt. This version also made its way into the
Wochenschau,
the weekly newsreel from UFA. And indeed the German military opposition favored this material because it was more volatile and more easily workable—the subject never got beyond the discussion stage in these circles.

When Nebe read the explosives report around noon, he took a deep breath. Now it seemed impossible that the rival Gestapo could, through manipulation, pin the attempt on Intelligence. From this point on, Nebe had not the slightest interest in going easy on the assassin. Duty was duty. According to testimony by Gisevius, it took him until 1944 to recognize that only the Bürgerbräu assassin had the right stuff to get rid of Hitler.

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ITLE'R
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Joseph Goebbels appeared to be unfazed by the attack. He dryly wrote in his diary, “If the rally had gone off according to plan, as it always had before, then none of us would be alive.” Then he took on the voice of a preacher: “He [Hitler] is, after all, under the protection of the Almighty. He will not die until his mission is accomplished.” On November 10 Goebbels noted with satisfaction: “The mood in the country is excellent.” At the time he was editing the script for the film
Jud Süss
by Veit Harlan.

General Rommel, who was one of Hitler's greatest admirers, wrote on November 15: “The Führer is very determined. The Munich attack has strengthened his resolve.” And in the next line he reveals that he shares Hitler's delight in war: “It is a pleasure to participate in this experience.”

This pleasure, however, was not shared by Party philosopher Alfred Rosenberg, who had been seated close to the Führer and the ticking bomb. He wrote in his diary on November 11: “We are all still feeling the effects of the assassination attempt in Munich.” If Hitler had not ended his speech sooner than usual, Rosenberg surmised, “we would have all been buried under the rubble.” During the bombing he recalled the failed Putsch of 1923: “[.. JSixteen years ago I went with Adolf Hitler, pistol in hand, to this same podium where death now awaited us. . . . For fourteen years we had risked our necks—now the same enemies, apparently foreigners, are at work trying to get rid of us for good.” It was clear that the assassination attempt had made him uneasy, and his thoughts turned to his own fate: “If I look at my house, I see that it would be a simple matter in that remote area to toss a bomb into my bedroom window at night.”

Goebbels, on the other hand, was a professional optimist, and he used his influence to steer public opinion through newspapers, radio, and the film industry. The top headline in the
Berliner Lokalanzeiger
of November 10 read: “All Germany Reeling from this Dastardly Crime.” The next headline announced: “Civilized World Outraged.” The third article about the bombing—”Wave of Fanatical Outrage Sweeps Reich”—heightened the drama even more. (“Fanatical” was a favorite word of Hitler's and hence of Nazi journalists.)

With its network of volunteer members, the
Sicherheitsdienst—
the intelligence arm of the SS and the Party—was able to gauge the real mood of the people. The SD was often better informed and more realistic in its assessments than the somewhat removed Party leadership. Describing the mood in the days leading up to the Munich attack, the SD reported on October 23, 1939: “Throughout the Reich, it can be confirmed that trust in official reports in press, film, and radio continues at a gratifyingly high level and that the people support and embrace the current manner of conducting propaganda, especially with regard to foreign countries.” And two days later: “The German people are convinced that the battle against England must be con-tinued.” According to their reports, almost no opposition to the war could be found anywhere in the country. This was hardly surprising: Anyone speaking out for peace risked being sent to a concentration camp. Since 1934, any dissenting views fell under the
Heimtückegesetz
(sedition law); after the start of the war listening to enemy broadcasts became a punishable offense.