The Lone Assassin

by Helmut Ortner

  The Saulers liked their tenant. He was pleasant to talk to and had their trust. He had set up a small workshop for himself in the basement of their house. In the evening, he would retreat there to work. When they asked him at one point what he was “puttering around” with down there, he answered mysteriously, “I’m working on an invention, and it has to be kept absolutely secret until it is patented.” The family marveled in disbelief. Georg, an inventor? He was capable of anything …

  During that time, Elser lived more reclusively than ever. He subordinated his whole life to the intensive attack preparations. He was completely preoccupied with his plan—the bomb.

  Four weeks before he had moved to Schnaitheim, he had applied for a job in a Königsbronn quarry, because he knew that they worked with explosives there.

  The main reason I applied for work there was that I could obtain powder for the planned attack there, he confessed in his interrogations. He got a job as an unskilled laborer with an hourly wage of 0.70 reichsmarks.

  In April 1939, I hired Elser after receiving his application. Elser was unemployed at the time, and I urgently needed people in my quarry. Elser was unusually interested in the blasting technology. During a conversation with him, I learned that he hoped to get a job in his profession in the foreseeable future in Munich, the owner of the quarry recalled years later.

  Elser did not directly perform blasting work, but he often had the opportunity to observe the preparations for it. And, far more importantly, he saw that the explosives, secured completely inadequately with only a door lock, were kept in a small concrete storehouse.

  In my first weeks, I already began to unlawfully appropriate explosives. This happened for the first time when blasting operations were done near my work area. It was often the case that more explosives were taken from the small concrete storehouse than were required for the blasting. How much explosive material was needed for the blasting operations could always be determined only on-site. The excess explosives were placed at some distance from the areas to be blasted. Often it was five or eight or two explosive cartridges that were left there unattended. When I observed this, I went directly there and always appropriated one cartridge, which I put in my pocket. I always made sure beforehand that no one was watching me. I did this about eight times, always during working hours. This theft was apparently never noticed …

  In the period that followed, Elser broke into the explosives storehouse several times at night and stole larger amounts of explosives and blasting caps, more than he would need for the attack. He opened the lock of the small concrete house with old keys from his parents’ property in Königsbronn, which he had filed for this purpose.

  In response to questioning during his later Gestapo interrogations, he described in detail his nightly break-ins.

  After I had opened the door to the small storehouse, I went inside. I turned on the flashlight I’d brought with me and saw that there were two wooden boxes in the house, about eighty centimeters long and twenty-five to thirty centimeters wide and roughly thirty-five centimeters high. Both boxes were open and still half filled with explosive cartridges. In one of the boxes, “Donarit” was printed on the cartridges, and there was also a number printed on them, which I do not remember—probably the number one. In the other box, “Gelantine” was printed on the cartridges, though I can’t say this with certainty. The cartridges were packed in cartons with about twenty to twenty-five in each one, and these were placed in the boxes.

  On the day I was in the small storehouse for the first time, I took such a packet of about twenty cartridges. I don’t remember whether they were Donarit or Gelantine cartridges. I then left the storehouse, locked the door with the same key, and headed home with the cartridges.

  Elser hid the stolen explosives in a suitcase, which he kept in his room next to his bed. He always locked the suitcase and carried the key with him. It was a special suitcase, which looked inconspicuous from outside but contained two secret compartments and a double bottom. When Georg had been working on putting in the secret compartments one evening in his small workshop, Maria had surprised him.

  “Why are you fiddling with that suitcase?” she had asked him in bewilderment.

  Startled and irritated at first, he had hastened to give a plausible explanation: “I keep drawings for my invention in it.”

  Maria was content with the answer; perhaps it sounded credible because he had already mentioned his “invention” to the family from time to time.

  The nightly thefts in the explosives storehouse remained undiscovered, because in the quarry, no account was kept of the purchase or the use of the explosive materials. As a result, no one knew the actual inventories—a fact that would earn the quarry owner more than a year in prison after the attack for violation of the security requirements for storage of explosives.

  Perhaps that was the reason that during his interrogations he spawned a conspiracy theory portraying Georg Elser as a member of a plot. The quarry owner testified that a man named Karl Kuch, who had left Königsbronn and had become wealthy in Switzerland, was a shadowy spy with all sorts of connections. In his view, it was Kuch who incited Elser to carry out the attack in Munich.

  Georg Elser was very well acquainted with Karl Kuch, who was Swiss and came once or twice a year to Königsbronn on vacation. It has been proven that the Swiss man was a spy. He also illegally transferred money to Switzerland for local businesspeople. Under the guise of making shipping crates for Kuch, Elser had very close ties with him.

  Kuch was very well acquainted with my first wife. He was in Königsbronn for an extended period of time from May to June 1939. He once showed up at my apartment, put a leather pouch—which looked like a salesman’s bag—on the table in front of me, and said, “You’re a stupid fellow. With your whole quarry you earn far less than what I earn. Look at this—this is what I earn!” He showed me a pouch full of jewels of all sorts: rings, brooches, etc.

  Then I told him that I did not want to earn my money the way he earned his, and Kuch replied, “I know, you’re a National Socialist and have no interest in political events, but there are other people, too. We have an interest in something happening in Germany. Hitler’s dictatorship cannot be maintained. Hitler will start another war this autumn. But it will bring him no great pleasure, because we will deal with Hitler this year!”

  Kuch then remained in Königsbronn for a while longer, and on the eve of Pentecost, he organized a farewell party. He invited me, too, but I couldn’t come because I had another business-related engagement. I then learned that this party at the Hirsch went on for a rather long time and was followed by an excursion to the train station tavern in Aalen. They had coffee there, and the waiter was said to have approached Kuch and shown him a telegram. Kuch then left the train station tavern in a hurry and headed back to Königsbronn with his wife. Between Oberkochen and Königsbronn, he drove into a tree and was dead.

  Strangely enough, my chauffeur happened to witness this accident. He immediately rushed to the crashed car and pulled Frau and Herr Kuch out of it. At that point, Kuch asked him: “Is the Gestapo already here?”

  The quarry owner sought to suggest with his testimony that he suspected ominous string-pullers behind the car crash—perhaps even a conspiracy that ultimately involved the Gestapo itself.

  For him it was clear that Kuch had made connections in Switzerland with Hitler’s opponents, who had nothing against National Socialism but a great deal against the Führer’s war plans. Elser—the man who worked for him in the quarry and whose theft of explosives sent him to prison—was only the lackey. He carried out the orders …

  Georg’s brother Leonhard later expressed his doubts about the accuracy of the claim that Elser had been in contact with Kuch and that the two of them had nurtured attack plans together.

  I knew Herr Kuch from Königsbronn by sight. He was born in Königsbronn but lived in Switzerland. Kuch often came to Königsbronn for visits, and I remember that Kuch stayed here in 1939 for som
e time. I don’t know whether my brother was friendly with this Kuch, or whether he had any connection to him. I can say with certainty that Kuch never came to our house to see Georg, and Georg never mentioned being acquainted with Kuch or having any dealings with him—nor did I hear anything later, after the attack and after the collapse of the regime in 1945, about this Kuch having incited my brother to commit the attack.

  Would Georg Elser, who spoke to no one about his attack plans, not even Elsa or Eugen, have discussed them with Kuch, of all people—a man he barely knew?

  The conspiracy theory was clearly a product of the quarry owner’s imagination. In his resentment about his prison sentence in Stuttgart, he gave free rein to his suspicions and confused speculations during his interrogations, constructing his own theories.

  Elser had worked for him for only three weeks. On May 16, 1939, he had to seek medical attention because a large stone had fallen on his foot; he was diagnosed with a fracture. With a cast that reached from his foot to a few inches above his ankle, Elser spent the days after the accident lying on the sofa in the Saulers’ kitchen. His disability gave him the opportunity to participate in their family life more than in the previous weeks—to eat with them and talk with them about how the future of National Socialist Germany might look and whether it was only a matter of time before a war broke out. He also now found enough time to pursue the technical questions that had to be solved for the production of the explosive device.

  During the job in the quarry and even before then, my preparations for the attack had progressed in other ways. After I had obtained the measurements of the column on my Easter journey to Munich, I could at first figure out the construction of my device only on paper. On certain days, I sat for hours over sketches, which I always made myself, and thought about the possibility of an explosive effect—that is, how the device might look.

  I already knew, of course, that you could blast with powder. In the quarry, I had watched this closely, and I had also observed that you had to plant the explosives as deeply as possible. In addition, I had seen that you need blasting caps to detonate the explosives. Since I could not use a fuse for my attack, as I could not stand nearby to light it, I had to find another way to set off the blasting caps. Though I had never seen the inside of a rifle, I could imagine that the firing of a rifle caused a spring to release and strike the bottom of the cartridge.

  So my next thought was to detonate the blasting caps with the help of rifle ammunition. I rode S.’s bike (I had sold my own a long time ago.) to a shop in Heidenheim where bikes were repaired and sold, and where sewing machines, rifles, bike parts, and ammunition were sold. I don’t know the name of the owner of this shop and cannot give the exact address, but I can describe where the shop is located. It is on a side street off Adolf-Hitler-Strasse, very close to the corner house of master lathe operator P. In this shop, I simply asked for rifle ammunition. The man who helped me, probably the owner (about forty-five years old, short, stout), asked me what caliber I needed. I replied by asking what he had. He mentioned some calibers from six to nine millimeters. Because the largest seemed best to me, I had him give me a full metal box of twenty-five or fifty nine-millimeter cartridges. I don’t remember what price I paid. The salesman did not ask me for a hunting license or a weapon license; nor did he ask for what purpose I wanted the ammunition. The cartridges he gave me had a roughly one-centimeter long case, on which there was a lead bullet (completely round). The purchase of the ammunition took place in the month of June or July. I cannot provide a more exact date.

  On July 22, 1939, the doctor declared Elser fit for work again, but he had long since decided not to return to the quarry. From that point on, I lived only for the preparation of my attack, he later testified.

  To test whether the rifle cartridges he had purchased could set off a blasting cap, he had built a model, which he brought, hidden in an old leather bag on his bicycle rack, to his parents’ orchard.

  It was a hot July morning when people in Königsbronn heard several blasts. They assumed that the sounds were coming from the quarry.

  Elser was satisfied with his attempts. Later, he said:

  After the explosion, I determined that the one small wooden block in which I had packed the cartridge case and blasting cap had been torn apart. That proved to me that a blasting cap could be set off without a fuse. Only after the experiment had succeeded three or four times in a row was I content. A single explosion of the blasting cap would not have been sufficient proof for me that it could be set off by means of a cartridge.

  That evening, he retreated to his room in Schnaitheim. Countless sketches lay on the table; next to them was the model he had made, a strange-looking construction. At first glance, it resembled an amateurish monstrosity, but there was actually an elaborate system behind it.

  Two small wooden blocks are mounted firmly on a board. Holes are drilled horizontally through both blocks in the same direction. A cylindrical wooden rod with a coil spring on it is stuck into these holes. On one side, the coil spring is touching a fixed wooden block. On the other side, it lies against a third small, wooden block, which is inserted loosely in a hole over the wooden rod and can be moved between the two fixed wooden blocks. With this third wooden block, which is equipped with a nail on one side, the spring can be tightened. Opposite this nail is another, smaller hole in one of the fixed blocks, into which the cartridge case of the rifle ammunition with a blasting cap stuck into it can be inserted.

  With those words, a Gestapo officer later described the model, when Elser had been instructed to sketch his construction once again before the eyes of the interrogators.

  On that July evening, Elser tried repeatedly to find practical solutions to his problems on paper. The most difficult question was how to set off the device at a precisely predetermined time. He made sketch after sketch, constantly producing new variations, more precise designs, and more refined details. Deep into the night he sat at his table, kept awake by the ambition to find a feasible solution.

  It was clear to me from the beginning that I would use a clock mechanism for it. I always had some parts at home for table clocks with a gong. For years, I had gotten these from the B. Ri. company in Villingen/Schwarzwald. In my free time, I often built, stained, tarnished, or polished clock cases in all sorts of forms, installed the clock mechanisms, and then sold the finished table clocks to acquaintances or gave them away as gifts. I remember that I got clockwork machinery for this purpose from another company as well, but I don’t recall its name at the moment. I took with me perhaps about four such clock mechanisms when I left the R. company in Meersburg in the spring of 1932. When R. fell behind on his wage payments, I asked him for some material instead of cash, and he gave me four or five clock mechanisms. I also received a half-finished grandfather clock case, as well as some other tools that do not, however, have any connection to my later deed. At the time, I was entitled to wages from the R. Company in the amount of 176 reichsmarks. Outside the bankruptcy proceedings, R. gave me these things as a settlement.

  The way I had originally imagined I would transfer the clock mechanism to my detonation apparatus differed from the way I ultimately did so. Originally—that is, before I went to Munich to carry out the deed—I had intended to link the mechanism of the clock to the detonation device by means of a car direction indicator and a battery. For that reason, I brought with me to Munich a battery and three car direction indicators, only one of which I would have needed.

  Shortly before his planned departure for Munich, Elser was unexpectedly laid up for four days with a case of stomach flu. The Saulers took good care of him—especially Maria, who was sad when he told her that he was planning to go to Munich. He had been offered a job as a carpenter there, he said, and he couldn’t say no, especially as he had always wanted to move to Munich. Maria, too, dreamed of one day leaving Schnaitheim. To go out into a big city, a “world city” like Munich—that would be something. Ultimately, however, she lacked the courage for
it. She had grown up here in the Swabian Alps; she felt rooted and at home here. She admired Georg for his decisiveness. He was moving to Munich, expanding his horizons.

  For Elser, other thoughts were bound up with Munich. Would the attack succeed? Would it be possible to plant the bomb undetected in one of the columns?

  He was nervous. In the previous days, he had already burned all unnecessary sketches and erased all possible traces in his small workshop. He thought of Munich, of the Bürgerbräu Beer Hall, of November 8 …

  Perhaps those thoughts had upset his stomach? Just as he had begun to pack in boxes everything he thought he needed for the preparation and execution of the deed, he had been overcome by dizziness and his vision had blurred. Shortly thereafter, he had come down with a fever. Not until a day before his departure from Schnaitheim had he finally found time to stow the material in the secret compartments and the double bottom of his wooden suitcase. There were another two boxes containing his tools, which the Saulers would send to him in Munich. Had he forgotten anything? The evening before his departure, he went once again through the list:

  – 250 packets of gunpowder

  – 150 explosive cartridges

  – More than a hundred blasting caps

  – Five clock mechanisms

  – One battery

  – Several hammers, chisels, pliers, drills, and various woodworking tools

  On August 5, the time had finally come. Georg Elser carefully lifted his wooden suitcase onto the luggage rack and placed another suitcase on top of it, containing clothes, linens, and personal items.