Abstract

On the evening of November 8, 1939, a bomb exploded in Munich’s Bürgerbräukeller [Citizens’ Beer Hall] during a celebration marking the 16th anniversary of Hitler's Beer Hall Putsch. Several people were killed or injured. Hitler himself was not hurt. He had left the event a few minutes earlier than planned. The bomb had been outfitted with a timer and installed behind the speaker's lectern in a pillar that perpetrator Georg Elsner had spent weeks hollowing out. Elsner had been linked to a few Communist organizations in the 1920s, but was acting alone in this instance. By assassinating Hitler, he hoped not only to kill one man but to destroy the entire Nazi regime, a dictatorship he had strongly opposed for years on political and moral grounds. Elsner was arrested that very same evening and put into "protective custody." He was shot to death in Dachau on April 9, 1945. By then, Hitler had survived a series of assassination attempts, mainly by individuals acting independently. Nazi propaganda exploited these attempts by presenting them as evidence of Hitler's enjoyment of divine protection.

The Destroyed Beer Hall after the Assassination Attempt on Hitler (November 9, 1939)

Source

Source: View of the destroyed Bürgerbräukeller after Georg Elser’s assassination attempt on Adolf Hitler on November 8, 1939. Unknown photographer.
bpk-Bildagentur, image number 30010395. For rights inquiries, please contact Art Resource at requests@artres.com (North America) or bpk-Bildagentur at kontakt@bpk-bildagentur.de (for all other countries).

© bpk