A Lot of People Tried to Kill Hitler
Guardian Devil
In researching the July 20, 1944 plot to assassinate Hitler, I discovered that there were many different assassination attempts against him starting as early as 1932. Hitler was quoted as saying “I might be killed by a criminal, or by an idiot, at any time.”
In his book, “Killing Hitler” Roger Moorhouse states: “As chancellor, Hitler became heir to a surprisingly violent tradition of assassination plots. The famous nineteenth-century chancellor Otto von Bismarck had escaped two such attempts, and the volatile years after World War One had seen a spate of political murders, culminating in the assassination of the foreign minister, Walther Rathenau in Berlin in the summer of 1922.
Hitler’s security was handled by the Schutzstaffel (SS) or “Protection Squad”. SS applicants were strictly vetted and discipline was tight. The soldiers in this unit were to be efficient, resourceful, trustworthy, and above all “blindly devoted” to Adolf Hitler. Their motto was “my honor is loyalty”.
In early 1932 Hitler and several members of his staff fell ill after dining at the Kaiserhof hotel in Berlin. A few weeks later a poisoned letter was sent to him from a member of the Bavarian State Parliament, but it was intercepted.
Several military and civilian plots in 1934 and 1935 were stopped in the planning stages by the Gestapo. On October 5, 1939, members of the Polish army hid 500kg of TNT in a ditch along the route of Hitler’s victory parade. However, the parade route was diverted at the last minute and the sappers never got their chance.
Moorhouse surmises: “On one hand, Hitler was obsessed with his own mortality. He viewed himself as the “man of destiny,” the man to lead Germany out of slavery. Yet his fragile constitution caused him to believe that his time was short. By 1936 he was complaining of a catalog of ailments, including tinnitus, migraines, insomnia, eczema, stomach cramps, flatulence, and bleeding gums.
In addition to all of that, Hitler was preoccupied with the idea that he might fall victim to an assassin. He took an extraordinary interest in security measures and demanded that they be constantly updated and intensified.
Pistol, stabbing, or poison were not good options for the assassination attempt. All visiting officers were required to remove their belts and weapons. It was widely believed that Hitler not only wore a bulletproof vest but sported a service cap reinforced with steel. Poisoning too was out of the question, all al Hitler’s food was specially prepared by his own cooks and was tasted for him by his personal physician, Dr. Morrell. The weapon of choice, therefore, was usually, the time bomb.
In November of 1939, a German carpenter placed a timed bomb at the Burgerbraukeller in Munich where Hitler would commemorate his Beer Hall Putsch. Hitler left the hall early, the bomb detonated on time, missing him but killing eight and wounding sixty-two.
In his book, “Killing Hitler”, Moorhouse details one plot that should have worked. Colonel Henning von Tesckow, a member of Field Marshal Fedor von Bock’s staff, told a colleague, “The assassination must be attempted at all costs. What matters now is no longer the practical purpose of the coup, but to prove to the world and for the records of history that the men of the resistance movement dared to take the decisive step. Compared to this objective, nothing else is of consequence.”
On March 13, 1943, Tesckow smuggled explosives disguised as a case with two brandy bottles onto Hitler’s plane. The plane took off and the conspirators waited for news of an accident. After months of planning and testing different explosives and fuses, their parcel did not explode. Hitler’s plane had landed safely.
The fuse worked, the firing pins struck, the percussion cap evidently ignited. Still, the bomb did not detonate, perhaps because the explosive, carried in the plane's hold, was sensitive to cold.
Tresckow was able to retrieve the unopened package by exchanging it for two real bottles and the plot was not discovered. According to Moorhouse, one of the conspirators quipped Hitler had a “guardian devil.”
A week later on March 21, another plot came minutes away from success. Moorhouse again details the conspiracy. “Rudolf-Christoph von Gersdoff had been detailed as host during the exhibition of captured Soviet weaponry in Berlin. Since it would be impossible to plant a bomb under the dais or in the lectern, he realized he would have to become the world’s first suicide bomber.
Gersdoff states, “At this point, it became clear to me that an attack was only possible if I were to carry the explosives about my person, and blow myself up as close to Hitler as possible.”
Hitler was supposed to tour for 30 minutes so Gersdorff set a ten-minute fuse. He began gamely providing information on the numerous items on display and attempting to engage Hitler’s interest. As he pointed out the exhibits, he stayed as close as possible to Hitler’s side, concerned that the explosives might detonate at any moment. However, he quickly realized that Hitler wasn’t listening and was distracted. Gersdorff tried once again to interest the Fuhrer in one of the exhibits--one of the Napoleanic standards raised from a river bed--but in vain.
“Instead,” he recalled “Hitler went, or rather ran, out of the side door. During his short tour of the exhibition, he had barely looked at anything and had not said a word.” The planned thirty-minute tour lasted a mere two minutes. Gersdorff stopped the fuse and composed himself at a nearby club.
