Adolf Hitler Escapes Attempted Assassination by Anti-Nazis
On November 8, 1939, a bomb exploded just after Nazi leader Adolf Hitler finished giving a speech in celebration of Beer Hall Putsch's 16th birthday
which marked the failed coup attempt of Hitler and the NSDAP against the Weimar Republic.
Miraculously, the fascist dictator was not injured in the slightest in the incident
Hitler had made an annual ritual on the anniversary of his famous 1923 coup attempt, (Hitler's first seizure of power that ended in his arrest and the destruction of the National Socialist Party NSDAP), by converting his followers according to his vision of the future of the country.
On November 8, 1939, Hitler spoke with members of Nazi Germany's Old Guard party, students and soldiers loyal to Hitler and his fascist party from its early days.
Just 12 minutes after Hitler left the hall, along with important Nazi leaders accompanying him, a bomb exploded, which was ejected on a pillar behind the speaker platform. Seven people were killed and 63 injured.
The next day, the official Nazi Party newspaper, Voelkischer Beobachter, frankly blamed the British secret service, even accusing Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain of being the mastermind.
This propaganda work was an attempt to arouse the hatred of Nazi Germany's sympathizers towards Britain and turn the German people into a frenzy for war.
But members of the Nazi Party knew better they knew the assassination attempt was most likely the result of an anti-Nazi German Weimar Republic military conspiracy.
In a clever scheme to divert accusations, while trying to get close to the real conspirators, Heinrich Himmler, head of the Gestapo, sent his subordinate, Walter Schellenberg, to the Netherlands to make contact with British intelligence agents.
The reason for the meeting was to get assurances from Britain that in the event of an anti-Nazi coup, Britain would support the new regime.
British agents were eager to get whatever information they could about the anti-Hitler movement that was rumored to be growing within the German military.
Meanwhile, Walter Schellenberg, disguised as "Major Schaemmel" also pursued the information received by British intelligence regarding a conspiracy within the ranks of the German military.
But Himmler wanted more than dialogue, he wanted the British agents themselves.
So on November 9, German SS soldiers in the Netherlands were kidnapped. With Schellenberg's help, two British agents, Payne Best and RH Stevens, loaded the two SS soldiers into a Buick and brought them across the border into Germany.
Himmler is now proud to announce to the German public that he has arrested the British conspirators. The man who actually planted the bombs at their behest was revealed to be Georg Elser, a German communist who made a living as a carpenter.
While it seems certain that Elser planted the bomb, it remains unclear who instigated it, whether it was the anti-Nazi German military or British intelligence.
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