On This Day…..

Hitler Assassination Attempt…..

November 8, 1939…..

A bomb explodes shortly after Adolf Hitler leaves from giving a speech. The speech was his yearly speech given on the anniversary of his abortive 1923 Beer Hall PutschGeorg Elser had built a bomb with a 144-hour timer. He then spent several weeks secretly hollowing out a cavity in a stone pillar behind the speaker’s platform where he knew Hitler planned on giving his speech. After installing the bomb, he set it to explode at 9:20 p.m., which would be halfway through Hitler’s planned speech. However, due to a forecast of fog preventing him from flying back in the morning, Hitler moved his speech from 8:30 p.m. to 8 p.m. and shortened it from 2 hours to about one hour so that he could catch a train. He finished the speech and left the building eight minutes before the bomb went off. Eight people were killed and over 60 others were injured, but Hitler was unharmed. Elser was captured that night and spent the next five years in Nazi concentration camps, where he was executed less than a month before Germany surrendered.