Journal Entries
Ideas for guide entries
Posted Sep 13, 2004
Ergonomics
Half Man Half Biscuit - the band
Kurt Vonnegut, the author
Bi-polar disorder
Chillies
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Latest reply: Sep 13, 2004
Pickles
Posted Sep 7, 2004
I'm currently working on an entry about Pickles - if anyone's interested.
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Latest reply: Sep 7, 2004
Georg Elser: Heroic German Anti-Nazi
Posted Aug 24, 2004
History is written by the victor. It is often forgotten, both in Britain and in Germany, that there were individuals who were prepared to act against Nazi tyranny. This is the story of one of them.
Georg Elser, born Hermaringen, Württemberg in 1903 was a carpenter. He had sympathies with and connections with various socialist and left-wing organistions, but does not appear to havve been a member of any. Acting alone, he carried out an assasination attempt against Hitler on 8th November 1939.
The venue for the attempt was Munich's Bürgerbräukeller, at a celebration the anniversary of the Beer Hall Putsch (9th November 1923). This Beer Hall was a totemic location for the Nazis. It was where the "old comrades" gathered to organise their coup, and the key event of the celebration was to be a speech by Hitler.
Elser began planning his attempt over a year before, and visited the hall for the 1938 celebration. He worked in secret over 30 nights in the hall, using his carpenter's tools to hollow out a pillar near which Hitler would make his speech. Here he planted his bomb, timed to go off during the speech.
In the event, Hitler arrived slightly early, made a shorter speech than expected, and departed early. The bomb blast killed eight of the old comrades, but none of the Nazi leaders, who had left with Hitler.
Elser was arrested (coincidentally, for un-related reasons) en route for Switzerland. He later died in Dachau.
The reasons why Elser's heroic story is not more widely known are worthy of speculation. To some, Hitler's lucky escape demonstrated his "Vorsehung" (fate) and showed he was destined to be lead the Reich, strengthening his popularity and support amongst ordinary Germans. Certainly at the time, Elser was widely seen as a traitor, and this perception carried on even after the war. But perhaps It was also the fact that the assasination had been planned before the outbreak of war and before the implementation of The Final Solution - raising issues about whether one is morally justified in killing a "potentially" evil figure? Or maybe it his left-wing sympathies which also, at the time, gave some retrospective justification to the demonisation of van der Lubbe (who was wrongly accused of the Reichstag arson). Or perhaps it is that, unlike the White Rose students or the November 20th officers, Elser was a working class figure, working to his self-acquired political beliefs, rather than a member of a respectable elite?
Whatever the reasons, I believe that Elser was a heroic figure who deserves to be written back into history.
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Latest reply: Aug 24, 2004
A Prague Student Massacre
Posted Aug 17, 2004
Last year I attended a conference at Masarykova Kolej in the Prague Technical University. In the lobby was a small plaque commemorating a massacre of 30 or so (I think that's right) students who rose up against the Nazis. I couldn't find anything else about it. I don't even know whether it was connected with the Heydrich assasination or part of some other, wider resistance. I asked a (new) Czech friend that evening, but she didn't know either. If you google "Prague student massacre" you get references to "The Massacre of November 17," an incident during the Velvet Revolution in which some students were beaten up and (possibly) one was killed.
On that trip I met a number of young Czechs (and the story of my nights in that bar is an interesting one. Bohemian Bohemians, a Mancunian pornographer and a Russian hit man!). I was surprised to discover how little they knew about the events of '89 and that they didn't realise what a hero their retired president is to many. "Havel na hrad!"
I get the impression that in that part of Europe there were just too many atrocities and historical uphevals to keep up with.
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Latest reply: Aug 17, 2004
Edward the Bonobo - Gone.
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