Bombing Hitler: The Story of the Man Who Almost Assassinated the Fuhrer

Georg Elser was just an ordinary working-class citizen living in Munich, Germany. He was employed as a carpenter and had spent some time working in a watch factory. That all changed when he took it upon himself, without telling his family or friends, to single-handedly attempt to assassinate the most powerful man in all of Germany: the Führer, Adolph Hitler.

Elser’s plan was centered on the Munich Beer Hall, where he knew Hitler would be making a speech. Working slowly and in secret, he started to assemble the bomb that he would use to try to kill Hitler. When finished, the bomb was hidden in a hollowed-out space near the speaker’s podium.

The bomb went off successfully, killing eight people . . . but Hitler was not one of them.

Bombing Hitler is an incredible tale that takes you back to 1939, and recreates the steps that led Elser from the Munich Beer Hall, to his attempted escape across the Swiss border, and sadly, to the concentration camp where his heroic life ended. Hear for the first time the epic and tragic story of a man who stood up for what he knew was right, opposed the most powerful man in Germany, and came close to single-handedly ending the war.

"Originally published in Germany in 2001, Haasis's English-language debut is a brief, well-told history of Georg Elser, the woodworker who singlehandedly orchestrated the failed assassination of Hitler in 1939. It begins with the November 8 explosion at the BÃ‛¼rgerbrÃ‛¤ukeller beer hall in Munich, which killed eight, but just missed Hitler — the fÃ‛¼hrer had left the premises a mere 13 minutes before the blast. Elser, however, was not so lucky: shortly before the bomb went off, the would-be assassin was arrested by suspicious border guards as he tried to cross into Switzerland. Haasis uses transcripts of the Gestapo's interrogations of Elser and his friends and family to describe his upbringing and work history, his political views and motivation, the planning of the attack, and his subsequent torture, imprisonment, and murder by Nazis at the Dachau concentration camp just weeks before it was liberated. Ideologically resolute, prescient in his wariness of Hitler, and committed to preventing the bloodshed of war, Elser emerges as a thwarted hero of the early resistance, and Haasis's engaging history is a testament to the individual's potential to change the course of history. Photos. Tanja Howarth Literary Agency. (Feb.)" Publishers Weekly Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

A ticking time-bomb set to blow right under Hitler’s nose . . . will the plan work?

Hellmut G. Haasis was born in 1942 in the town of Mühlacker in southwestern Germany. His studies included theology, history, sociology and political science. He is the author of Joseph Süß Oppenheimer, genannt Jud Süß: Finanzier, Freidenker, Justizopfer and of Tod in Prag: Das Attentat auf Reinhard Heydrich. He has also published short stories, poems, dramas, and radio plays, as well as a novel in Swabian dialect. He is the recipient of the Thaddäus Troll prize, the Schubart prize, and the Civis prize.William Odom studied at the Freie Üniversität Berlin, entering the university in 1961 as construction on the Wall was beginning. He holds a Ph.D. in German from Tulane University. He is the author of German for Singers and translator of JAZZ: A Photo History by Joachim-Ernst Berendt, Hörspiel: A Collection of Contemporary German Radio Plays, and Tomorrow We'll Be in Switzerland: Saving the Children of La Hille by Klaus Ihlau. He has been a professor of German for over forty years.