An artistic work, entitled 8 November 1939, was formally presented in Munich on October 27 to remember the heroic attempt by Georg Elser on that date to assassinate Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler, an act that cost him his life. Elser's plot--a bomb explosion in a hall where Hitler was giving a speech--is widely considered the most important of the many attempts to stop the Nazi movement.
Georg Elser and the Assassination Attempt
Johann Georg Elser (1903-1945) was a carpenter from the Schwabian Alb, a region in southwest Germany. He was the oldest of six children in a family of modest means.
Elser opposed the National Socialist Party (Nazis) because of its curtailment of religious and political freedoms, and workers' rights. He remained suspicious of Nazi propaganda and was against actions that would plunge Germany into another war.
Elser planned the assassination attempt for over one year and chose to plant a bomb in a hollowed-out pillar behind a podium where Hitler made an annual speech at the Buergerbrauekeller, a large beer hall, in Munich. For weeks beforehand, he secretly remained after closing time and worked on the project.
The bomb detonated, as planned, that evening, killing eight and wounding 63. Hitler, however, had left the beer hall earlier than planned to catch a train to Berlin and missed the attack by 13 minutes.
Elser was captured the same evening as he tried to flee to Switzerland. He was interrogated by the Gestapo, confessed, and was held prisoner in two different concentration camps. On April 9, 1945, Elser was shot at Dachau Concentration Camp near Munich, just weeks before American troops liberated the camp.
The New Artistic Work, 8 November 1939
This permanent memorial was commissioned by the City of Munich's Department of Culture to mark the 70th anniversary of the Buergerbrauekeller assassination attempt. The work is the creation of Frankfurt-based artist Silke Wagner (b. 1968), who was the finalist in the city's competition for best design proposal.
The piece, a three-dimensional neon-lit sculpture that spells out 8 November 1939, is installed on the side of a public elementary school just next to Georg-Elser-Platz, a small public square devoted to the hero. It is located on Tuerkenstrasse in Munich's Schwabing District, on the same street where Elser lived briefly while planning the bomb attack.
The letters and numbers of the memorial sculpture take the stylized form of a bomb detonation. According to Silke Wagner, "The work focuses the eye on the essential--the assassination attempt."
Every evening, at exactly 9:20pm (the time of the bomb explosion), the sign lights up in a set rhythm, letter-by-letter. It remains lit only for one minute, and then the work "disappears." The result is an impressive, minimalist memorial that purposefully captures the attention of the viewer and orients it to this one minute in history, which, had it succeeded, could have changed the course of the 20th century.
Other Memorials to Georg Elser
The plaque honoring Georg Elser was installed in 1989 on the site in Munich where the Buergerbrauekeller used to be (the beer hall was torn down in 1979). A bust of Elser was also erected in 2008 near the Interior Ministry in Berlin. There is a plaque remembering him in his hometown of Koenigsbronn in southwest Germany. The German Postal Service issued a stamp honoring Elser in 2003, on the 100th anniversary of his birth.
The City of Munich intends this newest memorial to be a permanent one. It will light up each night, for years to come, as a symbol of a single man's courage to fight against evil.
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