Comments on: One Man Against Tyranny

By: Jeremy Gray

Jeremy Gray — Tue, 20 Sep 2011 14:13:19 +0000

With the benefit of hindsight, Elser’s ‘silver bullet’ would have arguably saved 60 million lives. Today, who would quibble with that ‘act of terrorism’? But at the time, in late 1938, the extent of the Nazis’ crimes against humanity was not yet apparent and Hitler still enjoyed credibility with key national leaders such as Chamberlain.

Labels are so important: did the French resistance engage in illegal ‘terrorism’ to eject the Nazis in WWII? And if so, was the justification that their country was in a state of war under the siege of a foreign power, unlike Germany in Elser’s example?

At the time, there was no international criminal court. In another case of ‘what if’, on what basis would such a court have found that Elser committed an act of murder or terrorism – or a heroic deed?

By: Robert

Robert — Sun, 18 Sep 2011 02:30:51 +0000

Fascinating article, although I grinned when it was questioned whether this act of “terrorism” was justified. That word, “terrorism” would not have been used to describe what happened had the article been written, I dunno, 11 or more years ago. But alas, even the Smithsonian has to help keep the rabble in line.

By: CRAIG

CRAIG — Tue, 30 Aug 2011 13:45:54 +0000

It’s a far stretch of the imagination to put this guy on a stamp for killing 8 of the wrong people, injuring 63 and destroying a bar.

By: Jason

Jason — Sat, 27 Aug 2011 21:56:59 +0000

The world would have been a different place if the United States would not have entered World War 1. If we would have stayed out of that conflict than Germany would have never had the Weimar Republic and Nazism probably would have never happened. A victorious Germany in World War 1 would have been a much better alternative to what happened…

By: The Wobbly Guy

The Wobbly Guy — Fri, 26 Aug 2011 17:35:15 +0000

Elser must have known he would be killing some of Hitler’s supporters – he probably thought it a net gain.

The most scary thing about the comments was the one where it was claimed that Elser was NOT a terrorist.

“Targeting a political elite or miltary figures may be assasinations, but they aren’t terrorism.”

Well, I would respectfully disagree with a single name: Breivik.

I would say what Elser did is terrorism. I would also say it was a justified terrorism. Nothing wrong with terrorising evil…

By: Eric M

Eric M — Fri, 26 Aug 2011 13:38:21 +0000

From what I read of the Wannsee conference its pretty unlikely that the Holocaust would have racked up 6 million without the special leadership of Hitler.

Hell- without the invasion of Russia the Germans wouldn’t have even gotten their hands on most of the European Jews.

This assassination would have been good all around- well except for the Poles and the Czechs- but even they would have fared a whole lot better under Army rule than hard core Nazis.

By: John Brown

John Brown — Fri, 26 Aug 2011 07:16:06 +0000

All of the speculations made in the comments are plausible, but, looking at the event from a 1939-point of view, a successful killing of Hitler almost certainly would have prevented the existing sitzkrieg from becoming the great cataclysm of world war. None of Hitler’s henchmen had the same charisma or sense of destiny that he did, and none of his generals at that time had any intention of fighting the Soviets while France and Britain were still unconquered; in fact, the generals didn’t even have a plan for defeating France (they actually opposed the von Manstein Ardennes offensive, the one which broke the back of the French), and would likely have been happy with simply retaining what Hitler had taken. Also, with Hitler dead, his henchmen would likely have engaged in a violent struggle for the right to succeed him, which would have hindered the whole Nazi war effort. (For their part, the Western Allies would have been more inclined to offer a compromise peace, and any German leader would have been more inclined to accept it.)
In any event, people have to take actions with the information available to them, and Elser’s information was that Hitler was leading the continent into a great catastrophe. He got that right.
Finally, I disagree that this was an act of terrorism.
Terrorism is usually not a means to an end but the end itself; the intent is to terrify people by some apparently senseless act of murder (usually of victims having no access to any political power) and by doing so hold power over them. Elser’s act was designed to kill the leader of an army of aggression, and the means was well calculated to achieve that goal. Would his act have been any different from Britain’s killing of Heydrich or America’s shootdown of Yamamoto? (In Heydrich’s case, the British-Czech forces knew beforehand that his killing would lead to massive reprisals against civilians, “collateral damage” if you will.)

By: sean

sean — Fri, 26 Aug 2011 01:40:48 +0000

Tblakely:

I dunno. It seems to me if Hitler is killed this night? Almost no matter who survives among the leadership, Goering, Goebbels, Himmler etc that the Army leadership, a far more conservative group, becomes far more important in decisionmaking. It seems to me one can make a pretty good case that the top Nazi’s end up battling one another until they are dead or of decreasing influence and the Army prevents or delays the attacks upon France and/or Russia.

It isn’t clear to me that Hitler’s death at this point doesn’t mark the end of German aggression, at least externally. It may well not have stopped much of the Holocaust across Poland however.

By: Missed it by that much | Pithy Title Goes Here

Missed it by *that* much | Pithy Title Goes Here — Thu, 25 Aug 2011 22:44:28 +0000

[...] Smithsonian Magazine has an interesting piece up about Georg Elser, the man who almost single-handed killed Hitler in the early days of World War [...]

By: PersonFromPorlock

PersonFromPorlock — Thu, 25 Aug 2011 22:09:01 +0000

@Okie

In that case, Hamburg becomes the new Hiroshima. Development of the atomic bomb overshadows everything else.