Bombing Hitler by Hellmut G. Haasis Page B

that’s not how it was.” Hitler expressed interest in Elser’s character and habits; he wanted to know everything about him. The interrogation with Hitler lasted until around 8:00 p.m., without a meal break. At the end Hitler started playing tough, threatening her, saying that he wanted to talk to her again, that she was still hiding something from him. She made reference to the friendlier tone used by Himmler, saying also that he had believed her.
    A few days later, Elsa Härlen was interrogated by Martin Bormann, again in the Reich Chancellery. Bormann too was pleasant, she stated. Hitler and Himmler had anticipated that the hot-and-cold treatment of terror and luxurious comfort, punishing interrogations and friendly attention by top-level Nazi officials, would so confuse the little people from the Ostalb that they would say whatever was required of them. But the elaborate undertaking in Berlin was a failure—not a single detail was revealed that was not already known. Above all, Elser could not in any consistent way be forced to dream up foreign agents of some kind nor to implicate others whom he had intentionally excluded from his plans.
    On November 28, all those from Königsbronn except for Maria and Karl Hirth were released, but first they had to execute the customary agreement to maintain absolute silence. As they were returning home unaccompanied, the Elsers did not speak a word to Elsa Härlen. She had never been considered one of them. As a divorced woman, she had always been rejected, thereby once again making Georg Elser’s isolation within the family clear. Once they were back at home, the interro-gations started again in earnest and went on for six months—over and over the same humiliating trip to the Gestapo, over and over the same mindless questions that had already been answered dozens of times. The Elsers, with their country ways and lack of education, looked far brighter than the vaunted Gestapo. At least at the Stuttgart Gestapo, the conclusion was finally reached that Georg Elser had acted alone.
    Maria Hirth and her husband were not released from Gestapo custody in Berlin and allowed to return home until February 20, 1940. For a long time afterward, both remained out of work—no one wanted to employ family members of the assassin. Then after her nervous breakdown, Maria was not able to work at all for some time.

    1 The reference in this mocking remark by Härlen is not clear, possibly a popular clown figure or cartoon character.

VIII
Confession and Interrogation
    I N THE GESTAPO cellar during the night of November 13 or early morning of November 14, 1939, Elser concluded that there was no way to escape the interrogations, which were becoming increasingly coercive and brutal. The mistreatment had taken a heavy toll on a body severely weakened by months of working at night. Even the Kripo was not able to protect Elser from the torture ordered by Himmler, despite the fact that Kripo chief Nebe had reportedly ordered that the violence be stopped. Nebe’s word carried weight only in the absence of Himmler and Gestapo Müller.
    Elser’s explanations for his three-month stay in Munich and the attempted border crossing were gradually falling apart. In Munich, he claimed, he had intended to take a course and then go work abroad as a skilled craftsman; but he couldn’t give a description of the course. He also indicated that he wanted to go abroad in order to “get out of paying support for a child born out of wedlock.” But the contents of his pockets pointed to work in espionage and explosives. In addition, Elser was recognized by more and more employees of the Bürger-bräukeller, including the former errand boy, whose job he tried to get in exchange for a payment of some fifty marks—easily more than a week’s salary for a skilled worker. And then he was recognized by the man who sold him the insulation plate that had been found in the