Georg Elser

Elser was a carpenter and clockmaker from Württemberg with no party and no organisation behind him. He concluded in 1938 that war was coming and that only killing Hitler would stop it, and he set out to do it by himself. He took a job in a quarry to obtain explosives, studied the Munich beer hall where Hitler spoke every November, and for over thirty nights let himself in after closing, hollowed out a pillar behind the speaker's platform, and carried the dust away in his pockets. He built the timer from clock parts.

The bomb went off on 8 November 1939 exactly as set, destroying the pillar and the gallery above it and killing eight people. Hitler had left thirteen minutes early because fog had grounded his aircraft and he had to catch a train. Elser was arrested that night at the Swiss border with a postcard of the hall and parts of a fuse in his pockets. The Gestapo refused for years to believe one man had done it and held him alive, expecting a show trial that never happened. He was shot at Dachau on 9 April 1945, three weeks before the camp was liberated.