On 8 November 1939, a bomb went off in Munich’s Bürgerbräukeller. It was supposed to kill Adolf Hitler while he was giving a speech. If the plan had worked, the Second World War and the whole of world history would have taken a different course. But the ‘Führer’ left the room early and survived. This book tells the story of the man who planned and carried out the deed completely alone: Johann Georg Elser.

The carpenter Georg Elser realised more quickly than most Germans that Hitler’s regime meant war and ruin. Therefore he decided to assassinate Hitler. He designed a bomb with a detonator (and his design was more technically accomplished than those of the officers in the military resistance) and hid it, unnoticed, in a pillar inside the Bürgerbräukeller. Today, Elser is almost as famous as Hans and Sophie Scholl and Count von Stauffenberg, the hero of the 20 July Plot. But until now, little was known about him as a person. This meticulously researched biography portrays the carpenter from Königsbronn in his social, historical and personal context. In this knowledgeable biography, Wolfgang Benz pays long-overdue tribute to a simple working-class man who understood the criminal nature of the Nazi regime and was determined to resist it, no matter what the consequences.

* The first major biography based on historical sources

* ‘Through my deed, I wanted to prevent even greater bloodshed.’ - Johann Georg Elser

*A long-overdue tribute

*World history would have taken a different course if Hitler had not survived the attack