214. Goring had continued in the first weeks of the war to put out unofficial feelers through Dahlerus towards a possible settlement with Britain (Irving, Goring, 274–8). The British Foreign Office was dismissive and, on 19 October, diplomatically told Dahlerus to bring the contact to an end (Diaries of Sir Alexander Cadogan, 223–6).
215. Halder KTB, i.105 (14 October 1939).
216. Müller, Heer, 480 and n.59; Weizsäcker, Erinnerungen, 269–70.
217. Müller, Heer, 480.
218. Müller, Heer, 481.
219. Müller, Heer, 485.
220. Müller, Heer, 485–6.
221. Hoffmann, Widerstand, 167–8; Müller, Heer, 516–17 (with doubts about whether later conspiracy details were not intermingled with the plans of 1939 in the post-war account of this document). For the Abwehr group see Deutsch, 81ff.
222. Müller, Heer, 490–96.
223. Deutsch, 16–17.
224. Hoffmann, Widerstand, 166; Müller, Heer, 500–501.
225. Hoffmann, Widerstand, 172–3; Müller, Heer, 502, 507–8. On Halder’s ambivalent opposition in autumn 1939, see also Hartmann, Halder, 162–72; Ueberschär, Halder, 35–45.
226. Hoffmann, Widerstand, 173–4.
227. Müller, Heer, 518–20.
228. Deutsch, 226–9; Müller, Heer, 520–21; Hoffmann, Widerstand, 177; Halder KTB, i. 120 (5 November 1939); IMG, xx.628; Groscurth, 224 (5 November 1939); Keitel, 225; Warlimont, 58; Below, 213; Engel, 66–7.
229. Halder KTB, i. 120 (5 November 1939); trans. Halder Diary, 78.
230. Hoffmann, Widerstand, 178.
231. Groscurth, 225, 305 (5 November 1939).
232. Hoffmann, Widerstand, 178.
233. Groscurth, 226, 306 (7 November 1939).
234. Hoffmann, Widerstand, 178–80,182–3; Müller, Heer, 524–46; Gisevius, Bis zum bittern Ende, 1946 edn, 120–22.
235. The number of postponements is given in Hauner, Hitler, 147.,
236. Groscurth, 227 (9 November 1939); Gisevius, To the Bitter End, 393–4 (where Gisevius states that he initially thought Himmler was behind the assassination attempt, and comments that Helldorf, the Berlin Police Chief, knew no more than what he had seen in the newspapers); Hoffmann, Widerstand, 181. Gisevius (396–411) eventually came to the realization that it was the work of a single man.
237. Zoller, 181.
238. TBJG, I/7, 188 (9 November 1939).
239. TBJG, I/7, 197 (17 November 1939), 201 (19 November 1939).
240. Lothar Gruchmann (ed.), Autobiographie eines Attentäters. Johann Georg Elser. Aussage zum Sprengstoffanschlag im Bürgerbräukeller, München, am 8. November 1939, Stuttgart, 1970, 13–14; Hoffmann, Widerstand, 181.
241. Most early accounts of the attempt (with the exception of that of Gisevius) took it for granted that Elser had been the ‘front-man’ for a plot. (See, e.g., Bullock, Hitler, 566–7, where it is stated that the attempt was organized by the Gestapo). That Elser had planned and carried out the attempt alone was first convincingly demonstrated by Anton Hoch, ‘Das Attentat auf Hitler im Münchener Bürgerbräukeller 1939’, VfZ, 17 (1969), 383–413. The article presented an accurate description of Elser’s background and motivation, as well as his preparation of the bomb-attack, testing the veracity of Elser’s own statement to the police (printed in Gruchmann, Elser, on which the following account rests).
242. Gruchmann, Elser, 27. He had been born in 1903 in Hermaringen (Württemberg).
243. Gruchmann, Elser, 9, 20–22, 76–8, 80–84, 146, 165, n.64.
244. Gruchmann, Elser, 84–101, 104–6, 121–4, 131, 146–53.
245. Gruchmann, Elser, 9; Domarus, 1404.
246. Domarus, 1405.
247. Domarus, 1405–14; see TBJG, I/7, 187–8 (9 November 1939).
248. Gruchmann, Elser, 9; Domarus, 1414–15. Hitler had travelled to Munich by air, but a return flight could not be guaranteed to leave on time because of weather conditions.
249. Domarus, 1414–15; Gruchmann, Elser, 8–9.
250. Zoller, 181; Below, 214.
251. Der VölkischeBeobachter (=VB), 10 November 1939 (‘Die wunderbareErrettungdesFührers’).
252. Gruchmann, Elser, 9–10.
253. Gruchmann, Elser, 7–8, 13ff., 18–20.
254. Mason, Arbeiterklasse, 961ff., 10 50ff., 1196, 1205.
255. Mason, Arbeiterklasse, 1086ff., 1183ff., 1233–4.
256. Kershaw, Popular Opinion, 298–301.
257. See Kershaw, ‘Hitler Myth,’ 144–5.
258. Friedrich Percyval Reck-Malleczewen, Tagebuch eines Verzweifelten, Frankfurt am Main, 1971, 68.
259. MadR, iii.499. And see HM and n.88.
260. DBS, vi.1024–5 (2 December 1939).
