THE BEER-CELLAR BOMB
By WILHELM NECKER
ripHE Nazis have fired the Reichstag." That was the 1 universal conviction in Germany on the very day after the conflagration. It may be said today that there is still clearer and more decisive evidence for the conclusion that the Nazis also planned and carried through the attempt on the Fiihrer at Munich. Any judge who had the ascertained facts of the case put before him would be compelled to order - the arrest of a multitude of people as being heavily suspect, and the first place in this list would be occupied by Himmler, the supreme police chief of Nazi Germany. However, we may be well assured that no judge would ever risk even ordering an investigation into the attempt. It would mean his death. For a man who sacrifices his own friends will certainly not stick at a judge.
Hitler's speech was directed against England and against England alone. It announced the beginning of the real war—reckless war. That is the only way of winning left to the Nazis—if indeed any way is left. But it would be difficult to make the world and the German people under- stand that this reckless war must be waged against a single enemy who has so far not launched a single bomb on Germany. So England must be dragged recklessly into the war in any way possible. The first reaction to the outrage was therefore the announcement, " England is the guilty party," and a little later, " the clues lead abroad." That was proclaimed even before the first investigations had been set on foot, before a spade had been lifted towards the clearance of the debris.
The second piece of evidence consists of the contra- dictions in the announcements of the Nazis themselves. The outrage must clearly have been prepared beforehand. The bomb must have been placed in the attic over Hitler's platform. But how can an attack on Hitler have been prepared in advance, and that from abroad, when no one even knew that Hitler was intending to speak? On the very day itself it had been announced that the only speaker was to be Herr Hess, a very secondary figure. He is not even the first, but only the second, man after Hitler. An attack on him would only have provoked a new persecution and slaughter of the opposition, without effecting anything of importance. But Hitler himself appeared quite un- expectedly. There was therefore no possibility of calcu- lating how- long he would speak and consequently when the bomb must go off. Yet the Nazis declare that the bomb had been placed there after the arrangements had been made for a speech by. Hitler. But bombs in such a case are deposited not at the last possible moment but at the most favourable. That would be in the middle of the speech. But the Nazis needed to have the bomb explode after the end of the speech, if only a few good party men of secondary importance were to be destroyed. How could it be known that the bomb was in fact deposited at that particular moment? Perhaps they actually found the clock. That was in fact actually announced before the clearing-squad had begun its work. To find a clock intact after such an explosion must have been an unheard of, hardly credible, piece of luck. They got it, indeed, before the debris had been touched.
It became known at once that the bomb had been deposited in an attic over the Fiihrer's platform. It seems astonishing that not one of the vigilance men in the Gestapo was arrested for his negligence. It is still more astonishing that in an eye-witness's account, which was given from the spot by radio on the night of the Thursday-Friday, this attic had already disappeared. There was definitely no attic. The eye-witness recounted that the explosion had taken place above the gallery. That means in the very place where the most trusted S.S. men, the most reliable members of the Gestapo, regularly sit. No one else dares penetrate to such a spot, from which the life of the Riker could so easily be threatened. Every corner of it must have been under com- plete supervision.
The eye-witness on the spot recounted that great T-shapcd iron girders, which supported the pillars and the ceiling, were bent and twisted. The eye-witness himself was hurled a yard and more away. It must therefore have been a large and powerful bomb. But who was in a position to smuggle such an explosive in? Obviously no one. It could only have been placed there quite officially by the Nazis themselves.
The fact that there was no attic, that the bomb exploded in the gallery in the midst of the places where the Nazis sit excludes completely the possibility of the Opposition being responsible. The Getman Opposition, so far as they exercise influence, fully realises that Hitler and his system are not to be destroyed by bombs. They have always refrained from outrages. Quite apart from the fact that they could not know that Hitler was to speak, and therefore could not have deposited the bomb, they would never even have wanted to. Hitlerism can only be destroyed by the action of the German people, whether that comes solely from within or is achieved by means of a war.
There is only one theory which fits the facts. If the bomb, as the eye-witness affirmed in his first declaration on the microphone, exploded in the gallery, it must have been placed among the Nazis and among the most true- blue Nazis. They always sit in the front rows. The exits of the gallery are at the back ; the Nazis are therefore the last to go out. There is, therefore, no one in a position to see what they leave behind. Thcy could fix the fuse entirely unobserved and then disappear. But quite probably they did not disappear. They very likely knew what there was so close to them. They had only to raise a lever at a given moment and wait. Only their death was necessary, for all evidences to disappear. That corresponds not only to the precedent of the Reichstag fire, after which all accomplices were murdered, but also to the fact that immediately after the disaster it was possible to publish the names of two of the dead. Their names were known even before the work of clearing the debris had begun. All the rest of the names were only known at the funeral. Nothing was said as to where these two were found. There was complete silence, in fact, over external details, so far as they could not be serviceable to the authors of the deed. It is impossible to evade the overwhelming suspicion that, just as the Reichstag fire was attributed to the foreigner Van der Lubbe, this time, as the occasion demanded, two of the most trustworthy of the " Old Guard " were pre- destined to die. They were predestined just as the " foreign criminals " were arranged beforehand.
The fact is made still more remarkable by the latest announcements of the Gestapo. The outrage, it appears, must have been planned as long ago as the middle of August. A suspicious person is said to have penetrated to the gallery of the beer-cellar. Now it is very unusual for police, especially for the German Gestapo, to announce such far- reaching suspicions on the basis of such vague data. If a suspicious person had been seen there in August he would have been immediately arrested, for in Germany any man who arouses the faintest suspicion is arrested promptly. It is plain in fact that the whole crime was an elaborate fake. The next, and probably most serious, piece of evidence is the fact that numerous arrests have been made throughout the whole of Germany indiscriminately. If the culprits are foreigners, why must Jews, Democrats, Social-Democrats and Monarchists be arrested? Would they have helped the foreigners? Possibly, but certainly not all those groups at once, certainly not to this extent and certainly not all over Germany. So far-flung a planning of the outrage would have been senseless, and would manifestly have been dis- covered in the interval between August and November. And why should preparations be made over the whole of Germany, when the bomb was to explode in Munich? Nothing of this hangs together ; it has all been improvised anyhow to serve several purposes. Apparently there have been arrests in the ranks of the Gestapo themselves, but they have been not within the ranks of the men detailed to watch the beer-cellar, but once more, scattered over all Germany. If anyone is responsible, it must surely be Herr Himmler's department, which is charged with guarding the Fiihrer wherever he is, and which assuredly has ample ex- perience in the conduct of searches.
As for the real causes of the outrage, in the first place the police wanted a pretext for dealing with the growing opposi- tion in Germany, and at the same time raising Hitler's diminishing prestige. Now he is shown to be manifestly " under Higher protection." Secondly a means must be found to show the people the vileness of English methods of waging war. France, thus, will be roused against England, which by this deed gives the signal for the outbreak of the real war just beginning. These are the only explanations that explain.
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