TODAY IN BERLIN: TOO EARLY TO DIE - VON GERSDORFF'S FOILED PLOT
March 21
On this day in 1943 in Berlin General-Major Rudolf-Christoph Freiherr von Gersdorff made a - sadly failed - attempt to kill Adolf Hitler.
The planned killing was to take place during the celebrations of Heroes Memorial Day at the Zeughaus, today the oldest building on Berlin’s Unter den Linden and the seat of German History Museum. Since1934 Berlin’s Zeughaus served as a stage for propaganda exhibitions and events - this time it was no different.
However, this time von Gersdorff, who was to be Hitler's guide at the Soviet booty exhibition, planned to eliminate him by blowing himself up together with the increasingly deranged leader. He wanted to do so using two small British clam bombs - bombs which did not go off during another assassination attempt a week earlier.
What the Führer was unaware of was the fact that von Gersdorff was a member of an anti-Hitler plot around another high-rank military from a noble family, Henning von Tresckow.
Unfortunately, Hitler - whom Fate seemed to protect in a weird and ironic way (hashtag: Beerkeller) left too soon: the explosives were not ready yet. The British clam bombs, fitted with acid fuse (so no ticking sound was to be heard) needed approximately 10 minutes before they were ready to go off. Hitler left much too soon for that to happen.
Von Gersdorff, who had taken Pervitin (amphetamine) in preparation for the attack and death, had to remove the fuses before they exploded. As if by miracle, he managed. No-one noticed anything. However, the attempt assassination failed.
In April the same year, von Gersdorff was among the Abwehr (counter-intelligence troops) officers who led to revealing of the Soviet massacre of 22,000 Polish officers, doctors, engineers, teachers and priests in Katyn.
A year later Rudolf-Christoph Freiherr von Gersdorff would also be involved in the “July Plot” - again with Henning von Tresckow and with the best-known participant, Claus Graf von Stauffenberg.
Unlike the other two, Rudolph von Gersdorff survived the war but, in a bitterly ironic way considering how many Nazi murderers made career in German post-war polcie and army forces, he was refused a post in the Bundeswehr.
His 1967 riding accident left him paraplegic until death in 1980.
Rudolf Freiherr von Gersdorff was also the grounding father of the Johanniter Unfall-Hilfe, one of the most important German medical emergency services.