over to the Gestapo and interrogated separately. Elser alone was tortured, and savagely so. He was beaten to a pulp and, on Hitler’s orders, was heavily injected with Pervertin, a stimulant then believed to be a truth serum. The top leadership of the SS and Gestapo were involved. Dr Albrecht Böhme, then in charge of Munich Kripo, the Criminal Police, described a scene he witnessed:
I happened to became witness to a brutal scene that was played out, in the presence of Nebe [Arthur Nebe, Chief of Kripo, and later also an anti-Hitler conspirator] and me, between SS Reichsfϋhrer and Chief of German Police Heinrich Himmler and the prisoner Georg Elser. Elser was bound up, and Himmler was kicking him hard with his boots and cursing wildly. Then he had a Gestapo operative unknown to me drag him into the adjoining washroom of the Munich Gestapo chief and beat him there with a whip or (I couldn’t see) some similar instrument, so that he cried out in pain. Then he was bundled, quick time, before Himmler and kicked again. But Elser, who was groaning and bleeding profusely from his mouth and nose, made no confession; he would not have been physically able to, even if he wanted to.10
From an early stage Elser confessed to the bombing, but insisted that he acted alone. He was tortured to make him identify his supposed accomplices, and to connect him to Stevens and Payne Best. Another suspected accomplice, the mastermind in Hitler’s mind, was the hated Otto Strasser, a former Nazi who had formed a leftist fascist break-away, the ‘Black Front’. Strasser was based in Switzerland at that time and it was assumed that Elser was attempting to join him there when he was arrested. Strasser, like Payne Best and Stevens, had no prior knowledge of the assassination attempt. Hitler, though, continued to believe Strasser was involved and later tasked Schellenberg with poisoning him in Lisbon, but the SS man failed to locate him. Strasser survived the war.
Elser was quite prepared to relate all the details of his workings, but he was not going to invent collaborators. Apart from truthfulness, he was proud of his work. He didn’t hide his motives; he hated Hitler, whom he deemed a warmonger and responsible for his brother’s imprisonment. The Gestapo decided to test his ability. They demanded that he replicate the time bomb after providing him with the necessary materials. He readily assembled the clock mechanism wiring, detonators and housing cabinet. This astonished his interrogators, who came to accept that he acted alone. 11 But matters had gone too far for this to be admitted. German newspapers had headlined the capture of the British agents and declared them complicit in the plot to kill Hitler. The event became world news. It was a propaganda triumph for the Nazis. There was no possibility that Stevens and Payne Best, now notoriously linked to Elser, could be exonerated. Payne Best and Stevens faced the prospect of a show trial with a predetermined outcome; their extinction. But Hitler was in no hurry; it was best left until the end of the war, when victory was secured. Then it could be demonstrated to the people of a conquered Britain that their own government was to blame for their misfortune. The event, though, had a more immediate benefit for Hitler: he later used the involvement of the unfortunate Klop as a pretext for the invasion of the Netherlands.
Sachsenhausen Prison Section, 1940–3
After weeks of interrogation in Berlin, Stevens and Payne Best were taken to the prison section of Sachsenhausen concentration camp, known as the Zellenbau (‘bunker’). The prison section was used to house prisoners under interrogation for political ‘crimes’, with execution frequently being the final stage of the process. Elser was later brought there also. They were each held in isolation cells with no natural light, permanently handcuffed, manacled to the wall at night, with SS guards continually in attendance. These discomforts were mild, though, when compared to what others suffered. Prisoners in punishment cells were regularly tortured. From the compound outside, they often heard the cries of prisoners who had been suspended on a pole, their wrists tied behind their backs and connected to a high hook so that their toes were just off the ground. Left in this position, their shoulder ligaments would tear and their joint would dislocate, causing excruciating pain.12 It soon became evident that Payne Best and Stevens were receiving comparatively favourable treatment as, over time, their conditions improved. Their shackles were removed, their food rations were adequate and they were allowed to take daily exercise. Facilitated by his fluent German, Payne Best managed to establish cordial relations with most of his guards, and from some he managed to secure cigarettes. Stevens fared less well in this regard and, according to Payne Best, he became depressed.13
Elser, recovering from his earlier torture, also began to enjoy improved conditions. He was allocated a large cell, was supplied with adequate amounts of food (although he ate little), and was provided with materials and tools to make items of furniture and musical instruments. This favourable treatment astonished the SS guards and irritated the more Hitler-adoring of them. It didn’t make sense to them that the Führer’s would-be assassin should enjoy such privileges. Then, a rumour circulated that Elser was merely a stooge of the SS; the bomb had been a Nazi plot to gain sympathy and support for Hitler and Elser was just a bit player and fall guy. Although Elser was strictly isolated, and it was forbidden for other prisoners to have any contact with him, this rumour spread among guards and prisoners in the bunker. Payne Best certainly believed it.
In his book, The Venlo Incident, Payne Best, although admitting that he never met him, claimed that Elser managed to smuggle a series of notes to him in which he gave an account of his life and his involvement in the Bürgerbräkeller plot. He says Elser told him that he had been detained in Dachau as an ‘anti-social’ before the war and, while there, he was induced by the SS to undertake a mission. The supposed scheme was to plant a bomb that would only be detonated after Hitler left and which was designed to kill some anti-Hitler plotters. According to the story Payne Best related, Elser was promised that he would be allowed to escape to Switzerland after the bomb went off, a promise that was reneged on. His comfortable billet in Sachsenhausen was less than adequate compensation. This story, and Payne Best’s description of how he learned about it from Elser, is implausible. There is no factual evidence for the assertion that Elser was detained in Dachau as an ‘anti-social’. And why would Elser lie about being complicit in a Nazi conspiracy? And if he was working for the SS, why would they torture him? How or why would he scribe his life story to a man he had never met and, given the ever-present SS guard, manage to smuggle out succeeding missives? Payne Best claims the writing was in indelible ink; how would Elser have obtained the necessary chemicals? It is likely Payne Best heard the story from the guards, with whom he was on friendly terms. The part about Elser smuggling material to him had to be invented, possibly to enhance his book’s narrative and to obscure his actual source. It is now widely accepted that Elser acted entirely alone, but at the time Payne Best was writing his book there were a number of speculative stories portraying Elser as a stooge – Payne Best may have been influenced by these accounts. Payne Best’s The Venlo Incident is the source for much of what has been written about the Prominenten. The lesson is to treat his accounts with caution.
Payne Best was detained for five years, the latter years in relative comfort. He recounts that he was visited by Himmler on one occasion during a tour of the camp in June 1942. It is plausible that Himmler would want to meet the Englishman, especially as he had been intimately involved in his case and Elser’s. Less plausible is Payne Best’s claim that he infuriated Himmler by refuting his suggestion that that British stories of German atrocities were false; Payne Best alleges that he told the Reichführer that their actions were even worse than stated.14 If he was so audacious, he didn’t suffer any consequences. He was soon put on double rations, permitted to purchase alcohol from the SS canteen, had his own electric cooker, was supplied with a typewriter and even had a small library in his cell. Following their occupation of the Netherlands, the Germans went to the trouble of retrieving his wardrobe – which included a number of tailored suits – from the Hague. In addition, he obtained a wireless set which allowed him to listen to the BBC. He could exercise outside for an hour or two daily and he grew vegetables and flowers on a patch of ground.
It began to seem that the SS were attending to his needs, more in the manner of dutiful servants than as guards. Adjacent to scenes of mass murder and barbarity, where prisoners suffered from hunger, torture, sickness and exhaustion, Payne Best was allowed to live the life of a cosseted tenant. He was not
