GERMANY: Himmler's Thriller

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Chapter 6: Sabotage. In Berlin Captain Stevens got busy making confessions. He admitted 15 cases of sabotage on German, Italian, Japanese ships, most of which were actually pulled off by a certain designer of infernal machines named Waldemar Potzsch, a German-born British spy. When Potzsch was arrested in Denmark, Captain Stevens had the job of persuading the Danes to let him go, even though he was found to possess plans of a large German ship.

Chapter 7: Signing Off. The Gestapo agents sent their British friends a final message on the gift set: Communication for any length of time with conceited and silly people is dull. You will understand therefore that we are giving it up. You are hereby heartily greeted by your affectionate "German opposition." THE GERMAN GESTAPO. The British operators answered: Message received. Cheerio. INMAN and WALSH.

Chapter 8: What Guilt!: Questioning of Elser began. "Examinations of him," reported Deutsche Dienst, "take no end of time. He ponders every word before he replies, and if one can observe him, one forgets what a vile animal he is. What guilt. What a horrible burden his conscience apparently is able to bear so lightly!"

When Gestapo agents searched his sister's home in Stuttgart and found pieces of clocks and two chisels with traces of plaster on them which exactly matched the plaster of the Bürgerbräu Keller, Elser decided to confess everything.

"In a manner unique in criminal history," said the officers who examined him, "he had in weeks of painstaking work built a time explosive charge into a column of the Bürgerbräu cellar whose clockwork mechanism was set at six days, or 144 hours.

"The crime first was planned in September and October 1938. In August 1939, the explosive case was built in. Seven days before the demonstration in the Bürgerbräu cellar he built in an explosive charge. Six days previous to the meeting Elser attempted for the first time to introduce the clockwork mechanism into the explosive chamber. He was unsuccessful.

"The fifth night before the event likewise was unfavorable and again the plan had to be postponed. The night from the fourth to third day before Nov. 8, however, gave Elser an opportunity to fix his timing mechanism in the prepared dynamite chamber."

Then he left for Switzerland, dropping his tools in Stuttgart on the way. Being a worrier, however, he went back to Munich and entered the Bürgerbräu Keller (one of the best protected places in the world) several times in the night of the 7th to listen to the ticking.

Chapter 9: Accomplices. Gestapo Officer

Otto Heydrick announced that he had incontrovertible proof that Secret Agents Stevens and Best had been two cogs in the infernal plot—how, perhaps coming in a later volume.

Chapter 10: Economy in Wartime. Since the entire work of detection was done by the Gestapo, the proffered reward of $360,000 was reported withdrawn.

Chapter 11: Threat. Proud of its solution though it was, the Reich was highly dissatisfied with the threatening role the supposedly neutral Netherlands had played in this horrid affair—allowing an alleged chauffeur to be captured and a Dutch Army officer shot dead while apparently assisting British spies. The End.