Of all the brave souls that stood up against Hitler, perhaps the most famous is the man who got nearest to assassinating him. Bavarian-born aristocrat and Wehrmacht colonel Claus von Stauffenberg – who was unconvincingly portrayed by Tom Cruise in the 2009 film Valkyrie – led the conspiracy to kill the Führer and overthrow the Nazi regime on 20 July 1944. His briefcase bomb claimed the lives of four officers and injured dozens of others, but left Hitler with only a perforated eardrum – not to mention a burning fury that raged until the plotters were tracked down, rounded up and put to death by firing squad.

Five years earlier, a less well-known and certainly less distinguished man came just as close to taking out Hitler and the Nazi top brass. In early November 1939, a carpenter called Georg Elser concealed explosives in a pillar in Munich’s Bürgerbräukeller, near to the platform where Hitler was due to give a speech to mark the anniversary of his attempted putsch in 1923. On the day in question, 8 November, Elser’s best-laid plans failed. Hitler unexpectedly cut short his address to his audience at 21:07 and left the building. Elser’s bomb detonated 13 minutes later, killing a number of Nazi ‘Old Fighters’. He was arrested that same evening while trying to escape to Switzerland. Unlike Stauffenberg’s summary execution, Elser suffered a drawn-out punishment. He was held in solitary confinement in Sachsenhausen concentration camp for five years and later transferred to Dachau, where he was murdered on 9 April 1945, just weeks before the end of the war.

Any effort to keep Elser’s memory alive is a commendable one. The German Resistance Memorial Centre in Berlin deserves credit for placing Elser in the spotlight over the next couple of months. Downstairs in its courtyard a plaque marks the spot where Stauffenberg and his co-conspirators were executed; upstairs on its first floor is a new exhibition which chronicles Elser’s short life and brave act. Although consisting mostly of photographs and documents, its skilful curation fleshes out its subject and makes for an informative and moving experience.

The first sections of the exhibition cover Elser’s early years in Königsbronn, Baden-Württemberg. Photographs bear testament to a hardscrabble upbringing. We see his shabbily dressed timber merchant father – one of 18 children – with his cart and horses; his beleaguered mother with her hands full looking after Georg, barefoot in the dirt, and his five siblings outside the family home. A happy and healthy young man poses in pictures from the 1920s and 30s: Elser looking dapper with his dancing class or enjoying the sun on a hiking excursion with friends or demonstrating his talents with musical instruments. Pleasingly absent are photos revealing any commitment to the Nazi regime. Elser rejected National Socialism from the outset and made his feelings clear by avoiding marches and rallies, ignoring party speeches and refusing to give the Hitler salute.

Sections on the Beer Hall Putsch and the Munich Conference give broader political context but sideline Elser. He comes back into view by way of some remarkable exhibits – excerpts from the record of his interrogation by the Gestapo in Berlin 1939. In them, we learn that Elser realised in late 1938 that ‘a war is unavoidable’ and so decided to ‘remove the current leadership’. The invasion of Poland the following year strengthened his resolve to take action and prevent ‘even greater bloodshed’.

A number of riveting sections are devoted to Elser’s preparations. On display are maps, various views of the Bürgerbräukeller and a selection of photos of the reconstructed bomb and its intricate mechanisms. Elser’s plans involved stealing explosives from his job at a quarry, testing out detonators in his parents’ orchard, designing a device he could set to explode two days in advance, and devising a getaway route to Switzerland. After failing to obtain work at the beer hall, Elser resorted to a more drastic measure: between August and November 1939, he hid in the building before it closed and, once locked in, worked through the night installing his home-made bomb in the designated pillar.

Sections on the aftermath of the assassination attempt catalogue both the scope of the bomb’s destruction and the reaction to it. Photos show a scene of devastation that left eight people dead and more than 60 injured. Where Hitler’s lectern once stood is a mound of rubble a metre high. Along with bureaucratic reports from the Munich police president and the Reich Security main office are feverish news reports, all churned out by Joseph Goebbels’ propaganda machine. The front page of the Nazi newspaper the Völkischer Beobachter identifies Elser as the perpetrator but then goes into great outlandish detail about how he was a ‘tool’ of the British secret service. Despite Elser confessing to the contrary, the Nazi leadership could not believe that he had worked alone.

Another report, this one from a customs officer, describes how Elser was arrested in Constance while attempting to cross the border illegally. The contents of his pockets sealed his fate: he was carrying with him a postcard of the Bürgerbräukeller, notes on munitions production and parts of his detonator.

As a result of the Nazis’ Sippenhaft decrees, which stated that a criminal’s family should share the responsibility for the crime, Elser’s close relatives were also arrested and repeatedly interrogated. Profiles of key members outline their terrifying ordeals. Elser’s sister Marie suffered heavily: she and her husband lost their jobs, their liberty and their son, who was put into a children’s home. Even the quarry owner from whom Elser stole explosives was incarcerated in a concentration camp for a year.

Elser’s reversal of fortune is charted through some sobering displays. Photos of him in custody make for grim viewing: in one he is gaunt; in another he has clear signs of torture around his left eye. There is one photograph which the Nazis widely published with the caption ‘The most evil criminal of the century’. Elser’s fingerprint sheet singles him out as a guilty man; his mugshot with shaved head and striped concentration camp uniform is that of a man marked for death. One blurred document comes into sharp focus when we discover it is an order for Elser’s murder from Gestapo chief Heinrich Müller to the commandant of Dachau. Elser was 42 when he was shot dead. Even with the war all but lost, the Nazi leadership would not tolerate their most dangerous opponents living on, speaking out, and influencing the future. Elser was not declared dead until 1950. An official letter to Marie, dated one year later, rejects her claim for compensation for her brother’s imprisonment.

The exhibition could have ended on this sombre note. Instead, its closing section is an uplifting overview of the posthumous honours Elser has received, from statues to street names to a memorial centre in Königsbronn. The most striking is a 17-metre-high sculpture depicting the silhouette of his face by the artist Ulrich Klages, which stands proud in Berlin and is illuminated in the dark.

Yet beyond his native Germany and outside of academic circles, Elser remains relatively unknown. At the time he was also hugely unappreciated. The British trivialised his audacious act: one commentator revealed that the reaction in London was ‘summed up in a calm British “Bad luck”, as though someone had missed a pheasant.’ Many believed other disillusioned Germans would pop up and try again. Aside from Stauffenberg’s later effort, Elser’s attempt was the only incident that threatened Hitler’s life. Had the dictator stuck around in the beer hall for another 13 minutes then the 20th century might have run a different course and Georg Elser would feature more prominently in history books. With luck, this fine exhibition will help spread the word about who he was and what he undertook to secure peace.

Georg Elser and the Assassination Attempt of November 8, 1939 is at the German Resistance Memorial Centre, Berlin until 28 January 2025.