The Wednesday morning headlines took Schellenberg off the hook. King Leopold III of Belgium and Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands, having been apprised of the impending German invasion, issued a joint peace appeal. At that afternoon’s short meeting, Best and Stevens were told that everything was on hold pending Hitler’s response to the joint appeal. In any case, Schellenberg said, a move against the Führer by the German opposition was being organized, and the much-talked-about general would definitely be available the next day, November 9. Best and Stevens consented to yet another meeting.

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That night of November 8, Nazi Party “Old Guard” veterans met for their annual get-together at the Bürgerbräukeller, Munich’s most famous beer cellar. Their celebration was to be rudely shattered by Johann Georg Elser, a small, black-haired carpenter who was thoroughly disillusioned with Naziism. Following through on a year-old decision, Elser had stolen black powder pellets, dynamite and gelatin. With them, he constructed a detonation device that relied on redundant clocks, which could be set up to six days in advance. Elser had made more than 30 trips to the beer hall earlier in the year, hiding until closing time so he could work during the night. He bored into one of the main room’s massive wood-veneered brick pillars to form a space large enough to accommodate his homemade bomb. The explosives were inserted on the night of November 1. Five nights later, the clocks went in. Elser made the last of his many nocturnal visits on the 7th for a final check. The following morning, when the building reopened, he left his hiding place and fled through the rear door. Later that morning, he paid 11 marks for a railroad ticket to the Swiss border.

Soon after 8 p.m. that November 8, as a band struck up the “Badenweiler March,” Hitler strode into the Munich beer hall. Cheers from about 3,000 stalwarts greeted him. The Führer took his place at the rostrum directly in front of a swastika-draped pillar, inside of which two clocks ticked unheard. By 9:07, Hitler had finished his speech, which was shorter than the previous year’s, and departed. Most of his audience returned to its beer and carousing. At 9:20, Elser’s infernal device detonated, collapsing the overhead balcony and ceiling. Seven Nazis and a waitress died; more than 60 people were hurt. Hitler had been saved because he had to be in Berlin early the next morning and bad weather had forced him to take a train.

Shortly before the failed assassination attempt, a pair of German customs men at the Swiss frontier were distracted from listening to Hitler’s broadcast speech when they noticed someone trying to sneak across the border. Challenged, Elser raised his hands in surrender. He quickly confessed to planting the bomb, but Hitler refused to believe he could have acted alone.

The Führer raged that the “English Secret Service” was responsible for the beer hall blast. Weren’t the British encouraging German dissidence and insisting on his removal? After talking to Hitler, following the explosion, SS leader Heinrich Himmler phoned Schellenberg in Düsseldorf. He told Schellenberg, “…and this is an order, when you meet the British agents for your conference tomorrow, you are to arrest them immediately and bring them to Germany.” It was a frustrated Schellenberg who notified Naujocks to make arrangements for what came to be known as the Venlo Incident.

Later that same morning in The Hague, Best, Stevens and Klop prepared for another drive across southern Holland. Best, whose dislike of the less-experienced Stevens had been growing, had deep misgivings about the meeting. In fact, he had been suspicious of the entire operation since its inception. Stevens, apparently thrilled to be playing an important role in history, had shrugged off warnings from others, who recalled previous Nazi border violations. Not feeling up to driving both ways, Best contacted a Dutch driver, Jan Lemmens, and asked him to accompany them and take the wheel during the drive back from Venlo.

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