Mental note: The year 2009 has just begun and we have to set a little marker in our minds: this is the year in which we are going to celebrate our favourite terrorist, the honourable Georg Elser.
In this year, on November 8, 2009, it will be 70 years ago that Elser attempted to kill one of the worst screw-ups and criminal minds of our history, Adolf Hitler, with a bomb he had bricked into a stone pillar of a Munich beer hall.
We are all familiar with the unfortunate fact that he was not successful. Hitler left the beer-hall, where he was speaking, only a few minutes before the bomb went off. Hitler survived. Georg Elser was arrested and killed in Dachau in April 1945, only days before the war ended.
The link behind the picture refers to a site dedicated to one of the greatest heroes of his time. Taking on Hitler and accepting the risk of having to face his Gestapo, earns Georg eternal respect in my book. I assume that this is true for many people.
Terrorists and terrorism are a happy topic of discussion in the media nowadays. Amidst this noise, it is good to understand the essentially positive contribution an act of terrorism can bring. I suspect that not many people today would object against assassinating Hitler.
Moral note: not all terrorists are bad or of bad intention. It’s in the political eye of the beholder. The killing of a murderous despot will probably find global approval; even now.
