13 Minutes
Georg Elser came within 13 minutes of having a great story, one worth deluxe cinematic treatment. He also came close to becoming a hero and preserving the lives of 50 million people. Instead, he killed eight people — eight of the wrong people — and accomplished nothing. Not only that, but his movie isn’t so good, either.
Elser, the subject of the German drama “13 Minutes,” was a carpenter and cabinet maker who, in November 1939 — with World War II barely under way — planted a time bomb under the podium where Adolf Hitler was set to speak. The event, in Munich, was a commemoration of the unsuccessful Beer Hall putsch, in which the Nazis tried to overthrow the government in 1923. Usually, Hitler spoke for two hours. Usually after an hour he hadn’t even started screaming yet. But this time he spoke for one hour only and, leaving his jackals wanting more, he said goodbye and took off. Thirteen minutes later, the place blew up.
So this is fairly interesting history, not as interesting as we’d like it to be, but interesting all the same. But in terms of drama, the Elser story has some problems. First, he failed. Second, he acted alone, so there was no conspiracy. The movie pretty much begins with the explosion and then alternates between moving forward and flashing back. Going forward, the rest of the story isn’t much, just a poor guy getting questioned and sometimes tortured. Going backward, it’s hardly better. Elser was just a normal artisan and laborer who hated what Hitler was doing and understood that Hitler would lead the country to disaster.
That this man in particular did what he did is surprising and even something of a mystery. Somehow, he learned how to build an elaborate bomb and then had the nerve to plant it. He wasn’t like other bombers and assassins. He was quiet, but not weird quiet, and he wasn’t the usual loner. He had political opinions, but he didn’t seem driven by ideology, just the conviction, or rather the insight, that Hitler was a monster. What’s surprising is that Elser felt it was his own personal responsibility to do something about it.
The movie tries to find some interest in Elser’s personal life, which was troubled. He was in love with a married woman, Elsa (Katharina Schuttler), whose husband was a lunatic and beat her mercilessly. Elser wanted her to leave him, but his salary had declined so dramatically under the Nazi economy that he had no way to support her. The Elser-Elsa romance is almost too pathetic and sad to be involving, and anyway, the notion of blowing up Hitler has a way of upstaging everything.
Christian Friedel, as Elser, has unruly anarchist hair and a look of innocent certainty that is very much from another century. His is a good performance, to be sure, but Elser’s story is a World War II sidelight and feels like it.
This is fairly interesting history, not as interesting as we’d like it to be, but interesting all the same.