Maurice Bavaud
Hitler-Attentäter
http://www.cyranos.ch/bavaud-e.htm
Maurice Bavaud was a theology student who tried to shoot Hitler in 1938. For this offence he was beheaded with the Guillotine in Berlin-Plötzensee in 1941.
It began on the 9th November 1938 in Munich, few hours before the great Jew pogrom which was called "Reichskristallnacht" by the Nazis. Hitler marched at the top of his regime in the direction of "Feldherrnhalle". Among the audience was also the 22 years old theology student Maurice Bavaus from Neuenburg/Switzerland. Equiped with a pistol, which he hid in his coat pocket, he waited on the VIP lounge near the "Heiliggeistkirche". When Hitler marched past him he tried to draw his pistol but was hampered by bystanders, who reached out their arms for the "Hitlergruss".
The action would have been condemned to fail anyway because the distance from Hitler was to big in order to fire a deadly shot. After this failed plan Bavaud observed the steps of Adolf Hitler in the next few days. But he wasn't able to get through to him close enough.
Finally Bavaud got on a train to Paris but was arrested during the trip because he didn't possess a ticket. The police found together with a pistol a strange letter of recommendation and therefore they handed over Bavaud to the Gestapo. The Gestapo assumed that Bavaud wasn't a single offender but guessed that there had to be a circle of conspirators.
At this time Hitler was looking for a pretext in order to take tougher action against the Catholic church. This was probably the reason that the hearings lastet more than 30 months.
Under torture Bavaud made contradictory statements, among others he gave to understand that Marcel Gerbohay - a study colleague of St. Ilan - had been the client. However at court he gave evidence that it was his only decision to perpetrate an assassination against Hitler.
Bavaud's family described Maurice - who was a admirer of Gandhi - as a calm, level-headed pacifist, searching, well-readed and iintelligent. A dreamer und loner who informed himself during his search of orientation in the right as well as in the left political spectrum.
When they asked Maurice Bavaud for his motive, he answered that he takes the personality of the German Führer as a threat for the mankind and the independence of Switzerland. A further central motive was the suppression of the Catholic organisation in Germany.
From the files follow that the Swiss envoy in Berlin at that time, Hans Frölicher, didn't have any interests to plead for the release of Bavaud. He condemned Bavaud's trial as detesting. Also the Berner government decided to sacrifice Bavaud to the reason of state.
In 1955, fourteen years after Bavaud's execution, he was once more sentenced to 10 years in prison during an appeal process which was demanded from Switzerland in post-war Germany. Obviously the life of Adolf Hitler appeared still to be protectable and Bavaud's act was to look at as criminal. This judgment was picked up in 1956 during a second appeal and Maurice Bavaud's family got a compensation of 40'000 marks.
In 1998 the case Maurice Bavaud became again to a Swiss political issue. It was a question of whitewashing the name of Bavaud at least and to rehabilitate him officially. Finally the Bundesrat made up his mind for the following statement:
"Switzerland, included by name the legation in Berlin, didn't exert itself sufficiently during World War II for the Hitler assassin Maurice Bavaud und protected their responsability insufficient. "
A half-hearted excuse which hardly describes the fact, that the government had abandoned Maurice Bavaud completely.
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....there are tragicomic efforts like Maurice Bavaud's. He thought he was going to succeed using a .25 pocket pistol, which even Bavaud knew was only accurate enough with this gun to kill Hitler if he could get with 25 feet of his target! Unfortunately, Hitler walked down the wrong side of the street in Munich in commemoration of the Beer Hall Putsch.
http://www.claytoncramer.com/targeth.html
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Site for the possible assassination attempts:
http://www.skalman.nu/third-reich/po...assination.htm
