2. Kurt Luttner and the Luttner Group
Kurt Luttner was a carpenter by trade, a communist by political persuasion, and rabid-anti Nazi and Adolf Hitler by temperament. As the Nazis gained seats in the Reichstag, the German parliamentary house, Hitler gained power as the unchallenged leader of the party. Luttner and his group of like-minded anti-Nazis were dismayed at the increasing power of the Nazis, and of the Nazi SA with which the communists clashed on the streets of German cities. The group devised several different plans to kill Hitler and other senior Nazi party officials, determined to prevent the party from achieving a majority in the Reichstag, though Hitler had been elected Chancellor, or head of the government, while President Hindenburg remained head of state. Their plots were continuously foiled by one incident or another, such as changes in Hitler’s schedule.
March 5, 1933, Reichstag elections looked as if the Nazis, while not receiving a clear majority in the parliamentary body, would achieve a plurality sufficient to give them the power to form a coalition government at the expense of the communists. Hitler was scheduled to give a speech the day preceding the election in a last attempt to obtain as many votes as possible. Luttner planned to attend, bomb, and if necessary shoot Hitler as he was delivering the speech. Unfortunately for Luttner, the preceding activities of his group had drawn the attention of the German authorities and one of the Luttner group was arrested in late February. During interrogation, the plot was exposed and Luttner and the remaining members of the group were quickly rounded up. They vanished into the concentration camp at Dachau.