In contrast to the conspirators of the 20 July 1944 assassination attempt on Hitler, Elser was barely acknowledged in the official commemorative culture of the Federal Republic of Germany until the 1990s. A breakthrough to a positive way of looking at Elser came with the publication of a biography by Hellmut G. Haasis in 1999 followed by an expanded and revised edition in 2009. Since 2001, every two years the Georg-Elser Prize is awarded for courage, and on the occasion of Elser's 100th Birthday in January 2003, Deutsche Post issued a special stamp.