The title of the film is drawn from the fact that Elser's bomb detonated in a venue that Hitler had left just 13 minutes before.

[4] In November 1939, after planting a home-made bomb inside a column of a Munich Bierkeller, Georg Elser attempts to cross into neutral Switzerland but is caught at the border.

When Else is brought before Elser, he fears for her life and tells Kripo police chief Arthur Nebe and Gestapo head Heinrich Müller that he acted alone, procuring detonators from a steel factory and stealing dynamite from a nearby quarry.

The site's critical consensus reads, "13 Minutes explores an oft-neglected corner of World War II history with just enough craft and narrative momentum to offset a disappointing lack of subtlety.

[6] However, the entertainment magazine Variety was less impressed, saying "... the absence of subtlety combined with predictable dollops of sentimentalism once again trivialize events in the name of making them understandable".