Joachim Fest - Plotting Hitler's Death

There was no disputing that, for whatever reason, neither the government quarter nor the radio stations had been brought under the conspirators’ control; nor were there even any battle-ready units standing by. Apparently Witzleben made no attempt to seize the ini­tiative and save the situation. He had come, it seemed, solely in order to take command of the Wehrmacht from the conspirators. Stauf­fenberg and Schwerin stood by “like marble pillars.” After three-quarters of an hour, a red-faced Witzleben burst from the room, stalked through the throng of officers waiting outside, descended the stairs, and drove off. And, as if these events were of no relevance to him, he returned to Zossen and coldly announced to General Wagner, “We’re going home.” 17

Only Stauffenberg still appeared unwilling to admit that the coup was doomed. After Witzleben’s departure he hurried back to his telephones, shouting out encouragement with a fervor born of desperation. Even he must have sensed, however, the growing coolness and distance on all sides. At about this point, Fromm discovered that a side door to Bartram’s office had been left unguarded, and he suc­ceeded with his aide’s help in contacting the branch heads of the reserve army and ordering countermeasures. Increasingly convinced that the coup was doomed, some of the branch heads went to see Olbricht and demanded to know what was happening. Told that the Führer was dead, one of them, General Karl-Wilhelm Specht, replied that the radio was reporting just the opposite. He had sworn an oath of loyally to Hitler, Specht said, and could not act on the basis of mere rumors of the Führer’s death. All the other heads supported Specht’s decision. Two hours earlier Olbricht would simply have placed them all under arrest, as he had Fromm and Kortzfleisch. Now, though, they were quietly allowed to depart.

Outside headquarters, other officers who had gone along with the conspirators were beginning to switch sides as well. At 9:00 p.m. Kleist returned from the city commandant’s headquarters and re­ported that the guard battalion had defected. General Hase had been to see Goebbels and, after a short discussion, accepted his invitation to dinner. This tête-à-tête with the minister had soon been inter­rupted, however, by the arrival of the Gestapo, who carted Hase away. Fromm, still under guard at Bendlerstrasse, asked Hoepner if he could be moved to his private apartment, one floor above where he was being held. He would do nothing, he promised, to hurt the cause of the conspirators. Hoepner agreed, perhaps simply as a courtesy to an old army comrade but more likely because he had long since abandoned hope and was trying to curry favor with someone who might intercede on his behalf.

Everywhere there were signs that the Nazis were regaining the upper hand. When Gisevius called on Helldorf and Nebe and learned that Himmler was flying back to Berlin, he, like them, became con­vinced that the coup had failed. At army headquarters, Colonel Glaesemer, the commander of the armored unit from Krampnitz that had taken up position in the Tiergarten in the early evening-who had been placed under arrest by Olbricht for refusing to carry out orders once the tide began to turn-now simply stood up and walked out. Similarly, Mertz attempted to arrest Lieutenant Colonel Rudolf Schlee of the guard battalion, who, under orders from Remer, was trying to withdraw the sentries from in front of army headquarters. But Schlee escaped easily and soon returned at the head of a detach­ment to begin countermeasures. Having surrounded army headquar­ters, Schlee stationed guards with machine guns at every entrance and locked away in the porter’s room all those who attempted to oppose him. Even the valiant Mertz gave up, telling Schulenburg that the “cause is lost.” 18

Earlier Olbricht had called a meeting of those officers on his staff who had not been informed about the conspiracy: Franz Herber, Karl Pridun, Bolko von der Heyde, Fritz Harnack, and Herbert Fliessbach. Although they had all come to realize during the course of the afternoon that they were being swept up in a coup, they had contin­ued to carry out their orders correctly, if unenthusiastically. Perhaps it was a mistake for Olbricht not to have taken them into his confi­dence earlier. In any case, they now displayed the kind of resentment felt by those who have been ignored, a class of people that has more than once been the undoing of tottering regimes. Moreover, these officers were understandably reluctant to be invited onto a sinking ship. When Olbricht withheld information that they demanded to know, evaded their questions, and then ordered them to take over the defense of the building and stand guard, they decided to confer with one another in Heyde’s office. Meanwhile, some distance away, in Mertz’s office, Gerstenmaier was suggesting that the conspirators should ready their weapons. But Yorck objected, saying that if it came down to a direct confrontation, Goring could simply bomb army headquarters to oblivion.

While the officers in Heyde’s office were discussing why they were defending army headquarters and against whom, the weapons Olbricht had promised arrived. Taking pistols, submachine guns, and grenades in hand, they decided to go see Olbricht once again and get some answers. They set off down the hall with a great clatter, sweep­ing the officers they found along the way into Olbricht’s office. Herber demanded, “Herr General, are you for or against the Führer?” When Olbricht failed to reply, Herber insisted on seeing Fromm. Olbricht referred him instead to Hoepner.

At this moment Stauffenberg entered the room. Pridun and some other members of the group attempted to grab him, but he managed to pull free and escape through the adjoining suite of rooms to Mertz’s office. As he tried to reenter the hall, shots suddenly rang out. No one could later say who fired first. Stauffenberg had managed to load his revolver by using the three fingers of his remaining hand and clamping the stump of his other arm against his hip. He got off a shot at Pridun, but then he himself was hit in the upper left arm and dodged back into the office, leaving a trail of blood.

The shooting slopped as abruptly as it had started. While Olbricht, Herber, and the others set off to find Hoepner, Stauffenberg remained behind and asked one of the secretaries to contact Paris. He still clung to the dim hope that Stülpnagel, Hofacker, and possibly Kluge had finally made their move and that even now the troops were rolling in from the west. All day he had worn his black eye patch, but now he took it off, as if in a gesture of capitulation. The connection with Paris was never established.

In the meantime, Herber and his group were joined by others at Bendlerstrasse who had been waiting to see how events would unfold and who now emerged from hiding places all over army headquarters and headed for Hoepner’s office. Everyone passing through the corri­dors was confronted at gunpoint with the question “Are you for or against the Führer?” It was shortly after 11:00 p.m. Fully aware of the authority with which he had suddenly been invested, Herber loudly demanded of Hoepner, “What game are you trying to play?” and insisted on speaking with Fromm himself. Hoepner replied that the general was in his private apartment. And while one member of the group set out to get Fromm, the others began to disarm all the con­spirators they could find in the offices and hallways.

Within minutes General Fromm appeared, strutting at the head of a retinue of armed supporters. For a moment he halted in the office doorway, obviously savoring the scene before him. Olbricht was standing at the map table with Stauffenberg beside him, Beck sat in the foreground at a small table, and Mertz, Haeften, and Hoepner stood off to the side. Taking a few steps into the office, Fromm remarked, “So, gentlemen, now it’s my turn to do to you what you did lo me this afternoon.” 19