by David Fraser
‘I shall speak to you, tell you what’s happening all the time. You’re my only authorized link with OKH. And you know whom to tell what in OKH.’
‘I do.’
‘We shall send signals to the Military Districts direct from Home Army. You’ve heard Rommel’s been wounded?’ It was a statement. All Germany knew that the wiry, tough Field Marshal Erwin Rommel had been hit by an enemy air attack in France two days before.
‘Was he –?’
‘Ready to serve, yes. A late sympathizer, but helpful. He doesn’t know our plans, but he would have reacted after the event as we wish. It’s a pity he was hit. And we know that they’ve moved to arrest Goerdeler, but he’s gone into hiding. Of course others – Leber and others – were arrested earlier this month.’
They were only names to Becker. Whether names like this would command the confidence of the hard-bitten, suffering landser at the fronts he was unsure. Frido took his arm, eyes shining in the moonlight.
‘Until tomorrow!’
They parted with a handshake, Becker extending his left, his only arm and holding the other tightly. Frido sat all night by the window of the room he had rented in the southern suburbs of Berlin. No Allied bombers disturbed the German capital that night. It was hot and sultry. At five o’clock he washed, shaved, put on a clean uniform and set out on a bicycle towards the Government quarter. His artificial limb impeded his bicycling now as little as it slowed his walking, and he covered the distance in excellent time.
The Headquarters of Home Army was in the Armed Forces Building in the Bendlerstrasse. Frido shared his office with two colleagues on the Staff, a captain and a lieutenant. Neither had become intimate friends of his, with neither had he ever discussed anything more serious than their shared professional concerns, and neither was privy to the great enterprise which had kept him sitting awake and restless all night. But neither, he was sure, was a zealous National Socialist. They were intelligent, painstaking officers with good records at the Front in both cases. One, Koller, had been wounded in the Caucasus and the other, Hoffmann, was suffering still from stomach disorders acquired in North Africa. He did not think, when the moment came, they would be particularly inquisitive or obstructive. But he could not trust them.
The room itself was at the top of the building, reached by a large, old-fashioned staircase with heavy mahogany banisters. It was a wide, high-ceilinged room, excessively cold in winter. In the heat of July it was pleasant. Frido reached it early that Thursday morning. This would arouse no comment. He was known as a hard worker, had a great deal of paper to sift, proposals to analyse on the organization and equipment of the planned new divisions of Home Army. He had frequently needed to be at his desk half the night, unless driven to the shelters by the fearful sounds and sights of Allied bombardment. Frido had already arranged that this day would be dominated by discussions in other parts of the building about one of his particular responsibilities: discussions, for the most part with his section chief, one of the conspirators. His frequent absences from his own desk would be regarded as normal when he sped off.
‘To the Major – again! It’s these charts, we’ll never get them finally approved!’
If he were summoned more often than usual it would be unsurprising.
‘Arzfeld! The Major wants to see you urgently!’ and he would be able, minute by minute and hour by hour, to maintain contact, to know what was going on during this, the day of German liberation.
‘Dann bricht der Tag,’ he hummed from the Horst Wessel Lied ‘Der Deutschen Freiheit an!’ ‘But a very different Freiheit,’ he prayed. ‘God be with us!’
Surprised to hear the austere and conservative von Arzfeld hum so much as a stave of the Party song, one of his companions, Hoffmann, looked at him and was struck, as he said afterwards, ‘by the air of nervous excitement Captain von Arzfeld had that morning’.
Frido arrived at the Bendlerstrasse and climbed to the top floor at half past six. At five past seven he received his first summons. The Major, his direct superior in both the army and the conspiracy, looked at him levelly.
‘He’s taken off. From Rangsdorf. The General’s not going. He’s taken off! He’s airborne!’
Later, Frido was able to recall every moment of that extraordinary day, to sort it into tabular form in his mind, to settle the sequence of events over which his mind travelled restlessly again and again. And from others he gradually came to piece together the story of what befell 350 miles away in East Prussia, as well as elsewhere in Berlin.
Rastenburg
At a quarter past ten in the morning of Thursday, 20th July, Colonel Freiherr Schenk von Stauffenberg arrived by light aircraft at the airstrip at Rastenburg, accompanied by one adjutant. He ordered the pilot to be ready to take off on the return journey at any time after midday. He was due to attend a conference at one o’clock with the Führer and a number of other dignitaries including Field Marshal Keitel, Chief of the Armed Forces High Command, Oberkommando der Wehrmacht – OKW. The conference might always be advanced in time, and in fact he soon learned that it had been brought forward to half past twelve.
Stauffenberg drove through two heavily guarded barriers. Rastenburg was protected by a double cordon of perimeter fences and sentries. The headquarters itself, the ‘Wolf’s Lair’, was still being strengthened and further fortified. It consisted of a large number of separate compounds of huts and concrete bunkers. Wooden huts were being reinforced by concrete facing. Stauffenberg was familiar with the place. He sought the Chief of OKW Communications, General Fellgiebel.
Berlin. Midday.
‘He’s seen Fellgiebel. Fellgiebel will get word to us when it’s done. Then he’ll block communications into and out of Rastenburg.’
‘The conference has been brought forward from one o’clock to twelve-thirty. Mussolini arrives at two-thirty at Rastenburg.’
‘But there’s no question, Herr Major, that he –?’
‘None at all, I understand. He’ll be there. Not in his own conference bunker but in a temporary room he’s using while the Todt people work on the protection and the defences. He’ll be there in half an hour from now. You’d better find some pretext to report to me, Arzfeld, at about a quarter to one.’
Rastenburg. 12.35.
The temporary conference room was thirty-five feet long, wooden walls inside a concrete casing, ten windows and a massive central table. It was a hot day and the windows were all open. The participants began to file in.
Set back from the passage running from the visitors’ assembly hut to the conference room was a telephone exchange, several telephones on which conference participants could take or make urgent calls, and a Feldwebel in charge. Stauffenberg, dark-haired, of striking good looks, was walking immediately behind the tall, burly figure of Field Marshal Keitel. He paused for a moment at the telephone exchange.
‘Colonel von Stauffenberg,’ he said loudly to the Feldwebel, ‘I’m expecting an urgent call from Berlin – information I need for my presentation to the Führer.’
The man clicked to attention in acknowledgement. Keitel turned his head and nodded a salutation. Stauffenberg looked at his watch. It was 12.36. The conference was starting a few minutes late: they had only just received the summons that the Führer was ready. One minute earlier Stauffenberg had put his hand inside a bulky briefcase he was carrying. He had lost one hand in the fighting in Tunisia but was agile at manipulating his artificial limb. He had held the briefcase in the crook of one arm and inserted the other hand. With it he had broken a small capsule.
At 12.37 Stauffenberg took his place at the conference table. Four places to his left was Hitler. He placed his briefcase against the left side of the table leg beside him. The opening presentation of the conference began.
‘I’ve got to take an urgent telephone call,’ Stauffenberg whispered to Colonel Brandt, his neighbour at the table and an acquaintance of long standing. Brandt nodded. Stauffenberg looked again at his watch. 12.40. He slipped from his place
and unobtrusively left the room. Brandt shifted uncomfortably on his feet. In doing so he knocked over Stauffenberg’s briefcase, and bent to pick it up again. He glanced round. No sign of Stauffenberg returning. Still on the telephone.
One minute later, at 12.41, Stauffenberg was standing by his car.
Two minutes later again, at 12.43, with a crash like the explosion of a heavy artillery shell, the conference room burst into flame and smoke amid the sound of smashing glass and collapsing girders.
At 12.44 Stauffenberg, with his adjutant, drove up to the first barrier.
‘Colonel von Stauffenberg. Going to the airfield.’
‘I shall need to check with the duty officer, Herr Oberst. There’s been some sort of accident, some emergency.’
Stauffenberg waited. In the duty officer’s room, one to whom Stauffenberg’s name was sympathetically known took the call from the guardroom.
‘Yes, all in order,’ he said crisply. Then he rose and stood looking out of the window. 12.46. Both barrier gates opened, sentries saluting. The airfield was twenty-five minutes’ drive away.
Berlin. 13.15.
‘Becker?’
Frido tried for seven minutes to make his connection. Switchboards were having a difficult day it seemed.
‘Becker, we’ve had word –’
Becker kept his voice non-committal. They had agreed that guarded speech would suffice for security in the urgency of the moment. No telephone could be regarded as safe although some – and some very senior – officers were remarkably slow to take the point. Becker said,
‘Word? Ah – all right, I hope?’
‘Not entirely,’ Frido was less successful at controlling his voice, try as he might. ‘The event took place but not – it appears – with exactly the full consequence planned.’
Fellgiebel’s telephone call to Berlin had come through at one o’clock. He had been cautious and somewhat ambiguous but the conspirators had received the impression that, while the bomb had certainly gone off and Hitler had been injured, his injuries were not known to be fatal. Stauffenberg, Fellgiebel presumed, was flying back. He was certainly nowhere to be seen.
And there were now divisions of opinion in Berlin. Some thought it madness to launch ‘Valkyrie’, to set things afoot in the capital, until they knew for certain that Hitler was dead. But what if he wasn’t? It was unlikely that the explosion of a bomb and the sudden disappearance of Stauffenberg would long remain unconnected.
Dangerous as it might be, another call was put through to Rastenburg. But General Fellgiebel was obeying his instructions to the letter. No communications were possible with the Führer’s headquarters. There seemed to be an inexplicable breakdown. Efforts were being made to deal with it.
Berlin. 15.00.
‘Herr General, there has been remarkable news. The Führer has been killed. There has been a bomb, an assassination at Rastenburg!’
General Fromm looked up at his visitor. Head of the Wehrmachtamt, in the same building in the Bendlerstrasse. General Friedrich Olbricht. They stared at each other, holding each other’s eyes levelly for ten long seconds. It was three o’clock that afternoon.
‘When did you receive this extraordinary report?’
‘A little time ago. We’ve been trying to corroborate but can make no contact with Rastenburg. You’ve heard nothing?’
‘Nothing.’
‘There will be, undoubtedly, special orders, special measures necessary –’
Fromm nodded, still looking at him.
‘We must contact Rastenburg. Somehow.’
‘At present it appears impossible,’ said Olbricht. He sounded, thought Fromm, unsurprised at so protracted and unusual a collapse of communications. Entirely unsurprised.
Berlin. 15.15.
‘Herr General, it’s Rastenburg, the Generalfeldmarschall.’
Fromm held the telephone tight.
‘Fromm here!’
Keitel’s voice was agitated. He sounded shaken. His news, however, was given without equivocation. He asked Fromm whether he had heard any rumours.
‘Rumours, yes. Is the Führer safe?’
‘The Führer, thank God, is entirely safe. There was an attempt to kill us all. Several dead, many injured. It’s been terrible! But by some miracle the Führer, although injured, survived.’
‘He’s not – incapacitated?’
‘On the contrary, it happened just before one o’clock and at one-fifteen he appeared among us all having been patched up, changed his clothes, looking cheerful and composed. He’s truly wonderful, Fromm. We’ve had the Duce here – he’s still here. The Führer’s entirely in control of the situation.’
‘Wonderful!’
‘Now we’ve got to get to the bottom of it – quickly. I raised no objection when Himmler said the Gestapo must have a free hand to question whom they like – Army officers, everybody. One can create no possible obstacle in these circumstances. It’s the least we can do.’
‘Of course.’
‘Has Stauffenberg returned?’
‘No,’ said Fromm carefully. Keitel told him that Stauffenberg was known to have left the conference room before the bomb exploded, ‘So he must arrive with you soon.’ There was a further interruption on the line. Fromm snapped into the telephone that he would undoubtedly wish to speak to Rastenburg again later. He sat back in his chair and considered the tips of his fingers thoughtfully. There was a knock on the door. An adjutant. Four o’clock.
‘Herr General, I thought you would wish to be informed that retired General Beck has just entered the Bendlerstrasse. In civilian clothes.’
‘Has he?’ said Fromm. ‘Has he indeed?’
Rastenburg. 16.05.
‘This is an odd one!’ exclaimed the lieutenant in charge of the monitoring department of the OKW communications division.
A telephone call had been intercepted and recorded from the Wehrmachtamt in Berlin. It was to the effect that Field Marshal von Witzleben had been appointed Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces. The lieutenent looked at the typed record in astonishment.
‘They’re calling each military district with the same message!’
His Captain seized his cap and moved like a sliver of mercury. Within minutes the transcript lay on Keitel’s desk.
‘In the name of God,’ snarled the Field Marshal to his Adjutant, ‘what is happening in Berlin?’ He started to dictate a signal to be telephoned or sent by the fastest possible means to the commander of every military district in the Reich.
Berlin. 16.40.
Stauffenberg burst into the Bendlerstrasse building and went up the stairs, taking them two at a time. The office of General Olbricht was the scene of what looked like a funeral wake. The ageing General Beck, Olbricht himself and several others sat in armchairs in silence. Everybody heaved himself to his feet as Stauffenberg strode through the door. There was a gasp of interrogation and relief.
‘Stauffenberg!’
Berlin. 16.50.
‘Becker?’
‘Becker here, Arzfeld.’
‘Our friend’s back. The signal is going out to all military districts. You know its terms. The first message – about the top man – went out half an hour ago. Please start taking action as agreed. Tell all those on the list at OKH.’
‘It’s going out in spite of the uncertainties, the –’
‘Certainly,’ Frido spoke fast and emphatically. ‘S. – you understand?’
‘Of course.’
‘S. made everything electrically clear as he always does. By now we’ve gone too far to stop. Of course there will be counter-instructions from – from the other place. But if everybody now plays his part here in Berlin the operation can be completed satisfactorily. People will fall into line. We’ve given the local people word to go.’
‘In your General’s name?’
‘In our Field Marshal’s name!’ said Frido. He sounded buoyant once again. Becker thought that this particular conversation would hang them both if th
e dice rolled wrong. He said – ‘You’ve heard, I take it, that there has already been a message to everybody from – from the other place, saying that no orders are to be obeyed unless they emanate from there?’
‘That may be so. But if things go as they should in the next two hours there will be – moral authority – here in Berlin. It will be compulsive. The clock has already struck.’
‘Right,’ said Becker. He put down the telephone and moved towards the door of his office. He felt afraid.
Berlin. 17.00.
Fromm looked at his Chief of Staff.
‘What’s happening. Stauffenberg? When did you get back here? I want a full report –’
‘Herr General, it’s my duty to tell you that you must consider yourself under arrest. A room has been prepared.’
There was a long silence.
‘You are placing your own commander under arrest, Colonel von Stauffenberg?’ said Fromm calmly. ‘Why?’
‘Explanations must wait. I regret it. There is danger to the Reich. Operation “Valkyrie” has just been ordered.’
‘By whom? And against what threat?’
Stauffenberg ignored these questions and left Fromm under guard. Soon the first troops would be moving into the Government quarter of Berlin. They had lost hours, he thought to himself angrily, but he mastered the anger and summoned up those reserves of faith and serenity which had invariably inspired all around him. The important thing now was to secure Berlin and to get the Head of State, General Beck, to speak urgently to the various Commanders-in-Chief in the field. Of course their enemies would try and overturn matters with the SS – they’d always been ready for that. ‘Valkyrie’ provided for army reinforcements from Potsdam. If real energy was shown the ring could be held. General von Hase, Commander of the Berlin District, had, Stauffenberg knew, been waiting hours for word from the Bendlerstrasse. Now at last he’d received it, and set the Berlin Guard Battalion moving towards the centre of the city.
Rastenburg. 18.00.
‘Here’s another signal from Berlin, on a wide distribution, telling commanders to secure their communications and respond only to – wait! There’s something else coming through!’
