Twice that July, Stauffenberg showed up at a weekly group meeting with Hitler in his Russian front headquarters, packing a plastic explosive in his briefcase, right next to his charts of the phantom divisions that fed Hitler’s fantasy of turning back the Russians. But both times Stauffenberg changed his mind at the last second. For a while the plotmates had agreed they would only detonate the bomb if it would kill both Hitler and SS leader Himmler. But their bad luck held, and Himmler stopped attending these meetings, so they agreed to settle for just Adolf. On July 13, Stauffenberg set out for his third meeting with Hitler at his Prussian HQ with the bomb jammed into his briefcase. This time he was determined to light the fuse.
Back in Berlin, confident that finally Hitler would be blown up, Gen. Friedrich Olbricht, deputy commander of the replacement army and a key plotmate of Beck and Stauffenberg, ordered the start of Operation Valkyrie, which was the army’s standing plan to seize control of the country in cases an internal uprisings. The plotters would use the cover of Valkyrie to seize the government, take out the SS, and neutralize the vast Nazi apparatus. Then they would be in position to open peace talks with the Allies. Orders were sent out to army units throughout the country to be on the alert for further instructions. Soldiers maneuvered into position around Berlin to seize Gestapo and SS positions. But the overly cautious Stauffenberg got cold feet when Himmler failed to attend the meeting, even though the plotmates had agreed to go ahead with the plan anyway. He nervously called his colleagues Beck and Olbricht in Berlin, and they agreed to cancel the plans. Olbricht hastily withdrew the Valkyrie orders, but when Fromm found out that the orders had already been issued, he laid into Olbricht.
The following week, Stauffenberg was called to attend another meeting with Hitler. For the fourth time he packed his bomb.
The morning of July 20, Stauffenberg took a flight to Hitler’s HQ retreat at Rastenburg, in the forest of East Prussia, the ancestral home of the German army. He traveled with his aide, Lt. Werner von Haeften. In a shocking turn of events, the plotters prepared a backup plan: Both men carried bombs in their briefcases; in case one briefcase was lost, the show could go on.
The plan was simple. Perhaps too simple. Stauffenberg would kill Hitler with the bomb. A coup member in charge of communication at Rastenburg would cut all communications with the outside world. Troops and police loyal to the coup would seize key government centers in Berlin and other German cities, and the army in France would round up SS and Gestapo members, execute them, and open talks with the Allies. What could go wrong? It wasn’t quite the scale of a Russian invasion but the plotters — all colonels and generals — thought they could handle it.
To prepare for the meeting with Hitler, Stauffenberg and Haeften ducked into an empty office to light the fuse. A getaway car and speedy airplane waited to whisk them back to Berlin. But Stauffenberg, with only three fingers, had trouble setting the time-delay fuse. Outside the office, an impatient General Keitel, Hitler’s pet general, sent in a soldier to rush the two along. While Stauffenberg did manage to set his bomb, he was unable to insert Haeften’s backup bomb into his briefcase.
Stauffenberg entered the meeting and took his place next to Hitler at a large wooden table covered with maps. He placed his explosive luggage as close to Hitler as possible. But unlike prior meetings that took place in a concrete bunker, this one was in a lightly built wooden hut with open windows, which would reduce the impact of any blast. After a minute or two, just before 1:00 p.m., Stauffenberg excused himself from the meeting and dashed to his waiting car with Haeften, trying to not look like a guy about to kill Hitler and become outlaw number one in Europe.
But back in the hut, the same stoogy Colonel Brandt, who had unwittingly carried the liquor bombs onto Hitler’s plane, became annoyed by Stauffenberg’s briefcase blocking his way. He moved it to the other side of the solid wood table support, away from Hitler. For his trouble, Brandt was blown up when the bomb exploded moments later. In their getaway car, the three-fingered assassin and Haeften saw the explosion and concluded the overdue deed was finally done. Despite being stopped by SS guards manning the gate, they talked their way out and sped toward the airport. Along the way, Haeften ditched his briefcase with his bomb.
Back in Berlin, Beck and Olbricht, not known for their dashing drive, did nothing except sweat and wait. Because of the uproar caused by the premature launching of Operation Valkyrie the previous week, Olbricht hesitated in activating the plan until he confirmed that Hitler was dead. Better wait, he figured, than risk a dressing-down from Fromm and a negative job review. So he did nothing. He and Beck, who was decked out in his uniform for the first time since his 1938 resignation, were awaiting the call from Gen. Erich Fellgiebel, the coup member who headed the communications at Hitler’s headquarters in Rastenburg. The plan was that Fellgiebel would phone Beck and Olbricht when the bomb went off so they knew that Hitler was dead. Everyone would skate through the coup without actually putting their lives on the line. Everything depended on Hitler dying from the bomb. But the bomb didn’t kill Hitler. The heavy oak table shielded Hitler enough so that he suffered only minor wounds. When he staggered out of the bombed-out building, Fellgiebel spotted him and froze. Rather than call his plot-mates telling them Hitler was alive, he did nothing. He did try to shut down all communications in and out of Rastenburg but succeeded only in tipping himself off to the SS.
Fellgiebel’s reaction proved to be a typical plotmate response. Now that the time to fish or cut bait had arrived, everyone involved either froze or waffled in their decisions, unwilling to sacrifice themselves and desperate to escape the inevitable backlash by Hitler. The SS quickly took control over Rastenburg’s communications, and Fellgiebel never sent any signal to Berlin that Hitler was alive. In fact, they never heard from him again.
Beck and Olbricht nervously shuffled papers as the afternoon wound down; Stauffenberg winged to Berlin. The plot was frozen in place. Plotmate Wolf Heinrich, Count von Helldorf, head of the Berlin police, anxiously waited for orders to move out. So far it was the armchair coup.
Finally, just before 4:00 p.m., Stauffenberg landed outside Berlin and phoned Olbricht to announce that Hitler was certainly dead. At last, the plotters snapped out of their sweaty lethargy and issued orders. But they had already lost three precious hours while the Nazis didn’t even know there was a coup afoot. The initiative slipped away.
At 4:00 p.m. sharp the coup lumbered to life: Olbricht sent out the Valkyrie orders; the troops in Berlin, commanded by plotmate von Haase, were dispatched to seize key government buildings; the Berlin police jumped at strategic locations; and Nazi and military leaders throughout the country were ordered to secure themselves and their locations against a revolt by the SS.
At first, things were going well, but troubles soon began to pile up. First, Olbricht went to Fromm in the Bendlerblock army HQ, to enlist him into the plot. Fromm, shocked, absolutely shocked that the coup he was nominally part of had actually started but, not wanting to be caught on the losing side, promised to join only if he received assurance that Hitler was dead. At Olbricht’s suggestion, he called Rastenburg. Olbricht was under the illusion that all communication was cut. But Fromm got through immediately and was told by Keitel that Hitler had survived the bombing. Fromm was furious when he found that Valkyrie had been started in his name. The plotters demanded he join them, and he simply drew his pistol and placed them all under arrest. The dim-witted plotters had forgotten to bring their guns. They didn’t even post guards to protect the headquarters or surround themselves with loyal troops. They had armed themselves only with attitude, their dubious honor, and wishful thinking.