By then Remer's men had surrounded the War Office, but he did not like to go in. The tanks had also arrived from the Training Depot, but their Commander had queried his orders with his Chief, General Guderian, who happened to have a jealous hatred of most of the other Generals and was inclined to be pro-Nazi. He told his subordinate that, although he was to carry out Exercise Walkьre, in no circumstances was he to use his tanks against S.S. troops or Government buildings.
Von Stauffenberg reached the War Office at about five o'clock, to find that in the past three hours little had been done. The new Commander-in-Chief designate, Field Marshal von Witzleben, had belatedly turned up with his uniform in a suitcase, but finding Remer's troops round the War Office instead of attacking the Gestapo headquarters, and the tanks under orders not to help in the Putsch, he had got cold feet and had gone home again; while none of the others knew quite what to do.
After an interval of indecision on both sides Remer decided to obey Goebbels' summons. By then Goebbels had been on to the Wolfsschanze and had learned the truth about what had happened there.
The bomb had gone off at eighteen minutes to one. It was believed that a Colonel Brandt, who had been seated on the other side of Hitler from von Stauffenberg, had pushed the brief-case further under the heavy table, thus somewhat reducing the effect of the explosion. But, in any case, had the conference been held as usual, in the concrete bunker, everyone there would have been killed. As it was, two Generals, Brandt and Hitler's stenographer received mortal wounds, and several others, including Colonel-General Jodl, were seriously injured. Hitler escaped only because a minute before the explosion he had left his seat at the table to walk to the far end of the room and look at a wall map. Nevertheless the whole flimsy building had been disintegrated by the blast, and all of them were blown through the roof or walls, Hitler landing burnt, bruised and without his trousers.
Remer had been ordered to arrest Goebbels but still felt uncertain which side to take; so Goebbels picked up the telephone and put him on direct to Hitler. To his amazement, his Fьhrer immediately placed him, a Major, in full command of all the troops in Berlin for the next twenty-four hour, and told him to arrest anyone, whatever his rank, who opposed his orders. Hitler then ordered Goebbels to get out a broadcast as swiftly as possible, attributing the attempt to a small group of fanatics and stating that he had come to no harm.
At about seven o'clock, to the consternation of the conspirators in the War Office, Goebbels made his broadcast. In the meantime von Stauffenberg had been frantically making long-distance calls to a number of Generals. Hitler's orders to hold every foot of ground were reversed. The Army in Courland was ordered to retreat at once from its dangerous position. Field Marshal von Kluge agreed to prepare to withdraw to the Rhine and gave orders that the bombardment of England with V.1's was to stop. Stuelpnagel in Paris and Falkenhausen in Brussels agreed to arrest all the Nazis in their commands; and soon after Goebbels put over his broadcast von Stauffenberg countered it with another, saying that it was a tissue of lies.
But it was by then too late. Dozens of junior officers not in the plot had
arrived at the War Office. They demanded to know what was going on there; then, realizing that the Putsch now looked like being a failure, they decided to save their own skins by arresting the conspirators.
Fromm was released and took charge. Beck had a pistol and twice tried to blow his brains out, but only mutilated himself horribly, shooting out one eye, and had to be finished off by a sergeant. Von Stauffenberg alone put up a fight, but was overcome and at Fromm's orders, with Olbricht, von Quirnheim and von Haften, was shot at about midnight out in the courtyard.
So ended the ill-fated Putsch in Berlin.
19
Just Real Bad Luck
ON THAT afternoon of July 10th Mussolini, now reduced to puppet Dictator of Lombardy, was due to arrive on a visit to the Wolfsschanze. Hitler, slightly crippled in one arm and down his side, met his guest's train. There followed one of the Fьhrer’s two-hour-long tea parties at which the Duce and the senior members of his staff were present. By then all the Nazi leaders had arrived to condole with their master and congratulate him on his miraculous escape.
To the embarrassment of the Italians, the tea party developed into a slanging match. Goering roared insults at Himmler about the inefficiency of his police, Keitel vainly attempted to defend the Army as a whole while reviling the traitor Generals, Goebbels abused Ribbentrop who shouted indignantly, `I will not be called Ribbentrop; my name is von Ribbentrop.'
During the earlier part of these proceedings Hitler remained silent, apparently in a delayed semi-stupor as the result of the shock he had sustained some hours earlier; but suddenly he came to life. Everyone else fell silent as, frothing at the mouth and with his eyes starting from his head, he began to rave.
While the white-coated footmen continued to move round with the teapots, pouring endless cups of tea, he carried on without ceasing for over an hour about how he, the most brilliant intellect in all German history, was being betrayed by a lot of hide-bound half-wilted soldiers who would lose the war the next week if he ceased to tell them what to do; of how he had been spared by Providence to complete his task of purifying the world from the poison of the Jews, and how he would see to it that the traitors died by inches, and their wives and children and the decadent parent’s who had begotten such scum.
All this and much more Sabine retailed to Gregory, together with the names of soldiers, Civil Servants, Labour leaders and others who, day after day, were still being arrested by the Gestapo. But so far they continued to show no interest in von Osterberg.
It was on Friday afternoon that Sabine returned from Berlin with exciting news of a different kind. She had run into an old friend of hers who had recently returned to the capital after living for the past year in Munich. This lady's name was Paula von Proffin and before her marriage to a bank president, since dead, she had, like Sabine, been a model. Sabine described her as having a mouth like a letter-box but the most lovely eyes and, according to the report of lovers that they had had in common, she was `simply terrific in bed'.
That she had possessed these attributes seemed just as well; for on the bank president's death it had emerged that he had been swindling his bank for years, so `poor Paula' had been left to fend for herself as best she could. That best had been a succession of rich industrialists from whom, among other things, she had acquired several thousand pounds' worth of diamonds; and, on the side when the industrialists were out of the way, a variety of boy friends, mostly Cavalry officers, for whom she had a particular liking because she was an accomplished horsewoman. She had returned to the hell of Berlin only because an arms manufacturer, whose work kept him there, had offered to marry her.
Sabine had accompanied Paula back to the suite she' was temporarily occupying at the Adlon and there, over the dry martinis, these two beauties had spent a happy hour swopping details about such luck as they had recently had in their favourite occupation. In due course Paula had related a most distressing experience that had befallen her about six weeks before in Munich.