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
In fact, however, Fromm proceeded much more decisively. Wasting no time, he placed the six main conspirators under arrest and demanded, pistol in hand, that they relinquish their weapons. Beck asked to keep his pistol “for private purposes,” to which Fromm replied gruffly, “Go ahead, but be quick about it!” Wishing to make a final statement, Beck raised his revolver to his temple and began, “I think now of earlier times-” But Fromm cut him off impatiently. “I told you, just do it!” he shouted. Beck paused for a moment and then, in front of several onlookers, squeezed the trigger. The bullet merely grazed his head. Fromm ordered two officers to take Beck’s revolver away, but Beck resisted clumsily, firing and wounding himself once again and collapsing in a heap-still alive.
Leaving the former chief of general staff dying on the floor, Fromm turned to the other conspirators: “If you wish to make a statement or write something, you can have a moment to do so.” Stauffenberg, Mertz, and Haeften remained silent, though Hoepner tried to assure Fromm that he had had nothing to do with the entire affair. Fromm remained unmoved. Only when Olbricht asked to be allowed to write a few lines did Fromm show some sign of compassion. “Come to the round table,” he said, “where you always used to sit across from me.”20
But time was pressing. A unit of the guard battalion, it was reported, had arrived in the courtyard. Fromm must also have known that Himmler was on the way and that every one of the arrested officers, with the exception of Hoepner, was in a position to testify against him and had to be silenced. He therefore urged them again to hurry and finally declared, “In the name of the Führer, I have convened a court-martial that has pronounced the following sentence: General Staff Colonel Mertz, General Olbricht, the colonel whose name I will not speak, and First Lieutenant Haeften are condemned to death.”
Stauffenberg spoke out, claiming in a few clipped sentences sole responsibility for everything and stating that the others had acted purely as soldiers and his subordinates. Fromm said nothing in reply, merely standing aside so that the prisoners could be taken out. Glancing down again at Beck, who was still in his death throes, Fromm ordered an officer standing nearby to put him out of his misery. The officer refused, protesting that he was incapable of such an act, and passed the order along to a staff sergeant. The sergeant dragged Beck into an adjoining room and shot him. It was just after midnight.
In the courtyard outside, several military vehicles pulled up, their headlights glaring. Along all the sides of the square, groups of curious onlookers gathered. In the middle stood an execution squad consisting of Lieutenant Werner Schady and ten noncommissioned officers. As the prisoners emerged from the staircase, they were positioned in front of a small pile of sand. Olbricht was the first to be shot. Next it was Stauffenberg’s turn, but just as the squad fired, Haeften, in a defiant gesture, threw himself into the hail of bullets. When the squad again took aim at Stauffenberg, he shouted, “Long live sacred Cermany.”21 Before the sound of his voice died away, shots resounded. The last to die was Mertz.