part0021

I felt the heat from the explosion and watched the fierce flames bellow up from the blazing trucks. I stared into the smeared blue desert sky, covered in a cloud of black, oily smoke. I blinked and tried to keep my eyes open. I was badly wounded and fought for my life. I was brought to a Munich hospital and given the best possible treatment.

My left eye, right hand, and two fingers from my left hand were lost in this vicious attack. My legs were so badly damaged that the doctors told me I could never walk again. I willed myself back from the brink of death. I was determined not to be defeated by my injuries. I refused all painkilling drugs and learned to dress, bathe, and write with my three remaining fingers. My recovery was astounding, and before the summer was over. I demanded to be returned to my regiment.

The hospital staff was amazed by my stubborn persistence. They admired what they thought was my patriotic determination to return to active service. But my determination was not to fight for Nazi leader Adolf Hitler. What I wanted to do was kill him. I had supported the Nazis once, but my experience in the war turned me against them.

I watched in Poland as SS soldiers murdered innocent Jewish women and children by the roadside. When I fought in France, I watched a Nazi field commander order the execution of dozens of unarmed British prisoners. But the worst things I've ever seen were what Hitler's war had done to the Soviet Union. Our invasion was fought with such great brutality against Russian soldiers and civilians. I was also sickened by Hitler's incompetent interference in the campaign, and his stubborn refusal to allow exhausted troops in impossible situations to surrender.

After one disaster of a battle, I asked a close friend:

I laid in my hospital bed and realized I was the man for this job. I knew I had my flaws. I could be untidy in my personal appearance, but I was incredibly strict about punctuality and orderliness. I knew I had a ferocious temper. I could become enraged over the smallest thing—like an aide laying out my uniform—less than perfect. But I was also blessed with a magnetic personality and was told I was a brilliant commander. I had a natural sensitive nature and encouraged my fellow officers to confide in me. All these aspects of my character made me an ideal leader to oppose Hitler.

When the hospital allowed me to leave, I was appointed Chief of Staff in the Home Army. The Home Army was a unit of the German army made up of all the soldiers stationed in Germany. It was also responsible for recruitment and training. I quickly established that a deputy commander of the Home Army, General Olbricht, was not a supporter of Hitler either. He offered to help me overthrow him. Between the two of us, we began to persuade other officers to join us. My fellow conspirators and I soon devised an ingenious plan to get rid of Hitler. In the previous year, the Nazis had set up a strategy called Operation Valkyrie .

It was a precaution against an uprising in Germany against them. If there was a revolt that broke out the Home Army had detailed instructions on how to seize control of all areas of government—important radio and railway stations—so that the rebellion could be quickly put down. But rather than protect the Nazis, we intended to use Operation Valkyrie to overthrow them. We planned to kill Hitler. And in the confusion that followed his death, set Operation Valkyrie in motion and order all the soldiers to arrest Nazi leaders and their chief supporters, especially the Gestapo and the SS.

Our plot had two flaws. Killing Hitler was difficult; he was always surrounded by bodyguards. When we approached General Fromm, he refused to take part. He was like everyone else in the armed forces that had sworn an oath of loyalty to Hitler, and he used this as an excuse for not betraying him. He feared Hitler's revenge if the plot failed. Without General Fromm’s help, using Operation Valkyrie to overthrow the Nazis would be difficult. But we weren’t deterred. We threw ourselves into the task of recruiting allies—many officers joined us—many more wavered. Many were disgusted by the way he led the German Army, but like Fromm, they felt restrained by their oath of loyalty or feared for their lives if our plot should fail .

We were careful to avoid being discovered by the Gestapo. We typed our documents wearing gloves to avoid leaving fingerprints on typewriters that would be hidden in a clipboard or an attic. I memorized and then destroyed the written messages and left not a scrap of solid evidence against us. My judgment in recruiting conspirators was so good that not a single German officer I approached to join our conspiracy betrayed us.

In the summer of 1944, time was beginning to run out. The Gestapo began to suspect a significant revolt against Hitler was being planned. They searched hard for any conspirators and evidence to condemn them. The longer the conspirators delayed, the greater the chance of being discovered. We decided the best way to kill Hitler would be to do it with a bomb placed in a briefcase. As part of my Home Army duties, I attended conferences with the German leader. He believed I was a glamorous figure and had high regard for my abilities. Because I had such close contact with Hitler, I volunteered to plant the bomb myself. To give me time to escape the bomb, we primed for a 10-minute fuse.

To activate the bomb, a small glass tube containing acid needed to be broke with a pair of pliers. This acid would eat through a thin steel wire. When this broke, the bomb would detonate. On July 11, I went to Hitler's headquarters in East Prussia for a meeting with Hitler and two other Nazis. Herman Göring and Heinrich Himmler. I wanted to kill all three, but when Himmler and Göring canceled. I decided to wait for a better opportunity.

My next chance was on July 15th. I was again summoned to Rastenburg. I set Operation Valkyrie into motion before the meeting. But at the last second, Hitler decided not to attend the conference where I was going to plant my briefcase bomb. I made frantic phone calls to Berlin to call off Operation Valkyrie, and the conspirators covered their tracks by pretending it had been an army exercise.

Our chance came on July 20, 1944, when I was summoned to Hitler's headquarters at Rastenburg. I was joined by my personal assistant, Lieutenant Haeften. He picked up two bombs and drove to the airfield south of Berlin. From there, he took a three-hour flight to Rastenburg. We arrived in East Prussia at 10:15 a.m. and drove through the gloomy forest to Hitler's headquarters. It was surrounded by barbed wire checkpoints and minefields—the base was known as the Wolf's Lair . It was a collection of concrete bunkers and wooden huts cut off from the real world.

Hitler retreated here to wage his final battles of the war. Our conference with Hitler was scheduled for 12:30 p.m., and at 12:15 p.m., the conference began to assemble. I requested permission to wash and change my shirt. It was such a hot day that this seemed like a perfectly reasonable request. I was ushered into a nearby bathroom where I was joined by my aide Haeften. We began to activate the two bombs. I broke the acid tube fuse on one, but as I reached for the second bomb. I was interrupted by a Sergeant telling me to hurry and that I was late for the conference.

One bomb would have to do, and there was more bad news. I'd hoped the meeting was to be held in an underground bunker. A blast of this bomb in a windowless concrete room would mean certain death for all inside, but instead, I was led to a wooden hut with three large windows. This meant the force of an explosion in here would be much less effective.

The conference had already begun inside the hut. High ranking officers and their assistants crowded around a large oak map table, discussing the progress of the war in Russia. My hearing had been damaged when I was wounded, and I asked if I could stand next to Hitler so I could hear him properly. I placed myself next to Hitler, on his right and shoved my bulging briefcase under the table to the left of a large wooden support pillar. Less than seven minutes remained before the bomb was due to explode. I had no intention of staying inside the hut. Luckily for me, the discussion about the Russian front continued, and I made an excuse to leave the room, saying I had to make an urgent phone call to Berlin.

General Keitel was already irritated by my late arrival and became infuriated that I’d had the arrogance to leave the conference. He called after me, insisting that I stay. I ignored him and hurried away. Like all our fellow conspirators, we hated Field Marshal Keitel. We called him—Lakeitel —which meant lackey in German. It was now less than five minutes. I hurried over to another hut and waited with my friend. General Fellgiebel, the chief of signals at the base, one of several Rastenburg officers who’d joined our conspiracy. The seconds dragged by like hours.

Inside the conference room was an officer named Colonel Brandt, who came over the table to get a better look at the map. His foot caught on my heavy briefcase. He picked it up and moved it to the opposite side of the heavy wooden support. Seconds later the bomb went off. My aide Haeften drove up in a staff car and I leapt in. We drove fast to escape to the airfield before the Wolf’s Lair was sealed off by Hitler's guards.

We drove past the devastated hut and felt confident that no one inside could have survived. But we were wrong. Brandt and three others had been killed moving the briefcase to the other side of the wooden support. But he’d shielded Hitler from the full force of the blast. The German leader staggered out of the hut. His clothes were in tatters and his hair was smoldering, but he was still alive.

Hitler's death was an essential part of our plot. Shortly before one o'clock. I sent a message to the War Office in Berlin, confirming that the bomb had exploded. I ordered General Olbricht to set Operation Valkyrie into motion. I made no mention of whether Hitler was alive or dead. But back in Berlin, General Olbricht hesitated because he wasn't sure if Hitler was killed.

He decided to wait until he knew more, and he was not prepared to act. I was still flying back to Berlin and was cut off from everything. During the two hours I was in the air, I had expected my fellow conspirators to be following through with Operation Valkyrie and there to be a frenzy of activity happening. Nothing happened. It was unfortunate I couldn’t have been in two places at once. I was the best man to carry out the bomb attack in Rastenburg. But I was also the best man to have directed Operation Valkyrie in Berlin.

At Rastenburg, it didn't take long to realize who planted the bomb. Orders were immediately issued to arrest me at Berlin's Rangsdorf airfield. But the signals officer responsible for sending the message was one of our conspirators, and he never transmitted the order. It was an hour and a half later at 3:30 p.m. before the Berlin conspirators began to act.

The Home Army officers were summoned by General Olbricht. He told them Hitler was dead and that Operation Valkyrie was to be set in motion. General Fromm still refused to cooperate. He called Rastenburg and was told by General Keitel that Hitler was still alive. It was now 4:30 p.m., and the conspirators issued orders to the entire German Army. Hitler, they declared was dead. Nazi leaders were trying to seize power for themselves. The Army was to take control of the government immediately to stop them from doing this. I arrived back in Berlin not long afterward. I again failed to persuade General Fromm to join our conspiracy. He erupted into a foaming tirade against me. He banged his fists on the desk and demanded that we be placed under arrest. He ordered me to shoot myself. When General Fromm lunged at one of our officers with his fists flailing, we subdued him and pressed a pistol into his stomach. He meekly allowed himself to be locked in an office with other officers of the Home Army Headquarters, still loyal to the Nazis.

I began to direct the conspirators with my usual energy for the rest of the afternoon. We worked with desperate haste to carry out our plan. I spent hours on the phone trying to persuade any wavering Army commanders to support us. I was convinced Hitler was dead, but many people I spoke to wouldn’t believe me. It was widely believed that the Nazi leader employed a double who looked and acted just like him. What if I killed the double rather than the real Hitler?

From Paris to Prague, the army attempted to take control and arrest all the Nazi Party command officials. Cities like Paris and Vienna were successes, but in Berlin, it was another story. Here we were foiled by our own decency. We'd revolted against the brutality of the Nazi regime. And, in retrospect, if we’d have taken a similar ruthlessness—it might have saved us. If we’d been prepared to shoot anyone who stood in our way, we might’ve succeeded. We also failed to capture Berlin's radio station and other army communication bases in the capital.

All through the late afternoon, our own commands were contradicted by orders from commanders loyal to the Nazis. It was now early evening, and it became evident that our plot had failed. I refused to give up. I insisted our success was assured and continued to encourage my fellow conspirators not to give up hope.

The end was near. Hostile troops loyal to Hitler surrounded the War Office. Inside the building, a small group of Nazi officers armed themselves and set out to arrest us. Shots were fired, and I was hit in the shoulder.

General Fromm could only do one thing. He'd refused to cooperate with the conspiracy. Still, he’d known all about the plot, and no doubt the conspirators would confirm this under torture or even their own free will. He had to cover his tracks. He sentenced us to immediate execution. I still bled profusely from my wound, and I didn't care about a death sentence. I insisted the plot was entirely my doing, and my fellow officers had only carried out my orders. General Fromm was having none of this.

Just after midnight, we were hustled down the stairs to the courtyard outside. We were placed against the wall, lit by the dimming lights of a staff car. The four of us lined up in order of rank. I was second after General Olbricht. Before I was cut down—in a brave but pointless gesture—my aide Haeften threw himself in front of the bullets and died at my feet.

There would have been more executions that night, had not the Gestapo chief arrived and put a stop to them. He was far more interested in seeing what could be learned from the conspirators who were still alive. The Gestapo torturers were cheated out of their greatest prize. My fellow martyrs and I were buried in a nearby churchyard. We failed, but in our bravery and in the face of such a slim chance of success, we’d been truly heroic. If we'd succeeded, Operation Valkyrie and the war in Europe might have ended much earlier. It continued for another year. In those final months of the Second World War, more people were killed than in the previous five years of fighting.

Hitler described the Operation Valkyrie conspiracy as a crime unparalleled in German history. Although we were already dead and buried, Hitler demanded our bodies be dug up, burned, and the ashes scattered to the wind. The main surviving conspirators were hauled before the Nazi courts. They also refused to be intimidated. Knowing the regime they loved was teetering on the brink of defeat.

General Fellgiebel, who’d stood with me as the bomb exploded in Rastenburg, was told by the court president that he was to be hanged. He replied:

Gestapo and SS officers continued to investigate the plot until the end of the war. They made over 7,000 arrests and over 2,500 people were executed. One of them was General Fromm. Although he never joined the conspirators, he was shot for cowardice and failing to prevent them from carrying out their revolt.