Eleven of those who had suffered the worst injuries were rushed to the field hospital, just over two miles away.72 The stenographer, Dr Heinrich Berger, who had taken the full blast of the bomb, had both legs blown off and died later that afternoon. Colonel Heinz Brandt, Heusinger’s right-hand man (and, as it transpired, connected with the conspiracy), lost a leg and died the next day, as did General Günther Korten, chief of the Luftwaffe’s general staff, stabbed by a spear of wood. Hitler’s Wehrmacht adjutant, Major-General Rudolf Schmundt, lost an eye and a leg, and suffered serious facial burns, eventually succumbing in hospital some weeks later. Of those in the barrack-hut, only Keitel and Hitler avoided concussion; and Keitel alone escaped burst ear-drums.73
Hitler had, remarkably, survived with no more than superficial injuries. After the initial shock of the blast, he established that he was all in one piece and could move. Then he made for the door through the wreckage, beating flames from his trousers and putting out the singed hair on the back of his head as he went. He bumped into Keitel, who embraced him, weeping and crying out: ‘My Führer, you are alive, you are alive.’74 Keitel helped Hitler, his uniform jacket torn, his black trousers and beneath them long white underwear in shreds, out of the building. But he was able to walk without difficulty.75 He immediately returned to his bunker. Dr Morell was summoned urgently. Hitler had a swollen and painful right arm, which he could barely lift, swellings and abrasions on his left arm, burns and blisters on his hands and legs (which were also full of wood-splinters), and cuts to his forehead. But those, alongside the burst ear-drums, were the worst injuries he had suffered.76 When Linge, his valet, panic-stricken, rushed in, Hitler was composed, and with a grim smile on his face said: ‘Linge, someone has tried to kill me.’77
Below, Hitler’s Luftwaffe adjutant, relatively lightly injured in the explosion, had been composed enough, despite the shock and the lacerations to his face through glass shards, to rush to the signals hut, where he demanded a block on all communications apart from those from Hitler, Keitel, and Jodl. At the same time, Below had Himmler and Goring summoned to Hitler’s bunker. Then he made his way there himself.78 Hitler was sitting in his study, relief written on his face, ready to show off — with a tinge of pride, it seemed — his shredded clothing.79 His attention had already turned to the question of who had carried out the assassination attempt. According to Below, he rejected suggestions (which he appears initially to have believed) that the bomb had been planted by Ο Τ workers who were temporarily at Führer Headquarters to complete the reinforcement of the compound against air-raids.80 By this time, suspicion had turned indubitably to the missing Stauffenberg. The search for Stauffenberg and investigation into the assassination attempt began around 2p.m., though it was not at that point realized that this had been the signal for a general uprising against the regime. Hitler’s rage at the army leaders he had always distrusted mounted by the minute. He was ready to wreak terrible vengeance on those whom he saw as stabbing the Reich in the back in its hour of crisis.81
