By this time, Stauffenberg was well on his way back to Berlin. The conspirators there were anxiously awaiting his return, or news of what had happened to him, hesitating to act, still unsure whether to proceed with ‘Operation Valkyrie.’82 The message that Fellgiebel had managed to get through, even before Stauffenberg had taken off from Rastenburg, to Major-General Fritz Thiele, communications chief at Army High Command, was less clear than he thought. It was that something terrible had happened; the Führer was still alive. That was all. There were no details. It was unclear whether the bomb had gone off, whether Stauffenberg had been prevented (as a few days earlier) from carrying out the attack, or whether Stauffenberg had been arrested, whether, in fact, he was even still alive. Further messages seeping through indicated that something had certainly happened in the Wolf’s Lair, but that Hitler had survived.83 Should ‘Valkyrie’ still go ahead? No contingency plans had been made for carrying out a coup if Hitler were still alive. And without confirmed news of Hitler’s death, Fromm, in his position as commander of the reserve army, would certainly not give his approval for the coup. Olbricht concluded that to take any action before hearing definitive news would be to court disaster for all concerned. Vital time was lost. One of the plotters, Hans Bernd Gisevius, connected with the opposition since 1938 and by now an Abwehr agent based in Switzerland who had just returned to Germany, was later scathing about Olbricht’s incompetence. ‘Leaderless and mindless’ was how he described the group in the Bendlerblock awaiting Stauffenberg’s return.84 Meanwhile, it had proved only temporarily possible to block communications from the Wolf’s Lair. Soon after 4p.m. that afternoon, before any coup had been started, the lines were fully open again.85
Stauffenberg arrived back in Berlin between 2.45 and 3.15p.m. There was no car to meet him. His chauffeur was waiting at Rangsdorf aerodrome. But Stauffenberg’s plane had flown to Tempelhof (or possible another Berlin aerodrome — this detail is not fully clear), and he had impatiently to telephone for a car to take him and Haeften to Bendlerstraße. It was a further delay. At such a crucial juncture, Stauffenberg did not reach the headquarters of the conspiracy, where tension was at fever-pitch, until 4.30p.m. Haeften had in the meantime telephoned from the aerodrome to Bendlerstraße. He announced — the first time the conspirators heard the message — that Hitler was dead.86 Stauffenberg repeated this when he and Haeften arrived in Bendlerstraße. He had stood with General Fellgiebel outside the barrack-hut, he said, and seen with his own eyes first-aid men running to help and emergency vehicles arriving. No one could have survived such an explosion, was his conclusion.87 However convincing he was for those anxious to believe his message, a key figure, General Fromm, knew otherwise. He had spoken to Keitel around 4p.m. and been told that the Führer had suffered only minor injuries. That apart, Keitel had asked where, in the meantime, Colonel Stauffenberg might be.88
Fromm refused outright Olbricht’s request that he should sign the orders for ‘Valkyrie’. But by the time Olbricht had returned to his room to announce Fromm’s refusal, his impatient chief of staff Colonel Mertz von Quirnheim, a friend of Stauffenberg, and long closely involved in the plot, had already begun the action with a cabled message to regional military commanders, beginning with the words: ‘The Führer, Adolf Hitler, is dead.’89 When Fromm tried to have Mertz arrested, Stauffenberg informed him that, on the contrary, it was he, Fromm, who was under arrest.90
By now, several of the leading conspirators had been contacted and had begun assembling in the Bendlerstraße. Beck was there, already announcing that he had taken over command in the state; and that Field-Marshal Erwin von Witzleben, former commander-in-chief in France, and long involved in the conspiracy, was now commander-in-chief of the army.91 General Hoepner, Fromm’s designated successor in the coup, dismissed by Hitler in disgrace in early 1942 and forbidden to wear a uniform again, arrived around 4.30p.m. in civilian clothes, carrying a suitcase. It contained his uniform which he donned once more that evening.92
