A group of staff officers, dissatisfied with Olbricht’s increasingly lame explanation of what was happening, and, whatever their feelings towards Hitler, not unnaturally anxious in the light of an evidently lost cause to save their own skins, became rebellious. Soon after 9p.m., arming themselves, they returned to Olbricht’s room. While their spokesman, Lieutenant-Colonel Franz Herber, was talking to Olbricht, shots were fired on the corridor, one of which hit Stauffenberg in the shoulder. It was a brief flurry, no more. Herber and his men pressed into Fromm’s office, where Colonel-General Hoepner, the conspirators’ choice as commander of the reserve army, Mertz, Beck, Haeften, and the injured Stauffenberg also gathered. Herber demanded to speak to Fromm and was told he was still in his apartment (where he had been kept under guard since the afternoon). One of the rebel officers immediately made his way there, was admitted, and told Fromm what had happened. The guard outside Fromm’s door had by now vanished. Liberated, Fromm returned to his office to confront the putschists. It was around 10p.m. when his massive frame appeared in the doorway of his office. He scornfully cast his eye over the utterly dispirited leaders of the insurrection. ‘So, gentlemen,’ he declared, ‘now I’m going to do to you what you did to me this afternoon.’116
As Gisevius later pointed out, what the conspirators had done to Fromm had been to lock him in his room and give him sandwiches and wine.117 Fromm was less naive. He had his neck to save — or so he thought. He told the putchists they were under arrest and demanded they surrender all weapons. Beck asked to retain his ‘for private use’. Fromm ordered him to make use of it immediately. Beck said at that moment he was thinking of earlier days. Fromm urged him to get on with it. Beck put the gun to his head, but only succeeded in grazing himself on the temple. Fromm offered the others a few moments should they wish to write any last words. Hoepner availed himself of the opportunity, sitting at Olbricht’s desk; so did Olbricht himself. Beck, meanwhile, reeling from the glancing blow to his head, refused attempts to take the pistol from him, and insisted on being allowed another shot. Even then, he only managed a severe head-wound. With Beck writhing on the floor, Fromm left the room to learn that a unit of the guards battalion had entered the courtyard of the Bendlerblock. He knew, too, that Himmler, the newly appointed commander of the reserve army, was on his way. There was no time to lose. He returned to his room after five minutes and announced that he had held a court-martial in the name of the Führer. Mertz, Olbricht, Haeften, and ‘this colonel whose name I will no longer mention’ had been sentenced to death. ‘Take a few men and execute this sentence downstairs in the yard at once,’ he ordered an officer standing by. Stauffenberg tried to take all responsibility on his own shoulders, stating that the others had been merely carrying out his orders. Fromm said nothing, as the four men were taken to their execution, and Hoepner — initially also earmarked for execution, but spared for the time being following a private discussion with Fromm — was led out into captivity. With a glance at the dying Beck, Fromm commanded one of the officers to finish him off. The former Chief of the General Staff was unceremoniously dragged into the adjacent room and shot dead.118
The condemned men were rapidly escorted downstairs into the courtyard, where a firing-squad of ten men drawn from the guard-battalion was already waiting. To add to the macabre scene, the drivers of the vehicles parked in the courtyard had been ordered to turn their headlights on the little pile of sand near the doorway from which Stauffenberg and his fellow-conspirators emerged. Without ceremony, Olbricht was put on the sand-heap and promptly shot. Next to be brought forward was Stauffenberg. Just as the execution-squad opened fire, Haeften threw himself in front of Stauffenberg, and died first. It was to no avail. Stauffenberg was immediately placed again on the sand-heap. As the shots rang out, he was heard to cry: ‘Long live holy Germany.’ Seconds later, the execution of the last of the four, Mertz von Quirnheim, followed. Fromm promptly had a telegram dispatched, announcing the bloody suppression of the attempted coup and the execution of the ringleaders. Then he gave an impassioned address to those assembled in the courtyard, attributing Hitler’s wondrous salvation to the work of providence. He ended with a three-fold ‘Sieg Heil’ to the Führer.
