any time—this was apparently not true, but there was a sense that the net was closing in and that the next opportunity to kill Hitler must be taken because there might not be another. On 20 July Stauffenberg flew back to the Wolfsschanze for another Hitler military conference, again with a bomb in his briefcase. Stauffenberg, having previously activated the timer on the bomb, placed his briefcase under the table around which Hitler and more than 20 officers were seated or standing. After ten minutes, he made an excuse and left the room. At 12:40 the bomb went off, demolishing the conference room. Several officers were killed, but Hitler was only wounded. He had likely been saved because the heavy oak leg of the conference table, behind which Stauffenberg's briefcase had been left, deflected the blast. But Stauffenberg, seeing the building collapse in smoke and flame, assumed Hitler was dead, and immediately got on a plane to Berlin. Before he arrived, General Erich Fellgiebel, an officer at Rastenburg who was in on the plot, had rung the Bendlerblock and told the plotters that Hitler had survived the explosion. When Stauffenberg phoned from the airport to say Hitler was dead, the Bendlerblock plotters did not know whom to believe. In the confusion, Olbricht did not issue the orders for Operation Valkyrie to be mobilised until 16:00. By 16:40 Himmler had already taken charge of the situation and issued orders countermanding Olbricht's mobilisation of Operation Valkyrie. However, in many places the coup continued to go ahead, led by officers who believed that Hitler was dead. The Propaganda Ministry on the Wilhelmstrasse, with Joseph Goebbels inside, was surrounded by troops. In Paris, Stülpnagel issued orders for the arrest of the SS and SD commanders. In Vienna, Prague and many other places troops occupied Nazi Party offices and arrested Gauleiters and SS officers. The decisive moment came at 19:00, when Hitler was sufficiently recovered to make phone calls. By phone, he personally empowered a loyal officer, Major Otto Remer, to regain control of the situation in Berlin. Less resolute members of the conspiracy began to change sides. Fromm declared that he had convened a court-martial consisting of himself, and had sentenced Olbricht, Stauffenberg and two other officers to death. However, when he went to see Goebbels to claim credit for suppressing the coup, he was immediately arrested. Over the next weeks Himmler's Gestapo rounded