The oaken table was in smithereens. Hair was on fire. The ceiling had descended to the floor. Several men lay dead. But contrary to what Stauffenberg believed as he rushed toward the airfield, none of these dead men was “evil incarnate.” Hitler was fine and dandy, albeit cartoonishly mussed. His secretary, Gertraud Junge, recalled, “The Führer looked very strange. His hair was standing on end, like quills on a hedgehog, and his clothes were in tatters. But in spite of all that he was ecstatic—after all, hadn’t he survived?” 481 “It was Providence that spared me,” Hitler declared. “This proves
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