Goering

by Roger Manvell

  In Berlin itself, Ciano thought, although the morale seemed high there was no enthusiasm whatsoever for the war.

  At Mölders’ funeral, which followed that of Udet at the end of the month, Goering called Galland away from the guard of honor by beckoning to him with his baton and told him that he was now general of the fighter arm in Mölders’ place. Goering characteristically undertook to pass on Galland’s farewell to his command in France, as he was going to visit the grave of his nephew Peter Goering, who had died in battle as a fighter pilot, and then enjoy a period of relaxation in Paris. On December 1 he had a conference with Marshal Pétain; he traveled by special train and was accompanied by Galland, to whom he said on the way, “In twenty minutes I shall have finished with the old gentleman.” Goering emerged from the conference after three hours looking angry; according to Schmidt, who interpreted, there seemed no reason why the meeting had taken place at all. It had ended in deadlock—Goering demanding that the French be more energetic in defending their colonies against the British, Pétain replying that he needed larger forces and more war materiel. As Goering was taking his leave, Pétain, aged and cross, forgot his dignity and thrust firmly into the Reich Marshal’s pocket a memorandum which Goering had refused to accept.

  While Goering talked, shopped and cast an appraising eye over the art treasures gathered for his inspection in Paris, the German armies were experiencing the savage Russian winter for which Hitler had never equipped them. The roads disintegrated, the snow fell and the temperatures were catastrophic. The quick victory declined into deadlock, while the British and the Russians used the valuable months of winter to strengthen themselves for a spring offensive. Galland stationed himself at the Luftwaffe’s East Prussian headquarters at Goldap, conveniently near Goering’s staff headquarters at Rominten and the Führer’s headquarters at Rastenburg. He soon learned how strained were the manpower resources of the Luftwaffe when it came to building up the Fighter Arm for the spring. Milch, as the new head of aircraft production, was increasing the output of fighters; the policy was to dip deeply into the reserves of men in training in order to give them intensive instruction for a second quick, devastating offensive against Russia. Galland agreed with Jeschonnek, the Chief of Staff, who had to interpret this order at great cost to the long-term efficiency of the Luftwaffe.

  When Hitler gave Galland a further decoration, the diamonds to the Knight’s Cross, Goering looked at it quizzically and demanded to see it more closely. Galland had followed the usual unofficial practice of fastening the ribbon holding the cross with a woman’s garter hidden under his collar; when the laughter over this had died down, Goering took the stones, examined them and claimed they were not diamonds at all. He said that the Führer, who knew nothing of such matters, had been duped. Later at Carinhall he gave Galland his decoration back, set by his own court jeweler. “Now,” said Goering, “these are the Führer’s diamonds and these the Reich Marshal’s. Which of us knows something about diamonds?”

  The year 1942 was the first in which Germany received the full force of armed retaliation against her. Hitler, working in an ever-increasing mental isolation, blamed the reverses on his generals and withdrew from the counsel of everyone, including Goering, whose failure in the air became openly apparent when the great raids from Britain began in the spring. Germany, feeding on the resources and the forced labor of the conquered territories, used her formidable strength in vain in a war that extended from North Africa through Russia to the Baltic and from Norway through Britain to France and Germany herself. To this on December 11 in the Reichstag he almost casually added the declaration of war on America, four days after the Japanese had made their surprise attack on Pearl Harbor.

  Goering went to Rome in January in an attempt to draw Mussolini closer to the great struggle to come, and to ask for an increase in military aid. He had celebrated his birthday with a lavish reception on January 12 and had been referred to afterward in the press by his old and favorite title of paladin of the Führer. Nevertheless, when he arrived in Rome on January 28 he said on getting off the train, “We are having hard times.” In conversation with Mussolini he blamed the Russian stalemate on the generals as if it were Hitler who was talking; he was skeptical about France making a useful contribution to the Axis, but he was convinced, he said, that Russia would yield during 1942 and Britain in 1943. Meanwhile, he wanted to renew the attack on Malta. “Nothing more can be done this winter,” he added to Mussolini, who stared at him thoughtfully. Ciano, who still had no love for Goering, describes him as “bloated and overbearing” and says that he “strutted blissfully” in front of the servile Italian commanders who were his hosts. On February 4 he had dinner with Ciano and boasted about the jewels he owned, and indeed displayed on his fingers.

  I am told that he plays with his gems like a little boy with his marbles [writes Ciano with his usual malicious delight]. During the journey he was nervous, so his aides brought him a small vase filled with diamonds. He placed them on the table and counted them, lined them up, mixing them together, and calmed down completely. One of his high officers said last evening, “He has two loves—beautiful objects and making war.” Both are expensive hobbies. At the station he wore a great sable coat, something between what motorists wore in 1906 and what a high-grade prostitute wears to the opera. . . . He is not only accepted in Germany but perhaps even loved for it. That is because he has a dash of humanity.”

  In February Goering presided over the court-martial of General Count von Sponeck and, according to Hassell, made it clear, when the General was condemned to death for ordering a tactical retreat in the Crimea, that Hitler expected nothing but obedience from his commanders. Hitler was now openly insulting his senior officers at the conferences he called, while he interfered increasingly with the details of their commands. Constant staff changes were the sign of his impatience and megalomania, and he had finally appointed himself Commander in Chief of the Army in December. Concentrating like a hypnotist in his forest fortress, he willed his generals to hold out in the cruel conditions of the Russian winter, with armies that were inadequately clothed and with frozen weapons the troops could not operate in the icy mud and deep drifts of snow. A third of his Army was either killed, wounded or missing by February 1942.

  Goering, no longer able to achieve prominence through the sporadic activities of the Luftwaffe, was still able to give his power some expression through the economy of Germany. The office of the Four-Year Plan issued a decree on January 29 addressed to both the civilian and the military authorities in the occupied territories, stating that “any and all methods must be adopted” to force workers to go to Germany. On March 21 Fritz Sauckel was appointed Plenipotentiary General for Manpower, responsible directly to Goering, and on March 27 Goering issued his enabling decree giving Sauckel the terrible powers that finally brought him to the dock in Nuremberg: “My manpower sections are hereby abolished. Their duties, recruitment and allocation of manpower, regulation for labor conditions, are taken over by the Plenipotentiary General for Manpower, who is directly under me. . . . In the case of ordinances and instructions of fundamental importance, report is to be submitted to me, in advance.”35

  In April 1942, on the suggestion of Speer, the new Minister of Armament and War Production, Goering established the Central Planning Board to allocate and distribute various materials among the three branches of the armed forces. Speer drafted the decree that Goering issued on April 25, and he was in effect Goering’s subordinate; Todt, his predecessor, had been on bad terms with Goering precisely because he had not been directly under him. Once more Hitler created administrative networks that tied themselves into knots and hindered his war effort. Speer, however, was to prove remarkably efficient, though he was later to become a convinced anti-Nazi and plan an attempt on Hitler’s life. Speer also managed to avoid having Goering present at the meetings of the board, of which he took charge, because, as he put it at Nuremberg, “We would not have had any use for him, for after all we ha
d to carry out practical work.” In spite of Allied bombing, he brought German armament production to its peak during the latter part of 1944.

  On August 6, 1942, Goering presided at the Air Ministry over a conference of the commissioners for the occupied territories at which he stressed the increased range of his powers as Plenipotentiary. He told the commissioners, “God knows you were not sent to work for the welfare of the populations, but to squeeze the utmost out of them so that the German people may live. . . . It makes no difference to me if you say that your people are starving.” Territory by territory he went over the quota of food to be supplied. Even a little blunt humor seemed called for: “It seemed to me to be a relatively simple matter in former days. It used to be called plundering. It was up to the party in question to carry off what had been conquered. But today things have become more genteel. In spite of that, I intend to plunder and to do it thoroughly. . . . Whenever you may come across anything that may be needed by the German people, you must be after it like a bloodhound. It must be taken out of store and brought to Germany.” He ended by threatening them: “Gentlemen, I have a very great deal to do and a very great deal of responsibility. I have no time to read letters and memoranda informing me that you cannot supply my requirements. I have only time to ascertain . . . whether the commitments are being fulfilled. . . . I will get what I demand from you, and if you cannot manage I will set up agencies that will get it out of you whether you like it or not.” Only for Sauckel does he seem to have had some praise: “What he has done in this brief time in order to collect workers from all over Europe and to bring them to our factories with such rapidity is a unique feat. I must say to all: If everybody in his own area would apply a tenth of the energy which Gauleiter Sauckel has applied, then indeed the tasks which have been assigned to you would easily be fulfilled.”36

  This bluff, aggressive manner was, of course, as normal to Goering in dealing with his agents and subordinates as it is with certain schoolmasters addressing unwilling pupils. But his hectoring manner at this important conference undoubtedly concealed his own uneasiness in authority. Like Hitler, he was hiding from the truth that the war to which he was now fully committed was no longer going well. When Walter Schellenberg, head of Himmler’s foreign-intelligence service, presented him with a special report on American war production early in 1942, all Goering would say was, “Everything you have written is utter nonsense. You should have a psychiatrist examine your mental condition.” The report gave evidence about the development of the United States Air Force and claimed that the annual steel production in the States was eighty-five to ninety million tons. By March 1942, according to Schellenberg, Goering was no longer important, his prestige had suffered severely through the failure of the air offensive against Britain, and he “seemed to have lost nearly all interest in the great military events.” Schellenberg refers to “his increasing dependence on morphia” and says many people attributed his loss of influence to this and to his “increasing morbid indulgence in a life of luxury.” Himmler sent Schellenberg in March to see Goering at Carinhall in order to suggest that a special large-scale organization for telephone tapping in Germany and the occupied territories, known as the Goering Research Bureau, should be taken over by Himmler. Goering kept Schellenberg waiting in the entrance hall and then suddenly emerged clad in a toga and sandals and carrying his marshal’s baton. While he listened to Schellenberg, he sat at a table on which stood a cut-glass bowl filled with pearls and antique jewelry, and these he fingered with such concentration that he appeared to be in a trance.37

  Himmler called Goering “the king of the black markets.” Nevertheless, in March Goering signed a law against profiteering and illicit dealing, though Goebbels claims its terms were milder than they should have been; in any case, he added, “the behavior of people prominent in political life should be made to accord with them”—which was without a doubt a jibe at Goering himself, whose openly luxurious way of life had always offended the harsh and narrow-minded Minister of Propaganda. However, Goebbels decided in March that it was time he had a discussion with Goering, and he seemed surprised to find him in “exceptionally good condition physically.” In his secret diary, Goebbels pays a rather unexpected tribute to Goering’s hard work, “enormous successes” and sound common sense. They discussed many matters, including the reprimand Goering had recently sent to two Catholic bishops who had been outspoken against the regime; he had reminded them of their oath, pledged to him personally, of fidelity to the State. On the other hand, he agreed with Goebbels that it was unwise for the party to have insisted on the removal of crucifixes from schools and hospitals. The Christian denominations, they agreed, could wait until after the war for their Nazification. About the war itself, Goering expressed doubts whether the spring and summer offensive would succeed against the Russians. The two ministers gossiped about the shortcomings of the field marshals and generals, and of their colleagues Frick and Rosenberg, and they daydreamed of removing the dividing line between Europe and Asia and forming a vast Eurasian hegemony. Goering, however, was “cautious” in his prognosis. When they parted, they found they had so enjoyed their talk that they decided there and then to meet more frequently.

  The following month, Goebbels remarked on the dignified language of the tribute to the Führer which Goering published on Hitler’s birthday, but was much less impressed when he made a public appearance on April 26 and introduced Hitler at a session of the Reichstag; he spoke, says Goebbels, “indistinctly and haltingly,” and his lack of assurance and apparent carelessness of manner caused considerable criticism.38 Hitler boldly proclaimed the campaign he was about to wage in Russia, but no doubt the moment was unpropitious for Goering to appear in public, for neither the Luftwaffe nor the antiaircraft defenses had been able to lessen the large-scale raids on Rostock during recent nights.

  May was an unfortunate month for Goering. First, he was greatly upset to find that a member of the Luftwaffe staff in the telephone-tapping “Research” Bureau, Lieutenant Harold Schulze-Boysen, the eccentric grandson of Admiral von Tirpitz, was head of an extensive spy ring known as the Rote Kapelle that was working for the Russians and had its agents placed in several of the ministries. The discovery led to over fifty hangings. At the end of the month the State Secretary forwarded to Goering in the strictest confidence the documents of a case against an embezzler called Pieper, in which Goering’s name and that of his cousin Herbert Goering frequently occurred. Part of Pieper’s defense was that he had been a channel through whom prominent industrialists had given presents to Goering in order to gain his goodwill, and it was suggested by Pieper’s lawyer that “publicly to go into this sort of thing in open court undoubtedly would seem to be contrary to the interests of the State.” Peter Menthe, one of Goering’s adjutants, had made statements that he had given Pieper letters expressing the Minister President’s gratitude for the presents received. The documents of the case, which were sent to Goering on May 8, were put under lock and key for a year, after which the State Secretary, Dr. Schlegelberger, promised Goering he could destroy all but the papers that ought to be kept.39 In August, Goering thought it wise to confer a flyer’s wings on Himmler, who was investigating the affairs of the ministry and possibly his own as well.

  No doubt this case did not give Goering much worry; such matters as this could easily be suppressed. But the first thousand-bomber raid, on the night of May 30—31, was a different matter. Cologne was severely damaged. Goering was at Veldenstein; Jeschonnek and Bodenschatz, who were with Hitler at Rastenburg, had to take the brunt of the Führer’s anger. There were conflicting reports as to the scale of the raid: the Luftwaffe report said that two hundred planes had come; the Gauleiter of Cologne reported there had been a thousand or more. Goering was summoned and Hitler in his anger treated him with contempt.

  In the Mediterranean the second period of the Malta blitz was less successful than had been expected. Malta had been reinforced by the R.A.F., and the island was most skillfully
defended. Goering met Galland in Naples and blamed the lack of success on the fighter pilots. To blame was easy, and Galland resented the criticism and the implication of the defeatist spirit behind it. Galland toured Africa and found that the task assigned to the Luftwaffe was beyond the available strength; the report he sent to Goering only led to further charges of defeatism. In October Montgomery opened his counteroffensive at El Alamein; in November the American forces landed in North Africa and the Battle of Stalingrad began in Russia. Hitler’s major successes of the year (apart from his toll on Allied shipping), Rommel’s drive toward Egypt and the penetration of the Caucasus, were either countered or reversed. Goering drafted a decree for the call-up of fifteen-year-old schoolboys; the draft was sent by accident to Schacht, who was still a Minister without Portfolio.40 When the Sixth Army was surrounded at Stalingrad, Goering made a desperate bid for reinstatement in Hitler’s favor by promising to supply General Paulus’ forces by air—a matter of attempting the impossible task of transporting 750 tons daily through the wintry Russian skies. The Luftwaffe failed, and so did attempts to relieve the Sixth Army by land. Hitler forbade surrender, but Paulus finally capitulated on February 2, 1943.

  Goering’s situation during the winter of 1942—43 lay in the shadows. He made one of his last public speeches at a harvest festival in the Sportpalast on October 4. Hassell reports it to have been successful, far more successful than Hitler’s own speech made a few days previously. Goering tried to hearten the German people. “It is my desire,” he said, “that the population of the territories which have been conquered by us and taken under our protection shall not suffer from hunger. If, however, through enemy measures difficulties of food supply should arise, then everyone should know that, if there is to be hunger anywhere, it shall never be in Germany.” He also referred as scathingly as he could to the Americans. “Some astronomical figures are expected from the American war industry. Now, I am the last to underrate this industry. Obviously the Americans do very well in some technical fields. We know they produce a colossal number of fast cars. And the development of radio is one of their special achievements, and so is razor blades. . . . But you must not forget there is one word in their language that is written with a capital B, and this word is Bluff.”