Goering (38 page)

Supplementing the task that was assigned to you on January 24, 1939, to solve the Jewish problem by means of emigration and evacuation in the best possible way according to present conditions, I herewith instruct you to make all necessary preparations as regards organizational, financial and material matters for a total solution [
Gesamtlösung
] of the Jewish question within the area of German influence in Europe. . . . I instruct you further to submit to me as soon as possible a general plan showing the measures for organization and for action necessary to carry out the desired final solution [
Endlösung
] of the Jewish question.
³¹

The exact nature of this “final” as distinct from “total” solution, Hitler's State Secretary Hans Lammers said at Nuremberg, took the form of an order from Hitler which was passed through Goering to Heydrich and was most probably given orally and never written. But by the time this letter was sent to Heydrich, the extermination groups were already at work in Russia.

Six months later, on January 20, 1942, at a conference held at Wannsee to discuss the removal of the Jews of Europe, Heydrich was to find representatives of Goering's Economic Staff East demanding exemption for the Jewish armament workers. In fact, Goering, through his initial intervention in the autumn of 1941, managed to keep the Jewish armament workers and their families free from deportation for about a year. But, as the world now knows, the “final solution” had already become the fearful summons to the mass extermination camps. In spite of his protests at Nuremberg about the comparative innocence of the terms used in his directive to Heydrich, there can be no doubt that Goering knew in principle that genocide was now the official practice of his colleagues. If any doubt remains, then his ears must have been shut when, at the meeting over which he presided on August 6, 1942, Lohse, one of the “Reich commissioners” for the occupied territories, commenting on a report concerning the massacre of 55,000 Jews in White Russia, said, “There are only a few Jews alive. Tens of thousands have been disposed of.”

At a conference on November 7 Goering issued directives which demanded the ruthless exploitation of Russian civilians and prisoners of war as laborers. Germany by now held some five million prisoners of war, of whom two million were employed in the war industries. Goering was quite prepared to order free men to be seized and employed as prisoners if they would not consent to work in and for Germany under normal contract.
³²

At the end of August when Germany was beginning to experience the teeth of Russian resistance in front of Moscow, Mussolini visited Hitler's headquarters on the eastern front, which were in the forest near Rastenburg in East Prussia, not far from Goering's shooting estate of Rominten; the headquarters, which were known as the Wolf's Lair, looked like an Alpine village composed of chalets. There Hitler lectured his lesser warlords on the Russian campaign and admitted that he had underestimated the degree of resistance his armies were now experiencing. According to Hassell, Goering was host to both Hitler and Mussolini at a small dinner party; Mussolini apparently behaved very coldly toward him, although Goering gave the Duce an album of photographs of Bruno Mussolini's visit to the Luftwaffe's Atlantic bases.

Compared with what was happening in Russia, the air war between Britain and Germany in the summer of 1941 was a comparatively chivalrous affair. The airmen respected each other, and Goering readily allowed the R.A.F. to parachute a pair of artificial legs to Wing Commander Douglas Bader, who had been shot down after a duel in the air. In the autumn Galland, who had been singled out by Goering as a future member of his senior staff and was in consequence a frequent guest at his shooting parties, was summoned to Veldenstein to confer about the increasing weight of the R.A.F. raids on Germany. To Goering the matter appeared of only temporary significance; soon all the planes would be back from the east. The job of the Luftwaffe, repeated Goering endlessly, was to attack, not defend. But Galland remained anxious; the fighters had been withdrawn in large numbers to the east, and many were converted to fighter bombers, while in the factories the production of bombers was still given priority. Meanwhile, the R.A.F. was taking advantage of this period of comparative invulnerability to increase the range and scale of its raids. Goering, however, preferred to leave defense to the antiaircraft gunners. In the east the Luftwaffe found it impossible to give the effective support to the Army that it should have done. Its strength was dispersed over a front that had suddenly extended a thousand miles within a couple of months, and it became a secondary force in the German strategy so vigorously opposed by the Russians. The glorious days of the Luftwaffe as a strategic force in its own right were gone, and perceptibly Goering's interest in it slackened.

In November came the suicide of General Udet following a violent scene with Goering, who had placed far too considerable a weight of responsibility on this easygoing, gallant, lighthearted pilot of the First World War. Though popular with the young airmen, Udet had been quite unequal to the task of organizing the development of the Luftwaffe's aircraft research and production.
³³
Goering insisted that the suicide remain secret, though the rumors spread around, and Udet's death was officially attributed on November 18 to an accident while testing a new weapon. A state funeral was ordered for November 21, and Werner Mölders, who had recently been appointed general of the Luftwaffe's fighter arm, crashed and died on his way to take part in it. Goering walked behind Udet's coffin in the funeral procession to the Invalidenfriedhof in the north of Berlin, where he delivered an oration, weeping publicly under the floodlights. When he retired to stand beside the Führer, the funeral march from
Götterdämmerung
rose in grand crescendo.

During the period November 24 to 27 Ciano was in Berlin, ostensibly to help celebrate the Anti-Comintern Pact. He met Goering several times, and the Reich Marshal put on a grand formal reception at his Berlin residence. In private conversation Ciano recounted later that “Goering gave the conversation a really friendly character such as I had not encountered in him for a long time.” He praised the Italian forces in Libya “with all the marks of his impetuous and enthusiastic temperament.” He said he was worried about the food situation in Greece and was considering an appeal to Roosevelt for help; if Roosevelt refused aid, then the blame for Greek starvation would be his!

He added, said Ciano:

On the other hand, we cannot worry unduly about the hunger of the Greeks. It is a misfortune which will strike many other people besides them. In the camps for Russian prisoners of war, after having eaten everything possible, including the soles of their boots, they have begun to eat each other, and what is more serious, have also eaten a German sentry. This year between twenty and thirty million persons will die in Russia of hunger. Perhaps it is well that it should be so, for certain nations must be decimated. But even if it were not, nothing can be done about it. It is obvious that if humanity is condemned to die of hunger, the last to die will be our two peoples.
³⁴

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.