in Venice. It was no longer a pleasure for them. One can almost
hear Negrelli groan at the opening words of Hermann’s next
letter on October : “As you can see, we are still here.. .” In this
letter Göring angrily complained at being “led by the nose” and
demanded as the accredited representative of a movement with
four million voters and eight million supporters to be taken se-
riously. He indicated that when released, the Führer, Adolf
Hitler, would want to visit Rome with Göring to continue the
Fascist-Nazi party negotiations in person. “However, he would
not come unless he could be sure of an audience with Musso-
lini,” warned Göring and the querulous tone shows once
more how tenuous were the contacts that he had established
with Rome. For good measure, he threw in a lecture for Negrelli
on the importance of a crusading anti-Semitism for nationalist
movements everywhere. “The Jews,” he wrote, “must be fought
in every country.”
Göring had an added reason for impatience with Rome
now. Acting on his advice, Hitler had issued an official Nazi
party declaration expressing a lack of interest in the South T y -
rol. The consequences had been the most immediate and wide-
spread condemnation of the party by other nationalist group-
ings and by the entire German press. Hitler had been stripped
of his Austrian citizenship, and all those Nazis who had taken
refuge in the Tyrol after the beer hall putsch had been summa-
rily expelled. Yet all that Göring could extract from Rome were
the vaguest unofficial expressions of goodwill.
Hermann had been on the run for nearly a year now, and
it pained him to see Carin withering away in this Venice hotel
with its red plush trappings and pretentious menus in kitchen
French the “consommé à la Butterfly” and the “volaille à la
Chanteclair.” Munich and the brouhaha of November
seemed part of another world. “How many fine dreams have