I would indeed advise you [Carin wrote] to in-
clude in your letter to Hitler the treaty proposals
drafted at the time so that he can see for himself the
trouble you went to and will readily pay the expenses
you incurred... Emphasize that personally you stand
very well with the gentlemen [in Rome]!...
If you were to begin now suddenly telling Hitler
only of the impossibilities in Italy and of your own
plans in Sweden (my native country), he might easily
get the impression that you are prompted by purely
personal motives, that you mean to go to Sweden at
any price and are abandoning all hope of securing an
understanding with the Fascists... In that case he
won’t pay us anything...
Hitler is our only salvation now (with the excep-
tion of the sale of the villa). Everyone is waiting impa-
tiently for the funds from Bimbaschi. You can be cer-
tain I am watching out for them too! They want to get
the better of you and certainly don’t want you to get
any of the money, because they want it all for them-
selves. I don’t believe that we have one single unselfish
friend!Leo Negrelli had in fact duly passed on to Bastianini in Rome
the newspaper clippings about Hitler and letters that Göring
sent him, but he had not bothered to inform Göring in Venice.
When he now wrote to Göring mentioning the Nazis’ poor elec-
tion showing, Göring was stung to send back his most truculent
letter yet. “Elections,” he pointed out, “have nothing to do with
a promise that has been given. I am convinced that M[ussolini]
will be very upset when he hears how we have been given the
run-around.... Either you have the authority to approach M.
directly, in which case you could have done so long ago, or you
do not.... It puts me in a hideous position now, because I am
being blamed for letting myself be duped because on my ad-