My darling!
I’m listening to songs on the Swedish radio....
What pleasure the radio set you gave is giving me. I
had a concert all the way from Berlin to the Sassnitz
ferry despite the rattling of the train. I can pick u p
thirty or forty stations here. Yesterday I was able to
get Stuttgart for a while....
For hours every day I go for long walks by myself
in the most beautiful forest you’ve ever seen. I’m
sleeping eight or ten hours a day; I just hope I can
stay on a bit longer. They all speak so charmingly of
you here, they’re all very nice to me.
My dear, I want to thank you from my heart for
all your love and unselfish sacrifice and for everything
you’ve done for me. Let’s hope the New Year is just as
kind to us.A few hours later, the new year, , began: Göring’s year of
destiny, and Europe’s too. He was obsessed with Gregor Strasser
and his treachery. “At midnight,” wrote Goebbels, campaigning
with Göring in an important election at Lippe on January ,
“Göring came. Strasser is the eternal subject of our discussions.”
But then, just when it seemed impossible that anything produc-
tive would emerge from the weeks of grubby intrigue, the Nazis
began to emerge victorious after all. The vice-chancellor, Franz
von Papen, met Hitler furtively at the house of a Cologne
banker and, in a reversal of his former position, agreed to serve
under the Nazi Führer; they carved up the future Cabinet
portfolios between their respective parties. Papen then arranged
a secret meeting between Hitler and the president’s influential
son, Colonel Oskar von Hindenburg. Göring attended this se-
cret meeting held in the villa of champagne-company direc-
tor Joachim von Ribbentrop at Berlin-Dahlem and claimed
much of the credit himself for its successful outcome. At any