suitable experimental site. Another officer, Heinz Guderian, had
begun studying tank tactics nearby, and many later famous
names like Hans Jeschonnek and Hermann Ploch passed
through this secret training base at Lipetsk in the twenties. As
recently as September , , Milch still a Lufthansa execu-
tive then had visited the German Aviation Research Institute’s
secret laboratory at Yagi, outside Moscow.
Göring’s plan in was to raise initially a small, well-
camouflaged air force under cover of amateur flying clubs and
civil aviation, and then, from the autumn of until the
autumn of , rapidly build a full-scale armada of the air. It is
unlikely that anyone but Göring could have raised an air force
with such speed. Göring had Hitler’s trust, and the Führer gave
him a free hand that he would not have given to any other poli-
tician. Throughout the embryonic air force the stock phrase be-
came “Money is no object!” The finance minister shuddered
when he saw Göring approach. When General von Blomberg
protested, Göring simply said, “It’s not your money, is it!”
The first secret Air Ministry was set up on March , ,
in the offices of a bank that had defaulted in Behren Strasse.
Göring rarely visited the building, preferring the pomp and
splendor of the Prussian prime minister’s lair he was building a
few hundred yards away. Milch, whom Göring was happy to
leave running the ministry, coaxed him into visiting the ex-
perimental aeronautical station at Rechlin, west of Berlin, on
March , but when they both flew down to Rome that April,
Göring left it to Milch to confer with Italian Air Force General
Italo Balbo, while he himself concentrated on the Duce. Back in
their hotel, Milch told him that he had explained to Balbo that
the German Air Force would concentrate on building bombers
at first, as a deterrent.
“Ja, ja,” interrupted Göring impatiently. “Do as you think