During the first year Stumpff recruited officers from the
army and from naval aviation. A rapid-training program be-
gan. When Stumpff proudly reported the training of the thou-
sandth pilot, Göring congratulated him: “Now on to the next
thousand!” he bellowed.
“You left every conference with him,” said Stumpff after-
ward, “boosted to an extra thousand .”
The real architect of the secret air force was Milch. A year
senior to his minister, he was ambitious, loud-mouthed, and
every bit as ruthless. Milch had trampled many of his business
rivals in his climb to power, and he never enjoyed Göring’s per-
ennial, inexplicable popularity. Göring could hardly overlook
Milch’s naked ambition. Several times in May and June it
was Milch and his minister who had attended the Cabinet
meetings, and Göring heard that his Staatssekretär was saying,
“The real minister is me!” Milch suspected that Göring had suc-
cumbed to morphine again, and tackled him about it. It was a
strained, rambunctious relationship, not made easier for Göring
by the knowledge that Milch was indispensable to him. Once he
telephoned Milch, sitting in that first secret ministry building in
Behren Strasse: Milch listened only briefly to Göring’s ill-
tempered outburst before hanging up on him.
Göring phoned again. “We were cut off,” he said.
“No,” snapped Milch. “I put the phone down on you. I
don’t want our switchboard to get the impression that our min-
ister has no manners.”
What Göring never took into account, Milch explained to
this author, was time: “That was beyond him.” Milch methodi-
cally pulled together all the strands that, entwined, go to make
an air force civil aviation, meteorological services, aeronautical
laboratories, flying schools, ground organization. In mid-August
he signed the orders setting up Fliegerwaffen schools for special-