“The chief of your Gestapo,” replied the oily civil servant,
“has his finger in many pies!”
Göring smiled and said nothing. A few minutes later, how-
ever, he rose and apologized to the generals that they would
have to lunch without him. “Something urgent has come up,
demanding my attention,” he explained. That afternoon, the
: .. edition of the Berliner Zeitung announced that Diels
was to resign, and take over a new position offered to him by
Göring Regierungspräsident (Lord Lieutenant) of Cologne.
In Diels would marry one of Hermann Göring’s
nieces. Later he divorced her. Later still, he swore a stack of an-
nihilating affidavits against Göring for the war-crimes tribunal,
most of which must be read with the utmost caution, given the
vulnerable position in which the first chief of Göring’s Gestapo
must have fancied himself. In one, he claimed that he and
Göring took a dossier on SA atrocities down to Hitler on the
Obersalzberg early in January . “Herr Göring,” exclaimed
Hitler, “these are common knowledge. This entire clique around
Röhm is rotten to the core. The SA has become a haven for
riffraff and scumbags.” Hitler, said Diels, had then instructed
Göring to see that certain “traitors” and he mentioned
Schleicher and Strasser by name vanished from the scene.
Oblivious of the closing ranks against him, Ernst Röhm
tossed off during February several arrogant statements that
alarmed the army and clearly explained why their top generals
were conniving with Göring behind clubhouse doors. Röhm de-
clared to Blomberg that Germany’s defense was purely the SA’s
concern, and he lectured Fritsch that the future army would be
restricted to training the SA for that job. Uneasy now, Hitler
ordered Röhm to sign a document, dictated by the army,
agreeing to restrict his SA to purely political tasks. Röhm signed
but made scathing remarks in private, which Viktor Lutze, his