sworn enemy within the SA, promptly repeated to Hitler. On
March , Göring was among party leaders who heard Hitler
vow never to let a “second revolution” occur, of the sort that
Röhm had in mind.
Thus the alliance between Himmler and Göring was con-
summated on April , : Göring put on the blue-gray uni-
form that he had designed for his secret air force, marched into
the Prussian Ministry building with saber aclank at his side, and
ceremonially handed over his Gestapo to Heinrich Himmler
and the SS. No dullard in power politics, however, Göring re-
tained one special unit of the green-uniformed Landespolizei for
his own protection. From this tiny seed, in time, would grow the
crack Hermann Göring Division and Panzer Corps.
It was going to be a long, sultry summer. Göring lingered at
Carinhall, perspiring profusely in the Central European heat,
bathing frequently in the marble baths, or submerging himself
in the cool waters of Carin’s lake.
On June , he invited forty foreign diplomats out to envy
him. Their motorcade drove the fifty miles from Berlin along
the Prenzlau highway until they reached the checkpoint that
guarded access to his domains. The landscape was dotted with
ponds and lakes, around which wound the eight miles of new
tarmac road leading to Carinhall itself.
He met them at the southern edge of the heath at the
wheel of his two-seater sports car. He was dressed, according to
British ambassador Sir Eric Phipps, in aviator’s garb of India
rubber, with high boots and a large hunting knife stuck in his
belt. Oblivious of the snickering asides, he took a megaphone
and launched into a lecture on the elks and other fauna that he
had imported from East Prussia and elsewhere. He was particu-
larly proud of his new bison reservation and attempted to per-