vors, as when a Ukrainian nationalist killed the Polish minister of
the interior and fled to Germany in mid-June. Göring arbitrar-
ily loaded the wretched assailant onto the next plane back to
Warsaw, an act of dubious legality that won him immediate ac-
claim from the Poles (and an annual spring visit to Bialowieza
thereafter until ).
He extended this unorthodox diplomatic style to the min-
eral-rich Balkans, hitherto neglected by both Hitler and the for-
eign ministry, undertaking in the spring of the first of a
series of spectacular swings through the southeast. He often
noised it around that he was conveying special handwritten
messages from Hitler, or that he was traveling on Hitler’s per-
sonal instructions which flattered these smaller, half-forgotten
nations but only dismayed Italy the more, since she regarded the
Balkans as an Italian preserve.
Regardless of Italian feelings, on May , , General
Göring set out with Milch, Körner, Kerrl, and Prince Philipp of
Hesse on a ten-day “vacation” tour of the southeast. Rather
tactlessly, he took along his (still-married) lady friend Emmy
Sonnemann, causing scandalized comment that Goebbels was
not slow to call to Hitler’s attention. Even less tactfully, Göring
had announced that the tour was to begin with Rome, then
smugly announced just before takeoff that they would not be
calling there after all, a calculated affront that left the Italian wel-
coming party empty-handed at the airport and Mussolini
spluttering with anger.
To the delight of the Hungarians, Göring stopped briefly
at Budapest instead, allegedly for technical reasons. On the six-
teenth, further “technical reasons” caused him to dally in Bel-
grade, where he hinted that he would like to see the king (who
was, however, genuinely absent). In ten days Göring succeeded
in convincing all of southeastern Europe as far as Greece and the