Hoek [of Holland], and Göring can go to the devil!”
Göring was for all that a fine shot and true sportsman. He
preferred the breathless pursuit of his quarry through moor
and bog and fen, from tree to tree, to sitting passively in a blind.
Up at : .., he would stalk for six or seven hours until the
most stalwart accompanying forester would capitulate to his
moaning stomach. Even then, back at the lodge, if word came
that their quarry had been sighted, Göring would gallop back.
Somehow his game diary for and survived the
war. Its entries, penciled in his broad and flowing hand, capture
something of the carefree flavor of those years. Like a snapshot
album, which shows us the world of the photographer as
though through his own eyes, this scrappy diary suggests which
elements of stalking each fine animal particularly commended
themselves to the writer. To the non-hunting outsider, reading
the endless details of the pursuit and kill, the huntsman seems to
have been half-voyeur, half-Casanova, so obsessed with the in-
toxicating thrill of pursuit that the whole ritual became an end
to itself.
, : : .., arrival [at Rominten]
from Gumbinnen by car with guests Emmy [Göring],
Else [her sister], Scherping, Menthe, [Göring’s adju-
tant Bernd] von Brauchitsch, Robert [valet]... Het-
zelt [Göring’s architect] hands over new building,
“Emmy Hall”... : .., stalking -pointer, [shot
it] clean through the heart at to yards; the
stag broke cover baying, unaccompanied. Five ..
bagged “Werner Junior,” a -pointer... an old stag,
thirteen or fourteen, but a royal one. , : Very fine weather, sun shining,
brisk and cold. Guests arrive [Reich Foreign Min-
ister] von Neurath, von Papen, Milch, Körner,