picking up the mansion’s pervasive, unmistakable atmosphere of
aristocratic pretensions; it was like an alcoholic getting a whiff of
his first tot of the day. His voyeur’s eye missed no detail: the
hunting trophies, the devotional garden doorframe carved
somewhere in Bavaria depicting an Assumption of Our Lady,
the great hall with its remote-controlled wall of glass overlooking
the lake at one end, the dining room lined with a parchment
that looked to Halifax’s approving eye rather like mother-of-
pearl.
After luncheon [he noted in his diary], which in-
cluded some of the rawest beef I have ever seen,
Göring took me off with [chief interpreter Paul]
Schmidt to talk. I repeated to him what I had said to
Hitler, namely that we did not wish and had never
wished to stand strictly on the present state of the
world, but that we were concerned to see reasonable
settlements reached.“It would be a disaster,” agreed Göring, “if the two finest races of
the world were ever to be so mad as to fight.” The British Em-
pire was, he suggested, a great influence for peace but Ger-
many too was entitled to her “special spheres of influence.”
Afterward, Lord Halifax found himself wondering how
many assassinations his host had commanded, “for good cause
or bad.” He had to confess that the general’s personality was at-
tractive “like a great schoolboy, full of life and pride in all he
was doing, showing off his forest and animals, and then talking
high politics out of the setting of green jerkin and red dagger.”