investigations continued nonetheless, because early in July
Schmidt was turned over to the Gestapo for higher interroga-
tion, and this time the chief of the Homosexual Crimes Squad,
Josef Meisinger, showed the blackmailer a photograph of Gen-
eral von Fritsch. From the general’s private papers we know that
at the end of perhaps coincidentally, some days after
Blomberg had invited a wide-eyed Göring to ship his rival out
of Germany the Gestapo not only suddenly resumed its inter-
rogations of the blackmailer but also located and began to ques-
tion the male prostitute involved, Weingärtner.
“I do not know,” wrote Fritsch in his own hand a few days
later, “from whom the actual initiative came, be it from Hitler,
from Göring or Himmler. Whoever it was, the crown witness,
who was currently serving time in the Papenburg camp, was
immediately produced.”
It seems upon deeper analysis unlikely that Göring had
initiated the whole fiasco. For him to have started the move
against Fritsch as early as December would imply that he
had realized that the Blomberg fiancée was indeed “a whore,”
and that he had nonetheless allowed himself and Hitler to be
made ridiculous by attending her wedding in January.
Overimpetuous this time, Göring jumped bum-deep into
this juicy scandal not suspecting that he would shortly sink in
almost up to his neck. He brought the dossier on the “homosex-
ual Fritsch” to Hitler’s attention at the same time as that on the
Blomberg bride. Hitler told him to question the blackmailer,
Schmidt, in person.
Age thirty-one now, the felon was brought into the Göring
villa. He had been sentenced to seven years on December ,
, on multiple counts of blackmail, impersonating a police
officer, and a variety of homosexual offenses. General Göring
scrutinized him from behind his desk and decided that the