him call imperiously for General Keitel a hint that he was go-
ing to use armed force.
Schuschnigg made no difficulty about signing the new
supplementary agreement that Hitler demanded. It gave Ger-
many a greater influence on Austria’s economy and domestic
affairs (Seyss-Inquart, for example, would become minister of
the interior in Vienna). Three days later, on February , the
Austrian government formally ratified the “Berghof Agree-
ment.” At Hitler’s Berlin reception for the diplomatic corps that
evening, Göring shook hands particularly warmly with
Tauschitz, the Austrian, and remarked, “A new epoch is begin-
ning in German history.”
This harmony was short-lived. British newspapers now
suddenly screamed rape. On February , Göring sent for Sir
Nevile Henderson to deliver the now-familiar homily on how
much Germans resented this perpetual British interference in
their “family affairs.” Seldom do the archives reveal the hidden
price of newspaper-circulation wars more dramatically than in
this instance: Two days later Field Marshal Göring ordered his
Luftwaffe to investigate the feasibility of conducting air opera-
tions against London and southern England after all.
For three more weeks Hitler clung to his Berghof Agree-
ment with Austria. In his great Reichstag speech on February ,
he praised Schuschnigg for his statesmanship, and bound Ger-
many once more to the July accord with Austria. When
word reached Göring via Keppler the next day about fresh out-
rages being planned by Captain Joseph Leopold, the Austrian
Nazi rabble-rouser, he and Hitler sent for him and sacked him
without notice. On March the final evidence of Göring’s
state of mind on the very eve of what now happened Göring
dictated a letter to his protégé Guido Schmidt mentioning the
“high hopes” he vested in the Berghof Agreement and offering