pastries into cardboard boxes and carry them in a shuttle service
out to the cars.” His reducing efforts had evidently been short-
lived. On the following Sunday the Danish townsfolk crowded
into the bakery everybody wanted to sample the Göring
skrubbar. “Later,” said Hermansson, “he ordered more pastries
and kranskaka [a ring-shaped cake], which we had to send him
by train.”
His favorite cruising routes took Carin along the inland
waterways from Berlin into the Elbe and down the canals to the
Rhine. Proud, contented Germans lined the banks and waved as
their chubby field marshal chugged past. Arrayed in a white
uniform, he sprawled in a deck chair and lapped up applause
and sunshine while the boat’s loudspeakers boomed gaudy songs
like “Blame It on Napoleon.” At dusk they made fast at some
village quay and he settled down to a beer and a game of skat at a
pfennig a point. The very idea of losing was unthinkable, and
his adjutants sat with faces bleached at the thought of acciden-
tally winning. Game over, the field marshal would stuff a pajama
pocket with bonbons scooped up from a jar and retire to his
lavish, mahogany-paneled bedroom.
Göring’s motor yacht Carin was a gift of the German
automobile industry.