mies. He writes me smart-ass letters expressing his ‘profound
concern.’ I’ve a good mind to show them to the Führer.” (In
fact, Ribbentrop had already taken that precaution himself.)
“As thick as two planks,” agreed Rosenberg. “But with all
the arrogance to get his own way.”
“He sure took us in with his ‘contacts,’ ” Göring groused.
“When we got a closer look at his French counts and British
lords they all turned out to have made their fortunes in cham-
pagne, whiskey, and cognac. And now this idiot thinks he’s got
to act the Iron Chancellor everywhere.” He mused for a while,
then added, “The one good thing is that fools like him destroy
themselves in the long run anyway.”
On May , , the Italian foreign minister Count Ciano
arrived in Berlin to sign a military alliance. Göring had not been
consulted, but Ribbentrop invited him to stand behind him as
photographers filmed the signing ceremony.
“Do you think I’m crazy?” snapped Göring. “I don’t even
know what is being signed.”
“Just imagine,” he recalled, still fuming, in November ,
when it no longer really mattered. “With the newsreels and all
that he wanted me the second man in the Reich to stand
approvingly behind him. The gall of the man! I told him that if
I did pose for them, I would sit down and he could stand be-
hind me!”
His humiliation was complete when he saw the fabulous
decoration that he coveted, the diamond-studded Collar of the
Annunziata, bestowed at the Italian embassy upon his smirking
rival. He took it as a deliberate slight and raised hell at every
level up to the king of Italy, being mollified only by the award,
twelve months later, of the identical Collar in consolation.
Still sulking, he ducked out of official appointments in
Berlin. He appeared in full uniform at the formal opening of