me,” opined the minister, “that Göring is succumbing more and
more to a luxury-loving Caesar complex and is losing contact
with reality.”
The feud with Ribbentrop, of course, continued. Göring
got his own back in petty ways. “Among other things,” recalled
Beppo Schmid years later, “Göring ordered his chauffeur always
to cut in on Ribbentrop’s limousine, to ensure that he, Göring,
always had second place in Hitler’s motor cavalcades.”
His relationship with Hitler meanwhile underwent grave
changes as he alternated between opportunistic loyalty and de-
spairing infatuation. Prince Paul had confided to Dahlerus one
remark by Hitler: “I am not a lonely man I have the best
friend in the world, I have Göring!” Hearst-group journalist
Karl von Wiegand confidentially testified to the FBI in that
the clue to Göring’s complex character lay in his determination
not to forfeit the succession to the Führer. “That,” he suggested,
“is why Göring is so subservient. He takes abuses that no other
man would take. He knows that Hitler has the power to elimi-
nate him just by the scratch of a pen.”
Something of the old camaraderie was revived during
White and Yellow (invasion of France, Belgium, and Holland)
thanks to the achievements of the Luftwaffe; but it would slip
with each subsequent reverse, reaching a low point at Stalingrad
(January ) from which it never recovered. With the excep-
tion of two specific episodes the air attacks on Warsaw and
Belgrade Göring fought a more chivalrous war than his ene-
mies, as befitted the last commander of the Richthofen Squad-
ron. He employed the tactical air force with moderation during
the Polish campaign; although the contemporary British
and French propaganda claimed differently, the captured secret
dispatches of the French air attaché in Warsaw, later published
by the Nazis, documented this unexpected restraint. On Hitler’s