possible role in an invasion, Falkenstein wrote that Jeschonnek
had refused any comment “since in his opinion the Führer has
not the slightest intention of crossing the [English] Channel.”
Hitler and Göring both believed that air attacks on Brit-
ain’s shipping lifeline would suffice to force Churchill to see
things their way. Göring ordered his squadrons to begin small-
scale raids on British ports and harbors but attacks on inland
towns were explicitly forbidden.
Göring himself had been drawn back to Amsterdam to run
a greedy eye over the amazing art collection of a bankrupt
Dutch dealer, J. Goudstikker.
His absence on these curious shopping expeditions was a
relief for the air force. On June , his chief of operations, Wal-
dau, commented in his private diary, “Field marshal is away on
his travels, a blessing for us.” Two days later he returned in Asia
to Berlin, and here he would stay until early September which
testified to his complete lack of interest in the “phony” Sea Lion
operation. Idling out at Carinhall, he drooled over his new art
acquisitions, and considered which of his generals to ennoble at
the end of the war. He rewarded his friend Ernst Udet immedi-
ately with the Knight’s Cross on July , although Udet’s desk job
as director of air armament had involved hardly any heroism at
all.
Hitler told Göring that he was planning to make a mag-
nanimous peace offer to Britain in his major Reichstag speech.
The field marshal warned that the British would insist on a total
withdrawal from Norway, Poland, and the west though they
might allow Germany to retain Alsace-Lorraine and the Polish
Corridor. Hitler quieted Göring with the disclosure that he was
going to promote him at the same Reichstag session to
“Reichsmarschall,” or six-star general. There had only been one
other in German history, Prince Eugen of Savoy. Göring swelled