have arrived,” the people took to saying. “So the raid must be
over!” The Luftwaffe sent a mere twenty-two long-range night
fighters to harass RAF bases one night. Hitler was infuriated. “I
far prefer,” he said, telephoning Göring, “to keep bombing their
cities, whatever you say.”
On October , although the skies were sunny and agents
had actually told the Germans what the target was Frankfurt-
Heddernheim Galland’s pilots barely intervened. Frankfurt
was badly mauled. Hitler phoned Göring derisively at nine-
thirty that evening. Göring found out subsequently that the th
Fighter Division had been “grounded by bad weather.” “The
German public doesn’t care two hoots about your fighter losses,”
he snapped at Galland. “Go to Frankfurt and ask what impres-
sion your fighter losses that day left on them. They’ll tell you,
‘You’re out of your mind look at our thousands of dead!’ ” He
added, “For the sake of our Luftwaffe prestige, there can’t be a
second Frankfurt. Perhaps you can take it. I can’t!”
Summoned to Hitler’s presence the next day and cursed
for ninety minutes, Göring showed off the new production pro-
gram, number . It featured the jet for the first time, but
Hitler’s eagle eye detected what Göring’s had not that bomber
production virtually vanished in the spring of although he
was calling for a strike force by May capable of defeating
the expected Allied invasion in the west.
Göring transmitted Hitler’s anger vocally to his staff. “I was
told I just had to hold tight for a year,” he raged, “and then eve-
rything would come out right in mid-. But that’s not true.
This month the program shows bombers, and next October
only .... What on earth is the field marshal [Milch] think-
ing of? I want an end to this swindling, once and for all,” he
shouted, losing his temper. “This is worse than under Udet.
Where’s the ‘production increase’?” He learned only now that