Führer can see it!”
As a public-relations exercise, the display was a disaster for
Göring.
Plucking the program out of Milch’s hand, the
Reichsmarschall read out the specifications as he conducted
Hitler past the rank of parked planes and missiles. Abreast of the
stubby, squat Fi- flying bomb Hitler asked when it would be
ready. Kröger, a Luftwaffe staff engineer from Peenemünde,
volunteered, “By the end of March .” Hitler’s face dark-
ened, and Göring, who knew that Hitler was thinking of New
Year’s Eve, winced.
At the Me jet fighter, Hitler again paused. “I’m not in-
terested in this plane as a fighter,” he commented. “Does it carry
bombs?”
Messerschmitt bounded forward, saluted, and announced
that the could carry one ton.
Hitler announced, “I order this plane built as a bomber!”
He took only Milch onto the roof of the control tower to
watch the fly past. “The Reichsmarschall,” he said, “is too fat
to get up through the trapdoor.”
Göring returned to the hunting lodge at Rominten. At
Carinhall, gangs of laborers had completed installing twenty-
millimeter flak positions and bunkers across the surrounding
Schorf Heath. Scores of soldiers were sweeping the leaves of
autumn off the estate’s asphalt roads, in case the Reichsmarschall
returned. But although he had two well-equipped air-raid
shelters at Carinhall one for family and one for staff Göring
decided to remain in East Prussia, far from the howl of the si-
rens and the blast of the bombs.
On the night of the Insterburg display the RAF sent
planes to Berlin and on a diversionary raid to Stuttgart.
Hitler ordered Göring to exact violent retribution against