Vatican but only crates would eventually arrive there (on
January ). The contents of the other sixteen now lay spread out
for the Reichsmarschall’s delectation life-size bronze statues of
Hermes resting, a female dancer, an Apollo from Pompeii, two
stags from the Herculaneum, antique gold and silver, and a
stack of paintings too: two Titians (“Danse” and “Portrait of
Lavinia”), a Claude Lorrain landscape, a Raphael, a Tiepolo, a
Palma Vecchio, and Pieter Breughel the Elder’s famous painting
of “The Blind Leading the Blind.” His barely-used conscience
sorely troubled, Göring put them on “temporary” display at
Carinhall and asked Hitler for a ruling on this booty. Hitler told
him to remove them immediately to the safety of the flak bun-
ker at Kurfürst, the air-force headquarters outside Berlin.
Ironically it was thus Göring and Hitler who rescued these
famous treasures for posterity. American officers afterward sol-
emnly accused the Reichsmarschall of having “stolen” the Monte
Cassino treasures: In view of the depredations visited by their
strategic bombers upon the historic abbey just a few weeks later,
in February , they were, however, in no position to press
their point.
The year would see the final ruination of Germany’s most
beautiful cities, but also the beginning of a painful Luftwaffe re-
vival, with the jet-propelled aircraft leading the way. On Janu-
ary , , Hitler told Göring that he attached top priority now
to the new U-boat types and , and to these jet planes.
“If I get them in time,” he reiterated, “I can ward off the inva-
sion.” It had become an obsession for him. From Asia that eve-
ning, Göring sent a telegram to Milch to ask whether they could
scrap even more aircraft types to boost the jet’s production.
With Heinrich Himmler’s help, he now planned to put mass-
production lines for both the and its Jumo jet engine