underground, in a cavernous factory beneath the Harz Moun-
tains. There was no time to be lost: On the seventh, British
newspapers revealed that they too were working on jet propul-
sion.
Göring’s fifty-first birthday, a few days later, was a shadow
of its predecessors.
Any last vestiges of festive mood were spoiled by a de-
manding inquiry from Hitler about the heavy Me fighter
armed with the fifty-millimeter cannon, one of the planes dis-
played to him at Insterburg. “Again and again,” Göring testily
cabled to Milch that day, “the Führer inquires how many of
these planes are in operation. Since I unfortunately have to tell
the Führer that virtually no such planes are in operation, and
that only two or three have been equipped with the cannon, the
Führer has begun to look upon such displays in the same light as
the famous Rechlin one [of July ].”
On January , , the RAF dropped twenty-four hun-
dred tons of bombs on Berlin, an extraordinary effort consider-
ing the range, and considering the Luftwaffe’s difficulties one
year earlier in lifting just one hundred tons over the short range
to Stalingrad. On the following night Göring launched the
much-delayed Operation Capricorn. He believed that three
hundred or four hundred bombers had attacked London, but
the British mockingly put the number arriving at about thirty.
“You’ve got agents,” snorted Hitler at General Korten. “Find
out!” Göring fled to Carinhall, preferring the thunder of the
raids on Berlin to the hidden tones of menace in Hitler’s voice.
That winter the paratroop general Bernard Ramcke came
to see the Reichsmarschall in this, his natural habitat. For Ram-
cke it was an unforgettable experience.
Brauchitsch apologized that Göring was sleeping late after a
five-hour dispute with Milch the day before. Upon awakening,