word of honor not to escape. His brother, Major Willi Göring,
issued a statement to the press denying it, but the allegation
continued to occupy the libel lawyers for the next ten years.
They had instructed me [driver Franz Thanner re-
corded] to drive off but to stand by not far away. A
short time later I was instructed to drive back as qui-
etly as possible and wait around the back of the
building. With my engine switched off, I pushed the
car around to the back exit with the help of some
Bund Oberland men. Captain Göring was carried out
and bedded down in the car. The captain’s lady
stayed behind only the doctor came with me. I was
told to drive Captain Göring over the frontier at
Mittenwald without fail, as the warrant was already
being phoned through from Munich.The mountain roads were dark as pitch. At the frontier the
striped barrier pole was up. Thanner blipped the horn and
slammed his foot on the gas, catapulting the car through into
Austria before the German guards could stop him. On the Aus-
trian side he showed a false passport for Göring, borrowed from
a doctor at Garmisch, then drove on to the Golden Lamb, an
inn at Seefeld. They carried him upstairs but there was a noisy
firemen’s ball going on down below, which prevented any sleep.
At Göring’s behest, Thanner went back for Carin, and on Mon-
day the twelfth they all drove on to Innsbruck, where they
checked into the Hotel Tyrol, owned by one of the many local
Nazi sympathizers.
Thus the Görings were beyond the reach of German law.
Hermann would not return to Germany for four years; and
when he did he would be a changed man.
He was now delirious with pain from his groin injury, and
they took him straight over to No. Bahnhof Platz, where the