empty words of consolation. To date I have still not received one
pfennig from either Ludendorff or Hitler nothing but a load
of promises and photographs signed ‘in deepest loyalty.’ ”
Göring took a job as a pilot with a new company, Nordiska
Flygrederiet, operating between Stockholm and Danzig. But it
lasted only a few weeks perhaps his drug addiction was found
out. It was an expensive habit, and the funds that Carin had
brought from Germany ran out. She had to be hospitalized with
heart trouble and tuberculosis. They pawned furniture, and her
sister Lily sold her piano to pay the medical expenses and buy
more morphine for Hermann. He made no secret of his addic-
tion. One of Carin’s girlfriends would later recall walking with
them in the hills outside Stockholm (he was anxious to lose
weight). For a while, she noticed, Hermann looked taut and
odd; then he disappeared briefly and returned looking visibly
better and talking freely.
His decline steepened. On occasions he became so violent
toward Carin and Thomas that she fled to her parents. Once, he
opened a window and threatened to kill himself. “Let him jump,
Mama!” screamed Thomas, white with fear. The family physi-
cian, Dr. Fröderström, recommended that he should enter a
drug-withdrawal clinic for a month, and he registered volun-
tarily at the Aspuddens Nursing Home on August , .
For a while all went well. On the twentieth, he wrote to
Carin’s girlfriend, vacationing in Norway, looking forward to
joining her for some long stiff walks:
I want to regain my former health and trim figure
by climbing mountains, since the cure that I am suc-
cessfully undergoing here has eliminated the main
causes of my unnatural bulk. I am vain and coquettish
about this usually a female prerogative.
But this is merely an excuse. I go quite wild when I