Reemtsma cigarettes” as a productivity incentive; another tran-
script in August would reveal Göring recommending that
governors of Nazi-occupied territories barter Reemtsma ciga-
rettes in return for native Ukrainian peasant produce. Subse-
quently he passed on to Philip Reemtsma a hint that he should
diversify into shipping, as Hitler planned to launch an anti-
tobacco campaign after the war.
Reemtsma rewarded Göring in a manner that would cer-
tainly qualify as “passive bribery” under Sections and of
the Reich Criminal Code: He paid a check for a quarter of a mil-
lion marks every three months into Göring’s bank accounts (the
ledgers meticulously kept by Fräulein Grundtmann show such
payments from July right through to November ,
“check for RM, from Reemtsma of Hamburg-Altona, to
be credited to the Art Fund”). Over ten years, so Reemtsma and
Körner candidly testified after it was all over, the firm coughed
up nearly fifteen million marks for Göring’s “cultural and for-
estry activities.” Wars came less cheaply Philip Reemtsma
would lose all three sons on Hitler’s battlefields.
At the German Aviation Bank, Göring opened an account
(“for needy aviators”), and this was kept in funds by the grate-
ful aircraft industry. Years later Milch would ask aircraft-
manufacturer Fritz Siebel outright about Göring’s slice of his
firm’s takings. (“He turned bright red!” observed Milch with
satisfaction.) Payments to Göring by industry would total
,, marks (around ,) in the one year from Octo-
ber alone. What he had he spent mostly on Carinhall,
which he intended to leave to the nation anyway. He possessed
no hidden fortune. “I can await any revelations of your agents
... with an untroubled mind,” he smiled to American investi-
gators; and then he teasingly inquired whether living conditions
were better in Argentina or Chile.