

 

The Bridge at Guernica

Reporting that pompous wedding, the British ambassador had
commented that Hermann Göring seemed to have reached the
apogee of his vainglorious career. “I see for him and his mega-
lomania,” Phipps reported to London, “no higher goal, apart
from the throne, unless it be... the scaffold.”
The bride had had the same presentiments. When Hitler
asked Emmy Göring if she still had any wish that fate or fortune
could fulfill, she replied, “Yes, mein Führer  that my husband
were just an actor.”
But was not his life now an uninterrupted series of first
nights, each more spectacular than the last? Each time the cur-
tain lifted, or so it seemed, it was he who dominated the stage,
clad in yet another costume. With Göring, however, to continue
the metaphor, there was one snag: the length of the run. No
sooner had he earned his plaudits in one role than he was al-
ready reaching out for script and costume for the next. He did