[are] the very best kind of German-Austrian,” he assured the
minister.) It seemed a good beginning to both of them.
Austria was never very far from his thoughts. When Brit-
ish newspaper correspondent G. Ward Price visited him on
March , , he touched upon the possibility that Chancellor
Schuschnigg might stage a restoration of the Hapsburg monar-
chy to thwart the movement toward Anschluss. “Dann werden
die Kanonen sprechen!” boomed Göring. “Then the cannon will
speak!” He assured the Englishman that percent of Austrians
would vote for Anschluss with Germany in any free plebiscite.
As for the rest of the political horizon, Göring predicted that
Prague would make voluntary concessions over the Sudeten
Germans. Germany, he added, had no quarrel with Britain over
colonies, but Britain’s shortsighted foreign policies were driving
Hitler into the arms of his enemies. “Germany,” promised
Göring, his eyes wide with hurt innocence, “would give England
every guarantee in the west that she required covering the
integrity of Belgium and Holland as well as France but she
must give us a free hand in Eastern Europe.”
He reverted to the theme of British Empire interference
when the benign, perennial Canadian prime minister William
Mackenzie King came to see him on June , . This liberal
statesman was something of a mystic he often heard celestial
voices and consulted in equal measure the Holy Scriptures. Be-
fore strolling over to see Göring, his eye had lighted upon a
verse of the Ninety-First Psalm: “The young lion and the
dragon shalt Thou trample under feet.” As he was shown into
Göring’s villa at ten-thirty, the startled Canadian saw a lion in
the study, nuzzling General Göring’s cheek as he sat, white-
uniformed, at his desk. Their interview rambled on for ninety
minutes, making the usual shambles of Göring’s appointment
card; Göring thanked Mackenzie King for a Canadian bison,