Himmler’s Gestapo was later found to have concealed a micro-
phone in Blomberg’s office.
Göring could find no way to fault Blomberg until mid-
December. Then, suddenly, the tip of a promising scandal began
to surface in the War Ministry. The sixty-year-old widowed
field marshal announced that he too was going on leave. Those
who knew spread the word that he was taking a twenty-four-
year-old secretary with him. “The field marshal is inexplicably
agitated,” Colonel Jodl carefully recorded on the fifteenth,
adding, “Apparently a personal matter; going away for eight
days, destination unknown.” His agitation was explicable: The
secretary had just informed him (quite untruthfully) that she
was pregnant by him (so the field marshal’s family informed this
author). Less than a week later Hitler ordered him to attend the
state funeral of Ludendorff in Munich to be held on Decem-
ber in the shadow of the Feldherrnhalle where Hitler, Göring,
and Ludendorff had confronted the blazing carbines of the Ba-
varian Landespolizei fourteen years before. As the ceremony
ended, Blomberg walked across the snow-covered square to
Hitler, asked to see him in private, and formally asked his per-
mission to marry the girl; he added no more than that she was
of “humble means” a secretary in a government agency. To
complete his folly, Blomberg approached Göring, of all people, a
few days later and asked him to use his powers as head of the
Four-Year Plan to see that an alleged “rival” for the young lady’s
attentions was spirited out of Germany. “It’s an unusual re-
quest,” growled Göring, “but I’ll see what I can do.”
On January , , guests at Hermann Göring’s forty-
fifth birthday celebration were perplexed to see him rise from
the table and depart. “I’m off to a wedding,” he told Milch
and chuckled out loud as he said it.