planes, jousting with (almost) equally brave airborne enemies.
Sadly, his personal papers were looted from his private
train at Berchtesgaden in May , among them the two war
diaries that he wrote in August , a private diary kept inter-
mittently between September and May , and five flying
logs recording all his flights from November , , to June ,
; one of these private diaries is known to be in private
American hands, but the owner has refused to let anyone see it.
However, in “court historians” began working on his mili-
tary biography and filled four green files with selected World
War documents; these green files, which figure in the inven-
tory of the Berchtesgaden train, are now in U.S. Army hands in
Pennsylvania. They include Göring’s complete personnel record
since , forty-four selected air-reconnaissance reports, and
extracts from war diaries and personal-mission reports.
The unrelenting evidence of these documents is sometimes
difficult to reconcile with the flattering Göring biographies. The
personnel file shows him as a junior infantry officer of Baden
Regiment (the “Prince Wilhelm”), garrisoning Mühlhausen,
close to the French border, that August of . It was a quiet
sector, and he saw only leisurely action as a platoon commander
in the battles of Vosges, Seenheim, and Lorraine, and then as
battalion adjutant in the fighting at Nany-Epnaul and at Flirey.
He was awarded the Iron Cross Second Class, but only five weeks
into the war he was stricken down with arthritis and evacuated
from Thiacourt to Metz on September . From here he was sent
to the rear for further treatment in southern Germany.
This seemingly inglorious beginning changed his life. Con-
valescing at Freiburg, he struck up a friendship with Bruno Lo-
erzer, a dashing young army lieutenant undergoing flying
training. Listening to Loerzer’s tales, Göring rediscovered his
interest in flying. “I applied,” he stated in his personnel record,