Georg Thomas that day, Göring mentioned that they would not
have to keep up their war supplies to Russia in perpetuity.
“From the next spring,” he predicted, according to the notes
that Thomas took, “we’ll have no further interest in meeting
Russian requirements in their entirety.” There is some evidence
that the obese and indolent Reichsmarschall was uneasy even
then about what the army might be up to. On August , the
high command’s diary registered that the air force would de-
cline to create a large ground organization for Eastern Buildup
(Aufbau Ost) the translucent code name under which the
army was currently concealing its planning against Russia if
left in “ignorance of the ‘broader intentions.’ ” Perhaps Göring
was assured that the buildup was purely defensive in nature.
After seeing him on the twenty-ninth, arms chief Thomas told
his department heads that Hitler’s main concern was to prevent
any further Russian inroads into Western Europe.
The Reichsmarschall would remain in France until early
November , unaware of the planning in Berlin. He forayed
occasionally into Paris, where he loitered at the Casino de Paris
or banqueted at Maxim’s with General Friedrich Karl von
Hanesse, the corrupt air-force commandant of Paris. Tiring of
the Reichsmarschall’s company, General von Waldau penciled
into his diary on October that he had decided to “put some
distance” between himself and the “Big Chief.” “It isn’t condu-
cive to hard work,” he added, “to have to keep somebody com-
pany and eat big meals all the time.”
Five days later Göring took Asia and Robinson around the
French coastal railroad network, inspecting German Air Force
units and “invasion forces” at Le Havre before trundling on in
stiflingly hot autumn weather to a tunnel west of Deauville, the
fashionable seaside resort where Richthofen had established
Air Corps headquarters. Unloading a limousine, Göring drove