..,” Göring entered grimly in his diary. “Investigation into
the theft of Emmy’s present.” Arrayed in a red silk dressing
gown and furry slippers, he elbowed through the piles of pack-
ages, his face trancelike, looking for the missing trinket. He
changed into a pure white uniform for dinner, but his smooth,
glossy complexion was flushed with anger at the theft, and when
Emmy announced that she had telephoned a clairvoyant friend,
a doctor in Kassel “He says it’s still in the building!” Göring
just harrumphed.
His diary outlined the events of the next day, January ,
: At : .., “Conference with Körner, Neumann, and
Backe on nutrition.” (Backe’s diary shows that he warned of a
food crisis looming in Europe.) : .., “Detective finds stolen
cigarette case!” (A Horcher waiter had evidently stuffed it down
a sofa.) “: .., lunch with guests. : .., packed my
birthday presents. : .., rested in bed.” At five o’clock his
air-force advisers Jeschonnek, Milch, and Bodenschatz came to
“report on conference with the Führer, operational matters,”
joined an hour later by General Udet. Milch summed up this
secret conference in one word in his own notebook: “Ost” [East].
And Jeschonnek informed his staff at La Boissière that Hitler
had resolved to “sever the head of the danger menacing us in
the east.”
Göring still hankered after peace with Britain. On January
, the Swedish Count Bonde, who had visited Lord Halifax
quite recently, was brought in. Göring was crestfallen to learn
that Bonde had brought no particular message from the British.
“We have offered Britain peace twice,” said Göring wistfully. “If
I send any message now, they will take it as a sign of weakness.”
He resumed his art pursuits. The diary glimpses him at Carin-
hall on the eighteenth, haggling with his art agents Miedl and
Hofer. He swam and sauna’d often, but his health had worsened