Göring bristled. “My orders are final,” he said. “You are to
do as I say.” His directives were very blunt and to the point.
Bunjes was to load the items that he, Göring, had earmarked for
himself and the Führer into two boxcars attached to his special
train. They would accompany him to Berlin. Bunjes described
all these transactions unhappily in his subsequent report. To
Göring, he gasped that the lawyers might take a different view.
“My dear Bunjes,” roared Göring, clapping him on the shoul-
der, “let me worry about that! I am the highest legal authority in
the land.” He scrawled these instructions on a scrap of paper:
. All the pictures marked H are for the Führer;
. All the pictures marked G are for me, plus the
unmarked crate AH;
. All the special black crates (Rothschild) are ear-
marked for the Führer. Nurse Christa has the keys to
them!
My things the pictures, furniture, silver, tapes-
tries are to go to my rooms.Later that day he inspected the Palais Rothschild, bought a six-
teenth-century stone table and two granite lions on the Quai
Voltaire, and purchased more stone figures at the Galerie Gou-
vert. And that evening, inspired by word that his Luftwaffe pi-
lots had shot down eighteen planes, he took a party to the city’s
other nude revue, the Bal Tabarin, and dinner at Maxim’s. His
raid was nearly over. After buying up some diamonds at Cartier
and inspecting progress at the Rudier foundry, he set out the
next morning, February , for La Boissière, his train laden with
plunder. He was like a small boy returning from a party, but
clutching the spoils of war.