where he made further raids on the Jeu de Paume on the elev-
enth and twelfth.
Göring no longer tried to talk Hitler out of Barbarossa. On
March , , as his train had returned from The Hague to
Berlin, General Thomas had come aboard to brief him on the
organization for Barbarossa and on the strategic stockpiling of
fuel and rubber. Six days later Göring talked for an hour with
Birger Dahlerus and, according to the Swede’s wife, told him for
the first time of the coming campaign in Russia. When Field
Marshal Milch came out to lunch at Carinhall the next day,
spluttering protests that Barbarossa was bound to drag on into
the coming winter, Göring calmed him down. “Russia,” he said,
“will collapse like a house of cards.” Hitler himself had assured
him so “The Führer is a unique leader, a gift of God. The rest
of us can only fall in behind.”
When the new Japanese ambassador, General Hiroshi
Oshima, paid a courtesy visit that day, Göring dropped a broad
hint to him about Barbarossa too. “First we shall defeat Britain,”
he boasted, following the official deception strategy, “and next
the Soviets.” Over a banquet thrown two days later by Hitler for
the Japanese foreign minister, Göring talked briefly with Goeb-
bels on the awesome event that was to follow the “long-prepared
assault on Greece” (due at the end of the first week in April, as
an urgent measure of assistance to Mussolini).
The big project [noted Goebbels, after discussing Bar-
barossa with Göring] is coming later: against “R.” It is
being very carefully camouflaged and only a handful
of people know about it. It will begin with extensive
troop movements to the west. We shall divert suspi-
cion to all sorts of places.... A mock invasion of Eng-
land is in preparation....