Edda daily, arranged occasional flying visits to them; but not
once that summer did he visit a front-line Luftwaffe unit. He
was bored with the war. When General Hans-Jürgen Stumpff
(commanding Luftflotte in Norway) came to see him, Göring
interrupted the briefing: “Enough! Now let’s take a look around
Carinhall!” Stumpff noticed that he kept nodding off.
By mid-July it was clear that Hitler had launched Bar-
barossa none too soon, and had in fact underestimated the Rus-
sian strength. As they marched east, the Germans discovered
that the Russians had massed twelve thousand tanks and eight
thousand warplanes for strategic plans of their own. “The Red
Army’s equipment staggers us,” wrote Jeschonnek’s deputy on
July . “In their Lemberg [Lvov] salient alone, sixty-three huge
airfields, each with two runways and still incomplete, bear wit-
ness to Russian attack preparations.”
On the following day, July , Hitler called his ministers
together to discuss how to consolidate Nazi rule in these new
territories. Göring wrote in his diary, “: .., rose. Partly
cloudy, sultry.” He spent an hour on dispatches and swimming,
was briefed at : by Jeschonnek, and met Milch and Udet at
midday, before setting out for the Wolf’s Lair at : .. “:
.., conference with Führer: Rosenberg, Milch, Lammers.”
(Hitler had appointed Rosenberg minister with overall respon-
sibility for the new eastern territories.)
Both Otto Bräutigam, Rosenberg’s ADC, and Bormann
wrote full accounts of the day’s historic talks: “At : ..,”
wrote Bräutigam in his diary, “the Reichsmarschall appeared
and the proceedings began.” “Let there be no doubt in our
minds,” Bormann quoted Hitler as saying, “that we shall never
depart from these territories. Never again shall there be any
military power west of the Urals, even if we have to fight one