narcotics, there was a constant ringing in his ears, his brain
blared with all the symptoms of persecution mania. While Milch
slogged on in Berlin, Göring took Udet around Carinhall on the
last afternoon in August. Now he too saw that Udet was mortally
depressed and persuaded the reluctant general to enter the
central air-force clinic immediately.
Udet discharged himself from the clinic prematurely, on
September , and arrived out at the Sternberg hunting ground
in East Prussia. For a week Göring’s diary showed them going on
boat or carriage jaunts, taking coffee, hunting with Scherping,
Galland, Jeschonnek, or Milch.
By now the shortages of air-force equipment were slowing
down Luftwaffe operations on every front. By enforcing multi-
ple sorties, Luftflotte alone was flying sixteen hundred sorties a
day in the east, but the global tasks confronting the air force
were expanding. The British bombing of northern Italy was
affecting morale there, and British-held Malta was a constant
annoyance to the supply lines to General Erwin Rommel’s ar-
mies, fighting in North Africa. Göring called a frank inter-Axis
conference with the Italian chief of air staff, General Francesco
Pricolo, at Rominten on October , but the Reichsmarschall’s
diary suggests that the Rommel supply convoys were less sig-
nificant to him than the “exchange of gifts and medals” at :
.., and “deer stalking” at :. “It would have been practical,”
he unhelpfully lectured the Italians, “if your Duce had declared
war by seizing Malta!” On his advice, Hitler now had to sanction
the transfer of Luftflotte (Kesselring) and Air Corps (Lo-
erzer) from the Russian front to Italy.
That day, the army offensive against Moscow resumed, but
Göring remained at Rominten. Two days later a Romanian air-
force general Göring did not catch his name came “with the
most illustrious decorations for me.”