handle. “The Reichsmarschall,” he shrieked, “is the uncrowned
chief of the OKW as it is! He goes behind my back all the time.”
Bursting into tears, according to Canaris’s diary, Keitel pre-
dicted, “Any proposals or successes you tell him about, Göring
will turn to his own advantage he’ll report them to the Führer
as though they were his own, without so much as mentioning
me as chief of the OKW!”
Canaris arrived at Rominten on the twenty-fourth, but it is
plain from the archives that Göring’s mind was once again fo-
cused elsewhere. That day he was poring over yet more paint-
ings a Stefan Lochner and Cranach’s “Adoration of the Three
Kings” and a Flemish tapestry that several Swiss dealers
had brought to him.
Nobody at any Luftwaffe headquarters believed that the
Russians could hold out much longer. “General Jeschonnek,”
wrote Richthofen to General Rudolf Meister at air-staff head-
quarters on October , “is assuming we shall be staying here
until about November .” But that day came and went, and the
snow that began drifting down onto East Prussia, enveloping
both Göring’s train at Rostken and the Wolf’s Lair at Rasten-
burg, no longer melted away.
He had spent the last half of October and the first half of
November on these freezing, fog-enveloped moors, grilling gen-
erals about flak production and radar production, receiving the
medal-bearing Slovak leaders Tiso and Tuka, and entertaining
his family and in-laws (the relatives of both wives), although
Emmy herself had made her excuses and migrated to the
warmer climes of southern Germany. He had seen Udet only
twice, he realized the last time on November . Göring had
returned to Berlin and forgotten the general completely in the
press of events renewed sessions with his cardiologist, and a