In Rome the Reichsmarschall made no attempt to consult
with Italy’s foreign minister, Ciano (who learned of this dia-
mond-fetish episode) “In fact,” wrote Ciano in his diary,
“ever since we bestowed that [diamond] Collar on von Ribben-
trop, Göring has adopted an aloof air toward me.” “We are
having a hard time,” Göring had whispered to Mussolini at the
station, alluding to the army’s difficulties in Russia. Meeting
again more formally, he blamed this crisis on the sub-
Napoleonic temperatures. “Such difficulties will not recur,” he
promised. “Whatever happens in the coming year, the Führer
will halt and take up winter quarters in good time.”
As for North Africa, the main problem was that of supplies.
Göring loftily suggested that Italian submarines transport forty
thousand tons of supplies a month to Rommel. The “bloated
and overbearing” Reichsmarschall got on Ciano’s nerves. Dining
at the Excelsior on February , Göring talked to Ciano only of
his rings and jewelry. Accompanying him to the station, Ciano
who appears to have known about such things reflected
that Göring’s full-length sable coat was what a high-grade call
girl might wear to the opera.
A serious challenge to the Reichsmarschall’s authority
confronted him soon after his return to East Prussia. On Sun-
day morning, February , the munitions minister, Fritz Todt,
perished in a plane crash at the Wolf’s Lair. With barely a flicker
of grief, Göring hastened over to demand Todt’s ministry for
himself, only to learn that Hitler had already selected his thirty-
six-year-old chief architect, Albert Speer, for the job. In terms of
blind ambition and pathological zest for intrigue, Göring had
now met his match. When Milch brought Speer to him, Göring
blandly emphasized that his new job was merely the production
of army munitions. Milch, he continued, would make a better
munitions minister and would shortly call a big conference of