army. It was a bitter blow. He offered to set up twenty Luftwaffe
“field divisions” instead, and Hitler relented.
It was a controversial decision, even in the air force. Gen-
eral von Richthofen feared (rightly, as it turned out) that the
Luftwaffe divisions would prove “a colossal blunder,” and noted
this belief in his diary after flying over to see the Reichsmarschall
on October , bringing photographs of the ravages of Stalin-
grad:
[Göring] curses List, Kleist, and Ruoff [the army’s
commanders in the Caucasus] dreadfully. I stoutly
defend the latter two, but there’s no reasoning with
the Reichsmarschall. Drags me off with Jeschonnek to
make an unannounced call on the Führer and lets fly
there [against the army generals].Helmuth Greiner, the high command chronicler, wrote in his
own private diary that day, “The witch hunt by the air-force
brass against the army goes on. Ghastly ass-licking.” Back aboard
the train Asia, Richthofen tried to curry favor with Göring over
dinner. “I praise his really very good [Berlin] speech. He swal-
lows the flattery hook, line, and sinker. Hints at an early field
marshal’s baton for me.... I protest at having to lug a baton
around.”
As the exhausted German infantry slogged into Stalingrad and
the rumors of a huge Red Army counteroffensive multiplied,
Göring left for a week in Rome. The German diplomats there
did not relish his coming, and the chortling German ambassa-
dor phoned the Palazzo Venezia on October that Göring had
been suddenly stricken with dysentery, and was “unable to leave
his throne even for ten minutes.” When Göring finally limped
into the palace four days later, Mussolini harped on Rommel’s