At the time of Hitler’s phone call, the afternoon of November ,
Göring was presiding over an oil conference in Berlin. German
troops had occupied the Maykop oil field that summer, only to
find that the Russians had shut in the wells and dropped unre-
movable hundred-pound steel “mushrooms” down each bore-
hole. Göring was frustrated to find his men so tantalizingly near
the vast oil reserves. “I’m fed up!” he exclaimed. “Months have
passed since we captured the first oil wells, yet we still aren’t get-
ting any benefit.” The steel mushrooms baffled him. “Can’t you
just drill them out with something like a gigantic corkscrew?”
The experts shook their heads. The Russians had, moreo-
ver, unhelpfully left behind faked “oil-field charts.” Göring
blamed the delays on the high command, who had been run-
ning the operation without any reference to him. “Before we
even went into Russia,” he raged, “it was made quite clear that
the entire economic setup would come under me, right up to
the frontline troops. I didn’t just have that odd eastern organi-
zation, what’s its name, at my service.” (“Wirtschaftsstab Ost,”
murmured Körner helpfully.) “It is scandalous of this Mr.
Thomas,” the Reichsmarschall ranted on, referring to Georg
Thomas of the high command. “He knew full well that the
Führer had signed this.... Now I am beginning to see it all
more clearly.... Let me make myself clear. If the Russians can
manage, then so can we. Otherwise, we shall have to resort to
Russian methods too.”
His experts hastened to soothe him. “Herr Reichsmar-
schall,” pleaded one, “we’ll manage somehow, bank on it.”
“If there’s no oil flowing by next spring and we have to
send oil down to our armored divisions, then God help the lot
of you. Because let me say this, I am plein up to my back
teeth!”