Nineteen hours later the Sixth Army commander replied:
His army, he announced, was now cut off by the Russians; his
food and ammunition were already low; and he had fuel for six
days.
Asia reached Berchtesgaden at about the same time as this
signal, late on November , . The train was hauling its now-
familiar rolling stock, including flat tops laden with cars the
Reichsmarschall’s personal armored Mercedes, an armored
coupé, a .-liter Mercedes, a .-liter Mercedes, a Ford Mer-
cury, a .-liter Mercedes, and assorted baggage trucks and mo-
torbikes. Surrounded by a sizable retinue that included valet
Robert, nurse Christa, and heart-specialist Professor Heinrich
Zahler, Göring was impatient to continue the journey that
night: He had several long-standing appointments with art
dealers in Paris that he did not want to miss.
Visiting Hitler on the mist-shrouded Obersalzberg, he
barely discussed either Stalingrad or the , men trapped
there. “Hitler,” he explained guiltily to Pili Körner a few days
later, “already had [Jeschonnek’s airlift] plan before I set eyes on
it. I could only say, Mein Führer, you have the figures. If these
figures are right, then I am at your disposal.”
But the figures were not right at all. Jeschonnek only now
realized that the standard “-kilo” airlift container on which
he had based them in fact held far less than that load its name
derived solely from the -kilo bomb position it occupied on
the bomb racks. Göring winced when the general confessed this
to him, but forbade him to tell Hitler. “I cannot do this to the
Führer not now!” he said. Telephoning Hitler himself, he re-
peated that the Luftwaffe airlift would go ahead, and he invited
him to phone Milch if he still harbored any doubts.
For Hitler, the fatal decision was the product of political
pride. He had committed himself publicly to capturing the city,