and he could not go back on that pledge. Later, Göring men-
tioned operational factors that influenced him. There was, he
said, no reason to believe that the army’s main front line would
fall back as far and as fast as it did, and it was the increasing dis-
tances that ultimately thwarted the airlift.
Down in the Berchtesgaden valley that night, November
–, , Göring’s train Asia slid off toward Paris.
At : .. Hitler’s train also departed, in the other di-
rection returning to East Prussia. He would arrive at the
Wolf’s Lair twenty-four hours later. At : .. on November
he sent yet another grim signal to the embattled General
Paulus at Stalingrad: The Sixth Army, this stated, was to stand
fast. “Airlift operation by one hundred more Junkers is starting
up.”