invites civilians, [Fascist Minister of the Interior Guido] Bu-
ffarini, technical ministers, and so forth.... Yesterday, when
Göring arrived at the supreme command’s headquarters, he was
received in the courtyard by our military chiefs!” Ciano put it
around that Göring evidently saw himself as a future Reichspro-
tektor of Italy.
On December , , the Reichsmarschall reported back
at the Führer’s headquarters. “[Göring] says,” Hitler reported
to his staff the next day, “that Rommel has completely lost his
nerve.”
In private Göring told Hitler that Mussolini was advising
them to call off their now-pointless war against Russia. A few
days later the despondent Italian foreign minister Ciano and
Marshal Ugo Cavallero, chief of the supreme command, came to
East Prussia to repeat this advice. Göring and Ribbentrop nod-
ded approval, but Hitler responded with an encouraging catalog
of his victories since . The matter was not mentioned again.
His airlift to Stalingrad struggled lamely on. A typical day was
December : His planes flew only seventy tons into the “for-
tress.” Göring scoffed during Hitler’s main war conference that
day that the food situation probably was not as bad as General
Paulus made out. From the front line a thousand miles away,
Field Marshal von Manstein sarcastically suggested that the
Reichsmarschall himself take over. “Let the ‘confident’ com-
mander,” he declared, “take charge of the sector that he’s so
confident about!”
On the thirtieth, Richthofen telephoned Carinhall. The
distant Reichsmarschall replied with what Richthofen referred
to only as “words of fire.” “I would have preferred more forces,”
observed the Luftflotte commander.