

 

Storm Troop Commander

Two planets pass, so close that each is fractionally deflected by
the other’s course. So it is, sometimes, with humans too.
For Hermann Göring this celestial episode came late in
. The orbit of this out-of-work war hero intersected briefly
with that of Adolf Hitler, unknown demagogue, one Saturday
in October or November of that year, in Munich’s Königsplatz.
A demonstration had been called to protest the latest Allied de-
mands on defeated Germany. Göring, who was himself trying to
raise a small political party of ex-officers, heard shouts for a
Herr Hitler to speak; people standing around told him that this
Hitler headed a small National Socialist German Workers’ party.
Hitler, standing a few yards away from him, declined to speak,
but something about this callow, slightly built man in his early
thirties must have fascinated Göring, because he visited Hitler’s
regular Monday evening political at the Café Neumann two days
later.