

 

Exit Jeschonnek

On the night that Colonel Galland saw Göring about the Me
, RAF Bomber Command thumped two thousand tons of
bombs into Düsseldorf, capital city of the Ruhr. Two days later
the RAF’s wooden Mosquitoes bombed the Zeiss precision opti-
cal works at Jena. “Jena,” roared Göring, “is right in the heart of
Germany! What cheek, that’s all I can say: and what contempt
for our own fighter forces!” Two nights later still, the RAF left
, dead and , homeless in the little Ruhr valley town of
Wuppertal.
As the towns and cities crumpled in ruins, Göring vaca-
tioned at his mountain villa above Berchtesgaden, inferring that
provided he did not bomb Churchill, the latter, being a gentle-
man, would not bomb him. That spring of  he met only in-
frequently with his Führer, now recuperating himself from the
winter’s ordeals only a few hundred yards up the Obersalzberg
hillside and brooding upon Citadel, his coming great tank off-