however, while Bormann and Himmler rarely missed them. On
March , Himmler reported to the Führer that eighty RAF
airmen had tunneled their way out of a prison camp in Silesia
and that millions of man-hours would be wasted in hunting
them down. Hitler ordered Himmler to take control of any air-
men who were recaptured, and Göring later heard disquieting
rumors that they had been shot by the SS for “resisting arrest.”
“With what were they supposed to have offered resistance?” he
indignantly asked an interrogator years later. His only orders at
the time were for the commandant, a Colonel von Lindeiner, to
be court-martialed for negligence: Stalag Luft , like other
camps, had been equipped with the most sensitive cathode-ray
display devices to detect tunneling sounds.
Göring’s prestige was in steep decline. After General Gerd von
Schwerin reported to Hitler from the Russian front that spring,
General Schmundt accompanied him out to his car and laughed
out loud at the mention of Göring’s name. “Nobody,” he said,
“takes the Reichsmarschall seriously anymore!”
Göring had quiet hopes of recovering his political author-
ity by defeating the Allied invasion in the west. He had issued
his first order to prepare for the invasion on July , ; fur-
ther orders had followed on December and , followed on
February , , by the basic directive for defeating what he
code-named Imminent Danger West. His fighter forces were
now largely concentrated in the Reich: Here, he had eleven
squadrons of single-engined and seven of twin-engined day
fighters, and twenty-six squadrons of night fighters. His plan
was to reinforce Luftflotte , in France, from these squadrons
defending the Reich the moment an invasion operation began.
While certain units like ZG, ZG, and the “bad-weather
squadrons” of JG and JG would remain with Luftflotte