hands. And if fate should be against us, if the Russians
should come into this province, then that must only
be possible when no soldiers of the Hermann Göring
Division are left alive.The total subservience of this superstitious, God-fearing man to
Hitler had been reborn by the bomb blast. On the following day
one of Hitler’s stenographers wrote in his diary:
Before today’s midday conference the Reichsmarschall
addressed a brief speech to the Führer and proposed
that, as a visible token of the Wehrmacht’s gratitude
for his miraculous escape, the Hitler salute be intro-
duced immediately throughout the armed forces. The
Führer signed this document, whereupon all those
present spontaneously saluted.It was Goebbels, not Göring, whom Hitler now appointed his
plenipotentiary for total war. On the train back to Berlin the lit-
tle propaganda minister poured out his heart about their enfee-
bled Reichsmarschall to bomber ace Werner Baumbach. Baum-
bach decided to join forces in the campaign against Göring.
Mortified by Hitler’s new snub to him, the Reichsmarschall
withdrew from the Wolf’s Lair to Rominten, and for the next
five weeks he would ignore every hint that he should return.
At first his “illness” appears to have been just a pretext. He
was not too ill to receive Herbert Backe for lunch at Rominten
one day (although he did introduce Ondarza to the Staatssek-
retär as “the doctor who is treating me”). They went for a coach
ride through the sunlit woods, and Backe told him he was
finished with Reichsminister Darré. “The Führer,” Göring
warned him, “won’t let a minister go while there’s a war on.”
This was Göring’s protection too. Hitler might show gross
disrespect for him, referring to him behind his back as “what’s