craft figures, our technical blunders, our non-completion of the
replenishment squadrons in the Reich, the Me , and so on.
The Führer says that he is given figures that turn out to be
wrong. How can I know what the Reichsmarschall and General
Korten were telling him how can I help the mistakes made
from to !”
Since Göring was still acting “sick,” Kreipe attended his
first Hitler conference on August . “The Führer has become
very stooped,” he observed in his diary. “Cotton wool in his ears.
He trembles violently, you can only shake hands with him gen-
tly.” Hitler blamed the air-force “collapse” on Udet, Jeschonnek,
and Milch. They had made premature promises on which he
had based fateful strategic decisions. He asked Kreipe to ensure
that “truth and clarity” once more supervened.
Significantly, Kreipe paid courtesy visits to Himmler and
Bormann before returning to Bartenstein.
Bormann continued to load Göring’s dossier with tele-
grams from party officials substantiating the Reichsmarschall’s
ineptitude and laziness. “Everybody curses the air force,” re-
corded Kreipe unhappily on the fifteenth. “The Führer orders
the gauleiters’ reports investigated.”
On the next day Kreipe noted that the Reichsmarschall was
“still acting sick,” and went to see him at Carinhall three morn-
ings later. They haggled for four hours. Lunching with Bouhler
and Körner that day, Kreipe found the Reichsmarschall more
approachable Emmy’s feminine charm was keeping up his
morale. “Hermann must take better care of himself,” she chided
the general.
Hitler did not agree. “How much longer,” he asked Kreipe
on the twentieth, “is Göring’s illness likely to last?”
The fighting evacuation of France continued, but the Me