we shall come through.”
Göring intended to come through. He was packed and ready to
go. He was leaving one thousand air-force troops to guard his
Carinhall estate. Demolition charges laced the beautiful struc-
ture. The art treasures too bulky to evacuate were being buried
by troops of the Hermann Göring Panzer Corps and their posi-
tion marked on a map Houdon’s “Bather,” Pigalle’s “Madame
de Pompadour,” and the famous Venus given to him by Italy. A
costly fountain and two Cladion caryatids were carried out into
the heath and hidden.
On April , he signed letters directing the August-
Thyssen Bank to cable half a million marks to his personal ac-
count at the Bayerische Hypotheken und Wechsel Bank in
Berchtesgaden, and closing out the old Deutsche Bank account
that he had opened in Berlin’s Schöneberg suburb when he first
arrived there with Carin in .
As midnight approached, he stationed his portly person
outside Hitler’s bunker and waited to go in, to present his
birthday wishes. Many happy returns hardly seemed appropri-
ate he inquired whether he might be able to serve the Reich
better at a distance from Berlin, Berchtesgaden perhaps?
Hitler merely nodded toward the door.
Göring took that as yes, but to his dismay Hitler phoned
soon after to say that he would expect the Reichsmarschall at the
midday conference as usual.
It was not a restful night, what with the Russian troops so
close by. The next morning Göring plodded off through the
pine woods to the mausoleum by the lake, to say farewell to
Carin the wife to whom he owed his personal salvation. As he
eased his bulk down the narrow, moss-covered stone steps, he
could hear the rippling sound of Russian artillery lobbing shells