and no less than a dozen Field Marshals, there could have been few men in the opera house who did not understand that this was a cunning piece of megalomania that, while thoroughly debasing the coinage of high rank, defined Hitler as the man who owned the mint.
It was an unprecedented step. The Kaiser made only five Field Marshals in the whole of the First World War. Even General Erich Ludendorff had failed to find a baton in his knapsack. Now Hitler made twelve after less than a year of war, and the fighting had covered only a few weeks. But the new Generalfeldmarschälle were delighted. In Germany such exalted rank, from which the holder could neither be retired nor demoted (or even promoted), brought the provision of an office, a secretary, a staff officer, motor vehicles and horses, and full pay and privileges. And all this for life – or until defeat. A Field Marshal ranked above Reich Chancellor in the protocol lists but not above Führer, which was a new post invented by Hitler for himself.
In order to rescue Göring from the new squalor of Field Marshal rank, Hitler invented a new post for him too. Göring received an extra-large baton. Hitler passed it to where Göring was sitting alone in the Speaker’s Chair, and the Reichsmarschall could not resist opening the box to get a glimpse of it. And for Göring an old medal, the Grosskreuz, was revived. From this date onwards Göring can be seen in photographs wearing his special uniform with the huge cross dangling at his neck.
Three of Göring’s Luftwaffe Generals became Field Marshals at the Kroll Opera House ceremony. One was the dapper little Erhard Milch, senior man at the Air Ministry, as well as Inspector General of the Luftwaffe. The other two were Albert Kesselring, commander of Air Fleet 2, and Hugo Sperrle of Air Fleet 3. Both men were double-jumped in promotion from General der Flieger to Field Marshal. Was this an idea of Göring’s, to lessen Milch’s power? Until this day he had been the Luftwaffe’s only Generaloberst. If so, this divide-and-conquer policy was something Göring had learned from Hitler. To be an arbitrator between rival subordinates is a well-established device of the tyrant. It consolidates power. But in July, as the first skirmishes of the Battle of Britain were taking place, Göring and his three Field Marshals were about to learn that it was no way to win a battle.
Hermann Göring
Hermann Göring grew up in the gothic shadows of a castle at Veldenstein near Nuremberg. His father was a retired government official, once senior officer in German South-West Africa and Consul-General in Haiti. Göring’s godfather – a wealthy bachelor named Epenstein – was a friend of his family. He owned the castle, lived in stylish quarters on the top floor, and shared his bed with Göring’s mother. Her husband tolerated this arrangement.
While still a small child, Hermann went to boarding school. He grew up to be an ill-disciplined boy, so bold that he seemed incapable of recognising physical danger. This seemed exactly the right qualification for military college, and so it proved. By the time war began, in the summer of 1914, Göring was a promising young infantry officer, although not promising enough to be accepted for flying training. So, without him, his closest friend, Bruno Loerzer, went off to get his wings.
As Loerzer finished pilot training, Hermann Göring was nearby, hospitalised by arthritis, after considerable front-line service. Göring could hardly walk, and there was no question of his returning to the trenches. Defying all military regulations, Loerzer put his friend into the back seat of his aeroplane, and they reported for duty, with Field Aviation Unit No. 25, as pilot and observer.
It says much for Göring’s famous charm that the crippled young officer escaped a court-martial, and was allowed to become an aviator. For the Air Service it proved a wise decision. This lame subaltern became one of Germany’s most famous fighter pilots. He won the coveted Orden Pour le Mérite – the Blue Max – and succeeded von Richthofen to command Jagdgeschwader 1, the legendary ‘flying circus’.
For Loerzer it was also a wise decision. Göring never forgot his friend’s loyalty, and on 19 July 1940 at the Kroll Opera House he became a full Luftwaffe General.
In the final hours of the First World War, as communists fought to seize power throughout Germany, Göring came into conflict with a ‘soldiers’ soviet’ in Darmstadt. Göring came off best, as he did later when faced with a mob intent on roughing up any officer in uniform, on the grounds that such men were responsible for the war which Germany had lost. But doubtless these events played a part in Göring’s acceptance of the Nazi creed. And the Nazis’ pathological hatred and fear of Jews went unchallenged by a man who had seen his father humiliated by his mother’s Jewish lover.
In 1922 Hermann Göring joined the Nazi Party. The presence of this ex-officer war hero was very reassuring to the middle classes whose support the Nazis badly needed.
Göring was always the Nazi candidate for political office. He was used to show the voter how responsible the party could be when in power and how willing it was to conform to parliamentary democracy. And so it was Göring who became the President of the Reichstag and the Prime Minister of Prussia.
Hitler appreciated the importance of Göring. When the Nazis got power, Hitler gave him an authority second only to his own. Göring organised storm troopers, took over the Prussian Ministry of the Interior, formed the Gestapo, set up the first concentration camps, and took charge of the economy for the Nazi ‘Four Year Plan’.
A fine horseman and a crack shot, Göring was able to combine his enthusiasm for hunting with a sincere concern for wildlife, and opposition to vivisection. In his youth he had been something of a womaniser but two contented marriages provided him with a stability that many of the other top Nazis did not have. He met his first wife, a countess, after flying through a snowstorm and landing on a frozen-over lake in Sweden. His passenger – a wellknown explorer who’d engaged Göring to fly him home – offered him hospitality in his castle. It was there that Göring met his future wife.
For pleasure Göring read detective stories, his favourite authors being Agatha Christie and Dashiell Hammett, but he could talk with some authority on subjects as varied as mountaineering and the Italian Renaissance. And he could do so in Italian if need be.
Göring’s rise to power gave him a life-style rarely equalled in the twentieth century. He had castles, several hunting estates with grand lodges, and town houses too. The most remarkable of all was Karinhall – named in memory of Göring’s first wife – built between two lakes, with formal gardens, fountains and bronze statues, as well as a large section of private countryside. His servants were dressed in comic-opera outfits: knee-length coats with rich facings, high white gaiters, and silver-buckled shoes. There was a swimming pool, a vast library, gymnasium, art gallery, and one of the world’s most elaborate model-railway layouts. His study was larger than most houses, and in its ante-room there was a wall covered with photographs inscribed with varying degrees of enthusiasm: Boris, King of Bulgaria, ‘to the great marshal’, Prince Paul, Regent of Yugoslavia, ‘with thanks’, Hindenburg, ‘to Göring’.
The pink, girlish complexion, overweight body and many childish indulgences masked a personality capable of superhuman self-control. Göring, wounded during the 1923 putsch, became a morphine addict as a result of his treatment. He eventually cured himself of this addiction by willpower alone.
Five feet nine inches tall, Göring was dynamic – a fluent and persuasive enthusiast with a powerful handshake and clear blue eyes – and many of his antagonists fell prey to his charm.
Göring’s civil power as Air Minister, his military rank as Commander in Chief of the Luftwaffe, and his political status made him incomparably more powerful than any other military leader in Germany. To retain his advantage, Göring was quick to point out to Hitler any failing of his rivals: the army Generals. The power and prestige of pre-war Germany had been largely due to the show of air-power that Göring’s Luftwaffe had staged. Hitler responded by treating the Luftwaffe as a privileged ‘Nazi’ service, while describing his army and navy as ‘Imperial’ legacies of the old regime.
As a confidant of Hitler, and by 1940 named as Hitler’s successor, Göring had personal access to the supreme command. As a ‘General’