As the lice-ridden, freezing German soldiers trapped in Stalingrad waited for the deliverance of death or surrender and dreamt only of bread, Hermann celebrated his fiftieth birthday at Karinhall in lavish style, prompting ‘revolting stories’ about the extravagant gifts he received, including a French hunting lodge and three medieval statues. The occasion was seen by many of his contemporaries as symptomatic of how corrupt, narcissistic and out of touch he had become. Goebbels summed up the general feeling: ‘One can no longer really depend on Goering. He is tired and somewhat washed out.’1
Hermann’s performance in the last two years of the war was certainly erratic. He was often lethargic, remote and lost in his private obsessions, whether it be hunting or art collecting. He frequently withdrew to his various homes. In addition to Karinhall, Hermann had a villa built at Obersalzberg, on the same bit of mountain as Hitler’s Berchtesgaden retreat, near other prominent Nazis’ properties. When Epenstein’s widow, Lilli, died in 1938 he had also inherited both Veldenstein and Mauterndorf castles, and poured money into their restoration and redecoration, carrying on the work his godfather began.
Hermann was an intelligent man, and reason dictated that the war was lost. But if he was hiding from this painful truth, dulling it with drugs and beautiful objects, he still refused to relinquish his power or Hitler’s cause. At Nuremberg he claimed it was only after the Battle of the Bulge in the winter of 1944–5, that he felt the game was truly up: ‘The situation was not bad at all until the Ardennes. It was only then that things began to look dangerous.’2 He remained as ruthless and quick to act when someone threatened his authority: ‘The other day he said . . . that he was taking note of all those who pissed on him or just lifted a leg.’3
Hans Jeschonnek, the Chief of the Luftwaffe General Staff, begged Hitler to let him replace Hermann. Hermann responded by accusing him of insubordination. Jeschonnek agreed to soldier on but had lost all heart. On 19 August 1943 he shot himself in the head. To avoid a scandal Hermann recorded the cause of death as a stomach haemorrhage and falsified the date.
When a clique of officers plotted his removal in early 1944, Hermann had Adolf Galland, commander of his fighter force, sacked and charged with treason. Speer managed to save Galland from a court martial, but Hermann, with Hitler’s approval, came up with another solution. Galland was put in charge of test-flying prototype jet planes, with the expectation he would be killed doing so. That summer, Milch’s constant criticism of Hermann finally got him fired too.
As the Führer interfered more and more in the day-to-day running of the Army and the Luftwaffe, down to the tiniest details, Hermann operated on the basis that Hitler’s word was law, whatever the consequences. On 24 June 1943, General Kammhuber, the man responsible for almost single-handedly organising the Nazis’ anti-aircraft defences, met Hitler and asked for more night fighters and more money to improve radar technology. Hitler angrily rejected him. Soon after Hermann removed Kammhuber from his post and sent him to Norway.
After the war, when an American psychiatrist suggested to him that he was nothing but a ‘yes-man’, Hermann replied, ‘That may be, but please show me a “no-man” in Germany who is not six feet under today.’4
* * *
Much of the criticism levelled at Hermann was a result of the Allied bombing campaign, which reached new levels of intensity in 1943. Between March and the end of July a huge offensive was launched against industrial and urban targets, the weight of which was directed at the Ruhr. Though RAF Bomber Command lost over a thousand planes during this period, this did little to dent the numbers massing nightly over Germany or their terrifying impact. Hamburg, the Reich’s second city and largest port was singled out for particularly fearsome treatment. A big raid on 24 July killed 1,500 people and 140 animals in the city zoo. Three nights later, 787 aircraft attacked in waves, generating an unholy firestorm. Those it did not burn alive it suffocated to death in basement shelters. An estimated 40,000 died.
The cost of trying to combat Bomber Command and the daylight attacks of the burgeoning American bomber forces was not just measured in civilian casualties and flattened buildings. Luftwaffe personnel and resources were stretched to breaking point; valuable factory hours were sacrificed; 7,000 searchlights were required to scan the skies; half of the electronics industry and a third of the optics business were engaged in making equipment for air defence.
Hermann’s standing was further diminished by reversals in the U‑boat war, a conflict that Churchill referred to as ‘the only thing that really frightened me’.5 A naval conference attended by Hitler concluded that, ‘The substantial increase in the enemy air forces is the cause of the present crisis in submarine warfare.’6 1942 had been a spectacular year for the U‑boat commanders who increased their tally from 457 ships in 1941 to well over a thousand. But in 1943 their score fell by more than 50 per cent. The Luftwaffe’s lack of a truly long-range bomber helped give the Allies air superiority over the oceans. In 1943 their planes accounted for over half the U‑boats destroyed at sea.
On 9 March Goebbels jotted in his diary that, ‘The utter failure of the Luftwaffe has reduced Goering’s prestige with the Führer tremendously.’7 Below had ‘gained the impression that Hitler had had enough of him, speaking of him in terms harsh and dismissive’.8 Hermann was well aware of his Führer’s change in attitude towards him. At Nuremberg he characterised it as part of an overall shift in Hitler’s personality: ‘To me there are two Hitlers . . . The man I knew until the end of the French war had much charm and goodwill. The second Hitler, who existed from the beginning of the Russian campaign until his suicide, was always suspicious, easily upset, and tense. He was distrustful to an extreme degree.’9 Bearing the brunt of Hitler’s displeasure took its toll: ‘He could be cruel and hateful . . . He would scream about the inefficiency of the Luftwaffe with such contempt and viciousness, that I would actually blush and squirm.’10
Despite the recriminations, Hitler would not get rid of him: ‘He believes . . . that Goering’s authority is indispensable to the supreme leadership.’11 After Hermann visited the bombed-out cities of the Ruhr in October 1943, and the Junkerswerke at Dessau a month later, even Goebbels was pleased: ‘Goering, thank God, is showing himself once more in public. He has evidently recovered from his recent bout of stagnation.’12
Hitler was not motivated by pragmatism alone. His attachment to Hermann ran deep. When Mussolini was overthrown that July, Hitler was prompted to remind his cohorts that Hermann ‘has come through a great many crises with me . . . One cannot have a better adviser in times of crisis . . . both brutal and ice cool.’13 A year later, though Hermann’s defects had multiplied in Hitler’s eyes, he continued to rely on his old colleague: ‘It was clear to him that Goering had failed with the Luftwaffe . . . but when it really mattered, Hitler said, he would want Goering at his side.’14
* * *
Hermann understood that survival in Hitler’s entourage meant an absolute denial of the possibility of defeat, regardless of the facts. This came relatively easy given his flair for deluded fantasy. Hermann would refuse to acknowledge any photographic evidence produced by Colonel Rowehl, head of the Luftwaffe’s secret reconnaissance unit, which showed the true extent of Allied air strength. Totally frustrated, Rowehl resigned in December 1943.
Hermann was able to sustain his faith in victory by devoting his energies to the development of wonder weapons. To make this vision real, Hermann became an enthusiastic supporter of underground factories. He wanted at least eight ‘bombproof manufacturing sites as rapidly as possible’, situated in ‘large caves, cellars, non-operating mines and unused fortress facilities’.15
In October 1943 he instructed Speer to begin work, but Speer dragged his feet. Then, in January 1944, Speer was admitted to an SS-run clinic suffering from exhaustion. The sharks began to circle, Hermann included. For perhaps the last time, his interests coincided with Himmler’s, who also advocated an extensive underground system, knowing full well that the concentration camp labour needed to build it would be controlled by the SS. In March the two met and agreed to put an SS man in charge of the construction industry.
When Speer became aware of their intentions he threatened to resign. Hitler was incensed by his apparent disloyalty and overweening arrogance. Hermann was quick to phone Speer and advise him to go quietly. But Hitler calmed down and in an act of rare magnanimity pardoned Speer. Nevertheless, Hermann and Himmler got their way on the underground assembly lines. Prisoners toiled in conditions of soul-destroying, flesh-eating, bone-crushing degradation which matched anything in the long and terrible history of slavery.
Hermann hoped that the planes manufactured in these caverns would turn the course of the war. High on the agenda was a high-speed bomber capable of reaching the east coast of America. During 1944, nine different companies turned out competing designs. Though both Junkers and Messerschmitt got close to winning Hermann’s backing, it was the Horten brothers who landed the contract, getting the go-ahead on 23 March 1945. The EF 132 jet bomber, which had a whole new wing design, was still undergoing tests at Dessau when the Soviets arrived.
Low-tech options were also popular with Hermann, like the so-called ‘people’s fighter’. In September 1944 he gave leading manufacturers twelve days to come up with a single-engined jet plane that could be churned out in great numbers and flown by the teenagers enrolled in the Flieger Hitler-Jugend, the Flying Hitler Youth. Heinkel got the commission, and made a prototype that was test flown on 6 December. The production schedule was set at a thousand per month, and the wheels of industry set in motion. However, the plane, made of wood and salvaged material, proved to be a death trap, falling apart in flight.
These efforts paled in comparison to the Nazis’ rocket programmes. Hermann had first got involved back in 1935, commissioning experiments which led the Argus Motorwerke and the Fieseler company to develop the FZG-76 or V-1, a cheap, easy to manufacture, pilot-less monoplane made of steel and plywood which could be launched from a movable 50-metre long ramp with a curve at the end, a kind of ski-jump. It had a 480-km/hr cruising speed, a 320-km range, and a pre-set guidance system. Hermann was impressed.
The V-1 went into production during the spring of 1943. By November allied intelligence had identified eighty-two launch sites. On Christmas Eve American Flying Fortress bombers attacked nearly a quarter of them, but the Luftwaffe moved the rest and designed a simple launcher that could be assembled in minutes. The first missile landed on London on 12 June 1944. Between then and 5 September, over 8,500 were launched at the British capital, of which around a third reached their targets. A third crashed in the sea or the countryside, while the remainder were shot down by fighters or anti-aircraft guns. The missiles that got through damaged over a million homes and killed nearly 6,000 people. Bomber Command struck back immediately. Almost nightly raids began on 16/17 June and continued until mid-August, when the V-1 sites in northern France were overrun by Allied troops after the Normandy landings.
The focus of V-1 activity switched to the port of Antwerp, captured in September by the advancing Allied troops. Starting the next month, Antwerp suffered 175 days of uninterrupted attack and over 8,000 casualties. Meanwhile London also remained in the Nazi sights. Between September 1944 and January 1945 608 V-1s were launched from the air by Heinkel bombers but only sixty-three got through. The final offensive, which lasted until March, saw 124 V-1s catapulted from ski-jumps in north-western Holland. A mere thirteen hit home.
In December 1944, an American general wrote a study that compared the main V-1 onslaught with the Blitz.16 Though the missiles caused just a quarter of the casualties, he found that they destroyed virtually the same amount of property, for the loss of exactly zero German aircrew, while the Blitz cost over 7,000. The report underlined the potential of the V-1 and its effectiveness as a weapon. However, Hermann’s ambitious plans to produce a thousand a month were never fulfilled.
Hitler had other priorities, namely the V-2 rocket, which he believed was the ultimate terror weapon. There is no doubt the V-2 represented a major breakthrough, and became the basis for postwar missile development. However, it was ruinously expensive, much more costly than the V-1, and immensely complicated. Even after a successful test flight in December 1942 the rocket still needed 65,000 separate adjustments.
* * *
By 1945, a considerable amount of the blame for impending defeat fell on Hermann. Men who distrusted and ceaselessly sought to undermine each other were unanimous on the subject. Ribbentrop wrote that he ‘last spoke to Hitler one week before his death, and he said that the Luftwaffe problem was the real military cause of the defeat’.17 Martin Bormann told his wife that, ‘The whole war situation would be different if the enemy did not have complete domination of the air . . . but the Reichsmarschall’s style of living has transmitted itself, quite naturally to the air force.’18 Goebbels warmed to the theme: ‘The Führer gives vent to the most violent criticism of Goering . . . He regards the Luftwaffe merely as a great junk shop.’19
With the Soviets mustered on the frontiers of the Reich and the Allies bridging the Rhine, with no fuel for tanks or ammunition for guns, and troop reinforcements consisting of the old and very young, the Luftwaffe’s collapse was hardly the Nazis’ most serious problem, but the laying waste of German cities was the most potent, an inescapable fact that grimly illustrated their predicament. As Sir Arthur ‘Bomber’ Harris, a man who never shrunk from the consequences of his actions, pointed out, ‘In the last three months of 1944 Bomber Command had dropped as great a weight of bombs as in the whole of 1943.’20
On New Year’s Day 1945, a thousand Luftwaffe planes made a surprise attack on Allied airfields and sustained significant casualties. The failure of this last desperate throw of the dice gave the Anglo-American air forces free reign over Germany. For the next four months death rained down on the Reich, obliterating what was left of its urban centres.
Since 1942 Hitler had taken root in one bunker after another before reaching his final resting place in Berlin. Sealed away from unpalatable realities, it was possible to keep the dream alive. He pored over maps, deployed phantom divisions, and hatched counter-attacks. But what he could not deny was the relentless ferocity of the bombing that shook the walls of his concrete coffin. Even so, Hitler would not dismiss Hermann: ‘The Führer will never drop him . . . In the true German way he must remain loyal to Goering.’21
* * *
On 12 January 1945 Hermann celebrated his birthday at Karinhall with family and close associates. Caviar, duck, venison, Danzig salmon and paté de foie-gras were washed down with endless bottles of champagne and brandy from Hermann’s vast cellar. On the 30th a Soviet jeep was spotted in the nearby forests. It was time for the womenfolk to leave. Hermann shot four of his favourite bison and started packing one of the most valuable art collections ever assembled into crates.
Eighteen years after the war ended, Speer reflected in his prison diary on the Nazis’ paradoxical obsession with art: ‘The ruthlessness and inhumanity of the regime went hand in hand with a remarkable feeling for beauty.’22 In 1945 it was estimated that a fifth of the world’s art was in Germany. Hitler worshipped at the altar of culture: ‘Wars pass by. The only things that exist are the works of human genius. That is my explanation for my love of art.’23 In his will he wrote that ‘his most heartfelt wish’ was to have his massive collection placed in ‘a picture gallery in my home town of Linz.’24
Hermann shared his passion: ‘I am so artistic in temperament that masterpieces make me alive and glowing inside.’25 Though Hitler always got first choice, Hermann was next on the pecking order. Thanks to their different tastes, he had a relatively free hand. According to Hermann, Hitler ‘leaned toward the antique and classical – Romantic . . . Greek or Renaissance, such as was found in the beginning of the nineteenth century . . . I preferred the German masters and the early Italians . . . Hitler . . . was an enthusiast of bronze or stone. I prefer wood . . . In art I preferred the work of the Dutch masters, the Scandinavians, Dürer and Holbein.’26
In May 1945, the Art Looting Investigation Unit, which was run by Allied intelligence, analysed Hermann’s procurement methods: ‘He wanted the works of art and so he took them, always managing to find a way of giving at least the appearance of honesty.’27 At Nuremberg, faced with the charge of wholesale art theft, Hermann reacted with indignation: ‘None of my so-called looting was illegal. I paid a small price – smaller than the articles were worth . . . but I always paid for them.’28 He used his own agents and art dealers to locate what he wanted and negotiate the price. The most prominent was Andreas Hofer, whom Hermann had met in 1936. During March 1941 he appointed Hofer Director of the Art Collection of the Reichsmarschall.
Hofer would set a price with the gallery or private individual who owned the art. Then he would quote a higher price to Hermann and pocket the difference. This was common practice. One of Hermann’s agents in Amsterdam bought the whole of the renowned Goudstikker collection of Dutch masters with 3.5 million Reichsmarks of Hermann’s money, but kept back some paintings to sell to Hitler.
The arrival of the Nazis in France caused immense upheaval in the art world. Already the Louvre had transported over 3,000 pictures, including the Mona Lisa, down south in trucks, and hid them in an abbey. Hundreds of Impressionist and Cubist paintings were stashed away or shipped out of the country. Back in Paris the art market absorbed the initial shock and went into business with its greedy new masters. The world famous auction house at the Hôtel Drouot reopened on 26 September 1940. During the 1941–2 season it broke all records. Next year was even better.
Trade was booming, buoyed by Hermann’s frequent visits and the direct access he enjoyed to state funds. When he needed extra for a piece he contacted the Reichsbank. Money was no object and the dealers knew it, causing Hermann to complain that they would ‘triple the price, quintuple it, if it is the Reichsmarschall buying’.29 An exhibition of medieval and Renaissance work was held especially for him at the Galerie Charpentier. Hermann bought the lot.
At Nuremberg he insisted that he had not ‘accumulated art treasures in order to sell them or to become a rich man’.30 This caveat did not apply to ‘degenerate’ art, the modernism that the Nazis so loathed, Hermann included: ‘I am generally very sceptical about modern paintings. Picasso, for instance, nauseates me.’31 Nevertheless, when the Nazis removed 16,000 modernist works from galleries all over Germany and dumped them in a warehouse, Hermann saw them as a potential asset. He had a few set aside, paid the museums they came from a nominal sum, and then sold a Cézanne and two Van Goghs to a Dutch banker for half a million Reichsmarks. He re-invested the cash in paintings he liked.
Hermann also realised that the works could be sold to earn foreign currency. An official agency, the Commission for the Exploitation of Degenerate Art, was formed to sell as much as possible. Those it could not shift, over a thousand paintings and sculptures, nearly 4,000 drawings and watercolours, were piled together in the courtyard of the Berlin Fire Department HQ on 20 March 1939 and burnt. The cream of the storehouse, 126 paintings and sculptures, went under the hammer ten days later in Switzerland. These masterpieces were paid for in Swiss francs which the Nazis converted into sterling and buried in German accounts in British banks.
Hermann continued to use ‘degenerate art’ as a form of exchange. Between March 1941 and November 1943 he organised sixteen swops. He gave a German dealer paintings by Picasso, Matisse and others, and received a Titian in return. A month later he got a Rembrandt and two tapestries for twenty-five pictures and a fee of 250,000 Swiss francs.
Hermann reserved the outright banditry for Jewish-owned art. The Anschluss offered rich pickings. Nearly 3,500 pieces were taken from Baron Alphonse de Rothschild alone. Leading the confiscations was the Austrian art historian Katejan Mühlmann, who had been given the innocuous title of Representative for State Art Policy and Foreign Tourism, and dealt for both Hermann and Hitler. In September 1939 Hermann offered Mühlmann the chance to extend his operation. On 9 October Mühlmann became Special Delegate for the Reichsmarschall for the Securing of Artistic Treasures in the Former Polish Territories, with a mandate from Hermann systematically to divest the country of its treasures, without any compensation. Mühlmann exploited the situation to his advantage while making sure he kept Hermann happy, sending him a gift of thirty-one drawings by Albrecht Dürer.
The expansion of the Nazi empire opened up possibilities that could not be adequately exploited by a small task force like Mühlmann’s. Hitler chose Alfred Rosenberg, the regime’s self-consciously academic and much ridiculed philosopher, to manage the wholesale piracy. Hermann gave Rosenberg his full support against any competing interests, provided Luftwaffe transport, and in May 1941 signed a decree that gave Rosenberg absolute power to seize Jewish cultural assets. In return for his help, he got unique access to the huge art repository in Paris that housed Rosenberg’s haul. Between 3 November 1940 and 27 November 1942 Hermann visited it twenty times and walked away with 700 paintings.
During January 1942 Rosenberg launched the M-Aktion, the furniture project, to strip Jews of their remaining belongings. House-to-house checks were carried out across Paris; 38,000 dwellings were sealed, and their contents removed, stored and catalogued. By 15 July 1944, 21,000 items had been categorised as art and stored in the Jeu de Paume. An art historian working for Hermann sifted through it all and organised private exhibitions for his benefit.
It is impossible to argue with the Art Looting Investigation Unit’s conclusion that Hermann was ‘cruel, grasping, deceitful and hypocritical’,32 despite his protests that he got the collection fairly and kept it safe for the next generation to enjoy: ‘If I had not taken them they would be in the hands of those damned Russians.’33
Trains carrying Hermann’s possessions from Karinhall started arriving at Berchtesgaden in early April 1945 under Hofer’s supervision. Some of the freight cars had already been damaged by the Allies. Mobs helped themselves to anything they could carry. Witnesses reported seeing people staggering off, drunk on Hermann’s wine, weighed down with bits of tapestry, or clinging to hefty sculptures.
By the time the Americans and French marched into town on 4 May, Hofer had stashed half of Hermann’s cargo in an underground shelter sealed with thick concrete. It took three days for the Allies to break through and three days to remove the contents of this Aladdin’s cave, which were temporarily kept in a local building before being moved to the Munich collecting point, along with other spectacular finds of Nazi treasure. Eventually over 1,000,000 objects were stored in Munich and slowly returned to their previous owners.
Allied art experts began the mammoth job of constructing an exact inventory of Hermann’s collection. They were enthusiastically assisted by Hofer, who was hoping to keep himself out of jail. Together they counted over 1,375 paintings, 250 sculptures, 108 tapestries and 175 other objets d’art.
* * *
On the morning of 20 April 1945, Hermann left Karinhall forever. Luftwaffe engineers had planted explosives throughout the mansion. Some say Hermann solemnly pushed the plunger himself and watched his beloved home blow up. The truth, as so often with Hermann, is less romantic. He took one last look, got in his limousine and drove away, leaving the demolition teams to do their work.
It was the Führer’s birthday. Hermann headed for Berlin to join the other top-rank Nazis for muted celebrations, during which Hitler declared he would stay in the capital. Hermann had other plans. He was on his way south to set up an alternative command base at Berchtesgaden, with mixed blessings from Hitler. He doubted Hermann’s motives, though fell short of calling him a coward to his face. This, their final meeting, ended with a curt farewell. On the 22nd Hitler confirmed that he was not leaving Berlin and ordered his faithful generals, Jodl and Keitel, to join Hermann: ‘There is no question of fighting now, there is nothing left to fight with. If it is a matter of negotiating, Goering can do that better than I.’34
The next day, Hermann sent a telegram to Führer headquarters: ‘In view of your decision to remain at your post in fortress Berlin, do you agree that I take over, at once, the total leadership of the Reich, with full freedom of action at home and abroad, as your deputy, in accordance with your decree of 29 June 1941?’35 Berlin was given until 10.00 p.m. to reply.
Anticipating Hitler’s suicide, the second man in the Reich had jumped too soon to claim his inheritance. Bormann intercepted the telegram, showed it to Hitler and demanded Hermann’s head. Hitler screamed treason for a while then slumped into depression. Bormann maintained the pressure, and Hitler, stirred up once again, ordered Hermann’s arrest. The SS barracks near Obersalzberg was alerted and Hermann’s villa surrounded. Hitler did not forgive him: ‘Before my death I expel the former Reichsmarschall Hermann Goering from the Party.’36
On the night of the 25th, 359 Lancaster bombers attacked Berchtesgaden. Hermann and his captors retreated into the tunnels thirty metres below his villa. They emerged from hiding on the 28th to find the house completely wrecked. Hermann suggested they all decamp to Castle Mauterndorf, a mere sixty-five kilometres away. The SS commander, whose enthusiasm for his task was already waning, agreed. Holed up there, they heard the news of Hitler’s death broadcast on the radio a few days later. On 6 May the SS guards melted away. Hermann and his entourage set off to greet the Americans, having dispatched a letter to Eisenhower. Hermann was looking forward to meeting the American general on equal terms, ‘without any obligations . . . as soldier to soldier . . . to prevent further bloodshed’.37
* * *
Albert Goering also expected good treatment from the Americans. After Hermann had saved him from the clutches of the Gestapo at the end of January 1945, he was ordered by Himmler to leave Prague and head for Salzburg. Albert arrived first in Vienna. When Budapest fell to the Soviets on 14 February after a bitter siege, their way was open to the Austrian capital. Albert managed to keep one step ahead and was gone before the Soviets reached Vienna’s suburbs on 4 April. It took another ten days of bombardment and harsh street fighting to subdue the fanatical defenders.
Albert was already in Salzburg, laid low by a serious liver condition and waiting in a military hospital for the war to end. In Czechoslovakia the fighting continued. On 5 May US tanks entered Pilsen, Skoda’s home town. The following day, encouraged by Czech radio and the BBC, partisans in Prague launched an uprising. Within forty-eight hours the SS had brutally repressed the revolt, slaying several thousand. Though General Patton’s men were closest to the city, it had been promised to Stalin. Patton remembered that he ‘was very anxious to go and assist them’ but, ‘It was definitely established that we were not to pass beyond the stop line passing through Pilsen.’38
On 8 May, the same day the war was officially declared over, the Soviets attacked Prague. The agony of its citizens was prolonged for nearly a week before Nazi resistance finally ceased.