Der Fuehrer - Hitler's Rise to Power (1944) - Heiden

FEW FLAMES BURN IN GERMANY 299congratulating him on his election with the cynical remark that, thanksto his physical strength, he would surely make his way as arepresentative of the people. Goebbels had once said that the NationalSocialists needed no more than twenty men in parliament; ten wouldhave to be experts at shouting interruptions, ten expert boxers.However, there were not even twenty, but only twelve, and Goring,despite his furious speeches demanding that the Reichstag vote theLufthansa more funds, achieved nothing. He could not very well saypublicly that the money was to be used for the secret preparation of thefuture German air armament; he could only hint that German aviationhad a great patriotic task to fulfill; if challenged, he could not havedenied that this and other patriotic tasks enabled certain people to earn alot of money. One of these people was Camillo Castiglioni, an ItalianJew from Trieste; by a bold financial coup this Castiglioni had gainedpossession of a factory in which one of the best German aviation motorswas manufactured, the Bavarian Motor Works near Munich.Unprejudiced, he employed Goring as his representative; he generouslypaid him advances and when Goring proved unable to earn back theadvances, Castiglioni silendy canceled the debt.Goring must have made money in these affairs — but it was neversufficient. He spent it in the gay world; his sick wife meanwhile lived inSweden with her mother. In his small bachelor apartment in theBadische Strasse in Berlin, he turned night into day, both in work andpleasure; in this resembling the insomniac Hitler. There sat Goring,preferably by candlelight; on the wall before him a picture of Napoleon;behind him, over his head, a medieval headsman's sword which heregarded as a special ornament. His work was often devoted to theconstantly arising problem of how to pay the next note that was due,how to avoid the pawnshop. He was deeply in debt.His political task also required hard work. The friend of the Germanand Italian princes, frequenting good society as an equal among equals,had to represent the still half-nameless Reichswehr spy; he had to raisethe party of Julius Streicher and Hermann Esser from notoriousinsignificance to notorious greatness. The resistance in Germany'sleading social strata was strong. There