Tapping Hitler's Generals

RAMCKE: I was ordered to report to Hermann GOERING. I arrived, but the one who was not there was the ‘Reichsmarschall’. Where was he, then? At Karinhall.[111] Karinhall is in SCHORFHEIDE; it is the magnificent hunting lodge, the greatest German art museum we have at the moment (laughter). I arrived there at twelve o’clock and BRAUCHITSCH, his Adjutant, told me that there had been a stormy session about fighters on the previous day, and in that stormy session ‘the milk (MILCH) had turned sour’–Feldmarschall MILCH’S[112] position had been shaken, you see. He said that the session had lasted for five hours and HERMANN had stormed and raged. As a result, by midday he had not finished sleeping, so my audience was postponed until five o’clock in the afternoon. Meanwhile I walked through that wonderful wood and had a look at everything, including the entire 2 cm ‘Flak-kompanie’ which was stationed there as a protection, instead of being at the MÖHNE dam;[113] I looked at that, too, and at the ‘Bunker’ which had been built all over the wood as air-raid shelters, and also at all the young soldiers, who were brushing away the leaves with brooms and so on from the asphalt roads which have been built there. I had a look at that, too. Then I had a good lunch in a small mess in the wood there. It was built beside a small lake and was quite pleasant. It was a small mess built for the GAF constructional staff who built Karinhall.