Read Goering for Free Online Page A

Germany and sacrificed the lives of their men in order to win for themselves decorations of the kind the Emperor had bestowed on Goering. The story goes that Goering was set on in the street and that with difficulty he prevented the mob from stripping the medals from his breast. He stayed in Aschaffenburg until early December, and then, without gratuity or pension, he went to Munich, where his mother was living. It was plain to him that he must make his own way in the world.
    In Munich he was at first very fortunate. During the war he had given generous treatment to a prisoner of war, Captain Frank Beaumont, a pilot in the Royal Flying Corps, who had made a forced landing in a damaged plane after destroying two German fighters in the air. It was part of Goering’s creed to admire a good enemy, and he did his best to keep Captain Beaumont from being taken over by the Army; he had talked to him at length about the profession of flying, about which they were both enthusiasts. Goering now discovered that Captain Beaumont, who spoke German fluently, was stationed in Munich with the responsibility of preparing the way for the breaking up of the German Air Force. Together with Ernst Udet, Goering presented himself and was made welcome. Indeed, for some weeks, until Munich became politically too warm for Goering to stay, Captain Beaumont acted as host to Goering and Udet and repaid past kindness with a generosity that enabled the two young men to live with ease whilst deciding what it was best for them to do. 5 Meanwhile, his unofficial engagement to Fräulein Mauser was forgotten. Herr Mauser wrote to Goering, “What have you got now to offer my daughter?” Goering telegraphed back, “Nothing.”
    During these immediate postwar weeks, Goering found himself in a new and alien world. He was a Prussian officer whose only background was his military training and the sense of caste inspired by his father, and the traditions represented by his early life in the castles of the south. Now he was an unemployed man of twenty-five in search of work. Politically Germany had collapsed into a form of mob rule, owing to the weakness of the hastily established government set up to formulate some kind of peace treaty. In Munich the throne of Bavaria had collapsed and a republic had been proclaimed on November 8, a few days before the armistice. Wilhelm II, the Emperor of Germany, had fled to Holland, and General Ludendorff, Chief of the General Staff, had also disappeared. The German working class had turned on the men they felt to be responsible for the war, and the soldiers who remained in uniform regarded their officers as traitors. A Socialist revolution had been proclaimed officially in Berlin and in a number of other German cities.
    The officers, meanwhile, banded themselves together to defend their caste. They organized the so-called Freikorps —“free corps” of volunteers—in an effort to keep the German Army in being. In December Goering attended an officers’ rally in the Berlin Philharmonic Hall at which the new Prussian Minister of War, General Walter Reinhardt, spoke, urging the packed audience to support the new government and obey its order that officers should discard the traditional insignia of their rank and replace their epaulets with stripes on their jacket sleeves. The General himself wore his three stripes; his epaulets and his medals were gone.
    As Reinhardt was about to dismiss the meeting, Goering stood up in the body of the hall. He was wearing his full uniform, with his silver epaulets and the stars of his new rank of captain, and with the Pour le Mérite prominent among his medals and decorations. He stepped onto the platform, saying, “I beg your pardon, sir.” The large gathering of officers fell silent. Goering had discovered his ability as a speaker in Aschaffenburg; now, as one of the more famous of Germany’s young officers, he was forced to say what he felt. He