Germany 1937, the Goering stories

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Germany 1937, the Goering stories

Germany 1937

Schramberg 1938

Germany 1938

Germany and Prague 1938

Germany 1939

Germany 1937

The British combine for which I had worked since leaving college in 1924 loaned me in 1936 to the German government to work on a process for making sugar out of wood, on which I had gained a lot of information when I worked in Geneva. It was originally a Swiss invention and the German government had bought it and built a large pilot plant at Mannheim-Rheinau to obtain 6,000 tens of sugar per year from 10,000 tons of soft wood. My firm paid my salary and in exchange I got the technical knowledge for my firm and they got the non-european rights for the process. The factory was built under the four year plan and had as its government overlord Hermann Goering, who was the Reich's Minister in charge of Forests, although it actually came under the Ministry of Food.

One day a special tidying up blitz was ordered for a whole week prior to a visit by Goering and the great day came. I must explain that the wood was delivered by rail and road in one metre lengths, four to six inches in diameter and was stored in solid piles about 25 yards long, 25 feet wide and ten feet high, all neatly ticketed with place of origin and date of delivery. There was a narrow gauge push cart railway with turntables for

delivering the wood to the processing plant. All the big brass were there, we were all introduced to Goering, a crocodile was formed and we set off on our tour of inspection, with myself bringing up the rear. I must digress for one moment to explain that shortly before the visit Goering had become engaged to the beautiful German actress, Emmi Sonnemann and during the introductions in the board room we had been informed that the honour had been conferred on the factory of supplying the sugar for their wedding cake. We set off first towards the wood compound and had gone about three blocks up the narrow alleys, when our Herr Direktor accompanying Goering turned left along one of the transversal alleys.

Fifteen feet away with his back only half turned away to the oncoming crocodile was a German workman in his blue denim relieving himself with a powerful spray all over the wood pile.

Goering turned to his aide with a chuckle and said "Remind me to tell my bride-to-be about our wedding cake."

Germany 1937

I did not lunch with top brass in Mannheim, where Goering must have had another appointment in the afternoon, and I was surprised when I got back to the hotel, to see the two black Mercedes in which he and his aides were travelling, standing in the front courtyard. Goering was standing in the hall and I said "Heil Hitler" as I went up the stairs to my room. I distinctly saw him ask his aides who I was and presumably where he had met me. On coming downstairs, washed and changed out of my factory clothes, as he was changed out of his Master of Forests uniform with its green feathered hat, he was talking to the owner and director of the hotel. He broke away from him and said "Herr Englaender, are you dining by yourself tonight?" I replied that I was and he asked me to join him. He suggested we went to the Weinstube (Buttery) and not the elegant restaurant. We sat there two hours and one can only speak as one finds, but I have no hesitation in saying that he was one of the nicest fellows I have ever met. I admit that this was before the folie de grandeur seized him.

At that time there was a rage of political jokes in Germany, but a German had to be very very careful to whom he told them, but everyone knew it was safe to tell an Englishman a political joke and I had one of the finest collections in Germany. I regaled Goering with all of them, lots of them very disrespectful of himself and he revelled in them. He insisted on paying and he shook me warmly by the hand and thanked me for a very pleasant evening as we parted in the hall.

Two years later I met him for a fleeting moment on the crowded edge of a dance floor at a the-dansant at Munich. He did not see me, as he was so busy apologising to my partner, whose arm he had scarcely more than brushed with his elbow. That apology was worthy of any courtier at the Court of St. James's.

Germany 1937, that same evening

Some friends had seen me part from Goering and kept me talking for half-an-hour about how it had come about and it was after ten p.m. when I went up to bed. Goering was in room 108 and I was next door 109 and I had to pass his three aides, or perhaps guards would be a better description, sitting outside his door playing that excellent and popular German card game, called Skat. I love the game and played regularly two or three times a week myself, so I stood and watched them. Now in Germany this is in no circumstances bad manners. It is called "kiebitzing", but I am not certain of the spelling, but it means ?playing the owl", but one must not, repeat not, talk. It is a very fast and tiring game for three and, if possible, is played by four, one sitting out each hand in rotation. I was therefore not at all surprised when they asked me to play, a perfect stranger to them, because they had only just come on duty as the night shift. I accepted willingly and, having gathered from their conversation that they were from right up to the north of Berlin, I started straight off with a Swabian accent, probably out of devilment, but it was like Somerset talking to the Highlands of Scotland. I explained that win or lose, I was cutting out at one a.m. to which they agreed and we fixed the stakes, which was the same as I always played in my two skat schools, when a win or loss of ten marks was quite high money.

I fetched a chair from my room, ordering some beers for them by my room telephone, which I had offered and they had accepted. We played until one a.m. when I called "last round" and retired with a "Heil Hitler", one chair and DM37.10, a colossal win.

When I came down the next morning about 7.45 a.m. Goering had already breakfasted and was standing in the hall talking to the owner of the hotel flanked by my three friends of the night before. I did not pause but as I passed I said "Gute Reise, Herr General" (Good Journey, Herr General) and glanced back from six feet away, as he called after me "Danke, Herr Englander, gleichfalls" (Thank you, Mr. Englishman and the same to you). In that backward glance I saw the faces of those three poor guards. All three jaws dropped as they realised for the first time that the bloke, who had won DM37.10 off them the night before was not born in Stuttgart but in London. I must admit it was one of the proudest moments of my life.