Goering by Roger Manvell Page A

Hitler did not arrive until after dinner, wearing his dark trousers and the brown jacket which was the uniform of the party. He was evidently anxious to reassure the former president of the Reichsbank; Schacht studied him carefully and thought him natural, unassuming and unpretentious. He noticed how Goebbels and Goering retired and left matters to Hitler, who monopolized the conversation. Schacht was impressed with Hitler’s reasonableness and moderation, though at the same time he was stirred by Hitler’s “absolute conviction of the rightness of his outlook and his determination to translate this outlook into practical action.”
    Schacht claims that, as a result of this meeting, he tried to convince Brüning that he should form a coalition government in order to use the Nazis’ strength while at the same time moderating their policy, but that his suggestion was turned aside. Such suggestions were typical of the futile intrigues of a weak and vacillating democracy before the oncoming tide of the Nazis, who, though they controlled only eighteen per cent of the electorate, faced a divided front that still thought of government in terms of minor tactical advantages gained by one person over another. This may succeed when most men seeking or possessing office are honest and desire to serve the general welfare of a stable community. But in the Germany of 1930, with three million unemployed and the daily occurrence of street battles promoted by the Nazis against their chosen opponents, the Communists, such tactics were political suicide.
    Hitler would have accepted no such form of restrictive coalition. He had more important work to do: to convince the bankers and the industrialists that the Nazis were their only hope of securing a stable, right-wing government, and that they should invest heavily in the party funds. William L. Shirer has listed certain heads of industry who decided that Hitler was their man. Walther Funk, editor of one of the leading financial newspapers, had joined the Nazi Party at the instigation of the industrialists controlling the mines in the Rhineland; they needed a spokesman who could influence Hitler in favor of private enterprise. Others were the banker Baron Kurt von Schroeder, Georg von Schnitzler of I. G. Farben, and the piano manufacturer Carl Bechstein, who was an early supporter of Hitler. Thyssen was already in the fold and Schacht well on the way. Shirer estimates that between 1930 and 1933 a substantial section of German industry was financing the Nazi Party to the extent of many millions of marks a year. In August 1931 Hitler was able to give Goering a large Mercedes; later he was to observe how erratic a driver Goering was, swinging his car over onto the wrong side of the road and sounding his horn continuously to warn approaching traffic who was coming. 11
    But 1931 was to become for Goering a year of personal suffering. At a party the previous Christmas Carin had fainted while the family were singing the carol “Stille Nacht.” In the spring she was desperately ill again and overheard the doctor tell her husband that she would never recover; she managed to rally, however, and hold on to life for a few more months.
    In spite of his anxiety over Carin’s health, Goering had to face new and difficult tasks in the effort to defeat Brüning, who still commanded a majority of votes in the Reichstag. In May Hitler sent him to Italy on a mission to the Vatican. Hitler realized that Brüning received much of his support from the Catholic areas of Germany, such as the Rhineland and Bavaria, and that the party was held by the Catholics to be the advocate of paganism. Although Goering was a Protestant, he was regarded as the man in Hitler’s immediate circle with the greatest flair for religion; he was also a skilled talker. When Goering reached Rome, he met Cardinal Pacelli, then Secretary of State in the Vatican but later to become Pope Pius XII. The visit