The Duchess Who Wouldn't Sit Down Read Online Free PDF Page A

would and would not tolerate, even from him. It was one thing to
     exhort, cajole, berate, and generally infantilize a nation of faceless worshippers; quite another to try it on his private
     guests, close personal associates who knew him far too well already. The last thing he wanted was to read their intimate opinion
     of him - a ruthless dictator who ate baby food; a bloodthirsty vegetarian; a commander of armies who looked at his breakfast
     and saw his lover's corpse - reflected in their eyes across the dining room table. The fear of being "recognized" may have
     been another source of his tolerance of meat-eaters in his own home when he was so intolerant of deviance in any other sphere.
    He had a reasonably realistic sense of his own limitations in another way, too. The Berghof was hard to reach, often frozen
     in, and comparatively modest in its fare and amenities. There is a limit, after all, to how often you can ask visiting statesmen
     to go bowling. Even had he wanted to offer something more, and saucier, his public image as the chaste, faithful, and eremitic
     bridegroom of the German people would never have permitted the least suggestion of decadence. When such decadence was called
     for, when he needed something more to impress and sweet-talk a foreign dignitary, Hitler turned to his Reichsmarschall and
     designated successor, Hermann Goring. In the game of Nazi hospitality, Goring was Hitler's alter-ego, Mr. Hyde to Hitler's
     Dr. Jekyll, with license to deploy the kind of opulence and excess that the fuhrer could never be seen to condone. In fact,
     Hitler not only sanctioned Goring's behavior, but also promoted it as an extension of his own hospitality into forbidden territory.
    Goring's "hunting lodge," Karinhall, stood some eighty-five kilometers northeast of Berlin in Schorfheide. Like the Berghof,
     Karinhall was a private residence converted at state expense into a semiofficial Nazi entertainment hall. When Hitler needed
     to soften up staunch adversaries or potential allies, he sent them to Goring, who often received guests in flamboyant silk
     robes or a full leather suit, his lips apparently painted and cheeks rouged. The front entrance was hung with massive oaken
     doors, like something out of The Hobbit. The dining hall was finished in white marble and hung with Gobelins tapestries. The house had its own cinema and the best
     Berlin caterer, Horcher, at its disposal. At least three notables - the Duke of Windsor, Charles Lindbergh, and Japanese foreign
     minister Yosuke Matsuoka - were treated to a delightful day playing with Goring's spectacular model train set, with salutary
     results for Nazi foreign policy.
    Unlike Hitler, Goring's tastes in catering ran to the excessive. His marriage to Emmy Sonnemann in 1935 included a seventy-five-plane
     flyover, a gala performance of Lohengrin, and a wedding breakfast at the Hotel Kaiserhof for 316 at which lobster, turtle soup, turbot, pate de foie gras, roast chicken,
     ices, and Welsh rarebit were served. For his party to celebrate the 1936 Olympics, Goring transformed the gardens of his palace
     on the Leipziger Platz into "a sort of Oktoberfest beer garden, with a fairground in the middle, helle and dunkel beer on
     tap (as well as champagne and liquors), sausages, roast game, corn on the cob, and mounds of potatoes and sauerkraut," according
     to historian Leonard Mosley. The guests were entertained with performances by the principal dancers and corps de ballet of
     the Berlin Opera and were later assembled on the lawns to enjoy an aerobatics display by the famed pilot Ernst Udet. The party
     broke up shortly before dawn.
    On January 12, 1945, Goring threw a lavish, desperate last party at Karinhall. "This is no time to deny ourselves," he said.
     "We will all be getting a Genickschuss (a shot in the neck) very soon now." While most Germans were scrambling for scraps, Goring's guests were treated to "caviar
     from Russia, duck and venison from the