The Battle of Britain Five Months That Changed History, May—October 1940 by James Holland (z-lib.org).epub

personal photographer, a hospital with six beds and an operating theatre,
and his personal barber shop, which included hand mirrors, compacts,
powder puffs, sun lamps, cologne and perfume atomizers. Göring was
nothing if not a dandy. As well as the accompanying flak wagons, there
were two flat wagons on which he kept an assortment of motor cars, which
included American, French and German models, a shooting brake and a
luxury Mercedes.
Although often portrayed as an overweight buffoon in the foreign press,
Göring was in fact an extremely clever, wily and Machiavellian individual
with a very high IQ and a canny ability to get his way through a
combination of charm, guile and utter ruthlessness. Born in Bavaria in
January 1893, the son of an upper-middle-class colonial official, he had
been privately educated – even being sent to Rutland in England to study
Greek – before entering military college and joining the Prussian army in
1912. After a stint in the trenches during the first year of the Great War,
Göring transferred to the air force, first by becoming an unofficial observer
for his lifelong friend Bruno Loerzer, but then, after being found out,
obtaining a formal transfer. He went on to become a fighter pilot, to score
twenty-two victories, to win the Blue Max and finally to lead the
Richthofen Squadron, Jagdgeschwader 1, formerly led by the most famous
pilot of them all, Manfred von Richthofen, the Red Baron.
After the war, he continued flying – barnstorming at air shows and then
for the Swedish airline, Svenska Lufttrafik. As a highly decorated fighter
ace with pale eyes and lean, dashing good looks, Göring soon made
something of a splash in Swedish society. Clients included the wealthy
Swedish explorer Eric von Rosen. It was through von Rosen that Göring
met his future wife, Carin, Countess von Fock.
It was also at von Rosen’s country estate at Rockelstad that Göring
spotted the swastika symbol embellishing various places at the castle – von
Rosen had found the emblem on various Nordic runes and had incorporated
them into Rockelstad. It was supposedly Rockelstad that encouraged
Göring to suggest to Hitler the adoption of the symbol by the National
Socialists.
At this time, Göring already had political ambitions, and although he
might easily have stayed in Sweden for ever, his affair with the married
Carin and the gossip that surrounded them in Stockholm led him to return to
Germany, where he met and befriended Adolf Hitler. Captivated by Hitler