Birds of Prey. Philip W. Blood
to be fed during a crisis like severe winter conditions or drought. The application of this morality code found its way into Luftwaffe etiquette and manuals of discipline. In 1940 Göring formed an honour court over a disagreement that developed during the Norway Campaign, between Stuka pilots and paratroopers. There is no known outcome.
Frevert recommended no alcohol while hunting because it weakened responsibility and raised the bloodlust. This was a reaction to the popularity of the small Jägermeister pocket bottles, dubbed Göring’s Schnapps, which was distilled by Mast-Jägermeister SE (Wolfenbüttel) and distributed from 1935. He also encouraged the Schüsseltreiben (social gatherings) when all hunters dined communally. The single course of Eintopf (stew) with Sauerkraut and pork, was hailed as the noble family dish for the Volksgemeinschaft. Frevert only allowed drinking in the lodge after the days’ hunting. The alcoholic toasts for these gatherings included the communal Horrido. He described the Horrido as being of equal importance to the Nazi party’s Sieg Heil or the army’s Hoorah. During the toasts, a jug of beer was passed around for each member to raise a toast, drink and shout the Horrido. All drinking parties had rules and for the evening a kangaroo court judged party delinquents who were placed before three ‘noble’ judges. The punishments ranged from communal ridicule to fines for serious breaches of etiquette. All monies were given to orphans or to winter aid. Frevert also insisted all hunters, without exception, venerated 3 November as the sacred Hubertustag (St. Hubertus day—patron of hunting).72
The Jagdliches Brauchtum was the ideological glue that sealed the officer corps of both the Blue and the Green within Göring’s court. Frevert advocated a code of conduct for ‘the noble or aristocratic pleasure … the highest form of masculine yearning … culture bearers of the nation.’73 All hunters were to be militarised, regimented and armed; in this context, the Jagdliche Brauchtum contributed to building Göring’s military doctrine.74 A significant part of the book was the adoption of invented culture and traditions that had no precedent in the German hunt. The sole purpose was to instil an esprit du corps through the introduction of ceremonies, the correct use of hunting horns, the application of field signals to raise communications, and the introduction of self-regulated courts of honour. Frevert complained about the social barriers of rural society that had become entrenched in the division between the hunt and agriculture. To reconcile this problem, he plumbed the depths of völkisch idealism in a polemic about capitalism’s destruction of the German way of life and promised the old ways would be restored. He dismissed the existence of any underlying social and cultural differences between the peasant farmer and the elitist hunter hailing both as völkischer Kulturträger (culture bearers of the nation). They would be militarised, regimented and armed; in this context, the Jagdliche Brauchtum was not just an almanack of invented traditions but served as the basic honour code for Göring’s court and organisations.75 This dogma underpinned the ideas for Białowieźa.
This system failed and calamitous consequences. Göring and Udet had been comrades in war and peace. Frevert had recollections of Udet as a regular guest at Rominten who was known for fun and frivolity. Everyone noticed that Göring and Udet used the informal and friendly ‘du’ when greeting and when together. Frevert recalled Udet sketched Göring on a beer mat stalking on his stomach. He drew a large posterior and on each rear cheek was stamped with the German cross and German Hunting Association shield, so as no one in his company could be offended. Göring enjoyed such jokes and thought the sketch was funny. According to Frevert, Udet was known as a great fighter ace but he was a lousy rifleman having missed several stags. Göring would often jibe Udet for his failings. One day a stag was caught in wire and Göring jokingly told him they had ‘wired the stag for Udet to shoot’. Uncertain over whether he should shoot or not Udet hesitated, but just as he pulled the trigger the stag broke free and he missed. Göring was convulsed with laughter. Udet eventually killed the stag with a second shot but the jokes were on him.76 Frevert recalled Udet’s suicide in 1941 was a hard blow for Göring. Before killing himself, Udet had scrawled in red on the headboard of his bed: ‘Reichsmarschall, why have you deserted me?’ Frevert concluded, they had been comrades and hunted together, but Göring convened a court of enquiry with a view to a posthumous court-martial.77
Göring deserted Udet because there were other men, more pliable and willing to do his bidding; men like Walter Frevert and Adolf Galland. In the early years, they worked towards the successful synthesis of The Blue and The Green. They were behind a civil-military institution that synthesised the politics of ecology, the politics of advanced warfare and the politics of racial extermination. Göring’s ideological ambitions were colossal, perhaps limitless, but the merger of ‘The Green’ and ‘The Blue’ served his corporatism. Eventually, this turned into an uncomfortable and wieldy marriage further unsettled by Göring’s notorious lifestyle. With the outbreak of war, the Green estates became operational headquarters for the Blue command system. This placed the hunt within close proximity to headquarters staff, making it more than just a rest and recuperation reward for combat weary troops. The Carinhall hunting estate, forty miles northeast of Berlin, was erected in the Schorfheide, a nationalised nature reserve. This grandiose complex was described by Frank Uekoetter as the most ‘pompous’ and costliest of all Göring’s residences. However, he overlooked how the intermingling of functions, between military headquarters and hunt lodges, skewed the social order of the Luftwaffe command system. Under Göring’s supreme control, patronage was politicised that inturn ramped up the prestige. Diplomacy and politics continued from Carinhall,78 Rominten became the favoured retreat, but Göring’s headquarters train, Robinson became the centre of decision-making in regards to the Białowieźa mission. By April 1945, Göring had destroyed both Carinhall and Rominten.79
1 Erich Gritzbach, Hermann Göring, Werk und Mensch, (München, 1938), pp. 114–116.
2 Robert Gellately (ed), Leon Goldensohn, The Nuremberg Interviews: An American Psychiatrists Conversations with the Defendants and Witnesses, (London, 2006), p. 128.
3 Richard W. Mackay, The Zabern Affair 1913–1914, (Lanhan, 1991).
4 Wolfgang Paul, Hermann Göring: Hitler Paladin or Puppet? trans. Helmut Bögler, (London, 1998) p. 39. See also Stefan Martens, Hermann Göring: “erster Paladin des Führers” und “Zweiter Mann im Reich”, (Paderborn, 1985). Gordon Craig, The Politics of the Prussian Army, 1640–1945, (Oxford, 1978), p. 40.
5 Richard Overy, Interrogations: Inside the Minds of the Nazi Elite, (London, 2001), pp. 141–152.
6 Peter Uiberall on Göring, in Adam Curtis, ‘The Living Dead’, BBC, 1995.
7 Andreas Gautschi, Der Reichsjägermeiste: Fakten und Legenden um Hermann Göring, (Suderburg, 1999), p. 53.
8 See on this: Stefan Dirscherl, Tier- und Naturschutz im Nationalsozialismus: Gesetzgebung, Ideologie und Praxis, (Göttingen, 2012), and Tier- und Naturschutz im Nationalsozialismus: Gesetzgebung.