GERMANY: Paladin’s Virtues

A super-authorized biography of the No. 2 Nazi and Minister President, Colonel General Hermann Wilhelm Göring, rolled portentously off the presses of the Nazi Party publishing house last week. It postulates that three “virtues” in which Colonel General Göring excels are:

1) “Chivalry”

2) “Jew-baiting”

3) “Tenderness”

Dr. Erich Gritzbach, chief of the Prussian Press Bureau was Herr Göring’s official biographer. Every German has heard the War story illustrating Göring’s Chivalry. Göring, one of the Kaiser’s greatest flying aces and successor to the late great von Richthofen as commander of his famed squadron, once engaged in combat a Danish airman who was fighting for the French. “My machine-gun jammed,” the Dane related afterward, “and when Göring saw I was defenseless he flew up alongside, waved a salute, and then soared away.”

Not, however, until the official biography appeared last week was it generally known that Hermann as a little boy always encouraged his dog to bite non-Aryans. As for Tenderness, the official version records of Huntsman Göring (a great deer hunter): “He cares for a young deer found by his huntsmen with as much tenderness as he bestows on his pet lion.”

Virtuous Colonel General Göring also rises daily at 7 a. m. and takes a cold shower. In case the No. 2 Nazi seems depressed, his valet finds he can always prick up General Göring by putting on the phonograph the Heroes March from Wagner’s Götterdämmerung.

Furthermore the biography proudly records that No. 2 Nazi Göring lunches with No. 1 Nazi Hitler frequently and “is the Führer’s most faithful paladin.”