Hermann Göring

Hermann Göring is a prominent but briefly observed figure in the Munich gathering: first on the station platform in an elaborate uniform, then inside the meeting venue, where his attention to a lavish buffet helps Paul von Hartmann evade notice. The novel presents him through Hartmann’s sharply critical perspective, making his public display part of the gathering’s political theatre and, momentarily, a practical distraction.

Appearance and Public Display

When Hartmann steps off the train in Munich, Göring is waiting on the platform in what Hartmann takes to be an elaborate black uniform of Göring’s own design. Broad white piping runs along the trouser legs, and diamond-shaped lapels complete the outfit. Hartmann inwardly cringes at what he regards as its vulgarity. Göring’s clothing thus arrives before any speech or policy: Hartmann first registers him as a figure of conspicuous display amid the arrival of the political delegations.

The station scene places Göring within a choreographed public welcome. Hartmann waits for the dictators and their entourages to descend and pass before following across the concourse. Outside, the crowd’s ovation, children waving swastika flags, an SS honour guard, and a military band turn the arrival into a spectacle. Göring is among the senior figures who later travel in the convoy, but the narration’s closest attention remains on Hartmann’s disquieting impression of the ceremony and its central figures.

At the Meeting Venue

Inside the venue, Göring enters through the central door with Édouard Daladier and his entourage. As the prime ministers greet one another, Göring fills a plate with cold meats, cheeses, pickles, and vol-au-vents. The detail is deliberately concrete: while attention gathers around the political leaders, Göring is occupied with the buffet.

That moment has an immediate consequence for Hartmann. With the room’s attention elsewhere, he takes the opportunity to slip away. He searches the gallery, descends to the ground floor, checks the cloakroom and lavatory, and goes out onto the pavement looking for Hugh Legat. Göring is not shown directing Hartmann’s movements; rather, his conspicuous place at the buffet forms part of the momentary distraction that allows Hartmann to leave the room unnoticed.

Narrative Role

Göring’s brief appearances are filtered through Hartmann’s observations rather than developed into an account of his private motives or political decisions. The uniform makes him an emblem of ostentatious authority in the public procession; the buffet scene brings that grand setting down to the practical business of a crowded room, where a plate piled high with food coincides with Hartmann’s chance to escape. The contrast gives Göring a vivid, limited function in the sequence: he helps embody its political spectacle and, in one consequential instant, helps Hartmann move beyond it.