Big Mistake


General Spaatz did not take Goering's surrender nor did the US Army Air Forces. It was the 7th Army 36th Division Brig.General Robert Stack that took his surrender!
Goering was interviewed later on by 36th Div CO MajGen. John Dahlquist. There was no party and Goering was given lodgings in a nearby castle. Later remanded for trial.
General Spaatz was on his way to the Pacific to command US Air Forces their.

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Spaatz seems to be singled out due to his presence at both Amiens, and Berlin the following week, when German forces surrendered to first the Americans and then the Russians. This scenario was undoubtedly concocted to try to summarize, in as few minutes as possible, the general attitude of persons at the end of the war regarding post-war dispositions of the defeated nations' commanders (In 1945 there was little public interest for a series of trials such as at Nuremberg), and also to show Goering's charisma and charm, qualities for which he was well-known, and which have a direct bearing on this film's narrative. It was not a mistake, it was a deliberate fictionalization.

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