(Redirected from Hermann Goering)
'Hermann Wilhelm Göring' () (also 'Goering' in
English) (
January 12,
1893 –
October 15,
1946) was a
German politician and
military leader, a leading member of the
Nazi Party, second in command of the
Third Reich, and commander of the
Luftwaffe. He was tried for
war crimes and
crimes against humanity at the
Nuremberg Trials in 1945-1946 and sentenced to death by hanging; however, he escaped the hangman's noose around two hours before his scheduled execution by taking his life through the use of
potassium cyanide. Last commander of
Manfred von Richthofen's famous air squadron, Göring was a war hero of
World War I and for continuous courage in action was awarded the coveted
Pour le Mérite.
Family background and relatives
Göring was born in the Marienbad sanatorium, near
Rosenheim,
Bavaria. His father
Heinrich Ernst Göring (
October 31,
1839 –
December 7,
1913), had been the first Governor-General of the German protectorate of South West Africa (modern day
Namibia).
[1], as well as being a former cavalry officer and member of the German consular service. Göring had among his patrician ancestors
Eberle/
Eberlin, a
Swiss-German family of high bourgeoisie who were originally Jewish financiers who converted to Christianity in the 15th century and had huge progeny in German speaking countries.
Göring was a relative of such Eberle/Eberlin descendants as the German aviation pioneer Count
Ferdinand von Zeppelin; German romantic nationalist
Hermann Grimm (1828-1901), an author of the concept of the German hero as a mover of history, whom the Nazis claimed as one of their ideological forerunners; the industrialist family
Merck, the owners of pharmaceutical giant
Merck; one of the world major Catholic writers and poets of the 20th century German Baroness
Gertrud von LeFort, whose works were largely inspired by her revulsion against Nazism; and Swiss diplomat, historian and President of
International Red Cross,
Carl J. Burckhardt.
In an ironic historical coincidence, among Göring's relatives throughout Eberle/Eberlin line was a great Swiss scholar of art and culture, and a major political and social thinker
Jacob Burckhardt (1818-1897), an opponent of nationalism and militarism, who rejected German claims of cultural and intellectual superiority, and predicted a cataclysmic 20th century, in which violent demagogues, whom he called "terrible simplifiers," would play central roles
[2].
Göring's mother Franziska "Fanny" Tiefenbrunn (
1859-
July 15,
1923) came from a
Bavarian peasant family. The marriage of a gentleman to a woman from lower class (1885) occurred only because Heinrich Ernst Göring was a widower. Göring was one of five children; his brothers were
Albert Göring and Karl Ernst Göring, and his sisters were Olga Therese Sophia and Paula Elisabeth Rosa Göring, the last of whom were from his father's first marriage
[3] While anti-Semitism became rampant in Germany of that time, his parents were not anti-Semitic..
Early life/Ritter von Epenstein
Göring later claimed his given name was chosen to honor the
Arminius who defeated the legions of Rome at
Teutoburg Forest. However the name was far more likely chosen to honor his godfather, a Christian of Jewish descent
[4] born Hermann Epenstein. Epenstein, whose father was an army surgeon in Berlin, became a very wealthy physician and businessman and a major if not paternal influence on Göring's childhood. Much of Hermann's very early childhood, including a lengthy separation from his parents when his father took diplomatic posts in Africa and in Haiti (climates ruled too brutal for a young European child), was spent with governesses and with distant relatives. However, upon Heinrich Göring's retirement ca. 1898 his large family, supported solely on Heinrich's modest civil service pension, became for financially practical reasons the houseguests of their longtime friend and Göring's probable namesake, a man whose minor title (acquired through service and donation to the Crown) made him now known as Hermann,
Ritter von Epenstein.
As with many social climbers and
nouveau riche businessmen of the time,
Ritter von Epenstein sought the trappings of German aristocracy as well as the titles. He acquired these in part through the purchase of two largely dilapidated castles, Burg Veldenstein in Bavaria and Schloss Mauterndorf near Salzburg, Austria, whose very expensive restorations were ongoing by the time of Hermann Göring's birth. Both castles were to be residences to the Göring family, their official "caretakers" until 1913, and both were to be tremendous influences on Göring's childhood and fascination with the military and romanticized notions of history. Both castles were also ultimately to be his property.
According to respected biographers of both Hermann Göring and his younger brother
Albert Göring, soon after the family took residence in his castles von Epenstein began an adulterous relationship with Frau Göring
[5] that may in fact have resulted in Albert's birth. (Albert's physical resemblance to von Epenstein was noted even during his childhood and is even evident to the casual observer in photographs). Whatever the nature of von Epenstein's relationship with his mother, the young Hermann Göring enjoyed a particularly close relationship with his godfather. Göring was unaware of von Epenstein's Jewish ancestry and birth until as a child at a prestigious Austrian boarding school (where his tuition was paid by von Epenstein) he wrote an essay in praise of his godfather and was mocked by the school's anti-Semitic headmaster for professing such admiration for a Jew. Göring initially denied the allegation but when confronted with proof in the ''"Semi-Gotha"''
[6], a book of German heraldry (Ritter von Epenstein had purchased his minor title and castles with wealth garnered from speculation and trade and was thus included in a less than complimentary reference work on German speaking nobility), Göring to his youthful credit remained steadfast in his devotion to his family's friend and patron, so adamantly so that he was expelled from the school. The action seems to have tightened the already considerable bond between godfather and godson.
Relations between the Göring family and von Epenstein became far more formal during Göring's adolescence (causing Mosley and other biographers to speculate that perhaps the theorized affair ended naturally or that the elderly Heinrich discovered he was a cuckold and threatened its exposure). By the time of Heinrich Göring's death the family no longer lived in a residence supplied by or seemed to have much contact at all with von Epenstein (though the family's comfortable circumstances indicate the
Ritter may have given them some financial support). Late in his life
Ritter von Epenstein wed a singer, Lily, who was half his age, bequeathing her his estate in his will but requesting that she in turn bequeath the castles at Mauterndorf and Veldenstein to his godson Hermann upon her own death.
World War I
Göring was sent to boarding school at
Ansbach,
Franconia and then attended the cadet institutes at Karlsruhe and the military college at Lichterfelde. Göring was commissioned in the Prussian army on
22 June 1912 in the Prinz Wilhelm Regiment, the 112th Infantry, the headquarters of which were at
Mulhouse.
During the first year of
World War I Göring served with an infantry regiment in the Vosges region before he was hospitalized with rheumatism resulting from the damp of trench warfare. While recovering, Göring's friend
Bruno Loerzer convinced him to seek a transfer to the Luftstreitkräfte. Göring's application to transfer was immediately turned down. However later that year Göring flew as Loerzer's observer. Göring had run the risk of arranging his own transfer and was sentenced by a military tribunal to three weeks' confinement to barracks as a result. The sentence was never carried out: by the time it was imposed Göring's association with Loerzer had been regularised when they had become attached as a team to the 25th Field Air Detachment of Crown Prince Friedrich Wilhem's Fifth Army - "though it seems that they had to steal a plane in order to qualify."
[7] The team flew reconnaissance and bombing missions for which The Crown Prince invested both Göring and Loerzer with the Iron Cross, first class. Göring became a ''Jagdflieger'' or
fighter pilot in October 1915.
[8]
On completing his pilot's training course he was posted to ''Jagdstaffel'' 5 in October 1915. He was soon shot down and spent most of 1916 recovering from his injuries. On his return in February 1917 he joined ''Jagdstaffel'' 26, before being given his first command Jasta 27, in May 1917. Serving with ''Jastas'' 7, 5, 26 and 27, he claimed 21 air victories, being awarded in addition to the Iron Cross, the Zaehring Lion with swords, the Karl Friedrich Order and the Hohenzollern Medal with swords, third class, prior to his final award (despite never having shot down the required 25 enemy planes) in May 1918 of the coveted
Pour le Mérite.
[9] On
7 July 1918, after the death of Wilhelm Reinhard, the successor of Rittmeister
Manfred von Richthofen (''The Red Baron''), he was made commander of ''Jagdgeschwader Freiherr von Richthofen'',
Jagdgeschwader 1.
In June 1917, after a lengthy dogfight, Göring shot down a novice
Australian pilot named
Frank Slee. The battle is recounted flamboyantly in ''The Rise and Fall of Hermann Goering''. Göring landed and met the Australian, and presented Slee with his
Iron Cross. Years after, Slee gave Göring's
Iron Cross to a friend, who later died on the beaches of
Normandy on
D-Day. Also during the war Göring had through his generous treatment made a friend of his prisoner of war Captain
Frank Beaumont, a
Royal Flying Corps pilot. "It was part of Goering's creed to admire a good enemy, and he did his best to keep Captain Beaumont from being taken over by the Army."
[10]
Göring finished the war with 22 kills.
Because of his arrogance
[11] Göring's appointment as commander of
Jagdgeschwader 1 had not been well received and although after demobilization Göring and his officers spent most of their time during the first weeks of November 1918 in the Stiftskeller, the best restaurant and drinking place in
Aschaffenburg,
[12] he was the only veteran of Jagdgeschwader 1 never to have been invited to post-war reunions.
Genuinely surprised (at least by his own account) at Germany's defeat in the First World War, Göring felt personally violated at the surrender, the Kaiser's abdication, the humiliating terms and the treachery of the post-war German politicians who had "goaded the people [to uprising] [and] who [had] stabbed our glorious Army in the back [thinking] of nothing but of attaining power and of enriching themselves at the expense of the people."
[13] Ordered to convey the planes in his squadron and surrender them to the Allies in December 1918, Göring and other pilots in his unit intentionally grounded the planes as violently as possible in order to cause as much damage as possible upon landing while still enabling them to live, an endeavor inspired by the
scuttling of ships. Typical for the political climate of the day, he was not arrested or even officially reprimanded for his action.
Post World War I
He remained in flying after the war, worked briefly at
Fokker, tried "
barnstorming", and in 1920 he joined
Svenska Lufttrafik. He was also listed on the officer rolls of the
Reichswehr, the post-World War I peacetime army of Germany, and by 1933 had risen to the rank of ''Generalmajor''. He was made a ''Generalleutnant'' in 1935 and then a General in the
Luftwaffe (German air force) upon its founding later that year.
Married life
On
21 February 1920, while in Sweden, he met
Karin von Kantzow (''née'' Freiin von Fock, 1888–1931), who had been married for ten years and was mother of a son, Thomas von Kantzow (born 1913). Karin divorced her estranged husband, Niels Gustav von Kantzow, in December 1922 and married Göring on
January 3,
1923 in
Stockholm. Niels von Kantzow behaved generously providing a financial settlement which enabled Karin and Göring to set up their first home together in Germany: a hunting lodge at Hochkreuth in the Bavarian Alps, near Bayrischzell, some 50 miles from Munich. Both Karin and Göring were ardent nationalists. Karin died on
October 17,
1931, aged 42, of consumption (tuberculosis).
During the early 1930s Göring was often in the company of actress
Emmy Sonnemann (born 1893) from Hamburg. He proposed to her in Weimar in February 1935. The wedding took place on
10 April 1935 in
Berlin and was celebrated like the marriage of an emperor. Together they had a daughter, Edda Göring (born
2 June 1938) who was then thought to be named after
Countess Edda Ciano, eldest child of
Benito Mussolini. Actually, Edda was named after a friend of her mother.
[14]
In 1933 Göring started construction of
Karinhall (named in memory of his first wife) on his estate northwest of
Berlin.
Exile and addiction
Göring joined the
Nazi Party in 1922 and initially took over the
SA leadership as the ''
Oberster SA-Führer''. After stepping down as SA Commander, he was appointed an ''SA-
Gruppenführer'' (Lieutenant General) (and held this rank on the SA rolls until 1945).
Hitler later recalled his early association with Göring thus:
"I liked him. I made him the head of my S.A. He is the only one of its heads that ran the S.A. properly. I gave him a disheveled rabble. In a very short time he had organised a division of 11,000 men."[15]
At this time Karin, who liked
Hitler, often played hostess at home to meetings of leading Nazis including her husband,
Hitler,
Rudolf Hess,
Alfred Rosenberg and
Ernst Roehm. Despite Göring's organisational abilities in the S.A., the storm troopers' march headed by
Hitler, Göring,
Hess, veteran General
Ludendorff and
Julius Streicher on 9 November 1923 during the
Beer Hall Putsch in
Munich ended in failure and surrender when confronted by the police not far from the Bavarian War Ministry, at the time occupied by
Roehm's men, which had been the marchers' objective.
Hitler and Göring were both hurt in the melee, the latter sustaining a serious bullet wound to the groin. Karin, herself unwell with pneumonia, arranged for Göring to be spirited away to Austria; Göring was in no fit state to travel and the journeys he had to endure may well have aggravated his condition although they did avoid his arrest. Göring was x-rayed and operated in hospital at Innsbruck; Karin wrote to her mother from Göring's bedside on 8 December 1923 describing the terrible pain Göring was in: "... in spite of being dosed with morphine every day, his pain stays just as bad as ever."
[16] This was the beginning of his morphine addiction. Meanwhile in Munich the authorities declared Göring a wanted man.
The Görings, acutely short of funds and reliant on the goodwill of
Nazi sympathisers abroad, moved from
Austria to
Venice then in May 1924 to
Rome via
Florence and
Siena. Göring met
Mussolini in
Rome. Mussolini expressed some interest in meeting Hitler, by then in prison, on his release.
[17] Personal problems, however, continued to multiply. Göring's mother had died in 1923; by 1925 it was Karin's mother who was ill and the Görings with difficulty raised the money for a journey in Spring 1925 to
Sweden via
Austria,
Czechoslovakia,
Poland and the
Free City of Danzig. Göring had become a violent morphine addict and Karin's family were shocked by his deterioration when they saw him. Karin, herself suffering from epilepsy, had to let the doctors and the police take full charge of Göring who was certified a dangerous drug addict and placed in the violent ward of Langbro asylum on 1 September 1925. Biographer Richard Manvell interviewed a psychiatrist in
Stockholm who had seen Göring at a private clinic before being placed in Langbro: Göring was very violent and had to be placed in a strait-jacket but he was not insane.
[18]
The 1925 reports revealed Göring to be weak of character, an hysteric, an unstable personality, sentimental yet callous, violent when afraid and as a person who deployed bravado to hide a basic lack of moral courage.
"Like many men capable of great acts of physical courage which verge quite often on desperation, he lacked the finer kind of courage in the conduct of his life which was needed when serious difficulties overcame him."[19]
At the time of Göring's detention all doctors' reports in
Sweden were in the public domain: a doctor's report on Karin and Göring was used in evidence by Neils von Kantzow to show that neither Karin nor Göring could be regarded as fit to look after Karin's son with von Kantzow and so von Kantzow defeated her suit in 1925 for custody of the child; when Göring was finally able to return to
Germany, after the autumn 1927 political amnesty declared by the newly elected President von
Hindenburg, Göring's political opponents including
Communists used the reports against him but with mixed results.
Political career
Having been a member of the
''Reichstag'' since 1928, he became the parliament's
president from 1932 to 1933, and was one of the key figures in the process of ''
Gleichschaltung'' that established the Nazi
dictatorship. For example, in 1933 he banned all
Roman Catholic newspapers in Germany, despite the support the
Centre Party had given to Hitler's chancellorship.
[20] In the regime's early years, he served as minister in various key positions at both the ''Reich'' level and in
Prussia, being responsible for the economy as well as the build-up of the German military in preparation for the war. Among other positions, in 1935 he was appointed ''Reichsluftfahrtminister'', head of the Luftwaffe. In 1938, he became the first Luftwaffe
Field Marshal (''Generalfeldmarschall'') and by a decree on
19 June 1940,
Hitler appointed Göring his formal successor and promoted him to the rank of
Reichsmarschall, the highest military rank of the Greater German Reich. Reichsmarschall was a special rank intended for Göring and which made him senior to all Army and Air Force Field Marshals.
Göring also "collected" several other offices like ''Reichsforst- und Jägermeister'' (Chief of forests and hunting of the Reich), for which he received high wages.
The
Reichstag Fire, according to the
Nuremberg testimony of General
Franz Halder, was the handiwork of Göring, not of '
Communist instigators.' "At a luncheon on the birthday of Hitler in 1942..." Halder testifies, "[Göring said]...The only one who really knows about the Reichstag is I, because I set it on fire!" "With that," said Halder, "he slapped his thigh with the flat of his hand." Göring in his own Nuremberg testimony denied this story. It remains unclear whether or not Göring was responsible for the fire.
The following is a transcript excerpt from the Nuremburg Trials:
GOERING: This conversation did not take place and I request that I be confronted with Herr Halder. First of all I want to
emphasize that what is written here is utter nonsense. It says, "The only one who really knows the Reichstag is I." The Reichstag
was known to every representative in the Reichstag. The fire took place only in the general assembly room, and many hundreds
or thousands of people knew this room as well as I did. A statement of this type is utter nonsense. How Herr Halder came to
make that statement I do not know. Apparently that bad memory, which also let him down in military matters, is the only
explanation.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: You know who Halder is?
GOERING: Only too well.
GOERING: That accusation that I had set fire to the Reichstag came from a certain foreign press. That could not bother me
because it was not consistent with the facts. I had no reason or motive for setting fire to the Reichstag. From the artistic point of
view I did not at all regret that the assembly chamber was burned- I hoped to build a better one. But I did regret very much
that I was forced to find a new meeting place for the Reichstag and, not being able to find one, I had to give up my Kroll Opera
House, that is, the second State Opera House, for that purpose. The opera seemed to me much more important than the
Reichstag.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Have you ever boasted of burning the Reichstag building, even by way of joking?
GOERING: No. I made a joke, if that is the one you are referring to, when I said that, after this, I should be competing with
Nero and that probably people would soon be saying that, dressed in a red Toga and holding a lyre in my hand, I looked on at
the fire and played while the Reichstag was burning. That was the joke. But the fact was that I almost perished in the flames,
which would have been very unfortunate for the German people, but very fortunate for their enemies.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: You never stated then that you burned the Reichstag?
GOERING: No. I know that Herr Rauschning said in the book which he wrote, and which has often been referred to here, that
I had discussed this with him. I saw Herr Rauschning only twice in my life and only for a short time on each occasion. If I had
set fire to the Reichstag, I would presumably have let that be known only to my closest circle of confidants, if at all. I would not
have told it to a man whom I did not know and whose appearance I could not describe at all today. That is an absolute
distortion of the truth.
The famous quotation, "When I hear the word culture, I reach for my
Browning" is frequently attributed to Göring during the inter-war period. Whether or not he actually used this phrase, it did not originate with him. The line comes from Nazi
playwright Hanns Johst's play ''Schlageter'', "Wenn ich
Kultur höre ... entsichere ich meinen Browning," "Whenever I hear of culture... I release the safety-catch of my Browning!" (Act 1, Scene 1). Nor was Göring the only Nazi official to use this phrase:
Rudolf Hess used it as well, and it was a popular cliché in Germany, often in the form: "Wenn ich "Kultur" höre, nehme ich meine Pistole".
After
Hjalmar Schacht was removed as minister for the Economy, Göring effectively took over, becoming Plenipotentiary of the Four Year Plan in 1936 to better facilitate German rearmament; the vast steel plant ''Reichswerke Hermann Göring'' was named after him. This gave him great influence with Hitler (who placed a high value on rearmament). He never seemed to accept the
Hitler Myth quite as much as
Goebbels and
Himmler did, but remained loyal nevertheless.
The Aryanisation of Jewish Firms allowed Göring to buy them for almost nothing and he amassed himself a personal fortune. He was known for his extravagant tastes and garish clothing.
Hans Rudel, the top
Stuka pilot of the war, recalls in his war memoirs meeting Göring twice dressed in outlandish costumes: first a medieval hunting costume, practicing archery with his doctor, and second dressed in a russet
toga fastened with a golden clasp, smoking an abnormally large pipe. As a highly decorated
First World War hero and commander, Göring was a key connection between the former corporal Hitler and the traditional military elite. Göring, who had been married first to a
Swedish baroness, built a vast
Prussian estate,
Karinhall, named after her. To avoid it falling into enemy hands, Göring had Karinhall blown up on
April 20 1945, immediately before attending Hitler's last birthday party. He exulted in
aristocratic trappings, and after the Nazis conquered much of Europe, collected
artworks looted from numerous museums, even some within Germany itself. Handsome and athletic in his youth, Göring sustained a painful injury during the
Beer Hall Putsch, leaving him dependent on
narcotic painkillers, particularly
morphine. This addiction contributed to his later
obesity and decline. He would finally be cured of his addiction toward the end of his life during his imprisonment at Nuremberg.
World War II
Göring was skeptical and averse to the path of war. He believed Germany was not prepared to embark on a new conflict and, in particular, he believed that Germany's air force, the
Luftwaffe, whose leadership was entrusted to his own hands, wasn't yet prepared to beat the
RAF. However, once
World War II started, Göring was determined to win at any cost.
Initially, decisive German victories followed quickly one after the other, Göring's modern Luftwaffe destroyed the Polish Air Force within two days and after the invasion of France, Hitler awarded Göring the
Grand Cross of the Iron Cross for his successful leadership. Göring's political and military careers were at their peak.
The
Grand Cross of the Iron Cross is based on the enactment ''Reichsgesetzblatt I S. 1573'' which also renews the
Iron Cross and established the
Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross. Article 2 of the enactment reads
"The Iron Cross is exclusively awarded for bravery before the enemy and for excellent merits in commanding troops. The award of a higher class must be preceded by the award of all preceding classes."
Thus by nature of the law a recipient of the
Grand Cross of the Iron Cross is also a recipient of the
Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross and a recipient of the
Iron Cross. Göring had already received the
Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross on
September 30 1939 as Commander in Chief of the Luftwaffe.
[21]
The Luftwaffe's failure to gain control of the skies during the
Battle of Britain marked Hitler's first defeat and put a stain on Göring's reputation. After that campaign he lost much of his influence in the Nazi hierarchy and faded briefly from the military scene, enjoying the pleasures of life as a wealthy and powerful man. His reputation for extravagance made him particularly unpopular as ordinary Germans began to suffer deprivation.
If Göring was skeptical about war on the western front, he was absolutely certain that a new campaign against Russia was doomed to be disastrous. After trying, completely in vain, to convince Hitler to give up
operation Barbarossa, he embraced the campaign against Russia as a chance to redeem credit from the disastrous British attack. As he had foreseen, the war against the Soviet Union turned out to be Germany's most ignominious defeat. Göring's contribution, as the head of the Luftwaffe, did not match his outlandish promises, and, as a result, negatively affected his relationship with Hitler.
Göring also sponsored a ground combat unit, the eponymous
Hermann Göring Division, an elite unit which fought on various fronts with success. His other units on the eastern front were not so successful. At the Oder front, he had 2
Fallschirmjäger (airborne) divisions, which were partially composed of Luftwaffe's officers without any ground combat experience. He's known to have said in one of the Hassleben's planning meetings: "When my both airborne divisions attack, the entire Red Army can be thrown to hell". When the Red Army attacked, Göring's
9th Parachute Division (Germany) collapsed first.
He was also
Commander-in-Chief of "
Forschungsamt" ("
FA"), the Nazi underground monitoring services for telephone and radio communications. This was connected to
SS,
SD and
Abwehr intelligence services.
Göring was also placed in charge of exploiting the vast industrial resources captured during the war, particularly in the Soviet Union. This proved to be an almost total disaster and little of the available potential was effectively harnessed for the service of the German military machine. However, Göring was notorious for his role as one of the
Nazi plunderers of
art and other valuables from occupied Europe.
Göring was the highest figure in the Nazi Hierarchy who had authorized on paper
[22] the "
final solution of the Jewish Question", when he issued a memo to
SS Obergruppenführer
Reinhard Heydrich to organize the practical details, (which culminated in the
Wannsee Conference). He wrote, "submit to me as soon as possible a general plan of the administrative material and financial measures necessary for carrying out the desired final solution of the Jewish question." It is almost certain however that Hitler issued a verbal order to Göring in late 1941 to this effect.
Near the end of the war, as the
Red Army closed in around the German capital on
April 23 1945, Göring sent a telegram from
Berchtesgaden to Berlin in which he proposed to assume leadership of the ''Reich'' as Hitler's designated successor. Hitler considered this disloyalty and high treason, especially because Göring mentioned a time limit after which he would consider Hitler incapacitated. Hitler had Göring placed under arrest by
Bernhard Frank on
April 25 and in his
political testament Hitler dismissed Göring from all his sundry offices and expelled him from the party. Two days before ending his own life Hitler sent orders to Frank to execute Göring, his wife and their young daughter (Hitler's own goddaughter). A combination of Göring's considerable charm, Frank's confusion and terror at the last days of the war and perhaps common decency where the death of an innocent German child was concerned led to Frank's rejection of the order. Instead the Görings and their captors moved together, with little formality and no semblance of a captives and captors relationship, to the same Schloß Mauterndorf where Göring had spent much of his childhood and which he had inherited (along with Burg Veldenstein) from his godfather's widow upon her death in 1937. (Göring had arranged for preferential treatment for the woman after his rise to power, a consideration that guaranteed her immunity from the confiscation and arrest that may have been her fate as the widow of a wealthy Jew.)
Ironically, during World War II, Herman Göring's nephew, Capt.
Werner G. Goering, piloted
B-17 Flying Fortresses on 48 bombing missions against occupied Europe. Born and raised in Salt Lake City, the young Göring spoke fluent German. After an extensive background check, he was assigned to the 303rd Bombardment Group -- ''Hell's Angels'' -- of the 8th Air Force, based at Molesworth, England. This fact was kept secret by the Army Air Force during the time that young Göring flew missions against Nazi Germany. However, the AAF still assigned him a "uniquely qualified" co-pilot -- First Lt. Jack P. Rencher. Rencher was given orders to shoot him if he ever tried to land in Germany. According to Rencher, however, the only time young Göring wasn't eager to rain destruction on Nazi Germany was when he had to bomb Cologne, where his grandmother lived. "He was neat, clean, a sharp dresser and in every sense military minded," Rencher said. "While I served with him he and I got along well together and I believe made an excellent team. I know of no one I would rather serve as co-pilot with."
Equally ironically, his younger brother
Albert Göring was notable for helping
Jews and
dissidents survive in Germany during the war.
Capture, trial and death
Göring and Hess during trials
Göring surrendered on
May 9,
1945 in
Bavaria. He was the third highest ranking Nazi official brought before the
Nuremberg Trials, behind Reich President (former Admiral)
Karl Dönitz and former
Deputy Führer Rudolf Hess. Göring's last days were spent with
Gustave Gilbert, a Jewish German-speaking intelligence officer and
psychologist who was granted free access by the Allies to all the prisoners held in the Nuremberg jail. Gilbert classified Göring as having an
IQ of 138, the same as he ascribed to
Karl Dönitz. He kept a journal of his observations of the proceedings and his conversations with the prisoners, which he later published in the book ''
Nuremberg Diary''. The following quotation was a part of a conversation Gilbert held with a dejected Göring in his cell on the evening of
18 April 1946, as the trials were halted for a three-day
Easter recess.
"Sweating in his cell in the evening, Göring was defensive and deflated and not very happy over the turn the trial was taking. He said that he had no control over the actions or the defense of the others, and that he had never been anti-Semitic himself, had not believed these atrocities, and that several Jews had offered to testify in his behalf."
Despite claims that he was not
anti-Semitic, while in the prison yard at Nuremberg, after hearing a remark about Jewish survivors in Hungary,
Albert Speer reported overhearing Göring say, "So, there are still some there? I thought we had knocked off all of them. Somebody slipped up again."
[23]
Göring dressed for display, along with the other war criminals, after committing suicide by cyanide.
Though he defended himself vigorously, he was sentenced to death by hanging. The judgment stated that:
[24]
"There is nothing to be said in mitigation. For Goering was often, indeed almost always, the moving force, second only to his leader. He was the leading war aggressor, both as political and as military leader; he was the director of the slave labour programme and the creator of the oppressive programme against the Jews and other races, at home and abroad. All of these crimes he has frankly admitted. On some specific cases there may be conflict of testimony, but in terms of the broad outline, his own admissions are more than sufficiently wide to be conclusive of his guilt. His guilt is unique in its enormity. The record discloses no excuses for this man."
Göring dispatched an appeal in which he said he would accept the court's death penalty if they allowed him to be shot as a soldier instead of hanged as a common criminal, but the court members refused to allow him this honor. Defying the sentence imposed by his captors, he committed
suicide with a
potassium cyanide capsule the night before he was supposed to be
hanged. Where Göring obtained the cyanide, and how he had managed to hide it during his entire imprisonment at Nuremberg, remains unknown. In the 1950s,
Erich von dem Bach-Zalewski claimed that he had given Göring the cyanide shortly before Göring's death. However, this claim is usually dismissed. Later theories speculate that Göring befriended U.S. Army Lieutenant
Jack G. "Tex" Wheelis, who was stationed at the Nuremberg Trials and helped Göring obtain cyanide which had likely been hidden among Göring's personal effects when they were confiscated by the Army.
[25] In
2005, former Army private
Herbert Lee Stivers claimed he gave Göring "medicine" hidden inside a gift fountain pen from a German woman the private had met and flirted with. Stivers served in the
U.S. 1st Infantry Division's 26th Regiment, who formed the honour guard for the Nuremberg Trials. Stivers claims to have been unaware of what the "medicine" he delivered actually was until after Göring's death. After his suicide, Hermann Göring was
cremated and his ashes were scattered in the
Conwentzbach in Munich, which runs into the
Isar river.
The personal standards of Hermann Göring
When Göring had been promoted to the unique rank of "Reichsmarschall" on
July 19 1940, he at once decided to choose a personal standard for himself. The design in the centre of the left side displayed a German eagle embroidered in gold-yellow thread and clutching in its talons a gold swastika standing on its point. Set behind the swastika was a pair of crossed marshal's batons. The right side displayed in the centre a large black Iron Cross. It was the unique "Großkreuz des Eisernen Kreuzes" that was bestowed on him by Hitler. Set in each of the four sections of the field was a gold-yellow Luftwaffe eagle and swastika. The basic field was light blue on both sides, which indicated that he was also the Commander-In-Chief of the German Air Force. In February 1941 he made up his mind to modify the whole design in order to look more "fashionable". The standard was used for all purposes and was carried by a personal standard-bearer.
Quotations
Göring spoke about war and extreme nationalism during the Nuremberg trials in an interview with Gustave Gilbert, a Jewish German-speaking intelligence officer and psychologist who was granted free access by the Allies to all the prisoners held in the Nuremberg jail (see ''
Nuremberg Diary''):
''Naturally the common people don't want war; neither in Russia, nor in England, nor in America, nor in Germany. That is understood. But after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. ...Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.''
On
August 9,
1939, two days after meeting with British businessmen, assuring them "on his word of honour" that he would do everything in his power to avert war, Göring boasted "The
Ruhr will not be subjected to a single bomb. If an enemy bomber reaches the Ruhr, my name is not Hermann Göring: you can call me Meier!" ("I want to be called Meier if ..." is a German idiom to express that something is impossible. Meier (including spelling variants) is the second most common surname in Germany.) By the end of the war, Berlin's
air raid sirens were bitterly known to the city's residents as "Meier's trumpets", or "Meier's hunting horns."
It has been written that Göring was one of the few Nazi leaders who did not take offense at hearing jokes about himself, "no matter how rude"
[26]. Germans joked about his ego, saying that he would wear an admiral's uniform to take a bath, and his obesity (270 pounds), joking that "he sits down on his stomach".
[27]
In film
★ He has been portrayed by:
★
★
Billy Gilbert parodied Göring as "Minister Herring" -
1940 -
Charlie Chaplin's
The Great Dictator
★
★
Jan Werich -
1949, ''
Padeniye Berlina'' (both parts)
★
★
Hein Reiss -
1969, ''
Battle of Britain''.
★
★
Barry Primus -
1971, ''
Von Richthofen and Brown''.
★
★
David King -
1981 The Bunker (
television movie).
★
★
Reinhard Kolldehoff -
1983 The Winds of War (
television miniseries).
★
★
Joss Ackland -
1988 The Man Who Lived at the Ritz (
television movie).
★
★
Volker Spengler -
1996, ''
The Ogre'', directed by
Volker Schlöndorff, also starring
John Malkovich.
★
★
Glenn Shadix - 1996, ''
The Empty Mirror''.
★
★
Brian Cox -
2000, ''
Nuremberg'' (
television movie), also starring
Alec Baldwin and
Jill Hennessy.
★
★
Chris Larkin -
2003, '' (television movie).
★
★
Mathias Gnädinger -
2004, ''
Der Untergang''.
★
★
Hannes Hellmann -
2006, ''Nuremberg: Goering's Last Stand''.
There has been talk about making a Göring
biopic over the years, but there has been no major production, casting, scriptwriting, etc.
Warren Beatty was interested in doing a Göring movie for years, but he signed on to play
Dick Tracy. Many rumours suggest that
Martin Scorsese and
Robert De Niro planned for several years to do a film with De Niro in the titular role with Scorsese directing, but nothing concrete came out of those planning years.
Footage of Göring has been included in many films, notably in the
1935 ''
Triumph of the Will'' by
Leni Riefenstahl. See his page at
IMDb [2].
In fiction
★ In
Frederic Raphael's ''
The Glittering Prizes'' Adam Morris' roommate Donald Donaldson tells the group of friends that his uncle once went hunting with Göring, and that the uncle actually liked him.
★ In
Philip José Farmer's ''
Riverworld'', a
reincarnated Göring becomes a
missionary for the Church of the Second Chance, which was a pacifist religion.
★ In Eric Koch's C.R.U.P.P-novels the protagonist is a former assistant of Hermann Göring.
★
Philip K. Dick's 1962
science fiction alternate history novel ''
The Man in the High Castle'' mentions Göring, who, by 1962 is aging, morbidly obese, and the subject of much
rumor and speculation regarding his indulgent lifestyle (which is seen by some as akin to that of a corrupt
Roman emperor). He resides in his large estate within the
Alps. Göring also appears as a character in Dick's 1964 novel ''
The Simulacra'', which is set in a fictional America of the late 21st century. A
time machine is used to pluck Göring out of 1944 and deposit him in the novel's "present" (his and our future).
★
Neal Stephenson's 1999 novel ''
Cryptonomicon'' includes a florid portrait of the Reichsmarschall.
★ Göring, along with
Adolf Hitler, was an early foe of
Captain America.
★ Göring is represented by the character ''Emmanuel Giri'' in ''
The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui'' by
Bertolt Brecht. The play is a parody of the rise of Hitler, largely written in exile (1941), with various scenes added afterwards. It has been translated into English by
Ralph Manheim and published by
Methuen modern plays.
★ More humorously, the character of "General Hering" stands in for Göring in
Charlie Chaplin's 1940 film ''
The Great Dictator''.
★ In the
BBC sci-fi comedy ''
Red Dwarf'', Göring is denounced on multiple occasions.
★ In ''
The Winds of War'', the pre-war half of
Herman Wouk's pair of epic World War Two
historical novels, the main character, a naval attaché in 1939 Berlin, attends a party at Göring's Karinhall palace and translates during a meeting between a secret American envoy, Göring,
Ribbentrop and
Hitler. Göring is described as grotesquely obese and dressed in ludicrous jewels and finery. Hitler is also described playing with Göring's young daughter before the meeting.
★ In the Bugs Bunny cartoon "
Herr Meets Hare", Hermann Goring was depicted as a hunter trying to kill Bugs Bunny. Bugs tricks him by dressing up as Adolf Hitler in one scene.
★ The
Daily Show in one sketch stated that the Republicans defeat in the 2006 Congressional elections was due to a number of Congressional scandals, including one GOP Congressmen actually having been discovered to be Hermann Göring.
★ In the
Donald Duck cartoon
Der Fuehrer's Face, Göring is marching with other Nazi figures in a procession at the beginning of the episode, who intrude
Donald Duck in his sleep.
★ In
A Matter of Honour by
Jeffrey Archer, Hermann Göring's suicide is the cause of Adam Scott's father's downfall, as he was guarding Göring at the time. He is also the one who left the Czar's Icon to Scott.
Books about Göring
★
The Rise and Fall of Hermann Goering, , Willi, Frischauer, Ballantine Books, 1951,
★
Excerpt from ''Germany Reborn'', by Hermann Göring, 1934
★
The Knight, Death and the Devil, , Ella, Leffland, Morrow, 1990, ISBN 0688058361
★
Göring, a biography, , David, Irving, William Morrow, 1989,
★
Goering, , Roger, Manvell, Greenhill Books, 2005,
★
Hitlers janusköpfiger Paladin: die politische Biographie, , Werner, Maser, , 2000, ISBN 38-6124-509-4
★
The Reich Marshal: A Biography of Hermann Goering, , Leonard, Mosley, Dell, 1974,
★
Goering: The Iron Man, , Richard J., Overy, Routledge, 1984,
References
1. ''Current Biography 1941'', pp327-30
2. Wolfgang Paul, ''Wer war Hermann Goring. Biographie,'' Esslingen: Bechtle Verlag, 1983, p. 33.
3. Erich Brandenburg "Die Nachkommen Karls des Grossen" originally published in 1935.
4. Roger Manvell & Heinrich Fraenkel, ''Goering'', Greenhill Books, London UK, 2005, p 24
5. ibid, p 23
6. ibid, p. 24
7. ibid, p. 29
8. ibid, p. 30
9. ibid, p. 32 and p. 403
10. ibid, p. 37
11. ibid, p. 403
12. ibid, p. 36
13. Erich Gritzbach, ''Hermann Goering: The Man and His Work'', the official biography edited by Göring himself (who later himself claimed the lion's share of the royalties for his efforts, according to Manvell and Fraenkel, p. 402)
14.
''Time'' magazine: "Lady of the Axis" published 24 July 1939.
15. Hitler's Table Talk, London, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1953, p. 168
16. Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, Fanny von. ''Karin Göring''. Berlin: Verlag von Martin Warneck, 1936, quoted by Manvell and Fraenkel in ''Goering'', p. 58
17. Manvell and Fraenkel, p. 60
18. ibid, p. 404
19. Butler, Ewan and Young, Gordon. ''Marshall without Glory''. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1951, pp. 84-87, referred to by Manvell and Fraenkel, p. 62
20. February, 19, 1933
21. Fellgiebel, 2000
22. Göring's letter in German
23. Speer, Albert: ''Inside the Third Reich'', The Macmillan Company, 1970, p. 605. ISBN 0684829495
24. [1]
25. Taylor, Telford, ''The Anatomy of the Nuremberg Trials'' (New York: Knopf, 1992).
26. ''Current Biography 1941'', p330
27. Id.
★ Fellgiebel, Walther-Peer. ''Die Träger des Ritterkreuzes des Eisernen Kreuzes 1939-1945''. Friedburg, Germany: Podzun-Pallas, 2000. ISBN 3-7909-0284-5.
★
Fest, Joachim: ''Inside Hitler's Bunker'', Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2002 ISBN 0374135770
★
Gilbert, Gustave: "
Nuremberg Diary", originally published: New York: Farrar, Straus and Company, 1947, p. 278-279. ISBN 0306806614
★ Norman Franks, Frank Bailey, Russell Guest: "Above the Lines- A complete record of the fighter aces of the German Air service 1914-18", page 117.
External links
★
TRIAL: Göring trial
★
"The Iron Knight"
★
Göring’s last prison interview he gave to US Army Intelligence before the Nuremberg Trials published by
World War II Magazine
★
''Germany Reborn'' by Hermann Goring
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