Hermann Göring

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 the son of Ernst Hermann Göring (October 31, 1839 – December 7, 1913) and Franziska Tiefenbrunn (died 1923).

He was tried for war crimes and crimes against humanity at the Nuremberg Trials in 1945-1946 and sentenced to death. However, he avoided execution by committing suicide in his cell a few hours before the sentence was to be carried out.

The Hermann Göring Panzer division that fought in Africa and Sicily was named after him. He was of aristocratic heritage and considered a war hero. Biography of Hermann Goering from the Jewish Virtual Library

World War I

In World War I he was commissioned in the infantry, then became a pilot. He flew reconnaissance and bombing missions as an Observer before training to become a fighter pilot in June-October 1915.

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 the coveted Pour le Mérite in June 1918. On July 7 1918, after the death of Wilhelm Reinhard, the successor of Ritter Manfred von Richthofen (The Red Baron), he was made commander of Jagdgeschwader Freiherr von Richthofen, Jagdgeschwader 1. He finished the war with 22 kills. Incidentally, his appointment as commander had not been well received and he was the only veteran of Jagdgeschwader 1 to have never been invited to post-war reunions.

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.

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.

In Stockholm he met Carin von Kantzow (née Fock, 1888-1931), whom he later married. She died in 1931, and soon after he married actress Emmy Sonnemann.

Political career

As early as 1922, Göring joined the Nazi Party and initially took over the SA leadership as the Oberste SA-Führer. After stepping down as the SA Commander, he was appointed an SA-Gruppenführer (Lieutenant General) and held this rank on the SA rolls until 1945.

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.

In its 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 others, he was appointed Reichsluftfahrtminister in 1935, head of the Luftwaffe. In 1939, he became the first Luftwaffe Field Marshal (Generalfeldmarschal) and by a decree on 29 June 1941, 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.

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, "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.

The famous quotation, "When I hear the word culture, I reach for my Browning" is frequently attributed to Göring. Whether or not he actually used this phrase, it did not originate with him. The line comes from German 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.

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 Die Reichwerk Hermann Göring was named after him. This gave him great influence with Hitler (who placed a high value on rearmament), but he never seemed to accept the Hitler Myth quite as much as Goebbels and Himmler did, but remained loyal nevertheless.

Göring was known for his extravagant tastes and garish clothing. As the only major Nazi with a prominent World War I record, he was a key connection between the former corporal Hitler and the traditional military elite. Göring, married 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. 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 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.

However, 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 deprivations.

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, decisively exacerbated 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". To no one's surprise, when the Red Army attacked, Göring's beloved 9th Airborne Division 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 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 the fall of 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.

Capture, trial and death

Göring surrendered on May 8, 1945 in Austria. He was the second highest ranking Nazi official brought before the Nuremberg Trials, behind Reich President (former Admiral) Karl Dönitz. Though he defended himself vigorously, he was sentenced to death; the judgment stated that "his guilt is unique in its enormity". One of his last acts was to ask his brother Albert Göring to look after his wife and daughter. 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 would claim that he had given Göring the cyanide shortly before Göring's death, however this claim is usually dismissed. Later theories speculate that Göring befriended a U.S. Army Lieutenant stationed at the Nuremberg Trials who helped Göring obtain cyanide which had likely been hidden among Göring's personal effects when they were confiscated by the Army. 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.

Göring's last days

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." Speer, Albert: Inside the Third Reich, The Macmillan Company, 1970, p. 605. ISBN 0684829495

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 so called "Großkreuz des Eisernen Kreuzes" that was only 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, that 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.

Image:Hermann Göring1 (Vorderseite).jpg|1. pattern (right side) Image:Hermann Göring1 (Rückseite).jpg|1. pattern (left side) Image:Hermann Göring2 (Vorderseite).jpg|2. pattern (right side) Image:Hermann Göring2 (Rückseite).jpg|2. pattern (left side)

In fiction

In Philip José Farmer's Riverworld, a reincarnated Göring becomes a missionary for the Church of the Second Chance, which was a pacifist religion.

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 was an early foe of Captain America, along with Adolf Hitler.

Göring is represented by the character Emmanuel Giri in The Resistable 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 Herring" 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 occations. Dave Lister, a central character in the show, once said on the subject of the ship's computer bringing back his bunkmate in holographic form; 'Hermann Göring would have been better than Rimmer. Ok, so he was a drug crazed Nazi transvestite, but at least we could have gone dancing!' The accuracy of this accusation is dubious.

In film

He has been portrayed by:
- Jan Werich - 1949, Padeniye Berlina (both parts)
- Hein Reiss - 1969, Battle of Britain.
- Glenn Shadix - 1969, The Empty Mirror.
- Volker Spengler - 1996, The Ogre, directed by Volker Schlöndorff, also starring John Malkovich.
- Brian Cox - 2000, Nuremberg (television movie), also starring Alec Baldwin and Jill Hennessy.
- Chris Larkin - 2003, Hitler: The Rise of Evil (television movie).
- Mathias Gnädinger - 2004, Der Untergang.

There has been a lot of talk about making a Goring biopic over the years, but there has been no major production, casting, scriptwriting, etc. Warren Beatty was interested in doing a Goring movie for years, but he signed on to play Dick Tracy. Many rumors 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 des Willens by Leni Riefenstahl.

Quotes

Goering 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:

“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.”

Books about Göring

Frischauer, Willi: The Rise and Fall of Hermann Goering (Ballantine Books 1951)
Overy, Richard J.: Goering: The Iron Man (Routledge 1984)
Maser, Werner: Hitlers janusköpfiger Paladin:die politische Biographie, (German) (Berlin 2000) ISBN 38-6124-509-4
Irving, David: Göring: Biography of Hermann Göring (1989) ISBN 0688066062
Leffland, Ella: The Knight, Death and the Devil (William Morrow and Company, Inc. N.Y. 1990) ISBN 0688058361
excerpt from Hermann Göring book "Germany Reborn"

References

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

A survivor and Nuremberg journalist recalls a surreal meeting with Goering By Ernest W. Michel for the JTA November 21, 2005

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