Hermann Göring

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Hermann Wilhelm Göring (also Goering in English) (January 12, 1893 – October 15, 1946) was a Nazi war criminal. An early member of the Nazi party, Commander of the Luftwaffe, and one of the main leaders of Nazi Germany, he was tried for war crimes and crimes against humanity at the Nuremberg Trials in 1945-1946 and sentenced to death. 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 is named after him.

1 Biography
2 Göring's last days
3 The personal standards of Hermann Göring
4 In fiction
5 In film
6 Quotes
7 Books about Göring
8 References
9 External links

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Biography

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Early life

Göring was born in Rosenheim, Bavaria to Heinrich Ernst Göring, a lawyer and colonial bureaucrat (in South-West Africa, today's Namibia), and his wife Franziska. Often apart from his parents, he was tutored at home before attending cadet schools at Karlsruhe and Lichterfelde.

Image:Göring.jpg In World War I he was commissioned in the infantry, then became a pilot. He flew reconnaissance and bombing missions before becoming a fighter pilot. By the end of the war he was a highly decorated "ace" and commanded the famed Jasta 11.

In mid-1915 Göring began his pilot training at Freiburg, and on completing the course he was posted to Jagdstaffel 5. He was soon shot down and spent most of 1916 recovering from his injuries. On his return in November 1916 he joined Jagdstaffel 26, before being given his first command. In 1917 he was awarded the Pour le Mérite. On July 7, 1918, after the death of Wilhelm Reinhard, the successor of Baron Manfred von Richthofen (The Red Baron), he was made commander of Jagdgeschwader Freiherr von Richthofen (Jasta 11). He finished the war as an "ace," with 22 confirmed kills. Incidentally, his appointment as commander had not been well received and he was the only veteran of Jasta 11 to have never been invited to the squadron's 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 Karin von Kantzow (née Fock, 1888-1931), whom he later married. She died in 1931, and soon after he married actress Emmy Sonnemann.

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Political career

Image:SAGoring.jpg 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, "[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.

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.

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.

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World War II

Image:Gustavgoring1939.JPG Once World War II started, Göring became the driving force behind the failed attempt to force Britain's surrender (or at least without protest) by air battle in the Battle of Britain. After that campaign he lost much of his influence in the Nazi hierarchy, exacerbated by the Luftwaffe's failings in Russia and against the Allied bomber raids. His reputation for extravagance made him particularly unpopular as ordinary Germans began to suffer deprivations.

Göring was the only WWII recipient of the Grand Cross of the Iron Cross, awarded to him by Hitler for his leadership of the Luftwaffe during Fall Gelb - the conquest of France and the Low Countries. He avidly pursued additional decorations in marked contrast to Hitler, who only wore the Iron Cross he earned in WWI.

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 from Luftwaffe's officers without any ground combat experience. He's known to say 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 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.

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Capture, trial and death

Image:Goering in Nuremberg.jpg Göring surrendered on May 8, 1945 in Austria. He was the highest ranking Nazi official brought before the Nuremberg Trials. 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 wontedly 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 honor 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.

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Göring's last days

Image:Goersuicide.jpg 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." Template:Ref

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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.

1. pattern (right side)

1. pattern (left side)

2. pattern (right side)

2. pattern (left side)

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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.</p>

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.

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In film

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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.

Footage of Göring has been included in many films, notably in the 1935 Triumph des Willens by Leni Riefenstahl.

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Quotes

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"Guns will make us strong, butter will only make us fat."
"Why of course the people don't want war. Why should some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece? Naturally the common people don't want war neither in Russia, nor in England, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the 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 tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for the lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country."

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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
excerpt from Hermann Göring book "Germany Reborn"

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