Hermann Göring (1.1.1893 Rosenheim – 15.10.1946 Nuremberg)

Göring was the son of the diplomat and former Reich Commissioner for the colony of German South-West Africa, Ernst Heinrich Göring, and his wife Franziska (née Tiefenbrunn). Since the retirement of his father in 1896, the family lived with all of their five children in various properties belonging to the godfather of Hermann Göring, Hermann von Epenstein, including Veldenstein Castle in Franconia. Hermann Göring initially attended several schools in Fürth and Ansbach and joined the cadet institute in Karlsruhe in 1905, from where he transferred to the main cadet institute in Lichterfelde near Berlin in 1909. In 1913, he passed his ‘Abitur’ (similar to high school diploma) and subsequently became an officer in the Imperial Army.

He initially took part in World War I as an infantry officer. At the end of 1914, he joined the aviation troops, first as a reconnaissance observer, then as a combat pilot. He achieved a total of 22 air victories and was awarded the Pour le Mérite medal; at the end of the war, he was, as the last commander of the Richthofen fighter wing, one of the most renowned German fighter pilots. In 1920, on the occasion of his retirement from the Reichswehr, he was promoted to captain. Since the end of World War I, Göring had been staying in Denmark and Sweden, where he worked a.o. as a pilot. In Sweden, he met Carin Baroness von Kantzow, who left her husband for him. In 1921, the couple relocated to Munich and tied the knot the following year.

In Munich, where he enrolled at the university to study history, economics, and political sciences, he joined the Nazi Party in the fall of 1922. In December 1922, Hitler appointed the well-known aviation officer as leader of the party’s ‘Storm Division’, the SA. On November 8 and 9, 1923, Göring took part in the attempted putsch by the National Socialists and was seriously injured by a shot at the Feldherrnhalle during the violent action of the state police against the rioters. Nevertheless, he managed to escape to Austria, where he developed a morphine addiction due to the painkiller treatment, which he lived with for over two decades despite undergoing withdrawal treatment. When he was asked to leave Austria at the end of April 1924, he first went to Italy and then to Stockholm in 1925.

After an amnesty, he returned to Germany for good in 1927 and rejoined the Nazi Party, which he represented as a member of the Reichstag from 1928. After the great success of the National Socialists in the Reichstag elections on September 14, 1930, Hitler appointed Göring as his ‘political representative in the Reich capital’. Göring’s role consisted primarily in establishing contacts with members of the conservative elites and industrial sectors. After the Nazi Party had become the strongest party in the July 1932 election, Göring was elected Reichstag President on August 30, 1932 with the support of the bourgeois parties.

At the Reichstag session on September 12, 1932, Göring ignored the order of the Reich President presented to him by Chancellor Papen to dissolve the Reichstag and put a vote of no confidence in the Chancellor to the vote, which he lost by 513 votes to 42. Although the dissolution of the Reichstag was legally binding, Göring’s conduct had inflicted a significant loss of prestige on the Chancellor. In the new elections held on November 4, 1932, the Nazi Party again became the strongest parliamentary group despite losing votes, and Göring was re-elected Reichstag President.

In the government appointed on January 30, 1933 under Chancellor Adolf Hitler, Göring became Reich Minister without portfolio and Reich Commissioner (from May 1933 Reich Minister) for Aviation as well as Reich Commissioner for the Prussian Ministry of the Interior, and in April Prussian State Premier. As acting Minister of the Interior, he played an essential role in the Nazis’ seizure of power, as he ‘purged’ the Prussian Police of democratic forces, reinforced it with SS and SA men as ‘auxiliary police’ and consistently used it to suppress the opposition. He systematized and intensified the persecution of political opponents of the regime by setting up the Prussian Secret State Police as a special authority separate from the general administration, as well as numerous concentration camps.

On June 30, 1934, he played a key role in an event that came to be known as the ‘Röhm Affair’, as the man responsible for numerous arrests and murders in Berlin. His attempt to develop the Prussian government into an independent center of power controlled by him was prevented by Hitler, who in 1934 ordered the merging of most Prussian departments with the Reich ministries. Göring was compensated with the management of the Reich Forestry Office as the supreme Reich authority and also retained the office of Prussian State Premier, albeit an essentially representative function. In December 1934, Hitler designated Göring as his successor in the event of his death in an unpublished Führer directive.

After the official announcement of the existence of German air forces, Göring was given supreme command of the Luftwaffe in May 1935. In April 1936, Hitler gave Göring special powers to resolve the precarious raw material and foreign exchange issues resulting from the accelerated rearmament. On October 18, 1936, Göring was appointed Plenipotentiary for the Four-Year Plan. In effect, this made him the dictator of economic affairs in Germany. His primary responsibilities consisted in the exploitation of domestic natural resource deposits and the industrial production of raw materials.

Since 1933, Göring had also carried out various special foreign policy tasks on behalf of Hitler. These included frequent visits to Mussolini and missions to Southeast Europe and Poland, often as part of semi-official hunting invitations. Göring played a prominent role in the German intervention in the Spanish Civil War in 1936 and in the annexation of Austria in 1938.

Göring, who was promoted to field marshal on February 4, 1938, was skeptical about Hitler’s war plans for 1938/39, as he did not believe, like his ‘Führer’, that a war against the Western powers could be avoided or, if necessary, withstood in the event of a German attack against the CSR or Poland. This skepticism was reflected in a series of independent foreign policy initiatives; nevertheless, he did not even remotely abandon his unconditional loyalty to Hitler. In 1938, during the Sudetenland crisis, he played a decisive role, together with Mussolini, in preparing the Munich Conference, which prevented Hitler’s preferred military solution to the Sudetenland crisis at the last moment. This led to a considerable loss of trust in Hitler, who concerning foreign affairs from then on relied entirely on his foreign minister Ribbentrop.

Göring’s own concept of making the Balkan states dependent on the German Reich by incorporating them into a German ‘continental economic zone’ failed in 1938/39, mainly for reasons of foreign and trade policy. Since the start of 1939, Göring progressively retreated from foreign affairs. His efforts to prevent the outbreak of the Second World War in the late summer of 1939 through a negotiated settlement were clearly subordinated to Hitler’s war path in the crucial days.

Goering lived a life of extreme luxury and opulence. He took pleasure in accumulating titles and decorations as well as grand appearances in ceremonial uniforms, constructed a luxurious hunting lodge in the Schorfheide north of Berlin as his residence, which he named ‘Carinhall’ in memory of his wife who had died in 1931, and he indiscriminately amassed an enormous collection of artworks, particularly during the war. He could only sustain this luxurious lifestyle through grants and allowances, the misuse of public funds, and, during the war, raids in the occupied areas. In 1935, he married the actress Emmy Sonnemann with great pomp, with whom he had a daughter.

In his Reichstag speech on September 1, 1939, Hitler made public the succession plan that had already been made in 1934. He had previously appointed Göring as his ‘number two’ as Chairman of the Council of Ministers for the Defense of the Reich, but neither Göring nor Hitler were interested in developing this body into a functioning war cabinet. After the successes of the German Luftwaffe in the ‘Blitzkriege’ (‘lightning wars’) in Poland, Scandinavia and Western Europe, Hitler appointed Göring Reichsmarschall of the Greater German Reich, a specially created highest military rank. However, Göring’s prestige sank after the Luftwaffe was unable to win the ‘Battle of Britain’ after its successes in the first year of the war and, from 1941/42, found itself increasingly on the defensive in the defense of the Reich’s territory against the Allies’ attacks, with city after city in Germany being destroyed from the air.

A series of relevant authorizations that he issued to Heydrich, the head of the security police, between 1936 and 1941 make it clear that Göring also played a central role in the regime’s ‘Jewish policy’. As early as 1936, as Commissar for Raw Materials and Foreign Currency and as Commissioner for the Four-Year Plan, Göring was heavily involved in the economic plundering of the Jews ; after the November pogroms, the forced ‘emigration’ of Jews required his authorization, and in 1941 he authorized Heydrich to make ‘preparations for the Final Solution’ on Hitler’s behalf.

In his role as Plenipotentiary for the Four-Year Plan, Göring had special authority in the economic exploitation of all occupied areas. In particular, he established the ‘Central Trustee Office East’ for occupied Poland in 1939 and, as Chairman of the Economic Management Board, was responsible for the German plunder and starvation policy in the occupied Soviet areas. In 1942, however, after the end of the ‘Blitzkriege’ (‘lightning wars’), it became clear that the rigorous plundering policy of the Four-Year Plan was not based on a long-term ‘defense economy’ concept, and the organization disintegrated into a multitude of staffs and special plenipotentiaries, most of which in turn were absorbed by the Speer Ministry.

In view of his increasing loss of power and influence, Göring fell into increasing lethargy in the second half of the war, largely withdrawing from the center of power and dedicating himself mainly to his private interests. Nevertheless, he retained his offices, probably mainly because Hitler would have seen the dismissal of his ‘number two’ as damaging his own prestige.

It was not until April 23, 1945 that Hitler removed Göring, who had left Berlin for Berchtesgaden, from all his offices and had him arrested for treason after Göring had informed him by telegram that he would consider himself his successor if he did not receive a communication to the contrary by the evening of the same day.

Göring was taken prisoner by the Americans on May 8, 1945 and, after extensive interrogations, was the highest-ranking defendant in the Nuremberg war crimes trials that began in November 1945. Through a rehabilitation program, he regained his former vitality, as perceived by the trial participants, and assumed a sort of leadership role among the defendants. Göring was found guilty on all four counts and sentenced to death by hanging. He evaded the enforcement of the verdict, which was scheduled for October 15, by killing himself the night before by taking a cyanide capsule, which he had managed to conceal from his guards.