Hermann Goring Part I

Hermann Wilhelm Göring (or Goering; German: [ˈɡøːʁɪŋ] (listen); 12 January 1893 – 15 October 1946) was a German politician, military leader and convicted war criminal. He was one of the most powerful figures in the Nazi Party, which ruled Germany from 1933 to 1945.

A veteran World War I fighter pilot ace, Göring was a recipient of the Pour le Mérite ("The Blue Max"). He was the last commander of Jagdgeschwader 1 (Jasta 1), the fighter wing once led by Manfred von Richthofen. An early member of the Nazi Party, Göring was among those wounded in Adolf Hitler's failed Beer Hall Putsch in 1923. While receiving treatment for his injuries, he developed an addiction to morphine which persisted until the last year of his life. After Hitler became Chancellor of Germany in 1933, Göring was named as minister without portfolio in the new government. One of his first acts as a cabinet minister was to oversee the creation of the Gestapo, which he ceded to Heinrich Himmler in 1934.

Following the establishment of the Nazi state, Göring amassed power and political capital to become the second most powerful man in Germany. He was appointed commander-in-chief of the Luftwaffe (air force), a position he held until the final days of the regime. Upon being named Plenipotentiary of the Four Year Plan in 1936, Göring was entrusted with the task of mobilizing all sectors of the economy for war, an assignment which brought numerous government agencies under his control. In September 1939, Hitler designated him as his successor and deputy in all his offices. After the Fall of France in 1940, he was bestowed the specially created rank of Reichsmarschall, which gave him seniority over all officers in Germany's armed forces.

By 1941, Göring was at the peak of his power and influence. As the Second World War progressed, Göring's standing with Hitler and with the German public declined after the Luftwaffe proved incapable of preventing the Allied bombing of Germany's cities and resupplying surrounded Axis forces in Stalingrad. Around that time, Göring increasingly withdrew from military and political affairs to devote his attention to collecting property and artwork, much of which was stolen from Jewish victims of the Holocaust. Informed on 22 April 1945 that Hitler intended to commit suicide, Göring sent a telegram to Hitler requesting his permission to assume leadership of the Reich. Considering his request an act of treason, Hitler removed Göring from all his positions, expelled him from the party, and ordered his arrest. After the war, Göring was convicted of conspiracy, crimes against peace, war crimes and crimes against humanity at the Nuremberg trials in 1946. He was sentenced to death by hanging, but committed suicide by ingesting cyanide hours before the sentence was to be carried out.

Early life and education

Göring was born on 12 January 1893 at the Marienbad Sanatorium in Rosenheim, Bavaria. His father, Heinrich Ernst Göring (31 October 1839 – 7 December 1913), a former cavalry officer, had been the first governor-general of German South West Africa (modern-day Namibia). Heinrich had three children from a previous marriage. Göring was the fourth of five children by Heinrich's second wife, Franziska Tiefenbrunn (1859–15 July 1943), a Bavarian peasant. Göring's elder siblings were Karl, Olga, and Paula; his younger brother was Albert. At the time that Göring was born, his father was serving as consul general in Haiti, and his mother had returned home briefly to give birth. She left the six-week-old baby with a friend in Bavaria and did not see the child again for three years, when she and Heinrich returned to Germany.

Göring's godfather was Hermann Epenstein, a wealthy Jewish physician and businessman his father had met in Africa. Epenstein provided the Göring family, who were surviving on Heinrich's pension, first with a family home in Berlin-Friedenau, and then a small castle called Veldenstein, near Nuremberg. Göring's mother became Epenstein's mistress around this time, and remained so for some fifteen years. Epenstein acquired the minor title of Ritter (knight) von Epenstein through service and donations to the Crown.

Interested in a career as a soldier from a very early age, Göring enjoyed playing with toy soldiers and dressing up in a Boer uniform his father had given him. He was sent to boarding school at age eleven, where the food was poor and discipline was harsh. He sold a violin to pay for his train ticket home, and then took to his bed, feigning illness, until he was told he would not have to return. He continued to enjoy war games, pretending to lay siege to the castle Veldenstein and studying Teutonic legends and sagas. He became a mountain climber, scaling peaks in Germany, at the Mont Blanc massif, and in the Austrian Alps. At age 16, he was sent to a military academy at Berlin Lichterfelde, from which he graduated with distinction.

Göring joined the Prince Wilhelm Regiment (112th Infantry, Garrison: Mülhausen) of the Prussian Army in 1912. The next year his mother had a falling-out with Epenstein. The family was forced to leave Veldenstein and moved to Munich; Göring's father died shortly afterwards. When World War I began in August 1914, Göring was stationed at Mülhausen with his regiment.

World War I

During the first year of World War I, Göring served with his infantry regiment in the area of Mülhausen, a garrison town less than 2 km from the French frontier. He was hospitalized with rheumatism, a result of the damp of trench warfare. While he was recovering, his friend Bruno Loerzer convinced him to transfer to what would become, by October 1916, the Luftstreitkräfte (transl. air combat forces) of the German army, but his request was turned down. Later that year, Göring flew as Loerzer's observer in Feldflieger Abteilung 25 (FFA 25); Göring had informally transferred himself. He was discovered and sentenced to three weeks' confinement to barracks, but the sentence was never carried out. By the time it was supposed to be imposed, Göring's association with Loerzer had been made official. They were assigned as a team to FFA 25 in the Crown Prince's Fifth Army. They flew reconnaissance and bombing missions, for which the Crown Prince invested both Göring and Loerzer with the Iron Cross, first class.

After completing the pilot's training course, Göring was assigned to Jagdstaffel 5. Seriously wounded in the hip in aerial combat, he took nearly a year to recover. He then was transferred to Jagdstaffel 26, commanded by Loerzer, in February 1917. He steadily scored air victories until May, when he was assigned to command Jagdstaffel 27. Serving with Jastas 5, 26 and 27, he continued to win victories. In addition to his Iron Crosses (1st and 2nd Class), he received the Zähringer Lion with swords, the Friedrich Order, the House Order of Hohenzollern with swords third class, and finally, in May 1918, the coveted Pour le Mérite. According to Hermann Dahlmann, who knew both men, Göring had Loerzer lobby for the award. He finished the war with 22 victories. A thorough post-war examination of Allied loss records showed that only two of his awarded victories were doubtful. Three were possible and 17 were certain, or highly likely.

On 7 July 1918, following the death of Wilhelm Reinhard, successor to Manfred von Richthofen, Göring was made commander of the "Flying Circus", Jagdgeschwader 1. His arrogance made him unpopular with the men of his squadron.

In the last days of the war, Göring was repeatedly ordered to withdraw his squadron, first to Tellancourt airdrome, then to Darmstadt. At one point, he was ordered to surrender the aircraft to the Allies; he refused. Many of his pilots intentionally crash-landed their planes to keep them from falling into enemy hands.

Like many other German veterans, Göring was a proponent of the stab-in-the-back myth, the belief which held that the German Army had not really lost the war, but instead was betrayed by the civilian leadership: Marxists, Jews, and especially the republicans, who had overthrown the German monarchy.

After World War I

Göring remained in aviation after the war. He tried barnstorming and briefly worked at Fokker. After spending most of 1919 living in Denmark, he moved to Sweden and joined Svensk Lufttrafik, a Swedish airline. Göring was often hired for private flights. During the winter of 1920–1921, he was hired by Count Eric von Rosen to fly him to his castle from Stockholm. Invited to spend the night, Göring may at this time have first seen the swastika emblem, which Rosen had set in the chimney piece as a family badge.

This was also the first time that Göring saw his future wife; the count introduced his sister-in-law, Baroness Carin von Kantzow (née Freiin von Fock). Estranged from her husband of ten years, she had an eight-year-old son. Göring was immediately infatuated and asked her to meet him in Stockholm. They arranged a visit at the home of her parents and spent much time together through 1921, when Göring left for Munich to take political science at the university. Carin obtained a divorce, followed Göring to Munich, and married him on 3 February 1922. Their first home together was a hunting lodge at Hochkreuth in the Bavarian Alps, near Bayrischzell, some 80 kilometers (50 mi) from Munich. After Göring met Adolf Hitler and joined the Nazi Party in 1922, they moved to Obermenzing, a suburb of Munich.

Early Nazi career

Göring joined the Nazi Party in 1922 after hearing a speech by Hitler. He was given command of the Sturmabteilung (SA) as the Oberster SA-Führer in 1923. He was later appointed an SA-Gruppenführer (Lieutenant general) and held this rank on the SA rolls until 1945. At this time, Carin—who liked Hitler—often played hostess to meetings of leading Nazis, including her husband, Hitler, Rudolf Hess, Alfred Rosenberg, and Ernst Röhm. Hitler later recalled his early association with Göring:

I liked him. I made him the head of my SA. He is the only one of its heads that ran the SA properly. I gave him a disheveled rabble. In a very short time he had organized a division of 11,000 men.— Adolf Hitler

Hitler and the Nazi Party held mass meetings and rallies in Munich and elsewhere during the early 1920s, attempting to gain supporters in a bid for political power. Inspired by Benito Mussolini's March on Rome, the Nazis attempted to seize power on 8–9 November 1923 in a failed coup known as the Beer Hall Putsch. Göring, who was with Hitler leading the march to the War Ministry, was shot in the groin. Fourteen Nazis and four policemen were killed; many top Nazis, including Hitler, were arrested. With Carin's help, Göring was smuggled to Innsbruck, where he received surgery and was given morphine for the pain. He remained in hospital until 24 December. This was the beginning of his morphine addiction, which lasted until his imprisonment at Nuremberg. Meanwhile, the authorities in Munich declared Göring a wanted man. The Görings—acutely short of funds and reliant on the good will of Nazi sympathizers abroad—moved from Austria to Venice. In May 1924 they visited Rome, via Florence and Siena. Göring met Mussolini, who expressed an interest in meeting Hitler, who was by then in prison.

Personal problems continued to multiply. By 1925, Carin's mother was ill. The Görings—with difficulty—raised the money in the spring of 1925 for a journey to Sweden via Austria, Czechoslovakia, Poland, and Danzig (now Gdańsk). Göring had become a violent morphine addict; Carin's family were shocked by his deterioration. Carin, who was ill with epilepsy and a weak heart, had to allow the doctors to take charge of Göring; her son was taken by his father. Göring was certified a dangerous drug addict and was placed in Långbro asylum on 1 September 1925. He was violent to the point where he had to be confined in a straitjacket, but his psychiatrist felt he was sane; the condition was caused solely by the morphine. Weaned off the drug, he left the facility briefly, but had to return for further treatment. He returned to Germany when an amnesty was declared in 1927 and resumed working in the aircraft industry. Hitler, who had written Mein Kampf while in prison, had been released in December 1924. Carin Göring, ill with epilepsy and tuberculosis, died of heart failure on 17 October 1931.

Meanwhile, the Nazi Party was in a period of rebuilding and waiting. The economy had recovered, which meant fewer opportunities for the Nazis to agitate. The SA was reorganized, but with Franz Pfeffer von Salomon as its head rather than Göring, and the Schutzstaffel (SS) was founded in 1925, initially as a bodyguard for Hitler. Membership in the party increased from 27,000 in 1925 to 108,000 in 1928 and 178,000 in 1929. In the May 1928 elections the Nazi Party only obtained 12 seats out of an available 491 in the Reichstag. Göring was elected as a representative from Bavaria. He continued to be elected to the Reichstag in all subsequent elections during the Weimar and Nazi regimes. The Great Depression led to a disastrous downturn in the German economy, and in the 1930 election, the Nazi Party won 6,409,600 votes and 107 seats. In May 1931, Hitler sent Göring on a mission to the Vatican, where he met the future Pope Pius XII.

In the July 1932 election, the Nazis won 230 seats to become far and away the largest party in the Reichstag. By longstanding tradition, the Nazis were thus entitled to select the President of the Reichstag, and elected Göring to the post. He would retain this position until 23 April 1945.

Reichstag fire

The Reichstag fire occurred on the night of 27 February 1933. Göring was one of the first to arrive on the scene. Marinus van der Lubbe, a Communist radical, was arrested and claimed sole responsibility for the fire. Göring immediately called for a crackdown on Communists.

The Nazis took advantage of the fire to advance their own political aims. The Reichstag Fire Decree, passed the next day on Hitler's urging, suspended basic rights and allowed detention without trial. Activities of the German Communist Party were suppressed, and some 4,000 Party members were arrested. Göring demanded that the detainees should be shot, but Rudolf Diels, head of the Prussian political police, ignored the order. Some researchers, including William L. Shirer and Alan Bullock, are of the opinion that the Nazi Party itself was responsible for starting the fire.

At the Nuremberg trials, General Franz Halder testified that Göring admitted responsibility for starting the fire. He said that, at a luncheon held on Hitler's birthday in 1942, Göring said, "The only one who really knows about the Reichstag is I, because I set it on fire!" In his own Nuremberg testimony, Göring denied this story.

Second marriage

During the early 1930s, Göring was often in the company of Emmy Sonnemann, an actress from Hamburg. They were married on 10 April 1935 in Berlin; the wedding was celebrated on a huge scale. A large reception was held the night before at the Berlin Opera House. Fighter aircraft flew overhead on the night of the reception and the day of the ceremony, at which Hitler was best man. Göring's daughter, Edda, was born on 2 June 1938.

Nazi potentate

When Hitler was named chancellor of Germany in January 1933, Göring was appointed as Reichsminister without portfolio and Reichskommissar of Aviation. This was followed on 11 April 1933 by his appointment as Minister-President of Prussia, Prussian interior minister and chief of the Prussian police. In October 1933, Göring was made a member of Hans Frank's Academy for German Law at its inaugural meeting.

Wilhelm Frick, the Reich interior minister, and the head of the SS, Heinrich Himmler, hoped to create a unified police force for all of Germany, but Göring on 26 April 1933 established a special Prussian police force, with Rudolf Diels at its head. The force was called the Geheime Staatspolizei (transl. Secret State Police), or Gestapo. Göring, thinking that Diels was not ruthless enough to use the Gestapo effectively to counteract the power of the SA, handed over control of the Gestapo to Himmler on 20 April 1934. By this time, the SA numbered over two million men.

Hitler was deeply concerned that Ernst Röhm, the chief of the SA, was planning a coup. Himmler and Reinhard Heydrich plotted with Göring to use the Gestapo and SS to crush the SA. Members of the SA got wind of the proposed action and thousands of them took to the streets in violent demonstrations on the night of 29 June 1934. Enraged, Hitler ordered the arrest of the SA leadership. Röhm was shot dead in his cell when he refused to commit suicide; Göring personally went over the lists of detainees—numbering in the thousands—and determined who else should be shot. At least 85 people were killed in the period of 30 June to 2 July, which is now known as the Night of the Long Knives. Hitler admitted in the Reichstag on 13 July that the killings had been entirely illegal, but claimed a plot had been under way to overthrow the Reich. A retroactive law was passed making the action legal. Any criticism was met with arrests.

One of the terms of the Treaty of Versailles, which had been in place since the end of World War I, stated that Germany was not allowed to maintain an air force. After the 1926 signing of the Kellogg–Briand Pact, police aircraft were permitted. Göring was appointed Air Traffic Minister in May 1933. Germany began to accumulate aircraft in violation of the Treaty, and in 1935 the existence of the Luftwaffe was formally acknowledged, with Göring as Reich Aviation Minister.

During a cabinet meeting in September 1936, Göring and Hitler announced that the German rearmament programme must be sped up. On 18 October, Hitler named Göring as Plenipotentiary of the Four Year Plan to undertake this task. Göring created a new organisation to administer the Plan and drew the ministries of labour and agriculture under its umbrella. He bypassed the economics ministry in his policy-making decisions, to the chagrin of Hjalmar Schacht, the minister in charge. Huge expenditures were made on rearmament, in spite of growing deficits. Schacht resigned on 8 December 1937, and Walther Funk took over the position, as well as control of the Reichsbank. In this way, both of these institutions were brought under Göring's control under the auspices of the Four Year Plan. In July 1937, the Reichswerke Hermann Göring was established under state ownership – though led by Göring – with the aim of boosting steel production beyond the level which private enterprise could economically provide.

In 1938, Göring was involved in the Blomberg–Fritsch Affair, which led to the resignations of the War Minister, Generalfeldmarschall Werner von Blomberg, and the army commander, General Werner von Fritsch. Göring had acted as witness at Blomberg's wedding to Margarethe Gruhn, a 26-year-old typist, on 12 January 1938. Information received from the police showed that the young bride was a prostitute. Göring felt obligated to tell Hitler, but also saw this event as an opportunity to dispose of Blomberg. Blomberg was forced to resign. Göring did not want Fritsch to be appointed to that position and thus be his superior. Several days later, Heydrich revealed a file on Fritsch that contained allegations of homosexual activity and blackmail. The charges were later proven to be false, but Fritsch had lost Hitler's trust and was forced to resign. Hitler used the dismissals as an opportunity to reshuffle the leadership of the military. Göring asked for the post of War Minister, but was turned down; he was appointed to the rank of Generalfeldmarschall. Hitler took over as supreme commander of the armed forces and created subordinate posts to head the three main branches of service.

As minister in charge of the Four Year Plan, Göring became concerned with the lack of natural resources in Germany, and began pushing for Austria to be incorporated into the Reich. The province of Styria had rich iron ore deposits, and the country as a whole was home to many skilled labourers that would also be useful. Hitler had always been in favour of a takeover of Austria, his native country. He met the Austrian Chancellor Kurt Schuschnigg on 12 February 1938, threatening invasion if peaceful unification was not forthcoming. The Nazi Party was made legal in Austria to gain a power base, and a referendum on reunification was scheduled for March. When Hitler did not approve of the wording of the plebiscite, Göring telephoned Schuschnigg and Austrian head of state Wilhelm Miklas to demand Schuschnigg's resignation, threatening invasion by German troops and civil unrest by the Austrian Nazi Party members. Schuschnigg resigned on 11 March and the plebiscite was canceled. By 5:30 the next morning, German troops that had been massing on the border marched into Austria, meeting no resistance.

Although Joachim von Ribbentrop had been named Foreign Minister in February 1938, Göring continued to involve himself in foreign affairs. That July, he contacted the British government with the idea that he should make an official visit to discuss Germany's intentions for Czechoslovakia. Neville Chamberlain was in favour of a meeting, and there was talk of a pact being signed between Britain and Germany. In February 1938, Göring visited Warsaw to quell rumours about the upcoming invasion of Poland. He had conversations with the Hungarian government that summer as well, discussing their potential role in an invasion of Czechoslovakia. At the Nuremberg Rally that September, Göring and other speakers denounced the Czechs as an inferior race that must be conquered. Chamberlain and Hitler had a series of meetings that led to the signing of the Munich Agreement (29 September 1938), which turned over control of the Sudetenland to Germany. In March 1939, Göring threatened Czechoslovak president Emil Hácha with the bombing of Prague. Hácha then agreed to sign a communique accepting the German occupation of the remainder of Bohemia and Moravia.

Although many in the party disliked him, before the war Göring enjoyed widespread personal popularity among the German public because of his perceived sociability, colour and humor. As the Nazi leader most responsible for economic matters, he presented himself as a champion of national interests over allegedly corrupt big business and the old German elite. The Nazi press was on Göring's side. Other leaders, such as Hess and Ribbentrop, were envious of his popularity. In Britain and the United States, some viewed Göring as more acceptable than the other Nazis and as a possible mediator between the western democracies and Hitler.

World War II

Success on all fronts

Göring and other senior officers were concerned that Germany was not yet ready for war, but Hitler insisted on pushing ahead as soon as possible. On 30 August 1939, immediately prior to the outbreak of the Second World War, Hitler appointed Göring as the chairman of a new six-person Council of Ministers for Defense of the Reich which was set up to operate as a war cabinet. The invasion of Poland, the opening action of World War II, began at dawn on 1 September 1939. Later in the day, speaking to the Reichstag, Hitler designated Göring as his successor as Führer of all Germany, "If anything should befall me", with Hess as the second alternate. Big German victories followed one after the other in quick succession. With the help of the Luftwaffe, the Polish Air Force was defeated within a week. The Fallschirmjäger seized vital airfields in Norway and captured Fort Eben-Emael in Belgium. Göring's Luftwaffe played critical roles in the Battles of the Netherlands, Belgium and France in May 1940.

After the Fall of France, Hitler awarded Göring the Grand Cross of the Iron Cross for his successful leadership. During the 1940 Field Marshal Ceremony, Hitler promoted Göring to the rank of Reichsmarschall des Grossdeutschen Reiches (transl. Reich Marshal of the Greater German Reich), a specially-created rank which made him senior to all field marshals in the military, including the Luftwaffe. As a result of this promotion, he was the highest-ranking soldier in Germany until the end of the war. Göring had already received the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross on 30 September 1939 as Commander in Chief of the Luftwaffe.

The UK had declared war on Germany immediately after the invasion of Poland. In July 1940, Hitler began preparations for an invasion of Britain. As part of the plan, the Royal Air Force (RAF) had to be neutralized. Bombing raids commenced on British air installations and on cities and centres of industry. Göring had by then already announced in a radio speech, "If as much as a single enemy aircraft flies over German soil, my name is Meier!", something that would return to haunt him, when the RAF began bombing German cities on 11 May 1940. Though he was confident the Luftwaffe could defeat the RAF within days, Göring, like Admiral Erich Raeder, commander-in-chief of the Kriegsmarine (navy), was pessimistic about the chance of success of the planned invasion (code-named Operation Sea Lion). Göring hoped that a victory in the air would be enough to force peace without an invasion. The campaign failed, and Sea Lion was postponed indefinitely on 17 September 1940. After their defeat in the Battle of Britain, the Luftwaffe attempted to defeat Britain via strategic bombing. On 12 October 1940 Hitler canceled Sea Lion due to the onset of winter. By the end of the year, it was clear that British morale was not being shaken by the Blitz, though the bombings continued through May 1941.