Following his war crimes trial at Nuremberg, Hermann Goering was sentenced to be hanged. Goering made no plea for mercy. He did request that he be shot by a firing squad. Hanging, he said, was for common criminals. His plea for a change in punishment was rejected, but the sentence was never carried out. The night before the scheduled execution, Goering took poison.
Thus ended the remarkable career of Hermann Goering: flying ace, Nazi politician, commander of the Luftwaffe (German air force), art connoisseur, art thief, drug addict, and convicted war criminal. It was truly a colorful life. Goering was Adolf Hitler’s (Number l) right-hand man up until the last days of the Führer’s life.
Early Ties to Hitler Goering was born in 1893 in Rosenheim, a town in Bavaria, Germany. He chose a military career and saw action as an officer during World War I. He became an air ace and even took over as leader of Baron von Richthofen’s squadron following the baron’s death.
After the war, Goering lived in Scandinavia for a while as a flier and salesman. In 1922, he met Hitler for the first time and immediately joined his ranks. The Nazi leader put Goering in charge of organizing the S.A., the “brownshirts” or storm troopers. The S.A. was a private army of thugs and hooligans who beat up political opponents and disrupted their rallies.
When the Nazi attempt in 1923 to seize power in Munich failed, Hitler was jailed, but Goering escaped to Austria. Several years later, when the heat was off, Goering returned to Germany and rejoined his old cronies. By this time, Goering had acquired a serious drug problem. It was an addiction that would stay with him the rest of his life.
The Nazis Take Power
Goering was backed by the Nazis for political office. In 1928, he was elected to the Reichstag (the German parliament). Four years later, he was elected Reichstag president. Following Hitler’s rise to the chancellorship, Goering became a member of his cabinet. The former flying ace took on additional government responsibilities and started placing Nazis in critical police positions.
Early in 1933, a mysterious fire gutted the Reichstag building. A mentally disabled Dutch Communist was blamed for setting the fire, but scholars believe that Goering himself was responsible for the blaze. In any case, Goering used the incident as an excuse to set loose thugs not only on the Communists, but on other opponents of the Nazis.
Creating the Luftwaffe
As Hitler rose in rank and power in Nazi Germany, so did Goering. By 1935, the former air ace was heading the Luftwaffe. When war came in 1939, he had become heir apparent to the Führer.
The Luftwaffe provided the support in the air for the blitzkrieg on the ground. It helped capture Poland, Norway, Denmark, Belgium, Holland, Luxembourg, and France. In the Battle of Britain, however, the Royal Air Force prevailed.
With the invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941 and the fierce Soviet resistance, the blitzkrieg slowed down, and the Luftwaffe lost its punch. Once America was in the war, German industry was hard hit by air raids. Goering had once boasted that Germany was invulnerable to enemy bombing. In order to embarrass him, the RAF would find out when Goering was scheduled to deliver one of his speeches over Berlin radio. The British would then carry out air raids during those times. The air raid sirens would sound and Goering would be forced to interrupt his speech to seek a bomb shelter and shut down the radio signal.
It is ironic that the Luftwaffe developed the jet plane, far superior to any American or British aircraft, too late in the war for mass production.
Whether in victory or defeat, Goering took every opportunity to have valuable works of art stolen for him from both private and museum collections all over conquered Europe. For many decades after the war, survivors would institute claims against private collectors and even well-known museums for works stolen by Goering.
From Trusted Advisor to Traitor
In April 1945, as the Russians closed in on Berlin, Hitler announced to the world that he would stay in Berlin to the end. Goering, located in an area of Germany still not in danger of capture, asked other Nazi leaders what the Führer’s statement meant. Most told him that it looked like a transfer of power to Goering. Because he was not sure, Goering sent a message to Hitler:“
In view of your decision to remain in the fortress of Berlin, do you agree that I take over at once the leadership of the Reich, with full freedom at home and abroad as your deputy...?”
When Hitler received the message, he was apoplectic and denounced Goering as a traitor, read him out of the Party, and said that he should be shot.
Goering never took over. Following Hitler’s suicide and the surrender of Germany, Goering was seized by the Allies, put on trial at Nuremberg, and sentenced to death. In 1946, on the night before he was to be executed, Goering cheated the hangman and swallowed poison.
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