Hermann Wilhelm Goring
(12 January 1893 in
Rosenheim
,
Upper Bavaria
,
Bavaria
,
Germany
? 15 October 1946 in
Nuremberg
,
Bavaria
,
Germany
) was a
war criminal
,
German
politician
and
military
leader of Germany. As second in command after Hitler, he was one of the most powerful leaders of the
Nazi Party
(NSDAP).
[
source?
]
Between 1932 and 1945, he was
President
of the German
Reichstag
and also a
minister
of the
Third Reich
, under
Adolf Hitler
. In the
Second World War
, he was the
Commander-in-Chief
of the
German air force
.
[
source?
]
Goring was responsible for the creation of the
concentration camps
and the
Gestapo
, the
Nazi
secret police, which he handed over to
SS
chief
Heinrich Himmler
. In 1941, he gave
Reinhard Heydrich
the order to arrange the
Final Solution
to kill millions of
Jews
.
[4]
Goring was one of the 25 people
charged
at the
Nuremberg Trials
. The court
decided
he was guilty. The judgment on 1 October 1946 said that he was to be
hanged
, but he
killed himself
by swallowing a tablet of
cyanide
a few hours before he could be
executed
.
[5]
Hermann Goring in 1907
Hermann Goring, son of Ernst Heinrich Goring and Franziska Goring (born Tiefenbrunn), was born in
Rosenheim
,
Bavaria
in 1893. Goring's father was a
judge
. The German
chancellor
Otto von Bismarck
made Ernst Goring the first
Reichskommissar
(Governor-General) of
South West Africa
(today:
Namibia
), in 1885.
[
source?
]
Hermann Goring had two brothers, Albert Goring and Karl Ernst Goring, and two sisters, Olga Therese Sophie Goring and Paula Elisabeth Rosa Goring.
[6]
He spent the first three years of his life at the home of a friend of his mother, because Goring's father was in Namibia.
[
source?
]
From 1901, he lived at his
godfather
Hermann von Epenstein
mansion
. Hermann's mother had an affair (a
romantic
relationship with someone other than her husband) with von Epenstein.
[7]
He attended the grammar schools in
Furth
and
Ansbach
. In the games he played as a child, the story was always about war.
[8]
In 1905, he went to a
military
school in
Karlsruhe
. He got his
Abitur
, and an officer exam, in 1912. He then went to the
Bavarian
Prinz Wilhelm Regiment (112th Infantry) in
Mulhouse
.
[9]
When the
First World War
started, Goring had the rank of
Lieutenant
. He had served in the
infantry
. In 1915, because of his
rheumatism
, he had to go to a
hospital
.
[10]
His friend,
Bruno Loerzer
, got him to join the
air force
. In
France
, he flew as an observer, a person who looked for
targets
and enemy planes. Because of this, he was
awarded
the
Iron Cross
First Class in 1915.
[11]
In 1916, he was trained to fly a
plane
. On 14 March 1916, he shot down his first
bomber
. In 1917, he became the leader of the 27
th
Flying Group.
[11]
In 1918, after he shot his 19
th
plane, he was awarded the
Pour le Merite
(also called "The Blue Max"). This was the highest air force award in Germany.
[10]
After the death of
Manfred von Richthofen
, he became the leader of the flying group "
The Red Baron
".
[11]
Between 1919 and 1921, Goring worked as a
stunt
pilot
in
Scandinavia
. In November 1922, he met
Adolf Hitler
and later became a member of the
National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP)
.
[11]
Goring
married
Carin in
Stockholm
on 3 February 1923.
[12]
In 1923 he was leading the
SA
(
Oberste SA-Fuhrer
), and he took part in the
Beer Hall Putsch
and was wounded. After this, he went to
Austria
. Because of pain, a doctor injected him with
morphine
but he became
dependent
on it.
Between 1925 and 1926, he had two
treatments
in
Sweden
at the Langbro mental hospital.
He came back to Germany in 1927.
In 1928, he became a member of the
Reichstag
of the
Weimar Republic
.
[16]
[
unreliable source?
]
He was a member of the Reichstag until the end of the
Second World War
.
[11]
In 1932, the NSDAP became the most powerful
party
of the Reichstag. Goring then became
president
of the Reichstag.
Hermann Goring (left) and
Adolf Hitler
(right) in 1939
Detention report and
mugshots
of Hermann Goring
When Hitler became
chancellor
of the
Weimar Germany
in 1933, he made Goring a
minister
of the Reich without a
specific
area of
responsibility
. This means that he was not the head of a
ministry
. In April 1933, he was made
minister president
of
Prussia
. Then, on 30 August 1933, he was made a
General
by
Paul von Hindenburg
.
[11]
Between 1934 and 1935 he became minister of several
agencies
. His wife had died in 1931, and in 1935 he married Emmy Sonnemann in
Berlin
.
In 1936, he sent the German
Condor Legion
to
Spain
to help
Francisco Franco
. After the
Kristallnacht
in 1938, he was in charge of removing
Jewish
businessmen from the German
economic
system.
During
Second World War
, his biggest defeat was the loss of the air battle against
Great Britain
.
Hitler named Goring to be his
successor
if he died in 1939.
In 1940, he was made Reichsmarschall (Marshal of the Empire) by Nazi leader,
Adolf Hitler
.
In 1941, Goring ordered Heydrich to make a plan for
the Holocaust
.
[23]
In 1942, he gave
Fritz Sauckel
the order to use the
Russian
population for industry-work.
In 1943, Goring had an
expensive
birthday party for his 50
th
birthday.
[11]
On 20 April 1945, he left Hitler's birthday party and went to
Berchtesgaden
. He told Hitler that he had very important things to do in south Germany.
[25]
From Berchtesgaden, Goring sent a
telegram
to Hitler in Berlin. In the telegram Goring asked about taking over the
affairs
of
state
.
[11]
Towards the end of the war, after the telegram, he started to talk with the
Allies
. Because of this, Hitler wanted to put Goring in
prison
. Goring then went to the
Americans
.
On 29 April 1945 Hitler removed Goring from all his
offices
, stripped him off his party membership and ordered his arrest. He wrote this down in his
testament
.
[27]
Goring
surrendered
in Bavaria on 9 May 1945. The
Nuremberg Trials
started on 20 November 1945.
On 18 March 1946, Goring was questioned by the Allies.
[29]
After this, he was imprisoned in
Nuremberg
. He was the third-highest-ranking Nazi official tried at Nuremberg. Only Reich President (former
Großadmiral
)
Karl Donitz
and former Deputy Fuhrer
Rudolf Hess
had higher ranks than Goring.
[
source?
]
The
judges
decided he was
guilty
. Because of this on 1 October 1946 the
court
reached a
verdict
that he was to be
hanged
.
One day before he was to be hanged, he committed
suicide
by taking a tablet of
cyanide
. It is not known how Goring got the cyanide or how long he hid it but there was a claim that he was given it by an
American
soldier
who was in love with a German woman who was in touch with him.
[31]
[32]
It is not known if this is the truth. He was infamous for his quote "Of course the people don't want war. But after all it's the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it's always a simple matter to drag the people along whether it's a democracy, a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship."
[
source?
]
|
|---|
|
|
All ministers were
NSDAP
members except where indicated ("ind" = nominally independent). Most of them later became NSDAP members, except Von Papen, Hugenberg and Von Eltz-Rubenach.
|