Hermann Göring

I

Introduction

Hermann Göring (1893-1946), designated successor to Hitler, Prime Minister of Prussia, Head of the Luftwaffe, Head of the Four-Year Plan, and for a while the second most powerful figure in the Third Reich.

II

Early Life and Career

Göring was born in Rosenheim, in the German state of Bavaria, on January 12, 1893, the son of the first Imperial Commissioner for German South-West Africa (Namibia) and was educated at military academies. During World War I he saw wartime service, first in the infantry and then in the air force, and in 1918 was awarded the Pour le Mérite (known colloquially as the Blue Max), Germany's highest military decoration of the war. In 1918 he succeeded Baron Manfred von Richthofen (the Red Baron) as commander of the elite Richthofen squadron. Göring ended the war as a captain and was not admitted into the much-reduced post-war army (Reichswehr). He found employment in civil aviation in Sweden where he married Carin von Kantzow, whose death in 1930 was to affect him profoundly.

Göring met Hitler at the end of 1922 and in March 1923 was appointed leader of the Nazi storm troopers (SA or Sturmabteilung). He was involved in the abortive Munich Beer Hall Putsch of November 9-10, 1923, and, seriously wounded, fled to Austria. Treatment of his wounds led to a morphine addiction that required hospital treatment in Sweden. In 1926 he moved to Berlin as a salesman for the aircraft industry, notably BMW aero engines. His good wartime contacts, impressive war record, and glamorous persona combined to give him access to Berlin high society. Göring renewed his acquaintance with Hitler in 1927, who, evidently determined to exploit Göring's social contacts, selected him for one of the few national parliamentary seats gained by the Nazi Party in the 1928 election. Three years later Hitler appointed him as his political representative in Berlin.

III

The Nazis in Power

When the Nazi Party became the largest party in the Reichstag in July 1932, Göring was elected its president (speaker). On Hitler's appointment as Reich chancellor, on January 30, 1933, Göring was appointed a Reich minister without portfolio, Reich commissioner for air travel, and acting interior minister (from April prime minister) of Prussia. The last-named post gave him control of the police, including the political police (Gestapo) in two thirds of Germany, meaning he held sway over half the population. In July 1934 he was appointed Reich master of the forests and Reich master of the hunt. An unpublished law of December 13, 1934, appointed him Hitler's designated successor as Reich chancellor. Göring was also appointed commander of the new Luftwaffe with the rank of general the following March. Concern about the provision of fuel for his aircraft prompted him to press for the manufacture of oil and rubber from coal through the expensive process (hydrogenation) recently developed by the chemicals manufacturer, IG Farben; this pressure led to his appointment as commissioner for raw materials and foreign exchange in April 1936.

In October of the same year Göring was appointed commissioner for the Four-Year Plan with the task of preparing the German economy for war in four years’ time. The emphasis was on increasing the production of indigenous raw materials to make Germany as independent as possible of foreign supplies, with a particular emphasis on the production of oil and rubber from coal. In this role Göring acquired overall control of the German economy. He also launched independent foreign policy initiatives with regard to Italy and south-east Europe, and played a significant part in pushing forward the Anschluss with Austria in March 1938. However, his foreign policy goals were more in line with those of pre-1914 German imperialism than with Hitler's objective of an eastern empire (Lebensraum). Göring also disapproved of the anti-British policy of foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop and, in the summer of 1939, he initiated contacts with Britain to try to avert war. During 1938, Göring took the initiative in stripping the Jews of their property, a move that culminated in the imposition of a billion Reichsmark fine following the pogrom of November 9-10, 1938 (Kristallnacht). Following Kristallnacht he was given overall responsibility for the “Jewish question”, assigning its practical solution to the SS (Schutzstaffel) of Heinrich Himmler.

IV

War Leader

On the outbreak of World War II Göring's position as Hitler's successor was confirmed and he was appointed chairman of the Reich Defence Council, a kind of domestic war Cabinet, which soon, however, became a purely formal body because of Hitler's unwillingness to delegate real power to any such committee. Following the successful German invasion of France in the summer of 1940, Göring was appointed to the new rank of Reich Marshal. During the war, Göring's authority became linked to the performance of the Luftwaffe and the economy. The Luftwaffe's initial successes in the invasions of Poland, France, and the Soviet Union were then outweighed by its subsequent failures in the Battle of Britain and in the continuing conflict with the Soviet Union, notably by Göring's inability to redeem his pledge to supply the besieged 6th Army at the Battle of Stalingrad. Above all, the Luftwaffe failed to adequately defend German cities against Allied air attacks. Also, Hitler became increasingly frustrated with the performance of the war economy. Therefore, from the beginning of 1942 he transferred most of Göring's economic functions to Albert Speer, although, as with the ”Jewish question”, Göring remained nominally in charge.

With the decline in his authority from 1942 onwards, Göring increasingly withdrew from public affairs to his palace, Carinhall, outside Berlin, where, by now grossly obese, he assuaged his hurt pride by indulging his grotesque vanity among his collections of objèts d'art plundered from across Europe on his express instructions. During the final days of the war he used the excuse of Hitler's increasing incapacitation in a besieged Berlin to claim the authority to take over the government. Alerted by Göring's rival, Martin Bormann, Hitler stripped him of all his offices and ordered his arrest by the SS. Before the order could be carried out Göring surrendered to United States forces.

Following Germany's defeat, Göring was tried in Nuremberg as a major war criminal. Reinvigorated by this experience, not least by the strict but healthy diet imposed, and with his pride and ambition fired by the fact that he was now regarded as the leading Nazi, he mounted by far the most effective defence of all the accused. Sentenced to death, he cheated the hangman by taking poison two hours before the sentence was due to be carried out.