Background
Emmy Sonnemann was born in Hamburg on 24 March 1893.
Emmy Sonnemann was born in Hamburg on 24 March 1893.
A statuesque actress of Wagnerian proportions, Emmy Sonnemann performed at the National Theatre in Weimar and in 1934 became a Staatsschauspierlerin (State actress) in the Berlin State Theatre.
Her marriage to Göring on 20 April 1935 was a quasi-royal affair and the birth of her only daughter, Edda, two years later, was also a national event.
Since the Führer was unmarried, Frau Göring, as the wife of the second ranking personality of the Third Reich, played a leading role in the social life of the Nazi élite. Both she and her husband were the butt of many popular sex jokes which circulated unofficially among the public. In one of these jokes Emmy Göring wakes up to see her naked husband with his back to her indulging in a bizarre ceremony with his marshal’s baton. Challenged by his wife, Göring explains, ‘I am promoting my underpants to overpants.’
In 1948 Emmy Göring was convicted of being a Nazi and banned from the stage for five years.
She died in Munich on 8 June 1973.