Background

Hermann Göring was born on January 12, 1893, in Rosenheim, Kingdom of Bavaria, German Empire (present-day Rosenheim, Germany). He was a son of Heinrich Ernst Göring and Franziska Tiefenbrunn. His father was colonial governor of German South West Africa. Göring had two brothers and two sisters.

Education

Hermann Göring studied at a private school in Fürth in 1900. Later he studied at Heinrich-Schliemann-Gymnasium from 1902 to 1904. From 1904 to 1905 Göring attended the Gymnasium Carolinum in Ansbach. When he was twelve years old, his father sent him to the cadet house in Karlsruhe. In 1909 he transferred to the main cadet school, Preußische Hauptkadettenanstalt, where he received general education in addition to military training. Göring graduated from there with distinction.

Career

Hermann Göring joined the Prince Wilhelm Regiment of the Prussian Army in 1912. In 1914 he entered the army as an Infantry Lieutenant, before being transferred to the air force as a combat pilot. In July 1918, Göring was made commander of the mission, Flying Circus. He finished the war with about twenty two victories to his credit. After World War I, he joined the air force combat after being coaxed into it by his friend, Bruno Loerzer. In 1919, he left Denmark and went to live in Sweden to join the Swedish airline called Svensk Lufttrafik. Göring's aristocratic background and his prestige as a war hero made him a prize recruit to the infant Nazi Party and Hitler appointed him to command the SA Brownshirts in December 1922. Nazism offered the swashbuckling Göring the promise of action, adventure, comradeship and an outlet for his unreflective, elemental hunger for power. In 1923 he took part in the Munich Beer Hall putsch, in which he was seriously wounded and forced to flee from Germany for four years until a general amnesty was declared.

Hermann Göring escaped to Austria, Italy and then returned to Sweden. He was admitted to a mental hospital and, in September 1925, to an asylum for dangerous inmates, becoming a morphine addict in the course of his extended recovery. He returned to Germany during amnesty in 1927 and resumed work in the aircraft industry. In 1928 he was one of the first Nazis to be elected to the Reichstag. On August 30, 1932 he became President of the Reichstag. Following Hitler's appointment as Chancellor on January 30, 1933, Göring was made Minister President of Prussia, Reich Commissar of Aviation and Reichsstatthalter of Prussia. Besides, in 1933 Göring was entrusted by Hitler with rebuilding the German air force. In 1935, Göring became Supreme Commander of the Luftwaffe. During that period Göring also began his industrial ventures in Germany and abroad, and was reputed to be one of the richest men in the world. In 1936 his powers were further extended by his appointment as Plenipotentiary of the Four Year Plan, which gave him virtually dictatorial controls to direct the German economy. It was his duty to assure that Germany became a self-sufficient country, the major portion of its resources being dedicated to the creation of military power. The creation of the state-owned Hermann Göring Works in 1937, a gigantic industrial nexus which employed 700,000 workers and amassed a capital of 400 million marks, enabled him to accumulate a huge fortune. In the same year Göring became Reichminister of Economics and held this post until 1938.

Hermann Göring was appointed Reich Council Chairman for National Defence on August 30, 1939 and officially designated as Hitler's successor on September 1. He directed the Luftwaffe campaigns against Poland and France, and on June 19, 1940 was promoted to Reich Marshal. In June 1944, he was appointed mobilization director. When Hitler declared that he would remain in the Berlin bunker to the end, Göring, who had already left for Bavaria, misinterpreted this as an abdication and requested that he be allowed to take over at once. He was ignomimously dismissed from all his posts, expelled from the Party and arrested. Arrested on May 21, 1945, by the Americans, he was tried and sentenced to death at the Nuremberg Trials but committed suicide on October 15, 1946, the night before his scheduled execution.

Achievements

• Hermann Göring was a German politician who was known as President of the Reichstag and Reich Marshal of Germany. He was one of the most powerful figures in the Nazi Party and the second man in the Nazi hierarchy. Göring formed the Gestapo, the secret police force and also was famous for his large collection of artwork much of which was stolen from Jewish victims of the Holocaust.
  
  Hermann Göring was awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross, the highest award given in the military of the Third Reich during World War II, for excellence as senior commander, in 1939. He also was awarded the Grand Cross of the Iron Cross in 1940, the only award of this decoration. This was awarded to him for the victories of the Luftwaffe during the French campaigns. Göring also received such awards as the Pour le Mérite, the Blood Order, the Danzig Cross, the Order of Saints Cyril and Methodius, the Order of the Dannebrog and the Order of the Crown of Italy.

Politics

Hermann Göring joined the Nazi Party in 1922. He was inspired by Adolf Hitler and took an active part in the party affairs. After The Reichstag fire occurred on the night of February 27, 1933, Göring immediately called for a crackdown on Communists. Later on November 30, 1933, he established a Prussian police force. After he became Plenipotentiary of the Four Year Plan Göring created a new organization to administer the Plan and drew the ministries of labour and agriculture under its umbrella. Göring became 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. However, huge expenditures were made on rearmament and Göring began pushing for Austria to be incorporated into the Reich. In the end, he managed to do it.

Göring continued to involve himself in foreign affairs and contacted the British government with the idea that he should make an official visit to discuss Germany's intentions for Czechoslovakia. Later he visited Warsaw in order to quell rumors about the upcoming invasion of Poland and also talked with the Hungarian government discussing their potential role in an invasion of Czechoslovakia. In March 1939, Göring threatened Czechoslovak president Emil Hácha with the bombing of Prague. After that Emil Hácha agreed to sign a communique accepting the German occupation of the remainder of Bohemia and Moravia.

Hermann Göring was not as antisemitic as Joseph Goebbels and Heinrich Himmler, however he supported the Nuremberg Laws of 1935 and later initiated economic measures unfavourable to Jews. Göring required the registration of all Jewish property as part of the Four Year Plan. In July 1941, he issued a memo to Reinhard Heydrich ordering him to organize the practical details of the Final Solution to the "Jewish Question." Between 1942 and 1944 Göring directed anti-partisan operations by Luftwaffe security battalions in the Białowieża Forest that resulted in the murder of thousands of Jews and Polish civilians.

Views

Quotations: "My measures will not be crippled by any bureaucracy. Here I don't have to worry about Justice; my mission is only to destroy and to exterminate, nothing more."

"Shoot first and inquire afterwards, and if you make mistakes, I will protect you."

"No enemy bomber can reach the Ruhr. If one reaches the Ruhr, my name is not Göring. You may call me Meyer."

"The German people trusted the Führer. Given his authoritarian direction of the state, they had no influence on events. Ignorant of the crimes of which we know today, the people have fought with loyalty, self-sacrifice, and courage, and they have suffered too in this life-and-death struggle into which they were arbitrarily thrust. The German people are free from blame."

"After the United States gobbled up California and half of Mexico, and we were stripped down to nothing, territorial expansion suddenly becomes a crime. It's been going on for centuries, and it will still go on."

"If I didn't have a sense of humor, how could I stand this trial now?"

"The victor will always be the judge, and the vanquished the accused."

Personality

Hermann Göring used his position to indulge in ostentatious luxury, living in a palace in Berlin and building a hunting mansion named after his first wife Carin where he organized feasts, state hunts, showed off his stolen art treasures and uninhibitedly pursued his extravagant tastes. Göring changed his uniforms and suits five times a day. He also kept pet lion cubs, borrowed from the Berlin Zoo, both at Carinhall and at his house at Obersalzberg. Göring had a large art gallery where he displayed works that had been plundered from private collections and museums around Europe from 1939 onward.

Hermann Göring liked to style himself as the iron Knight, a curious mixture of condottiere and sybarite. Nevertheless, he remained genuinely popular with the German masses who regarded him as manly, honest and more accessible than the Führer. Germans joked about Göring's ego, saying that he would wear an admiral's uniform with rubber medals to take a bath.

As a boy Hermann Göring was interested in war games and loved playing with his toy soldiers wearing his Boer uniform, which he received from his father. Even when he studied at school he continued to enjoy war games, pretending to lay siege to the castle Veldenstein and studying Teutonic legends and sagas.

Physical Characteristics: Hermann Göring was quite slender in his youth, but over time he gained weight and it often became a subject for jokes. Germans joked about his obesity and said that "he sits down on his stomach."

After Hermann Göring was wounded in the hip in aerial combat, he received treatment during which he developed an addiction to morphine which persisted until the last year of his life.

Quotes from others about the person

• Paul O. Schmidt: "Now, for example, Göring made an excellent impression. I must say I rather liked him. The fashion was for strong men. Göring had his weaknesses – he was like a child in many respects – but he was a human being."
  
  Robert H. Jackson: "The large and varied role of Göring was half militarist and half gangster. He was, next to Hitler, the man who tied the activities of all the defendants together in a common effort."
  
  John Killen: "For Hermann Wilhelm Göring, the fighter pilot of the First World War whose amazing rise to power brought him many high honors, including the title of Marshal of the Greater German Reich, it can only be said that he possessed great physical courage and an intelligence not readily apparent to those who only saw the bemedalled facade. He was also a skillful hunter who could be an amusing and lively host. But Göring was frequently cunning, deceitful and vindictive, a man given to wild boasting. He was blinded by the vanity that destroyed his career; his craving for riches became such an obsession that even personal ambition ceased to be of any importance. He sought a life of luxury, and having achieved untold wealth, loved it not wisely but too well, to the exclusion of responsibility, the Nazi Party and all else. He ransacked the art museums of Europe while German military aviation fell in flames. The organization and administration of the Luftwaffe paid a bitter price for his indolence."

Interests

• Hunting, opera, art collecting

Connections

Hermann Göring married Baroness Carin von Kantzow in 1923. They lived in Munich, until she died of illness. The couple had no children. In 1935, Hermann Göring married Emmy Sonnemann. The marriage produced a daughter.

Father:

Heinrich Ernst Göring

Heinrich Ernst Göring (October 31, 1839 – December 7, 1913) was a German jurist and diplomat who served as colonial governor of German South West Africa.

Mother:

Franziska Tiefenbrunn

(1859 – July 15, 1943)

Brother:

Karl Göring

(1885 – 1932)

Brother:

Albert Göring

Albert Göring (March 9, 1895 – December 20, 1966) was a German engineer and businessman. He helped Jews and others who were persecuted in Nazi Germany.

Sister:

Paula Elisabeth Rosa Göring

(1890 – 1960)

Sister:

Olga Therese Sophia Göring

(1889 – 1970)

late wife:

Carin Göring

(October 21, 1888 – October 17, 1931)

Wife:

Emmy Göring

(March 24, 1893 – June 8, 1973)

Daughter:

Edda Göring

(June 2, 1938 – December 21, 2018)

Friend:

Bruno Loerzer

Bruno Loerzer (January 22, 1891 – August 23, 1960) was a German air force officer during World War I and World War II.

References

• Marshal Without Glory A book by Ewan Butler and Gordon Young.
  1951
• The Life and Death of Hermann Goering A biography of one of the most powerful of Hitler's henchmen which is illustrated with telling photographs portraying the public and personal sides of this infamous character.
  1989
• Leaders of the Storm Troops. Volume 1 Relying primarily on contemporary documentation, including the official personnel files of these men, Michael Miller and Andreas Schulz have compiled the first in-depth study yet produced on the SA leadership corps, a series designed to provide as comprehensive a picture as possible of the hauptamtlicher (full-time, actively serving) and ehrenamtlicher (honorary) SA-Führer.
  2014