Hermann Göring
From Metapedia
Hermann Wilhelm Göring (also Goering in English) (January 12, 1893 - October 15, 1946) was a German politician and military leader, a leading member of the NSDAP, second in command of the Third Reich, and commander of the Luftwaffe. He was tried for war crimes and crimes against humanity at the Nuremberg Trials in 1945-1946 and sentenced to death by hanging; however, he escaped the execution by taking his life through the use of potassium cyanide. Last commander of Manfred von Richthofen's famous air squadron, Göring was a war hero of World War I and for continuous courage in action was awarded the coveted Pour le Mérite.
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Early life
Göring was born in Rosenheim, Bavaria to Heinrich Ernst Göring, a lawyer and colonial bureaucrat (in South-West Africa, today's Namibia), and his wife Franziska. Often apart from his parents, he was tutored at home before attending cadet schools at Karlsruhe and Lichterfelde.
In World War I he was commissioned in the infantry, then became a pilot. He flew reconnaissance and bombing missions before becoming a fighter pilot. By the end of the war he was a highly decorated "ace" and commanded the famed Jasta 11.
In mid-1915 Göring began his pilot training at Freiburg, and on completing the course he was posted to Jagdstaffel 5. He was soon shot down and spent most of 1916 recovering from his injuries. On his return in November 1916 he joined Jagdstaffel 26, before being given his first command. In 1917 he was awarded the Pour le Mérite. On July 7, 1918, after the death of Wilhelm Reinhard, the successor of Baron Manfred von Richthofen (The Red Baron), he was made commander of Jagdgeschwader Freiherr von Richthofen (Jasta 11). He finished the war as an "ace," with 22 confirmed kills. Incidentally, his appointment as commander had not been well received and he was the only veteran of Jasta 11 to have never been invited to the squadron's post-war reunions.
In June 1917, after a lengthy dogfight, Göring shot down a novice Australian pilot named Frank Slee. The battle is recounted flamboyantly in The Rise and Fall of Hermann Goering. Göring landed and met the Australian, and presented Slee with his Iron Cross. Years after, Slee gave Göring's Iron Cross to a friend, who later died on the beaches of Normandy on D-Day.
He remained in flying after the war, worked briefly at Fokker, tried "barnstorming," and in 1920 he joined Svenska Lufttrafik. He was also listed on the officer rolls of the Reichswehr, the post-World War I peacetime army of Germany, and by 1933 had risen to the rank of Generalmajor. He was made a Generalleutnant in 1935 and then a General in the Luftwaffe (German air force) upon its founding later that year.
In Stockholm he met Karin von Kantzow (née Fock, 1888-1931), whom he later married. She died in 1931, and soon after he married actress Emmy Sonnemann.
Political career
As early as 1922, Göring joined the NSDAP and initially took over the SA leadership as the Oberste SA-Führer. After stepping down as the SA Commander, he was appointed an SA-Gruppenführer (Lieutenant General) and held this rank on the SA rolls until 1945.
Having been a member of the Reichstag since 1928, he became the parliament's president from 1932 to 1933, and was one of the key figures in the process of Gleichschaltung that established National Socialist rule in Germany.
In its early years, he served as minister in various key positions at both the Reich level and in Prussia, being responsible for the economy as well as the build-up of the German military in preparation for the war. Among others, he was appointed Reichsluftfahrtminister in 1935, head of the Luftwaffe. In 1939, he became the first Luftwaffe Field Marshal (Generalfeldmarschal) and by a decree on 29 June, 1941, Hitler appointed Göring his formal successor and promoted him to the rank of Reichsmarschall, the highest military rank of the Greater German Reich. Reichsmarschall was a special rank intended for Göring and which made him senior to all Army and Air Force Field Marshals.
World War II
Göring was the only WWII recipient of the Grand Cross of the Iron Cross, awarded to him by Hitler for his leadership of the Luftwaffe during Fall Gelb - the conquest of France and the Low Countries.
Göring also sponsored a ground combat unit, the Hermann Göring Division, an elite unit which fought on various fronts with success. His other units on the eastern front were not so successful. At the Oder front, he had 2 fallschirmjäger (airborne) divisions, which were partially composed from Luftwaffe's officers without any ground combat experience.
He was also Commander-in-Chief of Forschungsamt ("FA"), the monitoring services for telephone and radio communications. This was connected to SS, SD and Abwehr intelligence services.
Near the end of the war, as the Red Army closed in around the German capital on April 23, 1945, Göring sent a telegram from Berchtesgaden to Berlin in which he proposed to assume leadership of the Reich as Hitler's designated successor. Hitler considered this disloyalty and high treason, especially because Göring mentioned a time limit after which he would consider Hitler incapacitated. Hitler had Göring placed under arrest by Bernhard Frank on April 25 and in his political testament. Hitler dismissed Göring from all his sundry offices and expelled him from the party.
Capture, trial and death
Göring surrendered on May 8, 1945 in Austria. He was the highest ranking party member brought before the Nuremberg Trials. Though he defended himself vigorously, he was sentenced to death. One of his last acts was to ask his brother Albert Göring to look after his wife and daughter. Defying the sentence imposed by his captors, he committed suicide with a potassium cyanide capsule the night before he was supposed to be hanged. Where Göring obtained the cyanide, and how he had managed to hide it during his entire imprisonment at Nuremberg, remains unknown. After his suicide, Hermann Göring was cremated and his ashes were scattered in the Conwentzbach in Munich, which runs into the Isar river.
