Herman+Goering

Katie Steuck & Rhea McRae

Herman Goering was born at the Marienbad sanatorium in Rosenheim, Bavaria on January 12, 1893. Herman's dad Heinrich Ernst Goering was a former cavalry officer and also was the first Governor-General of the German protectorate of South-West Africa. His mother's name was Franziska Tiefenbrunn. Herman was the fourth of five children in his family.

Goering was a World War 1 Veteran, he was an ace fighter pilot and the recipient of "the Blue Max". He was the last commander of the Jagdgeschwader 1, which had once been led by the famous Red Baron, Manfred von Richthofen. He suffered a lifelong addiction to morphine, after using the drug to treat his injuries from the Beer Hall Putsch. He was actually certified a dangerous drug addict and had to be put in asylum on September 1, 1925. At one point he had to be confined to a straitjacket, but this was caused only by the morphine and his psychiatrist announced him sane. He was able to leave the facility, but eventually had to come back for more treatment.

He joined the Nazi party in 1922, and was then given command of the SA in 1923. He later became an SA-Gruppenfuhrer, which was Lieutenant General and he held this position until 1945. Goering was the first organizer of the Gestapo in 1933. He established this police force in Prussia, and it eventually became national. It combined all of the State police forces. The Reichstag fire which happened on the night of February 27, 1933 also involved Goering. He was the first person to arrive to the scene, but a communist named Marinus van der Lubbe was arrested for sole responsibility of the fire. Following this Goering called for a crackdown on the communists.

Herman Goering was the commander-in-chief of the Luftwaffe which was the German airforce, and also the Minister of Air. He announced the establishment of the Luftwaffe in March, 1935. In 1940 he was at the height of his power, and Adolf Hitler promoted him to the Reichsmarschall which was a rank senior to all other Wehrmacht commanders. In 1941 Hitler then appointed him as his successor and deputy in all offices. But, in 1942 with the airforce falling behind the German war effort was struggling on both fronts, he became much less involved with Hitler.

After this Goering largely withdrew from the military and political part of the war and began focusing on the acquisition of property and artwork. The majority of this was taken from Jewish victims of the Holocaust. When Goering was informed on April 22, 1945 that Hitler planned to commit suicide he sent him a telegram asking if he could take over control of the Reich. Hitler decided to remove Goering from all of his positions, and ordered him arrested and expelled him from the party. In the Nuremberg trials following WW2, Goering was convicted of war crimes and crimes against humanity. He was then sentenced to death by hanging, but ended up committing suicide instead by ingesting cyanide the night before. Also at the Nuremberg Trials, General Franz Halder stated that Goering was the one responsible for starting the Reichstag fire. He said that Goering openly stated "The only one who really knows about the Reichstag is I, because I set it on fire!" But in his own testimony, Goering denied this story completely.

Sources: History 12 Student Workbook, Jerry Falk. Wikipedia- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermann_Göring