Göring, Hermann

Göring, Hermann

 or Hermann Goering

Hermann Göring, commander of the Storm Troopers, 1933.

(credit: Heinrich Hoffmann, Munich)

(born Jan. 12, 1893, Rosenheim, Ger.—died Oct. 15, 1946, Nürnberg) German Nazi leader. He fought in World War I with the German air force. In 1922 he joined the Nazi Party and was given command of the SA. After the abortive Beer Hall Putsch, he escaped to Austria, then returned to Germany (1927) and was elected to the Reichstag. Chosen president of the Reichstag (1932), his power mounted after Adolf Hitler was named chancellor in 1933. As Hitler's most loyal supporter, Göring held numerous posts, including minister of the interior in Prussia, where he established the Gestapo. He also became head of the German air force (Luftwaffe) and minister of economic affairs. After the Luftwaffe failed to win the Battle of Britain, Göring lost face and semiretired to his country estate, where he displayed the vast art collection he had confiscated from Jews in occupied countries. In 1946 he was condemned to death at the Nürnberg trials but committed suicide by taking a poison capsule.

---

Göring, Hermann 

Born Jan. 12, 1893, in Rosenheim, Bavaria; died Oct. 15, 1946, in Nuremberg. One of the main war criminals of fascist Germany.

A pilot in World War I, Goring became a member of the National Socialist (fascist) Party in 1922 and leader of the SA Storm Troops. Equipped with Hitler’s political authority from 1930 and as chairman of the Reichstag (August 1932) he played an active role in the establishment of the fascist dictatorship in 1933, after which he became imperial aviation minister and head of the Prussian government. He was commander of the air force from 1935 and from 1937 the head of one of the largest German industrial concerns—the so-called Goring concern, which grew up as a result of the looting of Hitlerite-occupied countries. Göring was one of the organizers of the fascist terror in Nazi Germany and the territories occupied by it. Appointed marshal of the Reich in 1940, he was condemned to death by the Nuremberg Tribunal, but he committed suicide before the sentence could be executed.

REFERENCES

Niurnbergskii protsess nad glavnymi nemetskimi voennymi prestupnikami: Sb. materialov, vols. 1-7. Moscow, 1957-61.
Rozanov, G. L. Poslednie dni Gitlera. Moscow, 1961.
Bartel, W. Deutschland in der Zeit der faschistischen Diktatur1933-1945. Berlin, 1956.

B. A. KRYLOV