Hermann Göring biography

Synopsis

Nazi Party and World War I

Hermann Göring was born in Rosenheim, Germany, on January 12, 1893. He was trained for a career in the military and received his commission in 1912, serving Germany as a pilot during World War I. After the war, Göring worked as a commercial pilot in Denmark and Sweden, where he met Swedish baroness Carin von Kantzow, who promptly divorced her husband and married Göring in February 1923.

Two years earlier, Göring had met Adolf Hitler and had joined the emerging National Socialist German Workers' (Nazi) Party, and as a former military officer, he was given command of Hitler's stormtroopers (the "SA"). In November 1923, Göring took part in the failed Beer Hall Putsch, during which Hitler attempted to seize control of the German government by spearheading a revolution with the help of the SA.

During the putsch, Göring was severely wounded in the groin and, after his escape into Austria, was given morphine for the pain. As a result, Göring developed a severe drug addiction that would follow him for his entire life and twice lead him into a treatment center. After the putsch failed, Hitler was imprisoned (and released in 1924), and Göring remained in exile until he was granted amnesty in 1927. He then returned to Germany and was readmitted to the Nazi Party.

Göring's wife died in 1931, and the following year Göring rose to the presidency of the Reichstag (parliament) when the Nazi Party won the majority of seats in the July election. Hitler was named German chancellor on January 30, 1933, and before long a bill giving him dictatorial powers was passed. Hitler allowed Göring to create the Gestapo, or secret political police, and to establish concentration camps in which to imprison the Nazis' political opponents.

World War II

In 1934, Göring's Gestapo and the Nazis' parliamentary regiments, also known as "Schutzstaffel" or the "SS," carried out what has become known as the "Night of the Long Knives," in which 85 members of the political opposition were assassinated, thus consolidating Nazi power and quieting any further dissent. Göring's association with Hitler helped him rise to power alongside the Führer and, in 1935, he took command of the German air force—a position he held until the end of World War II.

In 1939, Hitler declared Göring his successor. The following year, he bestowed upon Göring the special rank of marshal of the empire. By April 1945, however, with the Allies moving in, Göring attempted to assume Hitler's powers in accordance with the pronouncements of 1939, as he considered Hitler to be pinned down and virtually helpless in Berlin.