who was hermann goering

Hermann Göring (often spelled Goering) was a leading figure in Nazi Germany, one of Adolf Hitler’s closest associates, and a major architect of the Nazi dictatorship and its crimes.

Quick Scoop: Who He Was

• Born on 12 January 1893 in Rosenheim, Germany, Göring first became famous as a decorated fighter pilot in World War I.

• He joined the Nazi Party in the early 1920s after hearing Hitler speak, quickly rising to the top ranks of the movement.

• Hitler made him head of the Storm Troopers (SA) early on, and he was wounded during the failed Beer Hall Putsch in 1923.

In the 1920s and early 1930s, Göring helped transform the Nazis from a fringe group into a central force in German politics.

Role in Nazi Germany

• After Hitler took power in 1933, Göring became Interior Minister and later Minister President of Prussia, Germany’s largest state.

• He helped build the Nazi police state: he created the Office of the Secret State Police, which became the Gestapo, used to arrest and terrorize opponents and imprison them in concentration camps.

• Göring was instrumental in establishing and expanding the concentration camp system for the so‑called “corrective treatment” of political enemies and other targeted groups.

In 1935 he became commander‑in‑chief of the Luftwaffe (German air force) and oversaw a massive rearmament program, preparing Germany for war.

He also led the Four Year Plan, giving him sweeping control over the economy and heavy industry, including the state-owned Reichswerke Hermann Göring steel and armaments complex.

Involvement in the Holocaust and War Crimes

• Göring signed and pushed policies that stripped Jews of rights and property and paved the way for mass persecution and murder.

• In 1941, he authorized subordinates to prepare a “final solution of the Jewish question,” making him a central political architect of the Holocaust.

• He backed aggressive expansion, rearmament, and the early military campaigns of World War II, benefiting personally from looted art, property, and resources in occupied territories.

As the war turned against Germany, especially after the Luftwaffe’s failures, his influence declined and his relationship with Hitler deteriorated.

Trial and Death

• After Germany’s defeat in 1945, Allied forces captured Göring and put him on trial before the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg.

• He was convicted of major war crimes and crimes against peace and humanity and sentenced to death by hanging in 1946.

• The night before his scheduled execution, he killed himself by taking poison (cyanide) in his cell on 15 October 1946.

Today, Hermann Göring is remembered as a key leader of the Third Reich and a principal planner and enforcer of its brutal, genocidal policies.

TL;DR: Hermann Göring was a top Nazi leader, head of the Luftwaffe and a chief builder of the Nazi police state and Holocaust machinery; tried at Nuremberg, he avoided execution by committing suicide in 1946.

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