Hermann Göring - Early Nazi Career

Early Nazi Career

Göring joined the Nazi Party in 1922 and was given command of the Sturmabteilung (SA) as the Oberster SA-Führer in 1923. He was later appointed an SA-Gruppenführer (Lieutenant General) and held this rank on the SA rolls until 1945. At this time, Carin—who liked Hitler—often played hostess to meetings of leading Nazis, including her husband, Hitler, Rudolf Hess, Alfred Rosenberg, and Ernst Röhm. Hitler later recalled his early association with Göring:

I liked him. I made him the head of my SA. He is the only one of its heads that ran the SA properly. I gave him a dishevelled rabble. In a very short time he had organised a division of 11,000 men.

Hitler and the Nazi Party held mass meetings and rallies in Munich and elsewhere during this period, attempting to gain supporters in a bid for political power. Inspired by Benito Mussolini's March on Rome, the Nazis attempted to seize power on 8–9 November 1923 in a failed coup known as the Beer Hall Putsch. Göring, who was with Hitler heading up the march to the War Ministry, was shot in the leg. Fourteen Nazis and four policemen were killed; many top Nazis, including Hitler, were arrested. With Carin's help, Göring was smuggled to Innsbruck, where he received surgery and was given morphine for the pain. He remained in hospital until 24 December. This was the beginning of his morphine addiction, which lasted until his imprisonment at Nuremberg. Meanwhile the authorities in Munich declared Göring a wanted man. The Görings—acutely short of funds and reliant on the good will of Nazi sympathizers abroad—moved from Austria to Venice. In May 1924 they visited Rome, via Florence and Siena. Göring met Mussolini, who expressed an interest in meeting Hitler, who was by then in prison.

Personal problems continued to multiply. By 1925, Carin's mother was ill. The Görings—with difficulty—raised the money in spring 1925 for a journey to Sweden via Austria, Czechoslovakia, Poland, and Danzig (now Gdańsk). Göring had become a violent morphine addict; Carin's family were shocked by his deterioration. Carin, who was ill with epilepsy and a weak heart, had to allow the doctors to take charge of Göring; her son was taken by his father. Göring was certified a dangerous drug addict and was placed in Långbro asylum on 1 September 1925. He was violent to the point where he had to be confined to a straitjacket, but his psychiatrist felt he was sane; the condition was caused solely by the morphine. Weaned off the drug, he left the facility briefly, but had to return for further treatment. He returned to Germany when an amnesty was declared in 1927 and resumed working in the aircraft industry. Hitler, who had written Mein Kampf while in prison, had been released in December 1924. Carin Göring, ill with epilepsy and tuberculosis, died of heart failure on 17 October 1931.

Meanwhile, The NSDAP was in a period of rebuilding and waiting. The economy had recovered, which meant fewer opportunities for the Nazis to agitate for change. The SA was reorganised, but with Franz Pfeffer von Salomon as its head rather than Göring, and the Schutzstaffel (SS) was founded in 1925, initially as a bodyguard for Hitler. Membership in the party increased from 27,000 in 1925 to 108,000 in 1928 and 178,000 in 1929. In the May 1928 elections the party only obtained twelve seats out of an available 491. Göring was elected as a representative from Bavaria. The Wall Street Crash of 1929 led to a disastrous downturn in the German economy, and in the next election, the NSDAP won 6,409,600 votes and 107 seats in the Reichstag. In May 1931 Hitler sent Göring on a mission to the Vatican, where he met the future Pope Pius XII.