Hermann Göring - Trial and Death

Trial and Death

Göring was flown to Mondorf-les-Bains, Luxembourg, the site of a temporary prisoner-of-war camp housed in the Palace Hotel. Here he was weaned off the codeine pills—he had been taking the equivalent of three or four grains (260 to 320 mg) of morphine a day—and was put on a strict diet; he lost 60 pounds (27 kg). Top Nazi officials were transferred in September to Nuremberg, which was to be the location of a series of military tribunals beginning in November.

Göring was the second-highest-ranking Nazi official tried at Nuremberg, behind Reich President (former Admiral) Karl Dönitz. The prosecution levelled an indictment of four charges, including a charge of conspiracy; waging a war of aggression; war crimes, including the plundering and removal to Germany of works of art and other property; and crimes against humanity, including the disappearance of political and other opponents under the Nacht und Nebel (Night and Fog) decree; the torture and ill-treatment of prisoners of war; and the murder and enslavement of civilians, including what was at the time estimated to be 5,700,000 Jews. Not permitted to present a lengthy statement, Göring declared himself to be "in the sense of the indictment not guilty." The trial lasted 218 days; the prosecution presented their case from November through March, and Göring's defence—the first to be presented—lasted from 8 to 22 March. The sentences were read out on 30 September 1946. Göring, forced to remain silent while seated in the dock, communicated his opinions about the proceedings using gestures, shaking his head, or laughing. He constantly took notes and whispered with the other defendants, and tried to control the erratic behaviour of Hess, who was seated beside him. During breaks in the proceedings, Göring tried to dominate the other defendants, and he was eventually placed in solitary confinement when he attempted to influence their testimony.

Captain Gustave Gilbert, a German-speaking American intelligence officer and psychologist, interviewed Göring and the others in prison during the trial. Gilbert kept a journal, which he later published as Nuremberg Diary. Here he describes Göring on the evening of 18 April 1946, as the trials were halted for a three-day Easter recess:

Sweating in his cell in the evening, Göring was defensive and deflated and not very happy over the turn the trial was taking. He said that he had no control over the actions or the defense of the others, and that he had never been anti-Semitic himself, had not believed these atrocities, and that several Jews had offered to testify on his behalf.

On several occasions over the course of the trial, the prosecution showed films of the concentration camps and other atrocities. Everyone present, including Göring, found the contents of the films shocking; he said that the films must have been faked, but no one believed him. Witnesses, including Paul Koerner and Erhard Milch, tried to portray Göring as a peaceful moderate. Milch stated it had been well nigh impossible to oppose Hitler or disobey his orders; to do so would likely have meant death for oneself and one's family. When testifying on his own behalf, Göring emphasised his loyalty to Hitler, and claimed to know nothing about what had happened in the concentration camps, which were under Himmler's purview. He gave evasive convoluted answers to direct questions and had plausible excuses for all his actions during the war. He used the witness stand as a venue to expound at great length on his own role in the Reich, attempting to present himself as a peacemaker and diplomat before the outbreak of the war. During cross-examination, chief prosecutor Robert H. Jackson read out the minutes of a meeting that had been held shortly after Kristallnacht, a major pogrom in November 1938. At the meeting, Göring had callously plotted to steal Jewish property in the wake of the pogrom. Later, Maxwell-Fyfe proved it was impossible for Göring not to have known about the Stalag Luft III murders—the shooting of fifty airmen who had been recaptured after escaping from Stalag Luft III—in time to have prevented the killings. He also presented clear evidence that Göring knew about the extermination of the Hungarian Jews.

Göring was found guilty on all four counts and was sentenced to death by hanging. The judgment stated that:

There is nothing to be said in mitigation. For Göring was often, indeed almost always, the moving force, second only to his leader. He was the leading war aggressor, both as political and as military leader; he was the director of the slave labour programme and the creator of the oppressive programme against the Jews and other races, at home and abroad. All of these crimes he has frankly admitted. On some specific cases there may be conflict of testimony, but in terms of the broad outline, his own admissions are more than sufficiently wide to be conclusive of his guilt. His guilt is unique in its enormity. The record discloses no excuses for this man.

Göring made an appeal asking to be shot as a soldier instead of hanged as a common criminal, but the court refused. Defying the sentence imposed by his captors, he committed suicide with a potassium cyanide capsule the night before he was to be hanged. One theory as to how Göring obtained the poison holds that U.S. Army Lieutenant Jack G. Wheelis, who was stationed at the Nuremberg Trials, retrieved the capsules from their hiding place among Göring's personal effects that had been confiscated by the Army. In 2005 former U.S. Army Private Herbert Lee Stivers, who served in the 1st Infantry Division's 26th Infantry Regiment—the honor guard for the Nuremberg Trials—claimed he gave Göring "medicine" hidden inside a fountain pen a German woman had asked him to smuggle into the prison. Göring's body was displayed at the execution ground for the witnesses of the executions. The bodies were cremated and the ashes were scattered.