A Goering interview...

A Goering interview post war, and NOT just those from the Nuremberg time-frame. It was lost (mis-filed?) for a time and contains some interesting information concerning Hitler and operational plans made, refused, or implemented.

See:

Lost Prison Interview with Hermann Goring: The Reichsmarschall’s Revelations » HistoryNet

Of course it also contains some self-serving "slants" on things as well, but still rather interesting to read.

 

I thought you guys might enjoy it Lou, I too was sort of surprised at how candid he was. Especially his admiration for our engine quality, shipbuilding and other production capacity.

 

Unlikely to take Malta my arse....

Air transport represented a small proportion of Operation Hercules.

The greater majority of men and material would have been SHIPPED across, just as it was for Crete, and with air superiority assured.

This interview, I feel, puts Hermann Goring firmly in the catagory of a man out of touch with his superior. More energy devoted to teamwork, rather than party intrigue, may well have produced results in the directions Hermann wished to go. Nazi leadership was, however, so full of 'yes men', and in spite of many bright ideas, no dominant personality other than Hitler's was ALLOWED to be influential.

Maybe Goring's drug addiction cost the Third Reich far more than it first seemed. His forceful personality of the thirties, (then he was certainly a man that did not mince words) was replaced by a lackey, isolated by party squabbling, and spending more and more time admiring his art collection.

What a waste for the Reich. It was for our benefit, though, so I suppose we should be thankful for Goring's lack of drive and energy.

 

An excllent find and a great read.

It even shows how the Germans learnt from the Dieppe Raid.

 

Here is something I have been holding on to for a while; just waiting for an oppurtunity. I have read only a few pages:

Goering Transcript

 

That's a most interesting find. Also of note is that Ken Hechler wrote The Bridge At Remagen.

 

This interview, I feel, puts Hermann Goring firmly in the catagory of a man out of touch with his superior.

I'm with Volga. I honestly dont give much credance to any postwar interviews given by most of the German not just Nazi Hierarchy immediately post war. Including Guderians fawning interviews to old Liddel. They were give with a historical ego to think of. Which is all they had left.

 

I have to say on reading the intial first few questions, this smacks of a prisoner being questioned on America and his and his associates attitude initially to America. If my life was in the balance and I knew where the figurative bodies were indeed buried I would hang on to any hope of being useful even fawning or telling folk what I believe they wish to hear if I am to be of use to them and not face the gallows. Its human nature. Goering differs in this case no different from many a prisoner before the Gallows they know is being built in their honour.

 

He really thought a separate peace with the Soviets were possible? Von Thoma argued for it during captivity in Tent Park. (In a private conversation that the Birtish Intelligence intercepted )
http://www.ww2f.com/russia-war/38630-any-chance-hitler-stalin-pact-1942-a.html#post459958

As you say, so Candid.

 

Excellent post. Certainly puts Barbarossa in a new light.

They should have kept all those Nazi leaders alive simply to pump them for information as the years passed, and the closer they got to a natural death, the more would have spilled out of them information wise. Lock them up for LIFE, with no parole, but 'silensing' them put the record of what they were exactly doing under more than a little bit of a cloud. But i suppose that winners of a world war are more interested in pushing their own view of the events, rather than giving the stage to those that came out on the losing end.

Then again, if we hadn't killed them all we might have nothing to argue about concerning WW2, and sites like this wonderful forum might not exist.

 

Well you have to remember the time frame of this particular interview, July of 1945. Long before he was transferred to Nuremberg for that famous trial.

He was not fawning to the captors in an attempt to avoid the gallows, that was far down the road and I doubt he thought he would be tried as a "war criminal". When he first surrendered he was amazed that the allies even put him in a jail! He expected house arrest or something of that sort.

When the arresting officers stripped him of his pistol and dagger he didn't object, but when they demanded he surrender his Field Marshall's baton he refused, saying (paraphrasing); "No, that is the symbol of my authority!", to which the American officer taking his possessions and putting them in an inventory replied; "...authority over what?"

 

I have no proof..its subjective Clint, but I'd imagine that his thoughts on his own safety were paramount from before he was even captured. He must have personally realised what his fate would be. Bravado and false hope may have been the order of the day, but I have no doubt in my own mind he knew where he was headed, why else the suicide preperations in advance.

 

All of the Reich higher-ups had made suicide pills a common companion from very early on. Which is the reason which Hitler fed one of them to his dog Blondie before using them on himself and giving one to Eva. He wanted to make sure they still were potent. They all carried those cyanide capsules around for the last few years I think.

Probably from the time the Red Army started advancing on the Fatherland. Goering was very amazed that he was being accused of any crime, but that didn't come until after the July interview. I believe he wasn't aware of the charges being leveled against him until August. I'll have to look that up.

But I don't disagree exactly with your position either, I said it appeared to be rather self-serving when I posted it. Some was without doubt claimed to curry favor with his captors, but I believe some of it was candid and truthfull as well. As you say though, we'll never know for sure what was BS and what was straight. He was a cunning fellow afterall.

 

"But we were convinced that there was no chance to avoid war. " (Goering on war with thew United States)
I love that quote in the interview - it's so interesting to read what Goering, Hitler, and von Ribbentrop were thinking when they made such significant decisions. Great find, OP!

 

It was a useful bump, glad to read this.

I realise I'm sticking my neck out a bit here, but some editorials like the following are to my mind, significantly erroneous:

I have a really good annoted study copy with both editions of Mein kampf in its two parts (original version and the thirties second edition with the changes stipulated and annoted, and appendices like Cambridge history dept. giving study notes, etc., damn thing cost me a fortune), and Hitler is very specific about securing these things from the Ukraine and areas east of the Pripets, he was not talking about Russia proper. There's no mistaking this. It was not a design of Barbarossa war plans, it is nothing like that at all. It is a commentary by Hitler on the state of affairs left in the wake of the Great War, with colonisations in rural Ukraine by German occupiers of the white war (the russian civil war when the League got involved). It was in this period that Mein Kampf was written, so the fact there were German-occupiers families living over in the Ukraine now was on a lot of minds just among the general public.
Hitler's whole trip with Mein Kampf is very clearly extremist nationalism, it's far less specifically aggressive to any individual bodies as the language of extremism would have the unitiated believe.
It is very aggressive yes, but it's all over the place from a military point of view. Where battle plans are concerned and Hitler was the first to admit this: to Mussolini during his state visit (it's on public record), "What I say in public is not my opinion, I say what needs to be said." Mein Kampf was utterly political treatise, it had nothing to do with warfare, there is no doubt in my mind about this having read probably one of the best publications of it you're likely to find. All the bad stuff is there sure, but I'm just saying from a strategist point of view, there's nothing of value, not a single thing whatsoever in terms of battleplans. Just general sweeping sentiments about simplistic observations, those yes militaries like those. They don't use them for plans but they like the insight.

Personally, particularly after reading this horror story it seems utterly realistic to me that Hitler represented the reinstatement of the Prussian aristocracy to military leadership which was the terms of the german surrender (that they were sacked from the military and all positions of authority, that Reichstag took over government and Versailles took it further and prohibited any german monarchism literally making it illegal to install any kind of monarchy ever again, despite the fact Germany remained essentially a series of fiefdoms, my god it was the most ignorant thing about Versailles or should I say among the most malicious), well I think the Prussians, all Hitler's field marshalls and leading field commanders, Guderian, von Kleist, the General Staff, all of them were from the Kaiser's old stock, not Nazis. They ran the country with the help of people like Hindenburg under the Kaiser, they thought they were going to get the same thing with Hitler.

And those guys, they wanted Black Sea oil and the Ukraine. That's what I think supported Hitler's ambitions in the early war period, and I think that was the force behind Barbarossa, the true momentum because let's face it, not even a king gets anything if nobody wants them to. That's the reality. I think it was all logistical. It was the fix for the abortion five year economic plan of Göring's that supposedly saved Germany, yet commited it absolutely to invading Czechoslovakia back in 1934, before you could even conjure up a reason why.

And I think the breaking point between Hitler and the Prussian core of OKH was September 41. I really don't think they thought he was serious about wanting the entire continent occupied within weeks. It is when he sent the smolensk tanks south to kiev when everyone knew full well in the eastern Ukraine was where the entire Soviet reinforcement and reserves were staging (high six figures of troops), because Stalin of course was expecting the attack that OKH wanted, into the Ukraine, not aimed at Moscow. I cannot believe it is merely coincidence that this is precisely when the diary entries of General Staff started referring to Hitler as manic instead of intuitive. By mid-42 of course they were just throwing their arms in the air and calling him a wackjob, really von Kleist's chief of staff gives Hitler such a grilling after Rostov, he prints in bold that Hitler has no concept of conducting rational warfare but murderously commands ridiculous fanatic loyalty.


...well after reading the rest I can't say I like the editorials much at all, they're just written by someone who never looks things up themselves.
Hangmens nooses for those executions were very much designed to snap the neck pretty quick, the idea was an execution of tremendous political impact, not cruel and unusual punishment. A potassium-cyanide pill on the other hand literally breaks most of the large bones in your body with the excruciating muscular cramps/spasm during its ridiculous death throes, it's around the most cruel and unusual way you could possibly die. Göring cheated nobody other than the utterly egotistical as far as final punishment went.
And statements like this:

...are seriously worth a punch in the face, seriously this bloke needs to get out of his loungeroom once in a while and go do some real work, then give us social commentary on the motivations of regular working class people who actually do things instead of try to get paid talking crap, inventing soap operas to add to the drama.

Everyone's a victim in war, duh. What an idiot.

The interview itself though, fascinating read.

 

How this fat toad of a man ever became a leader of brave airmen and a voice for any citizen of Germany is one of the greatest mysteries of WW 2..... The people of Germany and Der Fuhrer deserved Goering for allowing Goering to be Goering !!!..... IMHO.

 

Göring was even more into politics than Hitler, but where Hitler was a fanatic, Göring was a professional. And damn good at it. Yet it is the fanatics which can make monarch, no politician becomes a king and no king who becomes a politician stays a king for very long. It's funny, perhaps the reason they were such good bed partners for so many years was because each had the private ambition of the other. Hitler was very chaotic in thinking process, as a student of the human condition this much is thoroughly clear from Mein Kampf and I'm not the first to note it. His mind was inherently constructed of disarray, he craved order. Göring was so full of logical construction he could barely stand himself and couldn't turn away an opportunity for escapism. This was once in his political ambitions but by 1943 it was perfectly clear where the war was going and Görings fanciful dreams along with it, from about 1943 he was considered utterly derelict in his duties, stoned off his dial most of the time.

Pure heresay, my posts in this thread have been utterly opinionated thus far and I recognise this, I assert no particular authority whatsoever, anyways my grandmother (lived in kiel and prussia during the war) told me Göring had a man killed by the Gestapo who had simply offended him at a party, and most of the high society knew this about him. She said nobody liked or trusted Himmler, but they outright feared Göring, he was the scariest man in Germany next to Hitler, without question.

He played the fool, but he absolutely wasn't one. As the US Army psychiatrist recorded, so did the Swiss in 1926, he was a genius really, his IQ was right up there but he was manic and entertaining a wealth of psychiatric disorders, most of them related to substance abuse but according to the swiss it was a serious enough psychosis that he was uncontrollably violent at the slightest provocation.


Listen, you look up Dr Martin Kitchen and dozens of others and really crawl into how Hitler built the Nazi Party and really, you have some extremist wacko nutjob who gathered as many psychopaths as he could find and replaced all the government offices with them. No kidding, this is exactly, precisely what happened, it was utterly intentional, this was by design, and if you wrote it in a contemporary setting and just put everyone in capes you'd be telling the story of a supervillain in a world with no batman.

Those guys were unconscionable, but never make the mistake of thinking they were stupid, or have the complacency to genuinely believe they were some unimaginable evil. Oh it was very imaginable. If this lesson is not the one it taught us, then it will, and kind already nudges it, happen again. Really.