Hermann Göring's Mysterious Death

[Music] hermann goering fell into american hands following his own fall from grace in april 1945. i've already made a detailed video about the operation to grab the reich's marshall link in the end screen but to briefly recap after seeing hitler for the last time on the fuhrer's birthday 20th of april 1945 goring after packing up his vast collection of art treasures and personal baggage from his main residence at karen hull headed south to the comparative safety of the obersalzberg the mountain village in southern bavaria that was a private gated community for hitler and a chosen few senior leaders a few days later after receiving confused reports that hitler had had a nervous breakdown in the berlin bunker he sent a message to the fuhrer explaining that he goering would take over the reins of power according to the law of succession of 1941. martin bormann hitler's sinister secretary spun guring's message into a grab for power and hitler ordered him arrested stripped of his titles and offices going was held under house arrest by the ss on the obersalzberg until an raf air attack leveled the houses and then at maltendorf castle in austria on the 7th of may 1945 goering tried to reach the u.s lines hoping to be seen as the legitimate leader of germany following hitler's death but general eisenhower instead sent a special us army unit forward to apprehend the reich's marshall who was stuck in a traffic jam and in danger of being captured by the rapidly advancing red army goring was made a prisoner by the americans and he was forced to remove all his medals and decorations a humiliation designed to ensure that goring would be treated as a war criminal and not as a soldier he was flown to a special holding camp for high-level war crime suspects named camp ashcan situated inside the palace hotel in mondorf lebane luxembourg guring in 1945 presented a very unhealthy picture he was five foot eight inches tall or 173 centimeters but he weighed 392 pounds or 118 kilos he was also addicted to dihydrocodeine which is a mild morphine derivative he was taking the equivalent of three to four grains or 260 to 320 milligrams of morphine daily the americans were keen that goring lived long enough to answer in court for his crimes before they hanged him so he was placed on a strict diet and progressively weaned off the pills he lost 60 pounds or 27 kilos in weight and became much sharper mentally which actually backfired on the americans when they placed him on trial at nuremberg goring was charged with conspiracy waging a war of aggression war crimes including plundering artworks and crimes against humanity including the torture and ill-treatment of prisoners of war and the murder and enslavement of civilians in reference to the holocaust he pleaded not guilty to all charges guring was tested and had an iq of 138 and he knew that he would eventually be put to death but he was determined to go down fighting and launched a vigorous defense from the stand a sarcastic and clever man he several times appeared the superior orator under cross questioning by u.s chief justice robert h jackson on the witness stand is herman gearing leading living exponent of the nazi philosophy and outstanding defendant among the score on trial it is guring's turn to testify and to answer the questions of justice robert jackson united states prosecutor the courtroom is hush hess ribbentrop striker and the others of the hitler gang are intensely interested in cross-examination following gehring's 55 000 word prepared speech justice jackson questions him well if you wanted certain people killed you had to have some organization that would kill them didn't you this uh rome and the rest of them were not killed by hitler's own hands nor by yours were they state necessity to kill somebody you had to have somebody to do it didn't you gerring's replies like his carefully prepared full-length defense of nazism leaves no doubt of his loyalties nor of his pride in the gigantic organization for aggression which nazi germany created suave and unabashed he had already openly stated his support of all of hitler's policies his testimony completed guering joins his colleagues they are pleased and to some extent relieved because he was forced to shoulder much responsibility himself the man who still boasts of his leadership in germany's war plans has had his day in court the machinery of democratic justice proceeds he was on the stand from the 13th to the 22nd of march 1946 british chief prosecutor sir david maxwell fife eventually got the upper hand against him noting in a private letter about guring quote i must take my hat off to the old brigant he keeps his interest up unquote after being cut down to size by maxwell 5's forensic questioning guring lost much of his dominant aura and his power over the other defendants going was forced to exercise and take his meals alone unity among the other prisoners falling apart in court on the 30th of september 1946 the sentences were passed after a trial lasting 218 days it was no surprise to anyone not least guring when he was found guilty on all four counts and he was sentenced to death by hanging guering had expected the death penalty but it was the manner of execution that aggrieved him he appealed and demanded that as a german officer and the only reich's marshal of germany he should be shot by firing squad instead of the indignity of being hanged like a common criminal when this request was refused guring evidently decided to die by his own hand but how the allies were fully aware that prisoners at nuremberg might escape justice by killing themselves and measures had been taken to prevent this from happening during the trial held inside nuremberg's palace of justice the defendants lived in single cells in a prison behind the court commanding the prison was colonel burton andrus a strict disciplinarian the us army guards were told to treat the prisoners with civility and objectivity at all times andrus permitted no disrespect towards the prisoners telling his men that before and during the trial the prisoners were to be considered innocent until judged by the court the prison was dark extremely cold in the winter and dank outside were three tanks manned by military police positioned at the front side and rear entrances to prevent any attacks by pro nazis who might try and free the prisoners u.s infantry soldiers from the first infantry division were specially assigned to the trials as guards and they watched the entrances and were on duty in the courtroom they also patrolled the prison blocks and watched the prisoners incredibly as i've revealed in another video highlighted in the end screen assisting with prison guarding and wired duties was a special unit of former estonian waffen-ss-men each cell had a single window set into its three-foot thick concrete wall affording virtually no view of the outside world the heavy oak cell doors had an opening through which aluminium food trays could be passed every prisoner received the same menu delivered by german prisoners from the adjacent civil prison under american guards the food being prepared by u.s army cooks each prisoner was assigned and addressed by a number only inside the cell the prisoner had a bench-like bed a simple lavatory and a wooden table and chair the latter two objects were deliberately designed to collapse under a man's weight to prevent hanging attempts however one of the defendants former nazi labour front leader robert lye killed himself he hanged himself using a torn up towel from a drainpipe after this the prisoners were constantly under suicide watch guards looking through a peephole in the cell door day and night the prisoners were housed according to importance the ground floor the prison the lower tier of cells held gurring and the other major nazi defendants in 32 cells with a central corridor of 60 meters dividing them into two groups of 16. the guards were restricted by passes to their assigned areas the next tier of cells above held high-ranking ss including doctors the second floor or the third in american speak held female ss personnel including ilsa koch of buchenwald concentration camp careful guarding was undertaken to avoid accusations of rape abuse or misconduct although these ss women made constant allegations against american guards so did the guards fraternize with the prisoners yes constantly according to former guards each month the nationality of guards at the prison was rotated between the four allies american british french and soviet each had their own rules and punishments the guards lived at the prison with the accused us guards slept six to a room and had their own mess halls each guard worked three days on and three days off with shifts of four hours on four hours off each watch was two hours duration standing stock still peering into a cell guards were randomly assigned to prisoners according to a duty roster posted each morning in the courtroom the guards had to stand still for hours on end behind their assigned prisoners a difficult and tiring duty the guards also rotated to patrol the cell block and courtyard on 50-foot tall parapet walls to watch prisoners during their daily 20-minute exercise time they also manned one of four watchtowers of the corner angles of the walls some of the prisoners became friendly with certain guards albert spear hitler's armaments minister was noted to have been always respectful and a consumer gentleman according to some of the guards as was colonel general alfred yodel former chief of operations of the army high command eurokim von ribentrop the former nazi foreign minister was noted as always amiable most of the prisoners spoke excellent english including of course hermann goering goering enjoyed baiting his guards trying to get a rise out of them he also became friendly with some of them signing autographs and so on a manipulative character guring's increasing influence over certain young soldiers has been seen as a possible way he managed to obtain the cyanide capsule he used to end his life so let's examine the theories surrounding guring's death in a letter he left for prison governor colonel andrus following his death going gloated that whenever he had entered the courtroom he had had a cyanide capsule concealed in his boot and he had a second capsule concealed in his cell inside a jar of nivea cream but the question is had goring had these alleged capsules since his capture by the americans or had he obtained them from some third party after arriving at the prison when goering was apprehended by u.s forces traveling in a convoy of vehicles his large amount of baggage was left intact until he was moved to u.s custody and formally surrendered his baggage was searched for firearms and poison and went with him to camp ashkan and thence to nuremberg the prisoner's baggage was kept under lock and key at the prison inside a special room though prisoners were permitted some clothes toiletries photographs and other items in their cells the cream has been variously described as hair cream hand cream or ointment and came to the prison in goering's baggage it seems unlikely that someone would not have prodded a finger into the jar to inspect the contents the glass cyanide ampoule was concealed in a brass rifle cartridge type case 46 millimeters long so it was quite difficult to hide so this is theory one goring had the capsule with him at all times since arriving with it and the jar of cream was simply overlooked by the normally thorough guards the second scenario is that guring obtain the poison while in prison the suspects are a u.s officer or enlisted man who unwittingly or wittingly smuggle the poison too goring in return for valuable personal property or perhaps an ss general who was kept at nuremberg as well a persistent and popular theory concerns a u.s officer lieutenant jack g wheelers a former american football player he certainly had a good relationship with goring who gave him various trinkets to prove the friendship including his expensive gold watch wheelers being photographed wearing it after guring's death could wheelis have been under guring's spell so much that he was prepared to risk serious punishment if he was caught giving guring the painless way out he desired but it seems far-fetched that an experienced officer like wheelis would risk everything for goring obtaining valuable souvenirs was one thing but committing treason another wheelis died only eight years after gerring so little is known today of his motives some have suggested that wheelis retrieve the bottle of cream from the prison baggage store at goering's request possibly containing the capsule and in return for some gift but wouldn't have known the cyanide was hidden inside so it best was an unwilling and ignorant accomplice to the suicide however in 2005 a new suspect came forward this time with first-hand evidence that he had unwittingly given gerring the capsule herbert lee stivers was a guard in the prison he said he had kept quiet for 60 years fearing punishment some historians believe stiva's story to be plausible stivers a 19 year old private in 1946 had met an attractive local girl during his off-duty hours in nuremberg she had eventually suggested that he take some special medicine to the prison for girring sounds like a case of sexual entrapment well stivers was by his own admission undergoing spell chatting about sports and flying he collected guring's autograph as well as the autographs of other major prisoners he found the guard duty boring and the only diversion was the company clubs and local girls his regular girlfriend hildegard bruna was happy to receive chocolate bars cigarettes and peanuts from stivers which he passed to her mother to sell on the black market however one day stivers was approached by a flirtatious brunette named mona who was interested in his job at the courthouse she playfully refused to believe him until he produced balder von sheerak's autograph the former leader of the hitler youth she kept it and the next day he obtained guring's autograph and gave it to mona she introduced stivers to her male friends eric and matthias they told stivers that goring was very sick and wasn't receiving his medicine in prison on two occasions stivers says he smuggled notes from these men to goring hidden in a phantom pen the third time eric put a capsule in the pen and stivers took it to guring after he returned the pen to mona he never saw her or the two german men again stivers maintained that goring was never in a suicidal frame of mind and stated he would never have knowingly taken a suicide capsule to him two weeks later on the 15th of october 1946 the eve of his execution guring killed himself after a thorough search of guring's belongings in the prison storm another cyanide capsule was found hidden in goring's luggage reinforcing the notion that goring managed to smuggle two capsules into the prison whether stivers was telling the truth 60 years later is impossible to prove but it's a plausible scenario though who the germans actually were and what their relationship was to goring has never been established however in 1951 the former ss general eric von dembach solovsky who was german commander of forces during the suppression of the warsaw uprising claimed partial responsibility for getting the capsule to goring he had in his possession another identical suicide capsule its serial number showing it came from the same batch as the one guring took fondembak solovsky appeared at nuremberg as a witness for the prosecution he also never explained how he got the poison to goring and he died in 1973 keeping his silence the u.s army investigation of guring's death concluded that the reich's marshal always had the capsule he had used to kill himself with they said gurings secreted it in various places on his person including in his rectum and also behind the rim of his cell lavatory this was pure speculation if he had had the capsule for any length of time it appears to have been hidden in hand cream as gurrring himself admitted in his note to colonel andrus there is yet another suspect who came four decades after guering's death to claim responsibility ned patzel was a member of the oss the office of strategic services america's wartime intelligence organization and direct forerunner to the cia he was in fact an aide to oss chief william donovan patzell claimed to have given the cyanide to guring the oss grateful for guring's cooperation in aiding the organization in the forthcoming cold war donovan with tacit british agreement ordered puzzle to give guring poison as a gesture of mercy as putzel said quote he was glad to have it it was better than being hanged unquote puzzles stated in 2003 that this cyanide pill was his own issued to all oss agents in case of capture he stated that he simply handed it to guring in a meeting the only problem with pathel's story is the description he gave of the cyanide pill was different from the crushed glass ampoule found in guring's mouth after the suicide so you are probably expecting me to give you an answer to gerring's suicide but i won't because i can't no one can definitively answer the case but we can settle upon a most likely scenario if i had to put my money on any of the stories i've outlined in this program i would pick jack wheelers as the candidate why for several reasons firstly wheelis was an officer giving him free access to moving around the prison without drawing too much attention he had a key to the baggage room and jude his evident friendship with goring especially their shared interest in hunting he would have easily fetched the jar of cream from guring's effects and brought it to his cell without any knowledge of its contents goring was pleased enough of wheelis cooperative attitude that he gave him his very valuable gold watch among many trinkets i believe that goring had secreted a cyanide ampoule in the cream and another in his luggage before capture and both were overlooked during searches because the guards were soldiers and not policemen once goring had had his day in court and knew the outcome he moved quickly to ensure he had the poison at hand and noted where it was hidden in his gloating letter to colonel andrus the wheeler scenario is the simplest and most obvious way of introducing the poison into goring's cell and doesn't involve any real subterfuge or outside parties or elaborate plots we will never know the absolute truth but we are left with the disturbing vision of hermann goring having had the last laugh [Music] a vision that haunted colonel andrews to his death in 1977. thanks for watching please subscribe and share and also visit my audiobook channel war stories with mark felton you can also help to support both of my channels at paypal and patreon details in the description box below you

Channel: Mark Felton Productions

Views: 1,969,898

Rating: 4.9009619 out of 5

Keywords: Mark Felton Productions, Hermann Goering, Nuremberg

Id: 2IMhFW7539s

Length: 22min 29sec (1349 seconds)

Published: Mon Jul 27 2020