Story Highlights
- Historical event:
- 15 October 1946
- He was Hitler's Minister of Aviation and the supreme commander of the Luftwaffe. It is less well-known that Goering was a fighter ace during World War I, where he shot down 22 enemy planes in dogfights. For his valor, he was awarded the highest German military decoration, colloquially known as the “Blue Max”.
Hermann Goering is known as one of Hitler’s closest associates.
He held the highest rank in the Third Reich, that of Reichsmarschall, which made him the senior commander of all other German officers, even field marshals. He was the Minister of Aviation and the supreme commander of the Luftwaffe.
It is less well-known that Goering was a fighter ace during World War I, where he shot down 22 enemy planes in dogfights. For his valor, he was awarded the highest German military decoration, the “Pour le Mérite”, colloquially known as the “Blue Max” (Blauer Max).
Near the end of the war he was even the leader of the squadron once commanded by Manfred von Richthofen, better known as the “Red Baron”.
At the Nuremberg Trials in 1946, Goering was sentenced to death by hanging. A psychologist measured Goering’s IQ to be 138. The night before he was to be hanged, he committed suicide by taking a cyanide capsule, which he had hidden in a pot of skin creme.
