A Luftwaffe chief who organized Nazi war and plunder
In August 1940, redirecting the air offensive toward London and civilian cities gave the RAF time to recover.
Hermann Göring rose from a First World War fighter ace to a central power-holder in Nazi Germany and commander-in-chief of the Luftwaffe. He helped build dictatorship and the machinery of aggressive war by directing the Prussian police, the creation of the Gestapo, rearmament, and wartime economic mobilization. During the Battle of Britain in 1940, he overestimated the Luftwaffe and was involved in shifting attacks from the RAF's struggling airfields and fighter defences toward British cities, giving Fighter Command time to recover. After the war, the Nuremberg Tribunal condemned him as a major war criminal, and he committed suicide on the eve of his execution.
Career Timeline
- 1918Commander of Jagdgeschwader 1
- 1923Supreme commander of the SA
- 1932–1945President of the Reichstag
- 1933–1945Minister-President of Prussia
- 1935–1945Commander-in-chief of the Luftwaffe
- 1936–1945Plenipotentiary of the Four Year Plan
- 1940–1945Reich Marshal