Hermann Göring's death

[Dan]

On the old board I posted a reply I got from a senior Bayer Chemicals chemist from Germany where he said the poison was HCN.

The official excuse was, as the other poster said, they couldn't find it because it was hid in an intimate place AKA up his butt.

However, the Texan who befriended him, and the German priest both had time to slip him the pill, encased in a cartrige, to him.

The Americans knew he was going to try to commit suicide, and subjected him to several strip searches and changed his rooms often and at random times.

The Americans quickly reduced his drug intake, and he lost weight and gained much of his former sharpness and dignity before the end. They also put his wife and young daughter in jail, presumably as a petty torture.

Dan

[Zapfenstreich]

During his inprisonment Göring, who was indeed very charming, became close friends with a young American Lieutenant from Texas. They had many long conversations together and really became quite fond of one another. Shortly before his scheduled execution, Göring asked the Lieutenant to bring him a small suitcase that was being kept in storage along with all the other prisoners' possessions. Once he was alone Göring, while lying on his bunk, crunched down on a cyanide capsule.

In a note he had left, Goering tried to exonerate the Lieutenant of any blame. He also said that the capsule was hidden inside a jar of cold cream in the suitcase and the American Lieutenant had no idea it was there.

There was no surveillance camera in the room. 'Tweren't no such thing as closed circuit tv in those days. Göring did nothing to draw any attention to himself during this act and they didn't hang his body by the neck after he was found dead.

.....and that's the truth.

Z 8)

[ziggy wiseman]

Anybody has the identity of this american lieutenant?
thanks.

[AndyW]

So what's up now?

Can't we get this straight?

A bullet, a ring, the guard, a pries, Bach-Zelewski

Heck, wasn't there an invistigation an an "official" result?

The fact that he burns in hell is good enough, so maybe we should come to a conclusion for the history books.

[walterkaschner]

The Nuremberg guard who struck up a friendship with Göring was Lt. Jack G. [Tex] Wheelis. Göring gave him several presents and let his picture be taken with him, which Göring inscribed "To a great Texas hunter."

There was a formal investigation of the suicide by a three man US Army investigating board. The Board's report was labeled Top Secret, and neither its details nor Göring's suicide notes were made public at the time. Instead, the Allied Quadripartite Commission issued a one page statement exonerating the prison staff and maintaining that Göring had at all times kept the cyanide capsule in his possession (which Göring in one of his suicide notes stated was in fact the case).

Source: Joseph E Persico, "Nuremberg: Infamy on Trial" Penguin Books 1995 (paperback ed.) passim and at 431-2.

Persico, who had access both to the Board's report and to the suicide notes, concludes that:

"...Göring had conditioned a member of the prison staff, most likely Wheelis, to take items or pieces of luggage from the baggage room for him. And in the last such retrieval, Göring withdrew a hidden capsule. Alternatively, he himself could have been allowed into the baggage room, again most likely by Wheelis, and to have been left there to his own devices. It is harder to believe that any American with access to the baggage room, including Wheelis, would knowingly have retrieved the capsule and have given it to Göring, thus enabling the major surviving war criminal of World War II to thwart justice. To have done so would have been a criminal act risking serious punishment. The character of Wheelis appears capable of foolishness, but not of criminality." id at 446.

Persico admits, however, that "[o]bviously, all hope of incontrovertible truth is lost when the only man in possession of it not only takes his secret to the grave, but releases a cloud of misinformation in his wake." id at 447.

Regards, Kaschner

[ziggy wiseman]

Thanks for the info,Walter!

[Kim]

that Goerings body was brought to the improvised gallows room where the other "War Criminals" were hanged.His corpse was placed there, as the others were killed,{or his body was brought in later,I don't remember}I guess that they brought it there for the "benefit" of the witnesses,to show that he actually was dead.

[Bjorn]

They dragged his body out for the benefit of the Russians who were enraged that he didnt give them the satisfaction of watching him die. If he was hung posthumously (which I never read anything about) it had to be because of something the Russians wanted. We were condemning war criminals, they wanted vengence. Its no wonder we (US and Britain) took control of the proceedings.

[walterkaschner]

There were about 30 witnesses to the executions of the Nuremberg defendants, including several German civil servants who supposedly knew them by sight. One of the latter was Dr. Wilhelm Hoegner, the Minister President of Bavaria. After the hangings were completed the body of Göring was brought in and placed among the other corpses so that his death could also be verified by the witnesses. At this point Hoegner is said to have remarked "The scoundrel. He should have been hanged anyway!" This may be the origin of the rumor, from all accounts totally unfounded, that he had in fact been hanged after his suicide.

Regards, Kaschner

[Momchil Milanov]

[ihoyos]

I did read somewhere, not remember where, that Göring always keep hidden two cyanide capsules, because his overweight, only one capsule is not enought to kill him.
By the end of the trial in Nuremberg he lost about 100 pounds and one dossis is "mortal"

[Dieter Zinke]

I did read somewhere, not remember where, that Goering always keep hidden two cyanide capsules, because his overweight, only one capsule is not enought to kill him.
By the end of the trial in Nuremberg he lost about 100 pounds and one dossis is "mortal"

You should not speculate, or are you an expert in toxicology ??
One dose is enough in any case.
I think this is allowed to say for me being an expert myself.


Oberstab