HERMANN GÖRING The Rise, Power, and Fall of Hitler's Second-in-Command [#1042239]

HERMANN GÖRING: The Rise, Power, and Fall of Hitler's Second-in-Command
English | October 6, 2026 | ASIN: B0HM3QWTXF | 221 Pages | Epub | 370.75 KB
Hermann Göring was one of the most powerful men in Nazi Germany, but the familiar image of Hitler's second-in-command only reveals part of his role within the Third Reich. A decorated fighter ace of the First World War, commander of the Luftwaffe, president of the Reichstag, and Hitler's designated successor, Göring accumulated authority across military, political, economic, and administrative institutions. By the late 1930s, his influence extended far beyond the air force and into the machinery responsible for Germany's rearmament, industrial production, raw materials, occupied territories, and economic mobilisation.This book follows that expansion of power through the documentary record.Beginning with Göring's early military career and his meeting with Adolf Hitler, the narrative traces his transformation from former fighter pilot and political recruit into one of the central administrators of the Nazi state. It examines the creation of the Luftwaffe, the establishment of the Four Year Plan, the expansion of Reichswerke Hermann Göring, and the growing concentration of economic authority under Göring's control. As Germany expanded into Austria, the Sudeten territories, Czechoslovakia, and eventually occupied Europe, the documentary record reveals how institutions created for German rearmament became instruments of a much larger system of political and economic domination.The same record leads into Göring's personal wealth and the collection assembled at Carinhall, where art and property from across occupied Europe became part of an accumulation system that reflected the reach of his authority. It also leads into the more consequential documentary evidence concerning forced labour, economic persecution, and the persecution of Europe's Jews, including the July 1941 directive to Reinhard Heydrich that became one of the significant documents examined at Nuremberg.As the war turns against Germany, the structures Göring helped build begin to reveal their limitations. The Luftwaffe faces the demands of a prolonged conflict. Industrial facilities and transportation networks come under sustained attack. The economic system struggles under the pressure of war. Carinhall, once an expression of Göring's wealth and position, is evacuated and ultimately destroyed. In the final days of the Third Reich, Göring's attempt to assert his position as Hitler's successor instead contributes to his arrest and removal from power.His career then enters its final stage at Nuremberg.There, the documentary record accumulated throughout his political life becomes evidence against him. Interrogation transcripts, official directives, government records, trial testimony, documentary exhibits, and the findings of the International Military Tribunal reveal the institutions Göring controlled and the decisions associated with his authority. The trial becomes more than the final chapter of a biography. It becomes the place where the record of Göring's rise is assembled, tested, and judged.This is not a biography built around legend, speculation, or retrospective mythology. It is a documentary narrative of how Hermann Göring acquired power, how that power operated through the institutions of Nazi Germany, how it expanded across war and occupation, and how the surviving evidence ultimately followed him into the courtroom at Nuremberg.For readers of WWII biography, Nazi Germany, the Nuremberg Trials, and the history of the Third Reich, this book offers a history built around the documents that survive. The man is familiar. The documentary record deserves closer examination.History deserves evidence before judgment.