Goering (51 page)

Jackson also tried to make Milch comment further on a statement he had made under interrogation that Hitler after March 1943 was no longer normal. How, Jackson asked, could Goering consent to serve under an abnormal man? Again Milch sidestepped.

MILCH: The abnormality was not such that one could say, “This man is out of his senses.” . . . I believe that a doctor would be better able to give information on that subject. I talked to medical men about it at the time.

JACKSON: And it was their opinion that he was abnormal?

MILCH: That there was a possibility of abnormality was admitted by a doctor whom I knew well personally. [
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. 281]

Further questions were put to the witness to try to implicate Goering and Milch directly in the use of forced labor recruited from prisoners of war and from the populations that either were developing a partisan movement or were likely to do so once the Allies had landed in France.

The British prosecutor G. D. Roberts brought up the recurrent question of the R.A.F. officers who had escaped from Stalag Luft III at Sagan in March 1944 and had subsequently been shot and their bodies cremated. Milch claimed to have had no knowledge of this matter at the time it happened. So did the next witness, Bernd von Brauchitsch, testifying as Goering's military adjutant.

The next principal witness for Goering's defense was Paul Koerner. Stahmer used his testimony to show that Goering in 1933 dissolved any unauthorized concentration camps that came to his notice, that he stopped the ill-treatment of the Communist leader Thaelmann and that in any case he ceased to control the Gestapo and the camps when Himmler took over in the spring of 1934. Koerner was further questioned on the Roehm purge, the 1938 pogrom and the Four-Year Plan. As before, all this was designed to show Goering's essentially moderate and pacific attitude. Jackson then returned to the attack, but Koerner stuck to his defense of Goering until Jackson suddenly interposed.

JACKSON: You were interrogated at Obersalzberg, the interrogation center, on October 4 of last year by Dr. Kempner of our staff, were you not?

KOERNER: Yes.

JACKSON: You stated, in the beginning of your interrogation, that you would not give any testimony against your former superior, Reich Marshal Goering, and that you regarded Goering as the last big man of the Renaissance, the last great example of a man from the Renaissance period; that he had given you the biggest job of your life and it would be unfaithful and disloyal to give any testimony against him. Is that what you said?

KOERNER: Yes, that is more or less what I said.

JACKSON: And that is still your answer?

KOERNER: Yes.

JACKSON: No further questions. [
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. 19—20]

General Rudenko, who followed Jackson, was scathing about Koerner's negative replies to his questions on the plundering of the occupied territories. Koerner too claimed to know nothing about the concentration camps, as did Kesselring, who followed him into the box. Kesselring was called on to testify to the correctness of the raids on Warsaw, Rotterdam and Coventry as military targets and to the pattern of responsibility within the Luftwaffe, and to give his views about the conduct of the war. Kesselring was of the opinion that Hitler was ready to consider the advice of his generals. Maxwell-Fyfe's cross-examination was in the highest degree damaging to Kesselring, who had been commanding in Italy when the German forces committed atrocities against the Italians.

Goering took his stand in the witness box on the afternoon of March 13. In his cell he had been nervous with anticipation, his hands trembling and the expression on his face strained. He had told Gilbert again that he felt it wrong for him, as one of the heads of a sovereign state, to be brought before a foreign court. However, making careful use of Stahmer's prepared questions, he gave a detailed account of his association with Hitler and the party and of his own contribution, as he saw it, to the seizure of power and the subsequent moves in its consolidation. He made everything sound as plausible and as reasonable as he could, and he spoke ably and with great consciousness of his past authority. He was frank about his belief in the party and showed the pride he felt in the success of his personal efforts to bring it to power.

I wish to say it is correct that I—and I can speak only for myself—did everything which was at all within my personal power to strengthen the National Socialist movement, and to increase it, and have worked unceasingly to bring it to power in all circumstances as the one and only power. I did everything in order to secure the Führer the place as Reich Chancellor which rightfully belonged to him. [
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. 75]

He spoke at great length about the need to eliminate the hostile political parties, to establish a state secret police, and to found detention camps for those who were planning to overthrow the regime in its earliest days. He admitted that there were acts of brutality in these camps, and that unauthorized camps were set up by Karpfenstein, Gauleiter of Pomerania, and by Heines and Ernst, both of whom were associates of Roehm. He dissolved these camps, he claimed, and investigated any acts of brutality which came to his notice in the camps under his direct control.

That evening when he was back in his cell, Goering, like an overwrought actor, was unable to eat; he sat smoking his Bavarian pipe. He was very excited, and worried that he could not keep his hand from shaking. He refused to have the light on, and his mood turned somber as he talked to Gilbert of man as the worst of the beasts of prey, and how war would in future become more and more destructive. The following morning he heard of the death of Blomberg. “A man of honor,” said Goering, turning aside for a moment from a discussion with Stahmer.

When the next session opened, in response to a further question from Stahmer he explained what he meant by the “leadership principle” and the particular need for it in Germany.

I upheld this principle and I still uphold it positively and consciously. One must not make the mistake of forgetting that the political structure in different countries has different origins, different developments. Something which suits one country extremely well would, perhaps, fail completely in another. Germany, through the long centuries of the monarchy, has always had a leadership principle. . . . I am of the opinion that for Germany, particularly at that moment of its lowest existence when it was necessary that all forces be welded together in a positive fashion, the leadership principle, that is, authority from above and responsibility from below, was the only possibility. [
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. 82]

The leadership principle, he added, is the basis of both the Catholic Church and the government of the U.S.S.R.

He then went on to explain why the trade-unions had been dissolved as centers of political disaffection, and that the Roehm faction had been destroyed because it had wanted to use illegal methods of gaining power, whereas Hitler had been determined to use methods that were legal. Men such as Roehm, Heines and Ernst, he said, were plotting to overthrow the Führer.

I knew Roehm very well. I had him brought to me. I put to him openly the things which I had heard. I reminded him of our mutual fight and I asked him unconditionally to keep faith with the Führer. He raised the same arguments as I have just mentioned, but he assured me that of course he was not thinking of undertaking anything against the Führer. Shortly afterward I received further news to the effect that he had close connections with those circles that were strongly opposed to us. [
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. 84]

When the purge that followed led to more deaths than seemed proper, Goering claimed, he interceded with Hitler and urged that the killings be stopped immediately.

In the course of that evening I heard that other people had been shot as well, even some people who had nothing at all to do with this Roehm revolt. The Führer came to Berlin that same evening. I learned this later that evening or night, and went to him at noon the next day and asked him to issue an order immediately that any further execution was, under any circumstances, forbidden by him, although two other people who were very much involved and who had been ordered to be executed were still alive. These people were, in fact, left alive. I asked him to do that because I was worried that the matter would get out of hand, as, in fact, it had already done to some extent, and I told the Führer that under no circumstances should there be any further bloodshed. [
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. 85]

However, he added,

. . . as my final remark on the Roehm putsch I should like to emphasize that I assume full responsibility for the actions taken against those people—Ernst, Heidebrecht and several others—by the order of the Führer, which I executed or passed on, and that, even today, I am of the opinion that I acted absolutely correctly and from a sense of duty. That was confirmed by the Reich President, but no such confirmation was necessary to convince me that here I had averted what was a great danger for the State. [
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. 85]

The examination then turned to his attitude toward the church, where Goering's extraordinary views showed his uncontrolled vanity.

Constitutionally, as Prussian Premier, I was, to be sure, in a certain sense the highest dignitary of the Prussian Church, but I did not concern myself with these matters very much. . . . I am not what you might call a churchgoer, but I have . . . always consciously belonged to the church and have always had these functions over which the church presides—marriage, christening, burial—carried out in my house by the church. My intention thereby was to show those weak-willed persons who, in the midst of this fight of opinions, did not know what they should do that if the second man in the State goes to church . . . then they can do the same. . . . On the whole I should like to say that the Führer himself was not opposed to the church. . . . He said that he did not consider himself to be a church reformer and that he did not wish that any of his political leaders should win laurels in this field. [
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. 25—27]

What Hitler and he were concerned with was to keep church and politics separate, and he opposed in principle the arrest of clergy unless they were violently critical of the regime and took part in political affairs outside the church.

He then turned to the question of the Jews. He made a specious plea that Jewish influence was altogether out of proportion in German cultural and economic life, that the situation was unhealthy and could not be tolerated by patriots. However, he was violently opposed to the pogrom in 1938 and did his best to have this wasteful persecution stopped. He agreed, however, with the fine of one billion marks settled on the Jewish community and accepted full responsibility for promulgating the Nuremberg Laws.

I should like to emphasize that although I received oral and written orders and commands from the Führer to issue and carry out these laws, I assume full responsibility for them. They bear my signature, I issued them, and consequently I am responsible and do not propose to hide in any way behind the Führer's order. [
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. 92]

In the same way, he proudly accepted full responsibility for rebuilding the German Air Farce and, although he was not an economic expert, for rebuilding the German economy. Of the Air Force he said, “I alone was responsible and am responsible, for I was Commander in Chief of the Air Force and Air Minister. I was responsible for the rearmament and building up of the Air Force and its spirit.” [
IX
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. 94] Of his work initially as Commissioner of Raw Materials and Foreign Exchange, he added, “It was decided that in this sphere I, though not an expert, should be the driving power and use my energy. . . . Thus I entered the field of economic leadership.” [
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. 95]

At lunch during the recess, Goering said to Gilbert, “Well, how was it? You cannot say I was cowardly.” He was aware that he had created a good impression among his fellow prisoners. Later that evening in his cell he was relaxed and self-satisfied. “Yes, it is quite a strain,” he said. “And it's all out of memory. You would be surprised how few cue words I have jotted down to guide me.” Once more the cell became the actor's dressing room.

During the afternoon session, Stahmer took him phase by phase through the history and development of his panoramic responsibilities, all of which he naturally presented in a positive light, as part of his unique service to his country. The examination, in spite of Lord Justice Lawrence's pleas for brevity, lasted some four days, including questions put by other defense counsel; the record of it amounts in the transcript of the trial to some 80,000 words, the length of a substantial book. The topics seemed to be presented in no particular order, questions concerning the occupation of the Rhineland being followed by others about the Reich Defense Council and the Research Bureau (which was later to cause Goering difficulties because as a body it was directly associated with grossly inhuman experiments on living people). The cavalier way in which an authoritarian state can be run was revealed in statement after statement in which Goering enjoyed the recollection of his power. Typical of these statements was one in which he described how he and Hitler attempted to save Neurath's face (or, in effect, their own faces) after he had been retired from the Foreign Ministry.