Hermann

Hermann Wilhelm Göring (also Goering in English) (January 12, 1893 – October 15, 1946) was a German politician and military leader, a leading member of the Nazi Party, second in command of the Third Reich, and commander of the Luftwaffe. more...

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He was tried for war crimes and crimes against humanity at the Nuremberg Trials in 1945-1946 and sentenced to death by hanging, however, he escaped the hangman's noose around two hours before his scheduled execution by way of potassium cyanide. He was of aristocratic heritage and a war hero of World War I, having won the coveted Pour le Mérite.

Early life/Ritter von Epenstein

Born in the sanatorium Marienbad, near Rosenheim, Bavaria, Göring was the son of Heinrich Ernst Göring (October 31, 1839 – December 7, 1913) and Franziska "Fanny" Tiefenbrunn (died August 1923). The Göring family was of mixed Roman Catholic-Protestant ancestry. His father was a professional soldier who under Otto von Bismarck rose to be the first governor of German West Africa. Göring was one of five children, his brothers were Albert Göring and Karl Ernst Göring, his sisters were Olga Therese Sophia and Paula Elisabeth Rosa Göring.

Göring later claimed his given name was chosen to honor the Arminius who defeated the legions of Rome at Teutoburg Forest, but the name was far more likely chosen to honor his godfather, a very wealthy physician and businessman born Hermann Eppenstein who was to be a major if not paternal influence on Göring's childhood. Much of Hermann's very early childhood, including a lengthy separation from his parents when his father took diplomatic posts in Africa and in Haiti (climates ruled too brutal for a young European child), was spent with governesses and with distant relatives. However, upon Heinrich Göring's retirement ca. 1898 his large family, supported solely on Heinrich's modest civil service pension, became for financially practical reasons the houseguests of their longtime friend and Göring's probable namesake, a man whose minor title (acquired through service and donation to the Crown) made him now known as Hermann, Ritter von Eppenstein.

As with many social climbers and nouveau riche businessmen of the time, Ritter von Eppenstein sought the trappings of German aristocracy as well as the titles. He acquired this in part through the purchase of two largely dilapidated castles, Burg Veldenstein in Bavaria and Schloss Mauterndorf near Salzburg, Austria, whose very expensive restorations were ongoing by the time of Hermann Göring's birth. Both castles were to be residences to the Göring family, their official "caretakers" until 1913, and both were to be tremendous influences on Göring's childhood and fascination with the military and romanticized notions of history. Both castles were also ultimately to be his property.

According to respected biographers of both Hermann Göring and his younger brother Albert Göring, soon after the family took residence in his castles von Eppenstein began an adulterous relationship with Frau Göring that may in fact have resulted in Albert's birth. (Albert's physical resemblance to von Epenstein was noted even during his childhood and is even evident to the casual observer in photographs.) Whatever the nature of von Epenstein's relationship with his mother, the young Hermann Göring enjoyed a particularly close relationship with his godfather. Though not enthusiastically religious by any standard and perhaps even a convert to Christianity, von Epenstein was of Jewish birth and ancestry, a fact which young Göring was unaware of until as a child at a prestigious Austrian boarding school (where his tuition was paid by von Epstein) he wrote an essay in praise of his godfather and was mocked by the school's anti-Semitic headmaster for professing such admiration for a Jew. Göring initially denied the allegation but when confronted with proof in a book of German heraldry (Ritter von Epenstein had purchased his minor title and castles with wealth garnered from speculation and trade and was thus included in a less than complimentary reference work on German speaking nobility) Göring to his youthful credit remained steadfast in his devotion to his family's friend and patron, so adamantly so that he was expelled from the school. The action seems to have tightened the already considerable bond between godfather and godson.

Read more at Wikipedia.org