Goring Born: Nazi Germany's Second-in-Command

He was Hitler's designated successor, a World War I flying ace, the creator of the Gestapo, and the commander of the Luftwaffe. Hermann Goring was born in Rosenheim, Bavaria on January 12, 1893, the son of a colonial administrator. He earned the Pour le Merite as a fighter pilot and took command of the famous Richthofen squadron after the Red Baron's death. After the war, he joined the Nazi Party in 1922 and marched in the Beer Hall Putsch, taking a bullet in the groin. Goring built the Nazi police state. He founded the Gestapo in 1933 as Prussia's secret police force and established the first concentration camps. He ran the Four Year Plan to prepare Germany's economy for war. He created the Luftwaffe from nothing and promised Hitler that his air force would subdue Britain and supply Stalingrad from the air. Both promises failed catastrophically. The Battle of Britain in 1940 was the Luftwaffe's first major defeat, and the airlift to Stalingrad was a logistical disaster that contributed to the loss of an entire army. He looted art from occupied Europe on an industrial scale, amassing one of the largest stolen collections in history, including works by Vermeer, Cranach, and Renoir. His estate at Carinhall became a private museum of plundered masterpieces. Rudolf Hess's bizarre solo flight to Scotland in 1941 to negotiate peace embarrassed the Nazi leadership. By 1944, Goring had fallen so far out of Hitler's favor that when he sent a telegram suggesting he assume leadership as the Reich collapsed, Hitler ordered his arrest for treason. He was captured by American forces, weaned off the morphine addiction he'd maintained for years, and stood trial at Nuremberg. He was sentenced to death. He swallowed a cyanide capsule on October 15, 1946, the night before his scheduled hanging. How he obtained the capsule remains disputed.