Posted on 10/15/2005 4:47:05 AM PDT by mainepatsfan
This Day In History | World War II
October 15
1946 Herman Goering dies
On this day in 1946, Herman Goering, commander in chief of the Luftwaffe, president of the Reichstag, head of the Gestapo, prime minister of Prussia, chief forester of the Reich, chief liquidator of sequestered estates, supreme head of the National Weather Bureau, and Hitler's designated successor dies by his own hand.
Goering was an early member of the Nazi Party and was wounded in the failed Munich Beer Hall Putsch in 1923. That wound would have long-term effects, as Goering became increasingly addicted to painkillers. Not long after Hitler's accession to power, Goering was instrumental in creating concentration camps for political enemies. Ostentatious and self-indulgent, he changed his uniform five times a day and was notorious for flaunting his decorations, jewelry, and stolen artwork. It was Goering who ordered the purging of German Jews from the economy following the Kristallnacht pogrom in 1938, initiating an "Aryanization" policy that confiscated Jewish property and businesses.
Goering's failure to win the Battle of Britain and prevent the Allied bombing of Germany led to his loss of stature within the Party, aggravated by the low esteem with which he was always held by fellow officers because of his egocentrism and position as Hitler's right-hand man. As the war progressed, he dropped into depressions and continued to battle drug addiction.
When Goering fell into U.S. hands after Germany's surrender, he had in his possession a rich stash of paracodin pills, a morphine derivative. He was tried at Nuremberg and charged with various crimes against humanity. Despite a vigorous attempt at self-acquittal, he was found guilty and sentenced to be hanged, but before he could be executed, he committed suicide by swallowing a cyanide tablet he had hidden from his guards.
Naturally the common people don't want war... but after all it
is the leaders of a country who determine policy, and it is always
a simple matter to drag the people along... All you have to do is
tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for
lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger
A Hermann Goering, 1936
Basil: "Don't mention the war. I mentioned it once, but I think I got away with it. So it's all forgotten now and let's hear no more about it. So that's two egg mayonnaise, a prawn Goebbels, a Herman Goering and four Colditz salads....no, wait a minute...I got confused because everyone keeps mentioning the war."
On the lighter side:
The North Minehead Bye-election from "Monty Python's Flying Circus" and "And
Now for Something Completely Different"
Knock. Door opens.
Landlady (Terry Jones): Hello, Mr and Mrs Johnson?
Mr Johnson (Eric Idle): Yes, that's right. Yes.
Landlady: Oh, come on in. Excuse me not shaking hands, I've just been
putting a bit of lard on the cat's boils. (Door closes)
Johnson: Thank you.
Landlady: Oh, you must be tired. It's a long way from Coventry, isn't it?
Johnson: Well, we usually reckon on five and a half hours and it took us six
hours and 53 minutes, with the 25 minute stop at Frampton Cottrell to
stretch our legs; and we had to wait half an hour to get onto the M5
at Droitwich.
Landlady: Really?
Johnson: Then there was a three mile queue just before Bridgewater on the A38.
We usually come round on the B3339, you see, just before Bridgewater.
Landlady: Yeah. Really?
Johnson: We decided to risk it 'cause they always say they're going to widen
it there. Yes, well just by the intersection there where the A372
joins up. There's plenty of room to widen it there, there's only
grass verges. They could get another six feet, knock down that
hospital. Then we took the coast road through Williton - we got all
the Taunton traffic on the A358 from Crowcombe and Stogumber.
Landlady: Well you must be dying for a cup of tea.
Johnson: Well, wouldn't say no, long as it's warm and wet.
Landlady: Well come on in the lounge, I'm just going to serve afternoon
tea.
Johnson: Very nice.
Landlady: Come on in, Mr and Mrs Johnson and meet Mr and Mrs Phillips.
Mr Phillips (Graham Chapman): Good afternoon.
Johnson: Good afternoon.
Landlady: It's their third time here; we can't keep you away, can we?
And over there is Mr Hilter.
(In the corner are three German generals in full Nazi uniform, poring over a
map.)
Hilter (Cleese with heavy German accent): Ach. Ha! Gut time, er, gut afternoon.
Landlady: Oho, planning a little excursion, eh, Mr Hilter?
Hilter: Ja, ja, ve haff a little... (to Palin) was ist Abweise bewegen?
Bimmler (Michael Palin, also with German accent): Hiking.
Hilter: Ah yes, ve make a little *hike* for Bideford.
Johnson: Ah yes. Well, you'll want the A39. Oh, no, you've got the wrong map
there. This is Stalingrad. You want the Ilfracombe and Barnstaple
section.
Hilter: Ah! Stalingrad! Ha ha ha, Heinri...Reginald, you have the wrong map
here you silly old leg-before-vicket English person.
Bimmler: I'm sorry mein Fuhrer, mein (cough) mein Dickie old chum.
Landlady: Oh, lucky Mr Johnson pointed that out. You wouldn't have had much
fun in Stalingrad, would you? Ha ha.
(stony silence)
I said, you wouldn't have had much fun in Stalingrad, would you?
Hilter: Not much fun in Stalingrad, no.
Landlady: Oh I'm sorry. I didn't introduce you. This is Ron. Ron Vibbentrop.
Johnson: Oh, not Von Ribbentrop, eh?
Vibbentrop (Graham Chapman, with German Accent): Nein! Nein! Oh. Ha ha.
Different other chap. I in Somerset am being born. Von Ribbentrop is born
Gotterdammerstrasse 46, Dusseldorf Vest 8.....so they say!
Landlady: And this is the quiet one, Heinrich Bimmler.
Bimmler: Pleased to meet you, squire. I also am not of Minehead being born
but I in your Peterborough Lincolnshire was given birth to. But am
staying in Peterborough Lincolnshire house all time during vor, due
to jolly old running sores, and vos unable to go in the streets or to
go visit football matches or go to Nuremburg. Ha ha. Am retired
vindow cleaner and pacifist, without doing war crimes. Oh...and am
glad England vin Vorld Cup. Bobby Charlton. Martin Peters. And
eating I am lots of chips and fish and hole in the toads and Dundee
cakes on Piccadilly Line, don't you know old chap, vot! And I vos
head of Gestapo for ten years.
(Hilter elbows him in the ribs)
Ah! Five years!
(Hilter elbows him again, harder)
Nein! No! Oh. NOT head of Gestapo AT ALL! I was not, I make joke!
(laughs)
Landlady: Oh, Mr Bimmler. You do have us on! (Telephone rings) Oh excuse me.
I'd better get that.
Johnson: How long are you down here for, Mr Hilter, just the fortnight?
Hilter: Vot you ask that for, are you a spy? Get on against the wall,
Britischer Pig, you are going to die!
Bimmler: Take it easy, Dickie old chum!
Vibbentrop: He's a bit on edge, Mr Johnson, he hasn't slept since 1945.
Hilter: Shut your cake-hole, you Nazi!
Vibbentrop: Cool it, Fuhrer cat!
Bimmler: Ha ha, the fun we have!
Johnson: Haven't I seen you on the television?
Hilter, Vibbentrop, Bimmler: (hastily) Nicht. Nein. No.
Johnson: Simon Dee show, or was it Frosty?
Hilter, Vibbentrop, Bimmler: Nein. No.
Landlady: Telephone, Mr Hilter. It's Mr McGoering from the Bell and
Compasses. He says he's found a place where you can hire bombers by
the hour...?
Hilter: If he opens his big mouth again, it's Lapschig time!
Bimmler: Shut up! Ha ha, hire bombers! He's a joker, that Scottish person.
Vibbentrop: Good old Norman!
Landlady (to Johnson): He's on the phone the whole time now.
Johnson: In business, is he?
Bimmler: Soon, baby!
Landlady: Of course it's his big day Thursday. They've been planning it for
months.
Johnson: What's happening Thursday then?
Landlady: Well it's the North Minehead bye-election. Mr Hilter's standing as
the National Bocialist. He's got wonderful plans for Minehead!
Johnson: Like what?
Landlady: Well, for a start he wants to annex Poland.
Johnson: North Minehead's Conservative, isn't it?
Landlady: Well, yes, he gets a lot of people at his rallies.
(Short scene cut: huge crowds outside going "Sieg Heil. Sieg Heil. Sieg Heil.")
Hilter: I am not a racialist, but...and dis is a big but...the National
Bocialist party says that das (stream of German).
Bimmler: Mr Hitler (Hilter slaps him)
...Hilter says historically Taunton is a part of Minehead already!
Hilter: Und der Minehead ist nicht die letze (stream of German)...in die
Welt!
Crowd: Sieg Heil.
( Cut to interviews on the street: )
Yokel (Jones): Oi don't loike the sound of these 'ere Boncentration Bamps.
Woman (Idle): Well, I gave him my baby to kiss, and he bit it in the head!
Upper class (Cleese): Well, I think he'd do a lot of good to the Stock
Exchange.
Gumby (Palin): I THINK HE'S GOT BEAUTIFUL LEGS!
Conservative (Chapman): (droning) Well... well... as the Conservative
candidate I just drone on and on and on and on without
letting anyone else get a word in edgeways, until I
start to froth at the mouth and fall over backwards.
Ooo-aaahhh. (THUD)
A fascinating portrayal of Goering's last year can be found in the 2000 miniseries "Nuremberg". Goering is played by the superb character actor Brian Cox, who completely steals the show out from under it's ostensible star Alec Baldwin. Highly recommended for Cox's performance, even though you will have to put up with Baldwin to see it.
Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. Long read, informative.
Probably just those who could expose the Hitler and Goering as homosexuals and pedophiles...
There is nothing in the record, that I'm aware of, that justifies that statement; Goering was famously fond of his first wife, a gorgeous Swedish dingbat. Perhaps you're confusing him with Roehm?
Goering's suicide is a strange story. The poison was brought to him by a US Army MP whom he had befriended and the Russians insisted on an autopsy in part because they thought that the Americans might be trying to smuggle Goering out of the country in exchange for hidden Nazi secrets.
You're getting your Nazis confused.
The homosexual pedophile was Ernst Roehm leader of the SA (Sturm Abteilung). aka Stormtroopers, Brownshirts
Executed: 1 Jul, 1934; shot by SS-Brigf. Theodor Eicke and/or SS-Stubaf. Michael Lippert at Stadelheim Prison, München (Munich), part of the Night of the Long Knives purge
Shirer really didn't like nazis; I think his dislike sometimes affected his judgement and made him see character defects that weren't there. Not that there was much to admire about that lot, but even evil can be libeled.
Coward.
It's a good thing the Germans didn't have a competent commander in chief, especially during WW II.
Goering was not really "head of the Gestapo".
From 1934 on the Gestapo was under the direct control of the SS (Schutzstaffel) - as we know led that was led by Himmler. Himmler then turned the Gestapo over to Reinhard Heydrich 1936 with Heinrich Mueller in charge of operations.
Heydrich was eventually assassinated but Mueller was never captured. To my knowledge he remains free (or has died of old age)
I think the National Socialists had their NAZIs confused.
It very well may have been the case as you say. It really matters little...
Consider the Gaystopo of today... history repeats... pink swastikas... peas in a pod...
My judgement is not affected. Goering was the Rip Taylor, the Freddy Mercury of the NAZIs.
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Not that there was much to admire about that lot, but even evil can be libeled.
But the authors of such “evil,” as you say, cannot be...
Even the so-called “scientists” of the Third Reich had a sadomasochistic sexual charge from the misery they caused both adults and children in their ghoulish experimentation. Goering was no different...
"Hilter: Not much fun in Stalingrad, no. "
Boy I miss that show - come to think of it I miss the 70's.
Anyways, re: nazi homos, etc - lets not forget that the Nazis amassed their power base after news of the genocide of 500,000 mennonites in Ukraine by Stalin hit the Berlin newstands in 1931-32.
http://64.233.161.104/search?q=cache:j9FGd_hwQ1oJ:www.artukraine.com/famineart/germans.htm+ronald++vossler&hl=en&ie=UTF-8
http://www.lietuvos.net/istorija/communism/
Nah, not necessarily.
The true 'Liberal' (pinko-commie subversive puke) loves WWII, but will pooh-pooh our involvement and praise the glorious victories of Stalin's brave troops; i.e.:
The Battle of the Bulge - hogwash, a minor skirmish.
Stalingrad - Now there was a brave and glorious effort!
For what its worth - IMO Patton was right. We should have kept right on rolling.
I'd get my wife to read it but she only speaks it and my Father In Law, born near Vilnius (or was it Kaunus?), passed away.
(are you a Lugan by chance?)
i.e., mud
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