Goering, Hermann Wilhelm (1893-1946)

Nazi leader Hermann Goering. Creator of the Luftwaffe and founder of concentration camps and the Gestapo, Goering was found guilty of war crimes at the Nuremberg trials but committed suicide rather than face execution.

Nazi leader, German field marshal from 1938. He was part of Hitler's inner circle, and with Hitler's rise to power was appointed commissioner for aviation from 1933 and built up the Luftwaffe (airforce). He built a vast economic empire in occupied Europe, but later lost favour and was expelled from the party in 1945. Tried at Nürnberg for war crimes, he poisoned himself before he could be executed.

Goering was born in Bavaria. He was a renowned fighter pilot in World War I, and joined the Nazi party in 1922. He was elected to the Reichstag in 1928 and became its president in 1932. He was appointed minister of the interior for Prussia in 1933. This position gave him full control of the police and security forces; he organized the Gestapo and had the first concentration camps built, then handed control to the SS to enable him to concentrate on developing the Luftwaffe. He supervised the four-year economic plan to ready the country for war 1935-39. The Luftwaffe's failure to break the British air defences was a serious blow to his reputation from which he never really recovered, and he retired to his country estate in 1942.