The Nuremberg Interviews (24 page)

I remarked that some of his own anti-Semitic utterances had been read in court, and I wondered whether he considered them as indicative of political ideology or a personal anti-Semitic attitude of his own. He replied with serious demeanor, “I was very upset about it at the time when I made that speech which was brought out here in court. The speech was made after a conversation with Goebbels. There were only
six or seven ministers present. I was very aroused because Goebbels had told Hitler that I was protecting the Jews. After that I was ordered to execute various plans. That was all my speech indicated. At that, the only passages which were read in court were those which are damaging to me. The good passages were omitted — for example, where I said that one can’t let Jews starve. That was not read in court. The general anti-Semitic feeling had to be maintained by everyone. That was an order by Hitler.

“You must conceive, too, that the blame for the anti-Semitic reaction in Germany was not entirely due to Nazi propaganda or the Nazis themselves as a party, despite the fact that I blame Goebbels for the atrocities. Before 1933 there is some blame to be attached to the Jews themselves. They used rather impolite words against me personally, for example. Before 1933 there was a wild battle. My words are very tame compared to what the Jews said about us. They issued tremendous lies, nasty words, and slander.”

Did Goering mean that the Jews brought on anti-Semitism and the subsequent extermination by their own actions? Goering said blandly, “No, but I mean it was a fight. At first I didn’t take the anti-Nazi movement in the Jewish press seriously, but when we saw that the movement gained and became dangerous, we used other words. It was not my nature to torture or exterminate people. I am a practical man and I am hard enough to countenance things like reprisals if they are justified. But mass murder of innocent people such as the extermination of the Jews is unjustifiable.”

I asked him whether in his early life he was anti-Semitic. “No, no. I was never anti-Semitic. Anti-Semitism played no part in my life. If it were on the basis of anti-Semitism I would never have been interested in the Nazi movement. The thing which attracted me to the party was the political program. I mean the creating of a greater Germany and the abolition of the Versailles Treaty. Of course, if one joined the Nazi Party one had to adopt all the points of the party more or less, including anti-Semitism.

“I suppose you will ask me why I didn’t object to the atrocities or to anti-Semitism. The answer is complex. The feeling in Germany at the time was such that perhaps Hitler had to carry an anti-Semitic platform in order to be successful. I admit that if he had not handled the question so primitively, much of our foreign policy would have been more successful.
I warned him frequently about this. I never had any feeling of hatred toward the Jews. I realize that it looks stupid — that it is hard to understand how a person like myself who made anti-Semitic speeches and who participated as number two man in a regime that exterminated 5 million Jews can say that he was not anti-Semitic. But it is true. I would never have made this policy. I would have gone in a much different direction and in a quieter way. I have two documents to prove this — but it is embarrassing to bring up these things now — I just wanted to mention it to you. There is no particular point in my bringing these two documents into court because there are so many other things in the hands of the prosecution which can be interpreted as anti-Semitic.” He seemed to be waiting for me to ask him about these two documents and I did so. “Well, one of these documents was to the effect that the laws about mixed marriages should be toned down and postponed. You must see these documents in the light of the tense atmosphere which existed at the time. You can realize that they had a quieting influence on the violent anti-Semitism of Goebbels and the party in general. Of course, if you see it outside of this tense atmosphere, then this document, too, can be considered as a special law against the Jews.”

I remarked that it was said that he had helped various Jews and prevented some individual persecutions. Could he tell me more about this? “Whenever Jews applied to me for help, I did so. Of course, these were people whom I knew before, and their friends and relatives.” Do you think that Jewish people were just as loyal to their country as other Germans? “Yes. In all, the Jews were unified, but that they were loyal Germans, I believed to be true. I made a proposal, for example, that Jews who had received the Iron Cross in the First World War should be exempted from the anti-Semitic laws. I made other proposals, as for example that Jews who had been living in Germany for a hundred years or more should be exempted, but these proposals were all rejected.”

What about Goebbels — what was his attitude? “Goebbels thought that the Jews were different, or at least that’s what he claimed. I don’t know what he really thought inside because he was such a liar. My contact with Hitler during those years was strong politically. But Goebbels had a strong personal contact. The difference in relationship with Hitler between Goebbels and myself was that I talked over things in conferences with Hitler. But Hitler would spend whole evenings with Goebbels and his family. His personal contact with Goebbels was great
and he was probably more influenced by that clubfooted fanatic politically than I realized.”

I remarked that it seemed to me that his attitude toward Hitler was quite different in reality, or at least in our private conversations, than it seemed to be from his testimony in court during his defense. Goering said, “The main line of my defense was that as a loyal German and a follower of Hitler, I accepted orders as orders. Secondly, as the most important figure in Germany next to the Führer, I had to assume responsibility, but I drew the line at accepting the blame for the ungentlemanly acts and the atrocities which I believe Goebbels and Himmler committed. Regarding orders, I am not a fanatic either. For example, if the subordinates of Himmler had come to me and told me of the dirty work that was going on, I might have been able to do something about it. Or they could have resigned and have asked to be sent to the front. But none of Himmler’s subordinates ever came to me, and as far as I knew, atrocities did not exist. I am a man who is basically opposed to atrocities or ungentlemanly actions. In 1934 I promulgated a law against vivisection. You can see, therefore, that if I disapprove of the experimentation on animals, how could I possibly be in favor of torturing humans? The prosecution says that I had something to do with the freezing experiments which were performed in the concentration camps under the auspices of the air force. That is pure
Quatsch!
I was much too busy to know about these medical experiments, and if anybody had asked me, I would have disapproved violently. It must have been Himmler who thought up these stupid experiments, although I think he shirked his responsibility by committing suicide. I am not too unhappy about it because I would not particularly enjoy sitting on the same bench with him. The same is true of that drunken Robert Ley, who did us a favor by hanging himself before the trial started. He was not going to be any advantage for us defendants when he took the stand.”

Goering was in his cell all day today, suffering from a mild sciatica of the right lower extremity, which has kept him out of court for a few days. It was perhaps significant that this attack began simultaneously with the end of Raeder’s case and the beginning of Schirach’s defense. The sciatica itself seems minimal. Of his own complaints, Goering said: “It’s worse because of this weather. Besides, the sitting upright in the court all day is so wearing.” It was true that within the last few weeks Goering
had suffered a distinct personality change in the sense of his being rather depressed, although not despondent or overtly brooding. Rather, he showed little interest in the proceedings in court, barely spoke to his neighbors; occasionally when Ribbentrop, who sat next to him, would say something, Goering did not answer.

He seemed glad to talk, but wary of saying too much or too little. His old technique, which he utilized effectively in the course of his cross-examination — to answer one question by averting it or scarcely paying attention to it, but speak at length on questions he believed favorable and to which he had a reasonable response — was still in evidence, but he was less alert or seemed to care less. His attitude was a combination of cheerfulness and indifference, particularly regarding some of the questions I put to him, which he found disagreeable last time I visited him for any length of time.

I said that I had read a biography of him, and also the short autobiography which he wrote when he first came to the prison, a copy of which existed in the prison safe. He smiled and shook his head, saying carelessly, “All
Quatsch
. Nobody knows the real Goering. I am a man of many parts, but the autobiography, what does that tell you? Nothing. And those books put out by the party press, they are less than useless.” I replied that I should like to find the “real Goering” from a psychologically valid standpoint and that was the reason for my asking him questions which at some points might be disagreeable. I reminded him that his defense was over and that nothing which I wrote had any bearing on his case, nor was it accessible to the prosecution.

Goering scoffed, good-humoredly. “Like Gilbert, he is a psychologist, too. But the difference between a psychiatrist and a psychologist seems to be very marked.” I asked him what he meant by this remark. He said that he meant there must be a great difference between the fields of psychology and psychiatry. The former, in Goering’s opinion, had to do with “books” and the latter with “human beings.” I told him that in my own view the differences were not great except that a psychiatrist has a medical degree and a psychologist a degree in psychology, but both were concerned with human reactions. He scoffed, laughed, and said, “You Americans must stick together, eh?” I knew that Gilbert, the psychologist, had been on rather strained terms with Goering for the past few weeks, so I said nothing except to remark that individual methods of understanding people varied.

We talked of many things. He liked to have free rein and not to be
pinned down to any particular subject. In general I tried to steer him in an autobiographical direction. He said that he was born in Rosenheim in 1893 in a nursing home. His father’s family came from the Rhineland and Westphalia. His mother’s people stemmed from the Tirol and Bavaria. “I had a very happy childhood.”

He spoke without sentimentality but with some affection for his old home and childhood associations. “My father was a high diplomatic official, very renowned, a lively-spirited man who loved hunting, fencing, and riding. He was mentally superior and a good conversationalist. When Father died, I was twenty. He had diabetes for two or three years. He refused to diet or take precautions — he loved to live actively and did so until the end. He did not have a gray hair in his head — he was as blond as a young man.”

Goering’s mother died when he was thirty. She was about twenty years her husband’s junior, his second wife. “She was very clever, sparkling, but like all women, without any logic or reasoning power. I think that women are wonderful but I’ve never met one yet who didn’t show more feeling than logic. Do you agree with that as a psychiatrist?” I remarked that there were differences of opinion on the subject, but that I should be interested in hearing more of his parents and childhood.

“Well, I don’t like women who have strong wills and are too logical. Mother was all feeling and no reasoning. I don’t mean she was unreasonable — far from it. But not like my father, who was cool and logical. My own energy and love of life I inherit from my mother, but my physical appearance and mental structure are from my father.

“Father was very ambitious, full of talent. He was governor general of German Southwest Africa for a while, as minister in residence.”

His father married twice. His first wife died. Goering had three half brothers and one half sister. He had also two full brothers and two full sisters. He had little or no contact with his siblings, he said, because “the difference in ages was so great, and besides the children all lived outside the family when I was a child.” He seemed loath to pursue the story of his siblings now, or of his relationship to them.

He mentioned that his father had a “great sense of humor.” What about himself? “If I didn’t have a sense of humor, how could I stand this trial now?” He smiled as if to prove it. I asked him about Hitler. Did he have a sense of humor? “I can’t say about that after 1941 or 1942. I didn’t see him often enough to know. He no longer did what I wanted
him to do.” But did Hitler have a sense of humor? “Oh, yes. In a way. I wouldn’t call it overwhelming, but he made jokes and laughed at them. Seriously, he did appreciate a good story, but as time went on he told most of the stories himself and tended to repeat them too often.” Goering seemed to resent his own statements deprecating the Führer. He added, slightly irritably, with the smile gone from his face, “But Hitler and his sense of humor is of little importance. He was a genius.”

I remarked that I was much more interested in Goering than in Hitler at this time, and I agreed that Hitler’s possessing a sense of humor or being devoid of one was of slight import. Goering continued to glare at his knees, sitting upright, his attention fixed for the moment on my words as Mr. Triest translated them literally. “Let me explain the difference between me and Hitler. In one word. The German people called him ‘my Führer.’ They addressed me as ‘Hermann.’ I was always closer to the hearts of the people than Hitler, but he was a great leader and I subscribe to his program completely. Naturally there are differences, which I am trying to get across to you and to the world, in that Hitler was a great man who was betrayed by some of his subordinates like Goebbels. Finally Hitler didn’t know his real friends from his false ones. But it was a great betrayal. The National Socialist program, in which I played no mean part, was a great reform movement which would have benefited Germany if the enemies of Hitler had not betrayed him.”