Goering was born in Rosenheim, Bavaria the son of a wealthy family. In World War I he distinguished himself as a fighter pilot and commander of a renowned fighter squadron. He joined the Nazi party in 1922, was appointed commander of the SA (Sturmabteilung; Storm Troopers), and in November 192took part in the abortive Nazi putsch in Munich, in which he was wounded. In 1928, Goering was elected to the Reichstag on the Nazi ticket; he was elected Reichstag speaker in 1932. When Adolf Hitler came to power, Goering was appointed minister without portfolio, and then commissioner of aviation and Prussian minister of the interior. In April 1933 he became Prime Minister of Prussia and was one of the men responsible for the creation of the Gestapo. In the minds of many people, Goering was regarded as being behind the plot to burn down the Reichstag, in February 1933. In June 1934 he played a major role, together with Heinrich Himmler, in the liquidation of the SA leader Ernst Roehm and his cohorts. Goering was appointed commander of the German air force (the Luftwaffe) in January 1935; this was followed by his promotion to Reichsmarschall. In 1936 he was put in charge of the four-year plan and given dictatorial powers in the economic sphere. From August 1939 Goering chaired the ministerial Reich Defence Council (Reichsverteidigungsrat), and on September 1, 1939, when war broke out, Hitler appointed him to be his successor. As the person in charge of the country's economy, Goering was responsible for the confiscation of Jewish property in 1937. Following the Kristallnacht pogroms, Hitler put him in charge of the "Jewish question," and Goering lost no time in accelerating the plundering of the Jews, imposing on them a collective fine of a billion Reichsmarks. On January 24, 1939, he issued orders for the establishment of the Zentralstelle fuer juedische Auswanderung (Central Office for Jewish Emigration), on the model of Eichmann's operations in this sphere in Vienna. When Poland was occupied, Goering became involved in the expulsion of Jews from the western parts of Poland that were annexed to the Reich, and he set up the Haupttreuhandstelle ost (Main Trusteeship Office East), to take charge of and administer confiscated Jewish property. On July 31, 1941, Goering ordered Reinhard Heydrich to "carry out all necessary preparations with regard to the Jewish question in the German sphere of influence in Europe." In the opinion of many scholars, this order was the first important document that set the "final solution" in motion, and it establishes Goering's share in the responsibility for the extermination of the Jews of Europe. As a result of the failures of the Luftwaffe in the Battle of Britain (1940-1941), its weak performance on the Soviet front, and its inability to defend Germany's skies, relations between Hitler and Goering soured. In the last few days of the Nazi regime, Goering lost whatever standing he had left, and was dismissed from all his posts and from the party; Hitler appointed Adm. Karl Donitz in his place. Goering was arrested by the Allies and was one of the defendants in the trial of major war criminals by the International Military Tribunal (the Nuremberg trial). He was sentenced to death, but on October 15, 1946, the eve of his scheduled execution, he poisoned himself in his prison cell.
