In reviewing the personality and life of the Defendant Göring, the following points must be considered for the appreciation of his actions:
Provided at home with a good educational background and training in character, he was moulded decisively as a young officer and combat airman during the first World War, in which he proved his outstanding worth, receiving the highest award for bravery, the decoration Pour le Mérite. He experienced the collapse of the German war effort as a consequence of, as he saw it, German treachery from within.
After the rule of the Kaiser had been overthrown, the German people wanted to give themselves a new constitution on a democratic basis and then hoped to be able to work their way up again by industry and perseverance. In this, the confidence in the far-sightedness of the victor powers of that time, and especially in the 14 points of Wilson, played a great part. But when the Treaty of Versailles utterly frustrated these hopes, the Weimar democracy fell into a serious crisis from which it was not to recover. This, together with the subsequent world economic crisis, formed the undeniable prerequisite for the fact that Hitler was able to seize power.
First, the “fight against Versailles” made his rise as a Party leader possible. Göring, as a witness, described how he agreed with Hitler at their first meeting that nothing could be achieved by written protests.
The powerlessness of the German democracy had by then become apparent to the entire world. Göring like Hitler was convinced that Germany inevitably must become a victim of Bolshevism unless it was possible to muster against it sufficient defensive strength by the re-establishment of German self-confidence at home. That Germany was also forced to take a firm stand against the Versailles powers was a matter of course. In this Hitler unquestioningly seized upon the fact that Germany belonged to the West—culturally, economically, and also politically. He believed that the Bolshevist danger, which in the first place was directed against Germany, would ultimately also threaten the Western countries. Therefore he was of the opinion that he would be able gradually to gain their recognition and support if he took up the ideological struggle against the East.
From this basic attitude alone is it possible to explain his entire policy until the actual collapse. One may rightly condemn it today as having been a failure from the outset, but one cannot ignore the fact that initially certain things in the development clearly seemed to justify it. And this explains how Hitler succeeded in making an ever-increasing part of the Germans his followers.
Göring firmly believed that salvation could come only through Hitler. He recognized in him the born national leader who knew how to influence and to guide the masses and whose hypnotic willpower shrank before no obstacle. He realized that under a democratic constitution only such a man of demoniacal demagogic talent was able to prevail. And therefore he joined him.
Because Göring was a true and honest German, inspired only by love for the fatherland, he did not even think of using Hitler only as a tool for his own advancement. On the contrary, he took it upon himself from the beginning to recognize in him the man who alone decides, in other words, the Führer, and to be satisfied with a subordinate role. Therefore the famous Air Force captain and holder of the order Pour le Mérite did not hesitate to swear the oath of allegiance to the then still unknown Hitler, an oath which was to hold good for the rest of his life and actually did so. It is tragic that a struggle such as that led by Göring and Hitler could be so completely misunderstood as to be considered from the very outset as a conspiracy for the purpose of committing crimes.
His aim was at first directed towards freeing Germany from the shackles of the Treaty of Versailles. It is true that the Weimar Government had made repeated attempts to be released from the most onerous obligations of this treaty. However, Germany was not successful in her endeavors for a revision. No progress was made by negotiating. Did not international law appear to be only an instrument in the hands of the victors of Versailles to keep Germany down permanently? Was it not still true in the world that might came before right and that the Germans would achieve something only if they had the courage to shake their fists?
Such considerations appear absolutely understandable from the situation of that time. To construe from them a proof for the conspiracy alleged by the Prosecution would mean a complete misunderstanding of the facts. Actually, the development after 1933 seemed at first to prove Hitler completely right. He easily achieved with his methods much more than—if given voluntarily—would have kept the Weimar Government in power.