Goering by Roger Manvell Read Free Book Online Page B

needed little persuasion either at the university, where he was a desultory student, or elsewhere to express himself violently against the Weimar Republic and to attend nationalist meetings at which the government was vilified. There was also the Treaty of Versailles, which rankled in his mind as a national disgrace. Germany since the war had passed through a period of crisis, revolution and economic collapse, all due to the vindictive hatred of her enemies and the weakness and treachery of her own government. So thought Goering.
    The period during which Goering had been flying in Scandinavia was that in which Adolf Hitler had been developing his Nazi Party, the N.S.D.A.P. (Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei—National Socialist German Workers’ Party). By 1922, when Goering met him for the first time, Hitler had established the S.A. (Sturmabteilung), his force of storm troopers, who were used as hall guards at his political meetings and to provoke disturbances at the meetings of other parties. His base was Munich. The Bavarian state government was tolerant and weak; it should have taken action to disband these troublemakers as the old postwar Freikorps were disbanded. But the attacks made by the storm troopers on the Communists were not unwelcome to the Bavarian government; pitched battles were regular occurrences in the streets. No one living in Munich could be unaware of Hitler by 1922.
    During Goering’s defense at the Nuremberg trial he was to give this account of how he and Hitler met in the autumn of that year. 10

    One day, on a Sunday in November or October of 1922, the demand for the extradition of our military leaders was again placed in the foreground on the occasion of a protest demonstration in Munich. I went to this protest demonstration as a spectator, without having any connection with it. Various speakers from parties and organizations spoke there. At the end Hitler too was called for. I had heard his name briefly mentioned once before and wanted to hear what he had to say. He declined to speak, and it was pure coincidence that I stood nearby and heard the reasons for his refusal. . . . He considered it senseless to launch protests with no weight behind them. This made a deep impression on me; I was of the same opinion.
    I inquired and found that . . . he held a meeting every Monday evening. I went there, and Hitler spoke about that demonstration, about Versailles . . . and the repudiation of that treaty. He said that . . . a protest is successful only if backed by power to give it weight. As long as Germany had not become strong, this kind of thing was to no purpose. The conviction was spoken word for word as if from my own soul.
    On one of the following days I went to the business office of the N.S.D.A.P. . . . I just wanted to speak to him at first to see if I could assist him in any way. He received me at once and after I had introduced myself he said it was an extraordinary turn of fate that we should meet. We spoke at once about the things which were close to our hearts—the defeat of our Fatherland . . . , Versailles. I told him that I myself, to the fullest extent, and all I was and possessed were completely at his disposal for this, in my opinion, most essential and decisive matter: the fight against the Treaty of Versailles.

    Hitler spoke at length about his program and then offered Goering a position in the Nazi Party.
    He had long been on the lookout for a leader who had distinguished himself in some way in the last war . . . so that he would have the necessary authority. . . . Now it seemed to him a stroke of luck that I in particular, the last commander of the Richthofen squadron, should place myself at his disposal. I told him that it would not be so very pleasant for me to have a leading office from the very beginning, since it might appear that I had come merely because of this position. We finally reached an agreement: For one or two months I was to remain