Hermann GoeringHermann Wilhelm Goering (1893-1946) was a World War I ace fighter pilot, recipient of the coveted Pour le Mérite, and early member of the NSDAP. Wounded during the 1923 Putsch attempt, he rose to senior office after 1933, becoming responsible for muc of the functioning of the German economy. Arrested at the end of the Second World War, he said it was his obligation, as the most senior surviving member of the government, to defend Germany at the Nuremberg Trials, and after succeeding in this aim, committed suicide only hours before he would have been hanged. His suicide note, addressed to his Allied captors, read: I would have let you shoot me without further ado! But it is not possible to hang the German Reichsmarschall! I cannot permit this. ... I have no moral obligation to submit to the justice of my enemies. I have therefore chosen the manner of death of the great Hannibal. Read More Read Less