The Nuremberg Interviews (22 page)

I admitted that his remarks were correct except that my desire was to get a picture of him as he really is and was, and not conduct a quiz or examination. I had no desire to trap him or anything of that sort. “Well, I feel freer to talk to you than to some other psychologists. I was only joking about the noose.” I added that it was only natural for him to be curious about me, and that if he wanted to ask any questions he should feel free to do so. I would try to answer them as freely as possible.

“As far as my childhood, I don’t see what importance that has on my adult personality. Maybe it has. That’s your profession and I’m no expert on those matters. But I have been thinking about your repeatedly inquiring as to my boyhood days. I’ve come to the conclusion that there was no difference between myself as a boy and as a man — today even. I believe that the boy had all the markings which later on appeared in the man.”

Was he more like his father, or mother, from a personality standpoint? “People who knew my parents and me often said that my mental abilities were from my father but my temperament and energy come from my mother. One explanation of their differences in personality might be that my father was a northerner and my mother a southerner. The north German is very quiet and constructive. The south German is more lively and artistic. All great statesmen were north German, whereas all the great artists came from the south.

“My father was minister in residence, which was a titled position in the Crown Council. He was formerly a governor of German colonies in Africa. Maybe I’m different from my brothers and sisters because I’m the only child not born in the colonies. Father died when I was twenty, and I was already away from home for many years. I was a young officer at the time. His death was not unexpected as he suffered from diabetes for a few years. He was seventy-four when he died. He was strict and stern but beloved by his subordinates. He was constantly planning and had a constructive, vital mind.”

What about his mother? “She died at sixty-four, ten years after my father’s death. I was more attached to my father for some reason. Mother was very good to the children, but I think I was out of the home so much I lost contact with her. Father never abided by his diet and drank wine
and ate what he pleased right up until the end. My mother was father’s second wife. My father’s first wife came from western Germany.”

His mother did not seem to be a subject he cared to dwell upon. He showed me a large monograph written by a professor at a university, which contained page after page of genealogy of the Goering family tree. The ancestors included princes, queens, and other nobility to as far back as the twelfth century. He said that this research had consumed an inordinate amount of time and that the work had not been solicited, but was a spontaneous production of the professor, who was a specialist in genealogy and heredity.

“I have always been interested in family history. Chromosomes are funny things, aren’t they? They may skip a generation and you can find children who resemble the grandfather, rather than either parent. Heredity is more important than environment. Blood will tell. For example, a man is either musical by heredity or he is not. You can’t make a man musical by the environment. You can find a person who is very musically inclined and be puzzled because neither parents nor grandparents had any ear for music. But if you trace it back, you will find that the great-grandfather was a musician.

“But the environment plays a great part in the development of a man. It is significant whether a man is brought up in the city or in the country, near a lake or on the shores of the ocean.”

I remarked that modern psychologists felt that interpersonal relationships were also an important factor in shaping character. “Oh yes. Also whether you have sisters or brothers or are an only child is important. The human is a product of the environment and heredity.”

This was not the same viewpoint as the Nazis had, was it? They stressed racialism, for example. “If one went along with National Socialism one didn’t have to agree with the twenty-five points of their platform. Some of us were more interested in one point, others in another. Some National Socialists were members for political, others for social, still others for racial reasons.”

Did he consider the race politics of the Nazis an intrinsic matter, or merely incidental? “Not basic at all. Completely irrelevant and incidental. It only became basic or important because a faction of Nazis who were fanatic racial exponents became politically powerful. Men like Rosenberg, Streicher, Himmler, and Goebbels. National Socialism could also have taken a much different course.”

Would he have approved of another course? “Certainly. Many of us in the party were opposed to the sharp racial laws and politics but we were too busy. Political and economic strength are more important than all this racial propaganda. Furthermore, I was never so close to the party. I was more in the state section. Personally I would never have allowed the party to have so much influence on the state. There were two groups. One espoused the theory that the party should rule the state. The second felt that the state should govern the party. I was for the second idea.”

What else had he been thinking concerning his childhood? “I never could paint or draw but from my earliest youth I was an emphatic lover of art. I liked bright colors, such as blue, red, and green. I always preferred strong bright colors. I like all kinds of art except for futuristic stuff, which I strongly dislike. I’m generally very skeptical about modern paintings. Picasso, for instance, nauseates me. Gothic art was my favorite. Perhaps that was the result of my childhood. I was reared in Gothic castles, one near Salzburg, and the family castle near Nuremberg. Fortunately both castles are still standing.”

Did Goering have the same taste in art as Hitler had? “No. Hitler was an absolute opponent of Gothic art. He leaned toward the antique and classical-Romantic. Classic art is more Greek or Renaissance, such as was found in the beginning of the nineteenth century. Hitler liked the classic style with many pillars. He preferred in paintings the work of the nineteenth century, from 1800 to 1900, but he also favored Rembrandt. He disliked Dürer, who is one of my favorites. Whereas Hitler liked Michelangelo and the middle Renaissance artists, I preferred the German masters and the early Italians. Another example of our differences of opinion regarding art — Hitler didn’t like wood carvings but was an enthusiast of bronze or stone. I prefer wood. Hitler was a south German — an Austrian, really — and I was more influenced by my northern German ancestry. In art I preferred the work of the Dutch masters, the Scandinavians, Dürer, and Holbein.”

I remarked that I understood that both he and Hitler were musically inclined. Goering nodded, saying, “Hitler liked Wagner, Mozart, and Verdi as well as Beethoven. He was very musical.” I asked him about his own musical preferences. “Well, I like Wagner too, perhaps because of his heroic themes but also because there are many beautiful lyric passages in his music. However, Hitler disliked the oratorios of Bach and Handel, which I love.” I told him that someone spoke to me about
Hitler’s intolerance of Brahms. “It must have been Funk. The only ones who know anything about music among the defendants are Funk, Schirach, or Frank. I know that Hitler disliked Brahms but personally I was never wild about his music either.

“In my theaters we played the music of all composers regardless of nationality. For example, Tchaikovsky was played in Germany all through the war. The same is true of the playwrights Shakespeare and Shaw. The Führer disliked Brahms, Bach, and Handel. My own favorite composers were first Wagner, because of the majesty of his themes, and next perhaps Mozart and Beethoven. Of course, I liked Haydn and Bach and the lighter music of the two Strausses.” What about modern music? “Ach! I hate jazz, but I do appreciate a few of the modern things, for example, Meyerbeer, Offenbach, and others. I had my State Opera perform
L’Africaine
and
Tales of Hoffmann
for two years. I was in charge of the State Opera in Berlin and two other distinguished theaters. Goebbels was in charge of all other theaters in Germany. Although only one percent were mine, mine were the best.”

I asked him to tell me about Goebbels and his taste in art or music. “He understood some music but I couldn’t go so far as to say that he liked it. He was more interested in the theater. He was a journalist and was most interested in modern plays. It was Goebbels who put the ban on Jewish composers and playwrights in 1935. There was absolutely no sense to this ban and in my theaters I paid no attention to it. In the State Opera in Berlin I had three great conductors, Furtwängler, Leo Blech, who was Jewish, and Richard Strauss. I managed to hold Blech for three years, but then the pressure on me became so great that I had to let him go. I sent him to Stockholm, where he would be safe from the violent fanaticism of Goebbels. The whole situation was difficult because although I could keep such people in my theaters, Goebbels would not accept them as members of the Chamber of Culture. My artists did not have to belong to this organization, but on the other hand they could not play in other theaters or films if they didn’t. According to the official theater laws of the country, my theaters were exempted from any general rules except those I made myself.”

I remarked that I had often heard that the Germans resented the Jews because they had too much influence in business as well as the arts. Did Goering think likewise? “Yes, I guess so. In Berlin Jews controlled almost one hundred percent of the theaters and cinemas before the rise
to power.
²
In the smaller towns throughout Germany this influence was less strongly felt. In America you have perhaps two permanent opera companies, whereas in Germany there were seventy-four opera companies and two hundred and sixty-two permanent theaters. Theatrical life in Germany was much stronger than in America. Each town had a state theater, opera, operetta, and playhouse. For example, right here in Nuremberg there is an opera house, and five kilometers away in Fürth there is another one. In other nearby cities such as Bayreuth and Ansbach there were similar theatrical and musical facilities. All of this cultural development took place in Germany between 1900 and 1930. Nuremberg brought many great players and operas before that pig Streicher became party district administrator of Franconia. If Schirach had been party district administrator, it would have been a different story.”

Goering was obviously enjoying this type of nonobjective discussion which nevertheless omitted any reference to his activities as far as war or politics. He played the role of the savant and great patron of art, music, and the theater. I asked him what his preferences were in the field of literature. He said, “Oh, I like all sorts of good biographies, memoirs, and of course all classical literatures. As far as novels are concerned I don’t have much time for them and I only read mystery stories when I am taking a train trip. It’s interesting that the only mystery writers who achieved any circulation in Germany were English and American. Perhaps French, too. Germany is too orderly a state to produce good criminal literature.” I asked him what happened in the field of literature after the Nazis came to power in 1933. “Hitler was not interested. More criminal stories were published, especially American fiction, than ever before. Even noncriminal fiction from America had a great sale, for example,
Gone with the Wind
and similar best sellers.”

I asked him about his knowledge of philosophy. “I read them all including Kant, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Hegel, and Feuerbach. Of the modern philosophers I read H. S. Chamberlain’s
Foundations of the Nineteenth Century
.
³
As far as philosophers are concerned I can’t read much of their work at one sitting.” Had he ever read Rosenberg? “I didn’t read his books.” I said that I had found no one who admitted having read Rosenberg, yet some of the latter books were circulated by the millions. Did Goering have an explanation for this? “It’s hard to say. Rosenberg has a tremendous knowledge and has read much, but the title of his book is wrong. I told him that in regard to the twentieth century
one can’t write about a myth.
The Foundations of the Nineteenth Century
by Chamberlain might have influenced Rosenberg.

“The first chapter of Rosenberg is so difficult and I became tired of it so fast that I couldn’t concentrate. Besides, Rosenberg never touched the real problem but ran around and skirted it.” I asked whether he thought Rosenberg had much brains. “Rosenberg appears in the wrong light. He isn’t a hard man — he’s too soft — he’s too damned much for a policy of conciliation. The same thing is true of me. You can’t put every word spoken or written in the past twenty-five years on a golden scale such as is being done in this court, words which were spoken perhaps in a fit of temper or at a time of crisis. Rosenberg wanted things to turn out differently. He should have been harder in his policy.”

We discussed the Ministry of the East headed by Rosenberg. Goering said, “In 1936 under Himmler, the whole policy was changed. This blew up the whole damned administration. For example, Rosenberg had the Ministry of the East but he had no executive power. The only one who could actually do anything was Himmler and the SS. All Rosenberg could do was sit back and write memoirs, which you heard in court. The Reich commissioner in the East was also under Rosenberg, but at the same time subject to direct orders from Hitler. Rosenberg could not dismiss his subordinates. They did what they wanted and not what Rosenberg wanted.

“You know Rosenberg. He’s no official. He was an author. I don’t know anybody who can say that he was a friend of Rosenberg’s. He’s the kind of a man who keeps to himself and is hard to understand, or get close to. I heard two cultural speeches he made in Nuremberg and both were excellent. But aside from that I never read anything by Rosenberg except the first chapter of
The Myth of the Twentieth Century
, which as I said put me to sleep. I also never read a work of Streicher or of that stupid journal
Der Stürmer
. I saw only one page of it and that sufficed. That paper was forbidden in my house. The whole administrative district here in Nuremberg was terrible under Streicher and I finally succeeded in dissolving it. The Goering Commission here in Nuremberg which investigated Streicher’s activities was famous. Streicher was not a normal man.