The Reich Marshal: A Biography of Hermann Goering

Of all the leading figures of Hitler's 3rd Reich, Hermann Goering is one of the more interesting if not the most sympathetic. Mosley, an accomplished journalist & biographer with a long list of books to his credit, offers a readable & entertaining biography of Hitler's onetime deputy. This isn't a scholarly work along the lines of the biographies of other Nazi personalities such as Ian Kershaw has done for Hitler, Peter Padfield for Himmler or Ralf Reuth for Goebbels. Don't look for meticulous endnotes or deep analysis. That isn't because Mosely didn't use sources. He did & lists them at the end. He gives a full-length portrait of Goering the man as he was in real life–bigger than life, that was Goering–& while Mosely is sometimes sympathetic, sometimes judgmental, he's honest & in the end he succeeded in capturing the essence of this intriguing & tragic figure. Mosely has one great advantage over other biographers, however: He actually met Goering before the war, was a guest at his estate in E. Prussia & after the war conducted extensive interviews with people who knew the Reichsmarshal intimately his whole life. That sets him apart from other biographers. While I disagree with Mosely's conclusion that his greatest fault was his lack of moral courage to stand up to Hitler, that certainly was a defect in his makeup. But this book proves that Goering had no control over his relationship with Hitler. He, like many others, couldn't stand up to Hitler because he worshipped him. In Goering's particular case, he was totally under the influence of the Fuhrer's charisma & so dependent upon him for so long that in the end it was impossible for him to contradict the dictator. When his god rejected him & then failed him, & Goering knew in the end that Hitler had failed him, there was nothing he could do but accept his fate. Those who condemn Goering because he didn't have the courage to defy his idol haven't been put to that test themselves.