Views of WW2 from the vanquished (rather than the victors)

On August 12, 1945, Göring was put in a cell, along with other 3rd Reich leaders, in the bombed ruins of Nuremberg. He lost a lot of weight in the prison, partly due to having to withdraw from his dependence on painkillers On November 20, he was charged by Russia, America and Britain with crimes under four hypocritical headings:
— the conspiracy to initiate war,
— crimes against peace,
— war crimes,
— crimes against humanity.
The prisoner psychiatrists at Nuremberg described Göring as highly intellgent, charming, persuasive and imaginative.

Göring defended himself, Hitler and the Third Reich courageously and brilliantly.
He was an impressive figure in the witness box and his confident and defiant testimony, broadcast throughout occupied Germany by the Allies, lifted spirits in many parts of Germany as the people heard Hermann Göring refusing to be intimidated and exposing the hypocrisy of the Aliies.

Previous to his move to Nuremburg, on July 25, 1945, Göring had been interviewed by Major Kenneth W. Hechler of the U.S. Army Europe’s Historical Division, with Captain Herbert R. Sensenig serving as translator.
Here are some excerpts:

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Hechler: Why did Germany declare war on the United States?

Göring: I was astonished when Germany declared war on the United States. We should rather have accepted a certain amount of unpleasant incidents. It was clear to us that if Roosevelt were reelected, the U.S. would inevitably make war against us. This conviction was strongly held, especially with Hitler. After Pearl Harbor, although we were not bound under our treaty with Japan to come to its aid since Japan had been the aggressor, Hitler said we were in effect at war already, with ships having been sunk or fired upon, and must soothe the Japanese. For this reason, a step was taken which we always regretted. It was unnecessary for us to accept responsibility for striking the first blow. For the same reason, we had been the butt of propaganda in 1914, when we started to fight, although we knew that within 48 hours Russia would have attacked us. I believe Hitler was convinced that as a result of the Japanese attack, the main brunt of the United States force would be brought to bear on the Far East and would not constitute such a danger for Germany. Although he never expressed it in words, it was perhaps inexpressibly bitter to him that the main force of the United States was in fact turned against Europe.

Hechler: Despite correct estimates of our potential, what made you think that you could emerge victorious in a war against us?

Göring: We had assessed the capacity of your air force especially well. The best engines were produced in the United States. We used to work on your engines and bought up every kind we could. Since the end of the last war, Germany had fallen behind in the air, while U.S. commercial aviation was far ahead of us. But in the beginning, we had not fully assessed the possibility of daylight bombers. Our fighters could not cope with them. When we were able to do so, there was a pause and then you sent them out with fighter escort. The Flying Fortress, for example, had more than we had anticipated. Our estimate was incorrect.

Hechler: That being so, I still don’t understand why you wanted war with us.

Göring: The war was, in fact, already going on. It was only a question of form. Our declaration of war was made solely from the propaganda point of view. We would have been willing to make the most far-reaching concessions to avoid war with the United States, as such a conflict would and did prove the heaviest imaginable burden for us. But we were convinced that there was no chance to avoid war. Even if you had transported mountains of material to England, we should not have declared war, since England alone could not have carried out an invasion of Europe without your active participation.

Hechler: With regard to our propaganda about a second front in 1943, did the German high command really expect that we would invade Europe in 1942-43?

Göring: In general, no one believed it. On the contrary, we hoped that the Russians would become disgusted with you first and come to a compromise peace with us. The Russians had complained bitterly that no second front had been opened. We knew precisely what forces were in England. We knew of every American unit in England and could estimate exactly what you had there and that it was insufficient for an invasion.

Hechler: Were Hitler’s fears of Russia military or ideological?
Did he fear communism’s spread or Russia’s military might?

Göring: Hitler feared a military attack. Molotov made the following demands in February 1941: a second war on Finland, to result in Russian occupation of the entire country; invasion of Romania and occupation of part of the country; strengthened Russian position in Bulgaria; solution of the Dardanelles question (none of us wished to see Russia there); and the question of the Skagerrak and the Kattegat. This made us fall out of our chairs, it was so incredible. This was the last straw; Molotov was not to be heard any further. Germany would not even discuss it.

We would have no objections to Russia having a sphere of influence in Finland, but Hitler felt that if Russia occupied the whole of Finland, she would reach out to Swedish iron ore mines and the port of Narvik, and we did not want the Russians as our northern neighbors, with troops in Scandinavia. The German people were also very sympathetic toward the valiant Finns. The Russian move northwest would have tended to outflank Germany. Similarly, the Russians in Romania might not necessarily go south, but might move westward to encircle Germany on that side. By denying us the nickel of Finland and the grain and oil of Romania, Russia could have exerted economic pressure against us, and in 1942 or so proceeded to direct military action. These were the main reasons that kept us from arriving at any agreement.

In November 1940, when the first alarming reports came from the east, Hitler gave his first orders to OKW regarding the steps which would have to be taken if the situation with Russia became dangerous. Provision had to be made for the eventuality of a Russian attack. In March 1941, Hitler made up his mind to launch a preventive attack on Russia as a practical matter. I had favored making more concessions to Molotov, since I believed that if Russia invaded Finland and Romania, the differences between her and Britain and the United States would have become insuperable. Hitler, however, was personally distrustful of Russia all the time and saw in her, with the mighty armaments she had been piling up for 10 years, the great future enemy of Germany. Hitler’s inward mistrust remained deep even though not expressed. He wanted to reject all of Molotov’s demands in February 1941, whereas those of my opinion felt that a second Finnish war and a Russian drive on the Dardanelles would rupture the already tense relations between Russia and the Anglo-Saxon powers. In the long run, Russia might then fight England and not against us.

What Stalin’s real intentions were, I don’t know — whether he wanted to move toward the Dardanelles, or to attack Germany. If we had granted Russia’s demands, we might have had her join with us in a four-power pact, replacing the Three-Power Pact. I did not want to attack Russia. I wanted to carry out the Gibraltar plan, and I also did not want to see my Luftwaffe split between the Eastern and Western fronts. Russia was developing a position completely and finally contradictory to the interests of the British.

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The above posts on the Third Reich’s second-in-command Göring are interesting because they refute the simplistic caricature of ‘Nazis’ as intrinsically evil beings intent on wicked, sadistic destruction who had no redeeming qualities and were driven by purely evil motives.

That this simplistic but obviously false caricature has become so widely accepted by so many otherwise intelligent, fair-minded, educated people I regard as representative of the mass-delusion that informs all attempts at an accurate re-evaluation of WW2 history.

Mention this type of approach to re-evaluating WW2 history to friends, work colleagues and family and they will be disturbed and will question your moral decency.
Write it on social-media platforms and you will receive hateful responses with accusations of being a ‘Nazi apologist’ and worse.

But as the founder of RODOH Scott Smith has eloquently argued:

In that cause I will be posting up excerpts from the notes of the Jewish American psychiatrists Leon Goldensohn and Captain Gilbert, who were given access to all the prisoners at Nuremburg and who took advantage of that to interrogate/interview all of them in their cells.

I will begin with the notes of Leon Goldensohn, which were not published until 2006, sixty years later: so unknown to historians prior to this.

Goldensohn spoke little German and so was accompanied by a translator, usually Howard H. Triest, sometimes Gilbert.
He made no audio recordings but made detailed notes which he would then have typed up the same day.

His interviews of Göring began in March of 1946, before the trial had begun.
They were then conducted every day for a week at the end of May (21st to 28th) 1946, once the trial was under-way.
This allows us to see the development of Göring’s own understanding of the charges and accusations being made against himself and the Third Reich.
His answers over that period from early March to the end of May are very revealing in regard to a proper understanding of the accusation of him being the commander of Die Endlösung der Judenfrage (’the final solution of the Jewish question’) viz. the belief there was a policy for the extermination of ALL Jewry, that his since become a sacrosanct, protected, pseudo-historical belief-system.