International: Down without Tears

How did Hermann Goring kill himself? How did he manage, in the midst of defeat and humiliation, to become a hero and thus virtually to destroy the positive psychological effect of the Nürnberg trial? From Nürnberg, TIME Correspondent John Stanton cabled:

It happened because the Army had placed in charge of the prison a pompous, unimaginative, and thoroughly likable officer who wasn’t up to his job. Colonel Burton C. Andrus loved that job. Every morning his plump little figure, looking like an inflated pouter pigeon, moved majestically into the court, impeccably garbed in his uniform and highly shellacked helmet. His bow to the judges as they entered was one of the sights of Nürnberg. He loved to pen little notes: “The American Colonel invites the distinguished French prosecutor and his staff to accompany him to a baseball game.”

He had spent long hours with his staff planning every last detail of the prisoners’ life. He arranged anti-suicide cells in which even the tables were designed to collapse under a man’s weight. He posted 24-hour guards before each cell and insisted that the prisoners sleep with hands outside the blankets. He required prisoners to take exercise periods during which their cells were searched. He had designed interview booths in which prisoners and visitors could converse with one another without being able to touch hands. All seemed well, but Andrus forgot that a pattern had been set, and with men like Göring, just to see the pattern was to see ways to break it.

Blossoming Theories. Security became a joke. One man pasted a dog’s picture ever his own and went in & out of the courthouse for days. On sentencing day itself a woman reporter moved by all the guards and reached the courtroom, to discover that she had forgotten to take a .38 caliber revolver out of her handbag. She could have leaned over and shot Göring —or the Chief Justice. But Colonel Andrus puttered about, occasionally stealing a dentist’s tool from the prison dentist’s office, just to see if it would be missed. It always was.

After Göring’s suicide, elaborate theories blossomed. Samples: the poison capsule was hidden in his pipe stem, in a small abdominal incision, in a tooth, in the binding of a book. Dizziest theory of the lot was that Göring faked the gurgling sounds of pain which first attracted the guard to his cell; thereupon the guard summoneJ the doctor, who then administered the poison.

But elaborate schemes were not necessary. The number of people who had opportunity to give poison to Göring were legion. There were German doctors, cooks and laundry workers. While working in the prison they were forbidden to go outside, but they had contact with people from outside. Then there was the courtroom itself: during recesses throngs of people milled about the dock and papers were passed back & forth. Not since the day Göring entered Nürnberg prison was he forced to submit to a rectal examination. Other parts of his body (his ears, for instance) went unexamined.

Teutonic Drums. On the day after the executions, bowed Nürnberg suddenly straightened up. Men with glistening eyes stopped for excited talks with one another. Little knots gathered before the Haupt-bahnhof. Germans who had avoided the eyes of Americans the night before now looked at them frankly with derisive smiles. Johannes Breit, ex-Wehrmacht major, said: “His was a noble deed.” A little old man shrilled: “It is Scapa Flow over again; you cannot take what is ours!” You heard over & over again from passers-by on the streets: “Unser Hermann” (Our Herman).

The general reaction was: “He put one over on you.” The rich old Göring legend was back: Göring was really a jovial, pleasant man, and a clever one to boot. He just loved the good things in life, with a greedy appetite Germans can appreciate. He was courageous (after all, he had been a fighter ace). He was clever (did he not dominate the trials?). He had obeyed every rule, had been watched day & night, had boasted he wouldn’t hang, and na, siehst du, he didn’t.

The old Teutonic drums were beating strong in the sunlight. There were no German tears, no German regrets or shame. On the contrary, the Germans now had the feeling of triumph which they had lacked so long. Göring’s one sharp, breath-taking act wiped away ten months of painstaking work.