Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #255207 in Books
• Published on: 2005-01-15
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 442 pages

Synopsis
Commander-in-Chief of the Luftwaffe, President of the Reichstag, Prime Minister of Prussia and Hitler's designated successor, Herman Goering was one of most capable - and sinister - leading figures of the Third Reich. After fighting with distinction in WWI, he found himself disillusioned by the turbulent and bewildering post-war world of a defeated Germany and turned to the extreme Right, enthused by promises of a new life and a new path to glory. He was to play a major role in smoothing Hitler's road to power through helping to secure the support of financiers, industrialists and generals, and as creator of the secret police he showed formidable energy in terrorising and crushing all resistance. Later, as Commander of the Luftwaffe he led the mightiest air force the world had ever seen. As WWII drew to a close, however, Goering had sunk into lethargy and a world of illusions. A bloated shadow of his former self, he became an increasingly discredited figure, despised by Hitler and ridiculed by his former fellow henchmen. In the end he was barely saved from assassination at the hands of the SS by the arrival of American troops.

In this classic biography, available for the first time in paperback, Manvell and Fraenkel have drawn on interviews with members of Goering's family, his former associates, his enemies and his servants. His extravagant lifestyle and tastes, his unusual habits and uniforms, his cunning, ambition and casual brutality, are all explored in dramatic detail. The result is a thorough and intimate portrayal of this dangerous and contradictory man and an insightful history of the rise and ultimate collapse of the Third Reich.

Customer Reviews

Readable, but a little jaded
Written in the 1960s, this is looking a little jaded. The authors couldn't resist adding opinions and asides and "for some strange reason"s that detract from the the solidity of the work. There is a lot of sloppy (non-academically rigorous) language use (why Goering and not Göring, for example?), there is too much hearsay ("Hitler was angry" instead of "Göring wrote that Hitler was angry"), and a few too many unnecessary factual errors.

Though quite readable, the authors gloss over some events (probably due to lack of source material), whilst going into unnecessary details about other matters. To follow strands through, the authors also jump about in time during the narration and, compounding this by rarely using dates with years, it is sometimes difficult to follow a time line.

The final chapters about the details of the Nuremberg trials are very interesting, often being overlooked by other narrations of this period.

This book also suffers from two, far too common, issues that publishers should be addressing: (1) though the authors are/were Anglo/German, and the publishers British, the language has been Americanised; and (2) the printing quality of the photographs is unacceptably low.