Hermann Göring

Deputy Führer Rudolf Hess: Foe or Ally?

By Sherman Gengler

Throughout the reign of the Nazi Party in Germany during the 1930s and 1940s, Adolf Hitler’s inner circle comprised a diverse group of men from many walks of life. Read more

Hermann Göring

Hanna Reitsch, the Reichenberg Project & Germany’s Kamikazes

By David Alan Johnson

By early 1944, the Luftwaffe was only a shadow of what it had been at the beginning of the war. Read more

Hermann Göring

Fliegen und Siegen: Photographs from the Luftwaffe

By A. Burke

Sixty-five years ago, Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring’s Luftwaffe showcased its aerial triumphs in a 1942 commemorative book of photographs entitled Fliegen und Siegen (“Flying and Victory”). Read more

Hermann Göring

Johann Georg Elser’s Treasonous Plot to Prevent World War II

By Blaine Taylor

At exactly 8 PM on November 8, 1939, German Chancellor Adolf Hitler strode briskly into Munich’s Burgerbraukeller beer hall at the head of his glowering entourage, brushing past a forest of hands raised in the Nazi salute. Read more

Hermann Göring

The Bombing of Dresden: Was the Attack Fully Justified?

By Mason B.Webb

It was February 1945, and the Bombing of Dresden had yet to commence. At this point in the war, the citizens of the capital of the German state of Saxony were beginning to think that they were living a charmed life. Read more

Hermann Göring

The Fall of Malaya: Japanese Blitzkrieg on Singapore

By David H. Lippman

The moon like a tray was sinking in the western sea and the deep red sun showed its face to the east. Read more

Hermann Göring

Ford’s Willow Run Factory

By Samantha L. Quigley

They said it couldn’t be done. Doubters chided Henry Ford for declaring that his Willow Run Bomber Plant could turn out a B-24 Liberator heavy bomber every hour. Read more

Hermann Göring

Smashing Hitler’s Atlantic Wall

By Flint Whitlock

After overrunning France and other Western European countries in 1940, Adolf Hitler was certain that the Allies would one day attempt to invade the European continent and attack through the occupied countries to destroy his regime. Read more

Hermann Göring

Crushing Counterattack at Salerno

By Arnold Blumberg

On the morning of September 13, 1943, Col. Gen. Heinrich G. von Vietinghoff, commander of the German Tenth Army, faced a difficult decision. Read more

Hermann Göring

A Luftwaffe Ace’s Joy-Ride in a Spitfire

By Nicholas Varangis

When Hugo Broch flew his fighter for the Luftwaffe, he probably didn’t imagine he would ever find himself in the cockpit of a Supermarine Spitfire. Read more

Hermann Göring

LIFE Photographer Ralph Morse’s War

By Susan Zimmerman

In an age before television and instant communications, Americans wanted to see what was going on in the world’s “deadliest conflict in human history,” and LIFE magazine was making a name for itself as THE war magazine during World War II. Read more

Hermann Göring

Operation Chastise: Night of the Dambusters

By Mark Simmons

May 16, 1943, had been a sweltering spring day in England. At 9:39 pm, as the sun was dipping below the western horizon, leaving a rim of light and still good visibility, the first three of 19 Avro Lancaster bombers of No. Read more

Hermann Göring

The Irish Brigade in WWII

By Tim Newark

It was a letter in the London Times that caught the attention of British wartime Prime Minister Winston Churchill. Read more

Hermann Göring

Commandos Crack Hitler’s Atlantic Wall

By Mark Simmon

After successfully fighting seasickness during the crossing of the English Channel, Lance-Corporal Ted Brooks of Number 48 (Royal Marine) Commando arrived on Nan Red Beach—which formed the left flank of Juno Beach—on the morning of June 6, 1944. Read more

Hermann Göring

West Point Museum and Hyde Park: New York’s Greatest Military History Museums

By Mason B. Webb

The West Point Museum, located in Olmsted Hall and adjacent to the Visitor Center at the United States Military Academy, about an hour’s drive north of New York City, contains what is considered to be the oldest and largest diversified public collection of military artifacts in the Western Hemisphere. Read more

Hermann Göring

The Volkssturm: Last-Ditch Militia of the Third Reich

By Blaine Taylor

On October 18, 1944—the 131st anniversary of the Battle of the Nations’ victory over Napoleon in 1813—Reichsführer-SS (National Leader) Heinrich Himmler stepped up to a microphone to make a national radio address announcing the formation of the Nazi Party-controlled Volkssturm, or People’s Militia. Read more

Hermann Göring

The Demyansk Pocket: Disaster For Germany’s Scandinavian Volunteers

By Henrik Lunde

On the surface it may seem odd that men of conquered nations would eagerly sign up to fight for their masters, but that is exactly what happened in Scandinavia in the 1940s. Read more

Hermann Göring

Operation Bagration: Soviet Triumph in the East

By Henrik Lunde

Operation Bagration, the largest operation of World War II, has never been adequately acknowledged in the West to the same extent as a number of smaller campaigns. Read more

Hermann Göring

101st in Operation Market-Garden: Taking the Bridge at Best

By Richard A. Beranty

On the veranda of his temporary headquarters in a Dutch country house outside Veghel, Holland, renowned Luftwaffe General Kurt Student played lunch host to an old comrade, the chief of staff of the German Seventh Army. Read more

Hermann Göring

Clash of Ideology at the Paris Expo

By Paul Garson

The 1937 Paris International Exposition once again centered world attention on the French capital that had previously been the stage for five world’s fairs, including the famous 1889 Paris Exhibition and the raison d’être for the construction of the Eiffel Tower, at 984 feet then the tallest structure in the world. Read more