Other Personalities of the Third Reich

Hermann Wilhelm Göring (1893–1946) joined the Nazi movement in 1921. Among the motley band of Hitler’s early followers Göring stood out by virtue of his aristocratic background ¹ and ‘ruling class’ personality. He was well aware of this and used it to distance himself from other early Nazis close to Hitler, most of whom were of obscure or petty bourgeois origin. By his own account Göring followed Hitler because he was ‘a revolutionary and not motivated by any ideological nonsense’. ² It was therefore very much in character that Göring should have become the first commander of the Storm troopers, and – immediately after the Nazi takeover – the creator of the concentration camps.