Hermann Göring was one of the most powerful figures of Nazi Germany — a decorated First World War flying ace who became Adolf Hitler's chosen successor before falling from favor in the regime's final collapse. Born in Bavaria, he won fame as a fighter pilot in the Great War, commanding the famed squadron once led by the Red Baron.
Embittered by Germany's defeat, Göring joined the Nazi Party early and was wounded in the failed 1923 Munich putsch. As Hitler rose to power, Göring rose with him, accumulating a dizzying array of offices: president of the Reichstag, head of the Luftwaffe, chief of the Four-Year economic plan, and founder of the Gestapo. Flamboyant, vain, and corrupt, he amassed vast wealth and a notorious collection of looted art.
At the height of his power Göring was designated Hitler's heir, and the Luftwaffe he built dominated the skies in the early campaigns of the Second World War. But its failures — in the Battle of Britain and at Stalingrad — discredited him, and he lost Hitler's confidence and sank into drug addiction.
In the war's last days Hitler stripped him of his offices for attempting to assume power. Captured by the Allies, Göring was the highest-ranking Nazi tried at Nuremberg, where he mounted a defiant defense before being convicted and sentenced to hang. He cheated the executioner by swallowing a cyanide capsule on the eve of his execution in 1946.