Hermann Göring

My measures will not be crippled by any bureaucracy. Here I don't have to worry about Justice; my mission is only to destroy and to exterminate; nothing more.

— Hermann Göring

Shoot first and inquire afterwards, and if you make mistakes, I will protect you.

— Hermann Göring

Guns will make us powerful; butter will only make us fat.

— Hermann Göring

The Jew must clearly understand one thing at once, he must get out!

— Hermann Göring

Now you see. You are even turning the Fuehrer against me. Ah, the Jews, the Jews, they'll be the death of me yet!

— Hermann Göring

Excellency, please sign. I hate to say it, but my job is not the easiest one. Prague, your capital- I should be terribly sorry if I were compelled to destroy this beautiful city. But I would have to do it, to make the English and French understand that my air force can do all it claims to do. Because they still don't want to believe this is so, and I should like an opportunity of giving them proof.

— Hermann Göring

No enemy bomber can reach the Ruhr. If one reaches the Ruhr, my name is not Göring. You may call me Meyer.

— Hermann Göring

The only one who really knows about the Reichstag is I, because I set it on fire!

— Hermann Göring

Why has this silly engine suddenly turned up, which is so idiotically welded together? They told me then, there would be two engines connected behind each other, and suddenly there appears this misbegotten monster of welded-together engines one cannot get at!

— Hermann Göring

The people were merely to acknowledge the authority of the Führer, or, let us say, to declare themselves in agreement with the Führer. If they gave the Führer their confidence then it was their concern to exercise the other functions. Thus, not the individual persons were to be selected according to the will of the people, but solely the leadership itself.

— Hermann Göring

I especially denounce the terrible mass murders, which I cannot understand ... I never ordered any killing or tortures where I had the power to prevent such actions!

— Hermann Göring

The German people trusted the Führer. Given his authoritarian direction of the state, they had no influence on events. Ignorant of the crimes of which we know today, the people have fought with loyalty, self-sacrifice, and courage, and they have suffered too in this life-and-death struggle into which they were arbitrarily thrust. The German people are free from blame.

— Hermann Göring

The victor will always be the judge, and the vanquished the accused.

— Hermann Göring

After the United States gobbled up California and half of Mexico, and we were stripped down to nothing, territorial expansion suddenly becomes a crime. It's been going on for centuries, and it will still go on.

— Hermann Göring

Do you think I give that much of a damn about my lousy life? — For myself, I don't give a damn if I get executed, or drown, or crash in a plane, or drink myself to death! — But there is still a matter of honor in this life! — Assassination attempt on Hitler! — Ugh! — Gott im Himmel!! I could have sunk through the floor! And do you think I would have handed Himmler over to the enemy, guilty as he was? Dammit, I would have liquidated the bastard myself!

— Hermann Göring

What do I care about danger? I've sent soldiers and airmen to death against the enemy — why should I be afraid?

— Hermann Göring

Hitler decided that. I thought it was stupid because I believed that first we had to defeat England.

— Hermann Göring

No. It was the last hours and he (Hitler) was under pressure. If I could have seen him personally it would have been different.

— Hermann Göring

I know you want to study me psychologically. That's reasonable and I appreciate it. At least you don't lecture to me and pry into my affairs. You have a good technique as a psychiatrist. Let the other fellow talk and stick his neck into the noose. I don't mean that the way it sounds. But you hardly say anything. Someday I'm going to ask you questions.

— Hermann Göring

In Berlin Jews controlled almost one hundred percent of the theaters and cinemas before the rise to power.

— Hermann Göring

Hitler had the willpower of a demon and he needed it. If he didn't have such a strong willpower he couldn't have achieved anything. Don't forget, if Hitler had not lost the war, if he did not have to fight against the combination of big powers like England, America, and Russia — each one he could have conquered individually — these defendants and these generals would now be saying, 'Heil Hitler,' and would not be so damn critical.

— Hermann Göring

All nonsense. Nobody knows the real Göring. I am a man of many parts, but the autobiography, what does that tell you? Nothing. And those books put out by the party press, they are less than useless.

— Hermann Göring

I think that women are wonderful but I've never met one yet who didn't show more feeling than logic.

— Hermann Göring

If I didn't have a sense of humor, how could I stand this trial now?

— Hermann Göring

In the first place I'm sure Hitler did not write that damned testament himself. Probably some swine like Bormann wrote it for him. But I don't see what is so terrible in the testament when you examine it, anyway. There was Berlin, bombed every minute. The noise of artillery from the lousy Russians, the American and British bombers overhead. Maybe Hitler was a trifle unbalanced by all that. If he wrote the testament at such a time, it was hysteria. But essentially, what difference does it make?

— Hermann Göring

I have to laugh when the English claim they are such a wonderful nation. Everyone knows that Englishmen are really Germans, that the English kings were German, and that in Russia the emperors were either of German origin or received their education in Germany.

— Hermann Göring

Why has this silly engine suddenly turned up, which is so idiotically welded together? They told me then, there would be two engines connected behind each other, and suddenly there appears this misbegotten monster of welded-together engines one cannot get at!

— Hermann Göring