ZDF - Goering Nazi Number One (2006) Part 1 The Accomplice

“Hermann is going to become either a great man or a great criminal”, Mrs. Goering would say, and her bull-headed son proved her right - by becoming a great criminal, Hitler's second man, and for the War Crimes Tribunal in Nuremberg, “Nazi Number One”. This is the story of an incredible rise to power, the most comprehensive documentary on Hermann Goering ever made. He was a man of many faces: vain, ambitious, more brutal than any other of Hitler's minions, yet the most popular Nazi official of all, at times even more popular than Hitler himself. He embodied the jovial side of the Third Reich. Yet the same man who organised dissolute bacchanals also founded the Gestapo, set up the first concentration camps, and had his own comrades murdered in the purge of 1934. Nearly all the laws and decrees promulgated against the Jews bear his signature; his name is indelibly connected to the Holocaust. “Goering - Nazi Number One” incorporates sensational material thought to have been lost for many years and presented here for the first time: private colour films shot in the late 1930s, some by Goering himself, showing his house, his pets, his yacht - the things that meant the most to him. These unique personal records form the largest and most important single film find from the Nazi era in past years. This exclusive material is supplemented with archival footage and new content shot in original locations. “Goering - Nazi Number One” examines a man who embodied the banality of evil like no other.

Part 1: The Accomplice

Goering's dreams of chivalry and grandeur began in his childhood at Veldenstein Castle in southern Germany. After success as an air ace with von Richthofen in World War I (he was awarded the Pour le Merite, the highest military award), Goering spent time in Sweden, where he met Carin von Fock. She left her husband and son for him. After her death, Goering was inconsolable, and later built the manor Carinhall in her memory, even though he was married to actress Emmy Sonnemann by then. Goering joined Hitler in the 1923 coup and was put in charge of the SA. He was injured, and this led to his lifelong addiction to morphine.

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