The Mystery of Hermann Goering's Suicide

By Ben E. Swearingen

Book Overview

No Synopsis Available.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 015163968X
• ISBN13: 9780151639687
• Release Date: January 1985
• Publisher: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich
• Length: 253 Pages
• Weight: 1.25 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Who helped Goering??

This proves to be a pretty interesting book on the mystery on how Hermann Goering got the poison from which he committed suicide right before he was about to be hung for his war crimes. Actually, that have been a lingering question even up to this day. The author, Ben E. Swearingen tried to answer that question. He claims that he owned the original container that held the potassium cyanide that Goering took to killed himself and even shown the photo of the container in the book. The author believes it be an inside job since there was no way Goering could have kept such a container that held the poison to himself throughout his Nuremberg trial and all the searches that went on. There were several suspects but the author narrowed his target to Lt. Jack Wheelis whom according to the author, escorted Goering to his property and allowed him to take that one remaining container back to his cell. For that, Goering gave Wheelis some souvieurs and protected him with a misleading suicide note. There's a photo of Wheelis after the war wearing Goering's watch. The author was able to find Wheelis family and see what else Goering gave to Lt. Wheelis in exchange for that container. This was a pay-off for Wheelis' services according to the author. (Ironically, Wheelis died only 8 years after Goering in 1954.) The author put all this together pretty well and on the surface it pretty creditable and believable. Author did considerable research on the subject, talked or communicated with possible witnesses. He managed to put together a pretty reasonable working theory in my opinion. In recent time (2005 I think), another American, Herbert Stiver claims to be the one who brought Goering the poison unwittingly at a request of a German woman he was seeing casually. He was the member of the honor guard at Spandau. The poison came inside a pen. While many today may believe Stiver's story to be possible - I find it pretty far-fetched. The fountain pen appears too small for that container to fit inside...unless of course, that container is a fake. But Swearingen seems pretty sure of himself on that container and it appears to be confirmed from authorities who were at the prison to be the container that held the deadly potassium cyanide. Beside, I read that it was totally against the rules for guards to give anything to the prisoner and guards themselves were watched. Why would Stiver risk being court-martial, broken out of the army, send to Levenworth and lose all just to impressed a girl. Can he be that stupid? Being a private, I doubt if Stiver had such one on one contact with Goering while being an officer, Wheelis might have. I think Swearingen's theory sounds more possible then any late confession that comes only after all the witnesses including Swearingen are dead. The book read pretty well and whether you believed Swearingen or not is really a subjective call by the reader. But he does make a good case, he also described Goering's time in Spandau pretty well.