611506
Hermann Göring
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Hermann Wilhelm Göring, 1893-1946. Nazi Reichsmarshall; Luftwaffe commander-in-chief. Significant World War II-dated Typed Letter Signed, Göring, one page, 8¼” x 11¾”, October 28, 1940. In German, with translation.
This letter is significant both for its content and for the person to whom it was written. By this letter Göring, the highest ranking member of the German armed forces in World War II, seeks information about the Soviet political system from Alfred Rosenberg, who was generally accepted as the mentor of Nazi ideology. Göring writes, in full:
Dear Party Comrade Rosenberg!
Cordial thanks for the friendly delivery of the report about the state system and party organization in the Soviet Union, which interested me very much. The work, which has been composed with with great care, has given me a good summary of the widely branched political organization of the USSR.
I beg you to send me the subsequent results of the research conducted on your order.
Heil Hitler!
Yours,
Göring
By July 1940, Adolf Hitler had decided to invade the Soviet Union. He did so despite the nonaggression pact between Germany and the Soviet Union signed less than a year before, on August 23, 1939. When Germany invaded Poland nine days later, the pact kept the Soviet Union from opening a second front against Germany when Britain and France went to war against it over Poland. But Hitler saw the the pact as but a way to keep the Soviet Union out of the war initially and never intended to keep his word on nonagression.
Instead, on July 21, 1940, a month after the fall of France, Hitler instructed Field Marshall Walther von Brauchitsch to plan for an invasion of the Soviet Union. Some five months later, on December 18, 1940, he signed Directive 21, the first operational order for the invasion of the Soviet Union. German planners, who code-named the invasion Operation Barbarossa, intended to wage a war of annihilation against both the Communist state itself and its Jewish population.
It was halfway between these two events that Göring wrote this letter. It suggests that Göring, who commanded the German air force, the Luftwaffe, was planning for Nazi governance in the Soviet Union. Clearly Göring wanted yet more information than Rosenberg had already provided.
Rosenberg (1893-1946) was Hitler’s Reichleiter for Ideology and Culture and the editor of Der Volkischer Beobachter (The People’s Observer), the Nazi party’s daily newspaper. He was generally accepted as the mentor of Nazi ideology, the principal architect of core Nazi philosophies such as racial theory and persecution of the Jews. He believed in Nordic supremacy, and in his writings he sought to convert the German people to his ideology.
Once Germany invaded the Soviet Union, Rosenberg, who had previously given Hitler a plan for organizing the conquered areas, was appointed Reich Minister for the Occupied Eastern Territories. He soon quarreled with the Nazi SS over the German treatment of Slavs, whom Rosenberg considered to be lesser than Germans but nonetheless Aryan. While Rosenberg often complained about the treatment of non-Jews to both Hitler and Heinrich Himmler, who headed the SS, he said nothing about the murders of Jews.
Rosenberg was captured and tried at Nuremberg. He claimed that he knew nothing about the Holocaust, even though his deputy had represented him at the Wannsee Conference, at which the Nazis formalized plans to exterminate the entire Jewish population of Europe and the Soviet Union, some 11 million people. Rosenberg was found guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity, and he was hanged on October 16, 1946.
Göring himself escaped the gallows by poisoning himself two hours before his scheduled execution. The President of the Reichstag as well as commander of the Luftwaffe, he had been Hitler’s designated successor. But when he sought to take over, believing that Hitler had abdicated by declaring that he would stay in Berlin to the end, an enraged Hitler dismissed him from all of his positions, expelled him from the Nazi party, and had him arrested. The Allies later captured Göring, tried him at Nuremberg, and sentenced him to hang. He committed suicide on October 15, 1946.
This letter is in fine condition. It has one horizontal and one vertical fold, neither of which affects Göring’s bold red signature. There are normal file holes in the margin, docketing notations in a blank area at the upper right, and a paper clip stain at the upper left.
While we reject Nazism and all that it represented, we offer this document because of the role that Nazi Germany played in 20th Century history. This would be an excellent addition to any World War II collection.
Unframed.
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$1,750.00
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