Goering Quotes

Goering appeared at times to be all things to all men.

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

Certainly I shall use the police, and most ruthlessly, whenever the German people are hurt. But I refuse the notion that the police are protective troops for Jewish stores. No, the police protect whoever comes into Germany legitimately, but it does not exist for the purpose of protecting Jewish money-lenders.

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!

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

We will go down in history either as the world's greatest statesmen or its worst villains.

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

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

I looked at [Goering eating sausage] and I knew that what they say was true: that pigs eat the flesh of their own.

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

We have no butter... but I ask you, would you rather have butter or guns? Preparedness makes us powerful. Butter merely makes us fat.

Because I'm fat, people believe I'm somehow vulnerable and easy to handle in a negotiation. Ever try to negotiate with a fat guy? We can be mean: Marvin Davis, Harvey Weinstein, Hermann Goering. No one screws around with us for long.

In the beginning [Hitler] was genial and pleasant. He would have extraordinary willpower and unheard-of influence on people.

I herewith commission you to carry out all preparations with regard to... a total solution of the Jewish question in those territories of Europe which are under German influence.

Goering got into endless arguments with other officers [and] he did not like routine work.

Many of the political jokes that circulated in the Third Reich were directed at Goering. He collected them [all] in a large leather notebook and delighted in re-telling most of them to his friends.

When I hear the word 'culture', I reach for my checkbook.

Whenever I hear the word culture, I reach for my revolver

Goering was a contradictory [and] complex ... character.

Why, of course, the people don't want war.

According to Goering and the Luftwaffe High Command, they were supposed to be the fighter elite.

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.

Goering was known to wear togas, fur coats and faux-medieval hunting outfits.

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.

To me there are two Hitlers: one who existed until the end of the French war; the other begins with the Russian campaign. In the beginning he was genial and pleasant. He would have extraordinary willpower and unheard-of influence on people. The important thing to remember is that the first Hitler, the man who I knew until the end of the French war, had much charm and goodwill. He was always frank. The second Hitler, who existed from the beginning of the Russian campaign until his suicide, was always suspicious, easily upset, and tense. He was distrustful to an extreme degree.

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.

Our movement took a grip on cowardly Marxism and from it extracted the meaning of socialism. It also took from the cowardly middle-class parties their nationalism. Throwing both into the cauldron of our way of life there emerged, as clear as a crystal, the synthesis -- German National Socialism.

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.

Naturally the common people don't want war. . . but after all it is the leaders of a country who determine policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along. . .

Naturally, the common people don't want war ... but after all it is the leaders of a country who determine the policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in every country.

Goering's ideas betray a consistent desire to create something essentially new, implying all the historic virtues, but unlike [anything] of the past.

Terrorism is the best political weapon for nothing drives people harder than a fear of sudden death.

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

Thomas Jefferson once said: 'Of course the people don't want war. But the people can be brought to the bidding of their leader. All you have to do is tell them they're being attacked and denounce the pacifists for somehow a lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.' I think that was Jefferson. Oh wait. That was Hermann Goering. Shoot." [Hosting the Peabody Awards for broadcasting excellence at the New York Waldorf-Astoria, June 6, 2006]

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

It is silly to appeal to people's moral sense.

The people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders...tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger.

Hermann Goering, Joachim von Ribbentrop, Albert Speer, Walther Frank, Julius Streicher and Robert Ley did pass under my inspectionand interrogation in 1945 but they only proved that National Socialism was a gangster interlude at a rather low order of mental capacity and with a surprisingly high incidence of alcoholism.

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

Of course people don't want war. Why should a poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best thing he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece?

The people were merely to acknowledge the authority of the Fuehrer, or, let us say, to declare themselves in agreement with the Fuehrer. If they gave the Fuehrer 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.

Among the roles Ive played on stage, television and in films were politicos as diverse as Abe Lincoln, Juan Peron, Herman Goering, George Wallace and both Roosevelts.