Just hours before his execution, Herman Goering bites down on a cyanide capsule. No one has any idea where it came from. The last person to talk with Goering was Dr. Phluecker, who gave him some tablets in an envelope, probably aspirin or downers of some kind. I think the good doctor the prime suspect in this crime. The cyanide ampoule was contained in a cut-down rifle cartridge casing. This was found in the cell. Goering was subject to intensive body and cell searches at random every day. The poison was not on him or in his cell until the very last. Freed of his massive codeine addiction, and having lost 100 lbs, Goering recovered his considerable strength of character and savage intelligence. He knew he would hang. There have been many theories, but they usually depend on a lax American officer, which I do not believe.
The one person who could have killed the Beast and ended the war escaped judicial retribution.
Sloppy, sloppy. Then as now prison work did not use the best people available, to say the least. We also lost Robert Ley to a very preventable suicide.
Remember that Goering was responsible for the implementation of the Final Solution and the signed order was produced at his trial.
(The insert shows the scaffold being erected. American troops played basketball to cover up the sound of construction. They may have just as well announced the time and date to someone as cagey as the Reichsmarschall. The hangman was an American soldier with very little experience who probably wanted out of combat. In today's military this guy would be dishonorably discharged. He fucked the job up and the Nazis strangled. Thus Goering escaped a double indignity).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_C._Woods
