Quoting Herman Goering

In the run up to the vote on Syrian airstrikes, a quote from Goering kept popping up on social media. The post looked something like this: 

Now I’ve read far too many books on Nazis. In fact, if the police or MI5 ever looked at my bookshelf, I’d be in trouble: three biographies on Pol Pot, two of Mao, five of Hitler, assorted war titles, serial killer tomes and books on psychology, especially psychopaths and criminal minds. Everyone’s got to have a hobby. But I can at least put my amateur historian knowledge to some use. This blog is not about the decision to intervene in Syria or the arguments for and against. It’s more about a suggestion that you shouldn’t post or share quotes on social media without pausing to think about the source and the context.  

You’d think Goering might be a name to raise a few alarms – leading Nazi, head of the Luftwaffe, convicted war criminal. This is common knowledge, yet many people posted the link anyway, to suggest that we were being tricked into war in Syria. But let’s consider the origin of the quotation. It was an exchange with Gustave Gilbert, a psychologist at the Nuremberg trials in 1946 who became a sort of confidant of Goering. Here’s the quote in full with Gilbert’s interjections:

"Why, of course, the people don't want war," Goering shrugged. "Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece. Naturally, the common people don't want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the 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." 
"There is one difference," I pointed out. "In a democracy the people have some say in the matter through their elected representatives, and in the United States only Congress can declare wars." 
"Oh, that is all well and good, but, 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 tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country."
"Oh, that is all well and good, but, voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders."

It doesn’t appear in the official transcripts of the trial, it’s an off the record comment. With any source, you have to establish its credentials: how reliable is the source, what is the context, why does it exist and so forth. When I challenged a couple of people who posted on Facebook about the wisdom of sharing this meme support of anti-war arguments, the answer was: truth is truth it doesn’t matter who said it. Now that in itself is a misleading statement.

The source does matter; in a criminal trial, as  a jury, you must determine the reliability of the witness and their testimony.  It doesn’t seem likely that Gilbert would have made this up, in which case there's no reason to doubt that Goering said these words. He may even have believed it; I would suggest not. If we examine the statement, breaking down its claims one by one, I’d argue that it is in reality a series of falsehoods which Goering knew to be untrue. Let’s look at the quotation in detail.

The first claim is so unexceptional as to be a truism: ‘People don’t want war’. Even in Nazi Germany, there was limited enthusiasm for conflict  There were no cheering crowds in 1939. In 1914 there was a greater appetite for war, but the majority of the people still preferred peace. This seems to be the case in all human societies unless they have been directly attacked. From this truism, in classic Nazi style, Goering performs a sleight of hand.

"...after all, it is the leaders of the 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." 

Goering suggests that democracies and dictatorships operate in the same way which is false. In the UK, the prime minister may have ultimate responsibility for the decision to go to war. But convention dictates that the PM have the support of the cabinet and  parliament. There would be serious consequences, potentially the fall of the government for any executive that unilaterally went to war without due process. Moreover the ruling party would then have to face the electorate in time and could be dismissed. Dictatorships, by their very nature, have few checks and balances on the leader who can do as he pleases. Opponents can be imprisoned or killed if necessary. It’s also interesting to note that no democracy has ever declare war on another democracy. Gilbert challenges Goering, whose reply is also misleading.

"There is one difference," I pointed out. "In a democracy the people have some say in the matter through their elected representatives, and in the United States only Congress can declare wars." 

"Oh, that is all well and good, but, voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. (Goering) 

Goering asserts firstly that the public can be manipulated in a relatively open society with a free press in the same manner as a totalitarian dictatorship, where all media is controlled by the state and follows the party line. This is patent nonsense. In the US, it was only Japan’s unprovoked attack that drew them into the war. Had Germany respected the Munich agreement and left Poland alone, Britain would not have declared war on Germany.

Secondly, Goering implies that the Nazis needed popular support to wage war, which is also untrue. Hitler was ready for war in 1938, against the will of his generals and would have attacked Czechoslovakia had Chamberlain not offered the Sudetenland. Although the SD and the Gestapo monitored public opinion, with Goebbels pumping out war-like propaganda, Hitler rarely mentioned the subject of public sentiment and did not consider it when deciding  to attack Poland. It was not a factor in the decision making process. Goering was part of Hitler's inner circle at the time; he knows the facts yet presents an alternative, fabricated scenario. The final part of the quote is the most mendacious of all:

"All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country." (Goering)

Goering is again trying to insinuate that all governments and countries are the same. It is consistent with his attempts at the Nuremberg trial to present a moral equivalence between the Nazis' wars of conquest and genocide with the Allie's struggles of self-defence. In effect, Goering via his confidant is saying: All governments are just as amoral as one another, you can't sit in judgement. I'm not that bad. 

Stalin’s Russia was of course a brutal, murderous state whose key role in defeating Nazi Germany should not obscure its crimes. However, Britain, America, France and other Allied nations were not remotely similar to Nazi Germany. For all their faults, they were states subject to the rule of law, which protected individuals' rights and limited the power of the executive.

Then there’s the other inference, that you can whip up hatred against pacifists with imagined enemies. Goering is lying and this is the clearest case where he knows he was lying. By the end of 1933, all serious opposition to Nazi rule was broken, leaders interned in camps or exiled. Though Hitler was wary of offending religious leaders, pacifists directly challenging his rule were sent to concentration camps. Goering is well aware of this fact, he ran the Prussian police and helped create the Gestapo. 

In a diabolical twist, the Nazis cast the Jews as the originators of the war they themselves had started. They were the scapegoats for the crimes of the regime. Even if you followed Goering's warped logic, it is contradicted by Nazi propaganda which cast the Jews of Europe as warmongers, a fifth column, i.e. the opposite of pacifists. Thus Goering is lying even within the framework of the Nazi world view. 

The final point to consider about quoting anything by a man such as Goering is the nature of his psychology. Gilbert, who interviewed him many times, concluded he was a psychopath. Goering  also displayed a high degree of narcissism throughout his life. Though he could be charming and was clever, the core of his personality was that of an amoral, narcissist, lacking in empathy. Treating anything he says at face value is extremely dangerous especially in the context of the quotation where he was on trial for his life and would go down in history as one of the greatest criminals of all time. He had every incentive to deceive and dissemble to place himself in the best possible light and he was a man without a conscience. In short, on the balance of probabilities alone, ignoring the wealth of evidence that contradicts Goering's claims, it would be bizarre to take anything he said at face value. 

I suppose the question I still haven’t answered is why anyone would share this quotation, even if their intentions were good.  It is Goering, after all.