When Hermann attended the village school in Neuhaus, he was just as unsuccessful a pupil.⁶ So, at age seven, he was enrolled at the Volksschule [primary school] in Fürth.⁷ There, ‘he found only new outlets for his uncontrollable aggression’.⁸ Under other circumstances, Hermann might have been boarded with the Graf family in Fürth, but Heinrich and Fanny may have felt that the boy’s discipline problems were too much to inflict on the woman who had raised him from infancy. On the other hand, Hermann might have benefitted from Frau Graf’s intuitive maternal connection. In any event, he was boarded with one of the primary school teachers,⁹ a man who ‘lived in modest circumstances in the workers’ quarter’.¹⁰ Perhaps the thought was to put a strong male figure in Hermann’s life and discipline him properly. He was allowed to bring one luxury from home, his pet dachshund, Waldmann [goblin], whose energy and friskiness delighted the other boys.

Seeds of Anti-Semitism

Aside from school vacations, Hermann spent nearly four years in Fürth. That time marked an especially grim period in his young life, during which it was said he hated school and his favourite expression upon returning to school after holidays was: ‘If only Fürth would burn down …!’¹¹ Adding to that dark thought, someone in his circle of acquaintances filled the impressionable boy’s head with hate-inspired stories about Jews.

The Jewish emancipation that was granted throughout Germany in the 19th century was meant to end centuries of discriminatory societal practices,¹² but lingering feelings ranging from resentment to hatred of non-Christians were readily available to infect young minds. As Erich Gritzbach wrote, Hermann Göring hated Jews ‘ever since his time in Fürth’.¹³

Hermann acted on this new turn of events by urging his little dog Waldmann to bark and snap at people he thought to be of Semitic origin. When punished for these or other misdeeds, often the boy went to bed and told everyone that he was sick.¹⁴ Hermann was a smart boy and received good grades, but he did not care for school; as with so many other life events, he wanted school to be on his terms.

By all accounts, young Hermann was not exposed to anti-Semitism within the Göring family. He certainly did not hear about racial hatred from his much admired and generous godfather Dr. Hermann Epenstein, who was of Jewish heritage,¹⁵ but who had been raised as a Christian.¹⁶ Yet, it is clear that some person or persons in Fürth indoctrinated Hermann Göring into a malevolent passion that remained with him for life.

Ironically, Göring never learned of his own Jewish heritage, which was hidden from him, especially during the peak period of his political power. Prof.Dr. Hansmartin Decker-Hauff (1917-1992), a highly respected post-World War II German genealogist, wrote:

‘Göring’s entire genealogical chart was prepared for publication by university Prof.Dr. Otto Freiherr von Dungern [1875-1967] of Graz [Austria]. It appeared in the series Ahnentafel berühmter Deutscher [Genealogical Charts of Famous Germans] in about 1938. Göring was the only prominent Nazi who was from a “good” family; the paternal grandfather was a Prussian administrative district president, [and] the great-grandmother was a [member of the House of] Metternich zur Gracht. Yet, Göring’s mother – and this pained Göring very much – was a Munich beer garden waitress of questionable descent. He placed all the more value on research into and publication about his paternal ancestors, especially that, in addition to many lesser aristocrats, he also had genealogically interesting “dynastic bridges” (legitimate lines of descent) to higher nobility and, in fact, was descended from almost all of the reigning royal houses of the Middle Ages. Among his patrician ancestors were many distinguished families who were written about at length. But, Dungern omitted, certainly from the publication noted above … [Göring’s ancestral link to the Swiss] money-changer family Ebeler, also known as Grünzweig, which was converted from Judaism to Christianity in the fifteenth century.’¹⁷

As a boy, Hermann’s genealogical connections meant nothing to him. Once away from school, he was happiest when he was back living in Burg Veldenstein, where his rich dream world came to life. Such a vivid excursion beyond reality occurred in about 1901, as Dr. Gilbert noted:

‘[Göring’s] fantasy life was so vivid that on occasion he could actually experience life in a medieval fortress. On one occasion that he never forgot, he was looking over the countryside from the [fortress] tower. A smoking locomotive came lumbering down the valley below. Suddenly the whole scene changed and he saw Roman chariots with plumed warriors charging down the countryside while crowds roared. “But [it was] so real! Just as though it was all actually there like in the story books [Hermann related]. I don’t know how long the vision lasted. Then I ran down all excited and told my mother and my sister about it. They only laughed …”’¹⁸

Most summers, Dr. Epenstein invited the Göring family to live with him in his larger and grander residence, Burg Mauterndorf.¹⁹ There, young Hermann enjoyed a life of medieval splendour. Epenstein, whose father had been elevated to the rank of Ritter [knight] in the non-hereditary nobility,²⁰ indulged his own fantasies of a life of stately grandeur by requiring his servants to wear uniforms like those found in the elegant residences of true nobility. Further, ‘meals were called by a blast of a hunting horn, and … musicians played and sang in the gallery of the great hall … [while Epenstein] strode his domain, giving orders, receiving deferential salutes from the men and curtsies from the women as if he were of royal blood.’²¹

During one visit to Mauterndorf, where Hermann’s mind was excited by the burg’s extensive battlements and military history dating back to Roman times, he made a prophetic remark to his parents: ‘Now I want to become a soldier; for me, there is no thought of any other occupation.’²²

Reinforcing that conviction and fuelling Hermann’s imagination further, at Burg Veldenstein his family lived less than forty kilometres south of Bayreuth, where composer Richard Wagner’s Festspielhaus offered musical works such as his four-opera cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen [The Ring of the Niebelungen], which was steeped in Germanic lore. On many occasions Dr. Epenstein took the Göring family to Bayreuth to experience these colourful and lavishly-staged operas,²³ a main source of popular entertainment at the time that would have left Hermann enthralled. According to Gilbert:

‘His fantasies were also stimulated by his early lessons in Teutonic history – the one subject that really interested him. He listened avidly to stories of … Siegfried and the Valkyrie … admiring their war dress and heroic exploits. As he learned to read, the lives of the great heroes of German history became his favourite books. Heroism, chivalry and loyalty to the sovereign became deeply ingrained as primary values of his culture. Aside from such ego-involved subjects, he cared little for learning, although he was of superior intelligence.’²⁴