As one of his teachers recorded: ‘Hermann is a good fellow – but a bit difficult. He is a born revolutionary.’³⁰ Heinrich Göring could not afford to continue to send Hermann to private schools and there were limits to Epenstein’s generosity in an apparently fruitless venture. Thus, it seemed only logical to have Hermann compete for a place in the Prussian cadet corps, a strict educational system that prepared boys and young men for the professional military officer corps – and at no cost to the parents. Heinrich’s three sons from his first marriage and his oldest son from the second union gained good secondary educations in the cadet corps. Indeed, he and Fanny noticed that whenever their son Karl was on home leave from the senior cadet academy, Hermann made excuses to be with the older son and his friends, all dressed in their smart-looking blue and white cadet uniforms. At age eleven, Hermann was at the right time in life to enter one of eight cadet corps Voranstalten [preparatory institutions] located around Germany.³¹ His sister Paula and the Graf sisters were already enrolled in a finishing school in Karlsruhe, the capital of the Grand Duchy of Baden in southwestern Germany, and so, to keep the children together, Heinrich applied to have Hermann admitted to the Kadetten-Anstalt [cadet institute] there in 1904.³²

Heinrich knew from past experience that, while professional officer training ‘had long been the province of the aristocracy’,³³ the Prussian cadet corps had evolved into a true meritocracy, in which young men could gain places on the basis of success in a competitive examination. As a well-documented study of the cadet system noted: ‘… the academic evaluation of each cadet was a great leveller, showing commoner and noble alike to be qualified or unqualified for admission to the cadet corps.’³⁴ The cadet institute provided its young students with sparse living conditions, long hours of study and strict, unquestioning discipline. The uniforms, spit and polish, drills and complete surrender to the system were just what young Hermann Göring needed at this point in his life and he embraced it eagerly.

It was five years of hard work, but the Prussian cadet corps succeeded where civilian education could not. Upon completion of his studies at Karlsruhe, Hermann was given the grade of ‘excellent’ in discipline, English, French, history, music and riding. His parents must have been speechless upon reading his final report, which started: ‘Göring has been an exemplary pupil, and he has developed a quality that should take him far: he is not afraid to take a risk.’³⁵

In view of his success at Karlsruhe, on 1 April 1909 sixteen-year-old Hermann easily matriculated to the Haupt-Kadetten-Anstalt [senior cadet academy] in Gross Lichterfelde, southwest of Berlin in the Potsdam district he enjoyed so much as a young boy. Indeed, his return to the Potsdam area was the perfect melding of his earlier fantasies with current reality, as Dr. Gilbert observed:

‘Somewhat estranged from his family by now, [Hermann] made his emotional transference all the more to the military authoritarian hierarchy with the Kaiser at the top … [H]is role as Junker-officer-in-the-making satisfied his status needs. More than that, it satisfied the heroic fantasies that had long since fixed the pattern of his desired way of life … For there could be no doubt in his mind that, just as he now showed rigid subservience to his superiors, he would someday be able to demand the same from his [subordinates] when he rose in rank, in keeping with the dual tradition of subservience and arrogance dear to the Prussian military condition.’³⁷

If Hermann had little time for his family, it was because he was completely swept up in a world of smart-looking uniforms, behaviour ‘based on medieval codes, and in the cadet societies – [where] he was elected to one of the most exclusive – there were rituals to be followed “that made me think I am an inheritor of all the chivalry of German knighthood”, he wrote home to his family.’³⁸ And, of course, the off-duty time of cadet life included drinking great quantities of beer, going to the horse races, keeping fit at swimming parties, and meeting young women who were as impressed by dashing uniforms as Hermann was.³⁹ Lean and, at five feet ten inches, quite tall for his generation, the muscular, young Hermann Göring cut a dashing figure in those days.

The following year, Epenstein used his wealth to gain a patent of nobility from Austro-Hungarian Emperor Franz Joseph I. Thus he became known as Dr.med Hermann Ritter von Epenstein, matching his father’s status achievement and becoming even more of a successful role model for young Göring. Perhaps inspired by Epenstein, Hermann let slip a criticism of his father by later vowing: ‘When I become an officer – and that I will definitely be – there must also be a war right away. I shall distinguish myself and get even more medals than Papa got.’⁴⁰

Also in 1910, Hermann came down with tonsillitis and was hospitalised at the senior cadet academy’s infirmary from 13 through 26 October.⁴¹ This occurrence was the first of several medical events that interfered with his military career. Otherwise, he was remarkably successful at Gross Lichterfelde. A sampling of his final grades shows he did ‘quite good’ in English, French and Latin, ‘good’ in map reading, ‘very good’ in German, history, math and physics, and ‘excellent’ in geography. In a letter dated 13 May 1911, his company commander, Richard Baron von Keiser, informed Heinrich Göring: ‘I beg to inform Your Excellency that your son Hermann recently passed the Fähnrich [army ensign] examination with the grade of summa cum laude.’⁴²