Man says he helped Nazi Goering commit suicide
 

LOS ANGELES — A former American guard at the Nuremberg trials has come forward to say he believes he provided the poison that Nazi Hermann Goering used to commit suicide hours before his scheduled execution for war crimes, the Los Angeles Times reported Monday.

Herbert Lee Stivers, now 78, was a 19-year-old army private when he took notes and a capsule hidden inside a fountain pen to Goering at the request of two men who said the notorious Nazi general was a very sick man who needed medicine, the newspaper said.

Stivers said he is now convinced the "medicine'' was the cyanide that killed Goering on Oct. 15, 1946, the night before he was to be executed. The commander of the German air force had been convicted at the Nuremberg trials the previous month.

"I felt very bad after his suicide. I had a funny feeling; I didn't think there was any way he could have hidden it on his body,'' Stivers said.

Stivers had agreed to pass on the items after being introduced to the men, who called themselves Erich and Mathias.

"(Erich) said it was medication, and that if it worked and Goering felt better, they'd send him some more,'' Stivers said. "I wasn't thinking of suicide when I took it to Goering. He was never in a bad frame of mind.''

A military investigation concluded that Goering had the cyanide all along and that a vial of poison was at various times in a body cavity or behind the rim of his cell toilet.

The army's explanation never rang true to him, Stivers said, noting that Goering "was there over a year. Why would he wait all that time if he had the cyanide?''

It was impossible to independently verify Stivers' claim. But military records do show that Stivers was a guard at the Nuremberg trials, the newspaper said.

An army spokeswoman at the Pentagon declined to comment to the Times.

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I've got a book written by one of the U.S. Army physicians at the Nürnberg (Nuremberg) war criminal trials, Hitler and the Nazi Leaders: A Unique Insight Into Evil by Dr. John K. Lattimer. In it he describes in detail the prison conditions in Nürnberg during the trial and subsequent executions - and suicide of Göring - of the major Nazi war criminals.

Based on the investigation after Hermann Göring's suicide by cyanide, it was widely believed he had smuggled two vials of cyanide hidden in a jar of face cream that he requested Lt. Wheelis (the American guard who befriended Göring) bring from storage. One he used, the other was a backup in case the first was found in a shakedown. The cyanide vials were encased in a metal container (made by concentration camp labor); the design was such that it would have been difficult for Göring to shove up his ass and keep it there for long.

Göring was a well-known dope fiend; he began taking cocaine and heroin it to numb the pain from a gunshot wound to the abdomen he suffered during the aborted Nazi putsch(uprising) in November 1923. He also loved popping amphetamines and barbiturates as well. After he surrendered in 1945, he kicked the habit cold turkey.

Sounds like the approach above may be entirely plausible, as security in the prison wasn't anywhere near airtight as the general public was led to believe.