Hermann Wilhelm Göring (12 January 1893 in Rosenheim, Upper Bavaria, Bavaria, Germany – 15 October 1946 in Nuremberg, Bavaria, Germany) was a German politician and military leader of Germany. As second in command after Hitler, he was one of the most powerful leaders of the Nazi Party (NSDAP). Between 1932 and 1945, he was President of the German Reichstag and also a minister of the Third Reich, under Adolf Hitler. In the Second World War, he was the Commander-in-Chief of the German air force. Göring was responsible for the creation of the concentration camps and the Gestapo, the Nazi secret police, which he handed over to SS chief Heinrich Himmler. In 1941, he gave Reinhard Heydrich the order to arrange the Final Solution to kill millions of Jews and Poles.

Göring was one of the 25 people charged at the Nuremberg Trials. The court decided he was guilty. The judgment on 1 October 1946 said that he was to be hanged, but he killed himself by swallowing a tablet of cyanide a few hours before he could be executed.