This animal-loving side of Göring’s nature produced
strange contrasts. He was capable of unparalleled callousness to-
ward the human species; yet history shows that he introduced a
tough antivivisection law through Prussia, preceded by a broad-
cast warning that he would throw each and every violator into a
concentration camp even before the law passed through all its
stages of enactment. While in Britain defense scientists con-
tented themselves with testing blast bombs on goats and chim-
panzees, in Göring’s high-altitude aviation experts would
show no qualms in conducting lethal low-temperature and low-
pressure experiments on human beings (criminals under sen-
tence of death supplied by Himmler’s concentration camps).
Both facets of Göring’s character the protector of the
animal kingdom and the ruthless persecutor of his human ene-
mies occasionally intersected. At one and the same Reich
Cabinet meeting on July , , Hitler reported on the “shoot-
In Göring was
appointed Reich chief
huntsman. His game laws
were a model for those
enforced throughout
Europe today. Satirical
journal Simplicissimus
portrayed the animal
world saluting him for
having prohibited
vivisection in the Reich.
’