unaware that it was to be the last airplane journey of his life, he
thoroughly enjoyed the trip and chattered keenly about the
flight. “His health is probably not very good,” warned an
American officer three days later, “and on two recent occasions
he was to be found in his dressing gown and pajamas in bed, as a
result first of a slight heart attack and... bronchitis.”
Nuremberg was a landscape of ruins surrounding the Pal-
ace of Justice and its adjoining detention block. The cells were
low-ceilinged cubicles barely thirteen feet by seven. Göring
would sleep on a metal cot bolted to the floor along the left wall.
Just to the right of the narrow doorway a porcelain toilet bowl
was set in an alcove to afford minimal privacy. As his eyes took in
the fresh plaster patches where iron hooks had been ripped out
of the wall, the lack of electric wiring, and the Perspex freshly
installed in the tiny windows high up the end wall, he must have
smiled. He had no intention of ducking out of this last battle
prematurely. He placed his few possessions on the little table
so flimsy that no prisoner, let alone a Hermann Göring, could
stand on it with pride of place going to a snapshot of Edda.
“Dear Daddy,” she had written on the back, “come back to me
again soon. I have such longing for you. Many thousand kisses
from your Edda!!!!”
Tight security precautions were also taken with medication.
Pflücker injected daily Vitamin B and provided Seconal tablets
to help him sleep despite the harsh new jail regime. Tormented
by rheumatism, Göring was also occasionally allowed one aspirin,
but he was watched to ensure that he swallowed it.
Colonel Andrus had ordered pencils and paper provided
so that the prisoners could write private letters. These, Andrus
reported, were “promptly sent to the chief of interrogation,”
Colonel John H. Amen.
One of Göring’s first letters was to Helga Bouhler: