frequent and very thorough inspections it could not
be found. During the court hearings I kept it with me
in my high riding boots.
The third capsule is still in my little toilet case, in
the round pot with the skin cream (hidden in the
cream). I could have taken this twice at Mondorf if I
had needed it.
None of those entrusted with the inspections is to
blame, as it would have been almost impossible to find
the capsule. It would have been pure chance.*Suffice it to say that it would have been impossible for Göring to
have secreted the brass, bullet-shaped capsule in his cell as
claimed. The cell was liable to random change, and he was often
strip-searched without warning. He would not have risked for-
feiting the capsule so carelessly. Besides, without damage to his
purpose the letter could easily have revealed the precise hiding
place if it had indeed been hidden in the cell.
He added a postscript to the letter. “Dr. Gilbert told me
the Control Council has refused to convert the manner of death
to firing squad!”
He now took one of his sheets of notepaper with the
heading “The Reichsmarschall of the Greater German Reich,”
carefully dated this one too “Nuremberg, October , ”
and wrote:
- Andrus erroneously claimed in his memoirs that Göring admitted in this
suicide note that he had concealed the brass capsule “in his anus and in his
flabby navel.” Since the capsule and enclosed vial subsequently found in the
hand cream were identical to the capsule and vial found on his corpse, the
latter clearly came from his baggage (and not from outside the prison). Labo-
ratory inspection tentatively found fecal traces on the brass capsule taken
from the corpse. This suggests that he may have placed it briefly in his anus
perhaps to confuse the investigation but given its size (mm long, mm
caliber) he could not comfortably have retained it there for long. Postmortem
examination showed his fingernails to be clean and free of odor.