the evening “Said he felt at ease.”
At : .. the guard changed. Private First Class Gordon
Bingham took up his station at the peephole and noticed that
Göring was lying on his cot, wearing his boots, pants, and coat,
reading the book. Twenty minutes later the prisoner got up,
urinated, and changed into his slippers. Two or three times he
went over to the table and looked inside the eyeglass case. Then
he tidied the cell, moved his writing materials to the chair, and
changed into pajamas pale blue jacket and black silk pants.
After that he lay back on the cot, pulled the khaki blankets up to
his waist, and appeared to doze.
He had arranged his clothing into neat heaps the silken
undershorts, sleeveless woolen sweater, breeches, coat, and cap.
His overcoat and silk robe were folded under his pillow, his bed-
room slippers and high dress boots on the floor.
The sentinel could see both arms outside the blanket, as
regulations prescribed: his left arm stroking the wall, while his
right hand once massaged his forehead. At five past nine Dr.
Pflücker made his third round. “I’ll see him later,” he said, indi-
cating No. Göring’s cell.
First Lieutenant James H. Dowd, passing by, saw Göring
lying on his back, seemingly asleep. The eight newspaper corre-
spondents were allowed a final peep at the condemned men.
Kingsbury Smith, the only American, reported an hour later to
his newspaper that he saw Göring slumped on his small iron cot,
his heavy shoulders sagging against the bare whitewashed wall,
reading a well-thumbed book about the birds of Africa. “[I]
stood looking at Göring over shoulder of the prison sentinel
whose duty it was to observe Göring constantly.... With the
eyes of an American security guard watching him like a cat
watches a rat, Göring had little hope of emulating Ley’s act [i.e.,
suicide], even if he had entertained such an idea.” Struck by the