“Gute Nacht,” said Göring. Pflücker had been his last visi-
tor. The poison capsule was now in Göring’s possession. He lay
still for fifteen minutes, his head turned to the wall calculat-
ing, perhaps, how much longer he dare wait. Once he clasped
his hands over his eyes for a few minutes. Twice more Lieuten-
ant Dowd peeped in, at : and :, but Göring had not
moved.
Ten-thirty .. came. Did Göring perhaps now hear,
straining his ears, the sounds down in the yard as chief prison
officer Captain Robert B. Starnes met the six-man hanging team
and let them into the gymnasium? Göring heard the guard
changing, glanced up, and saw a new man Private First Class
Harold F. Johnson taking Bingham’s place at the peephole.
He casually lifted his left hand and clenched it to his face as
though to shield his eyes from the spotlight. “He lay perfectly
motionless, till about ten-forty,” was all that Johnson would later
admit having seen, “when he brought his hands across his chest
with fingers laced and turned his head to the wall. He lay that
way for about two or three minutes, and then placed his hands
back along his sides. That was at ten-forty-four .. exactly. I
looked at my watch to check the time.”
This brass bullet and the glass cyanide vial it contained are
identical to those used by Göring to escape his punishment.