Goering at Nuremberg, 2
When not in the courtroom, the Nuremberg prisoners were visited and interviewed by American psychiatrists. This poem is based on the interviews with Hermann Goering.
(For more context, see Goering at Nuremberg, 1. Note that poetry is best read in a browser on a larger screen.)
Hermann Goering at Nuremberg
When I’m surrounded by great masterpieces
I’m most alive; and if the old grows stale,
The cause is my artistic temperament.
At trial they made me seem a looter, but
I broke no laws. I always compensated
Those in possession of the things I took—
Maybe less than the articles were worth,
But I was aiming for a greater good,
The installation of this art in galleries,
As crowning jewels of our glorious culture.
Picasso, for example, nauseated me.
My preference was for Gothic works.
I read them all: Kant, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche.
The Communists committed worse atrocities.
“All men are equal”: a ridiculous
Delusion. My superiority
To Russians, most of them, is evident.
You have a good technique—to sit there, quietly,
While we go on and on. Ha! Well.
Someday I’m going to ask you questions.
I often fantasize about the past:
The parties that I threw, my popularity
Among the German people. History
Will see me as a man who always did
So much to benefit the common folk.
Whether they were desirable, or not,
Was not the question. Coexistence was
Impossible between such different peoples.
I did believe exceptions should be made
For those Jews who had lived in Germany
For long enough: a century, or more.
This tribunal lacks authority
To try an agent of a sovereign state.
The English claim they are so wonderful.
It makes me laugh. Everyone knows their kings
Are German kings; they are a German people.
I’ve been expecting you to ask me why
I did not once object to the atrocities.
The answer is complex.
Heaven is not real; neither is hell.
I don’t expect to go to either place
When all of this is over. I do believe
That killing children is unsportsmanlike.
They’re right to charge me as a Nazi leader.
Some of these others are so unimportant,
They don’t deserve their time in court.
They followed orders, and I gave the orders.Goering was Supreme Commander of the German Air Force. At Nuremberg he was convicted on four counts, including crimes against humanity.
This is part of the series Interviews With Vampires.