Hermann Gring

German politician, the Nazi Reich Marshall and Air Force Commander in charge of armament. A brilliant man and one of the most charismatic figures of the Third Reich, he was second only to Hitler as head of Nazi Germany. Jovial and ruthless, Goering loved extravagance and show. He was sentenced to hang for war crimes, but took poison on 15 October 1946 before he could be executed. Biographer Ella Leffland describes young Hermann Goering's childhood as "weird," an incorrigible kid until he found his niche in military school. He became Germany's most celebrated fighter pilot of WW I when he inherited Baron von Richthofen's famed squadron. He later built the Luftwaffe into the world's most awesome air force, reshaped all of Germany' rearmament efforts and skillfully keeping the increasingly erratic and psychopathic Hitler in rein, as much as was possible, toward the end of the war. At the end he was discredited with the dictator through the politics of Bormann, Goebbels and Speer. Goering was literally under house arrest when the Third Reich fell. While a first marriage to Carin, a fragile and gentle woman, ended with her death she remained his one true love. He was married to Edda when he took his own life, cheating the executioners of their task following his death sentence by the Nuremburg trials on 15 October 1946. In a letter dated 11 October 1946 to the commander of the prison, he explained that he had had the capsules with him ever since he had become a prisoner. He had allowed one capsule to be found among his clothes at Mondorf and a second one was hidden in his boots while in court and under the clothes rack when he undressed. The third capsule, which ended his life, was concealed in a jar of skin cream. Link to Wikipedia biography