In October 1946, Nazi leader Hermann Göring avoided the gallows by taking a cyanide capsule shortly before his scheduled execution in Nuremberg. A new book by Paul Hooley suggests that high-ranking British officers may have facilitated the suicide.
The 6 a.m. announcement that cheated the gallows
The planned execution of the Nazi leadership in October 1946 ended in a shock when Colonel Burton Andrus, the prison commandant, announced at 6 a.m. that Hermann Göring had committed suicide.. Göring, who had founded the Gestapo and built the Luftwaffe, died by biting a cyanide capsule just two hours before he was to be hanged in the prison's gymnasium.
This sudden death disrupted the Allies' efforts to use the execution as a public symbol of the Third Reich's total defeat. While 11 men were condemned to die on black-painted scaffolds, Göring's escape through suicide allowed his followers to frame him as a martyr rather than a defeated criminal.
From poison-laced pens to bars of soap
Before the current claims surfaced, other explanations for the cyanide's arrival were proposed and subsequently rejected. As the report says, one theory involved a US Army guard named Herbert Lee Stivers, who claimed a woman called Mona tricked him into smuggling a poison-laced pen into the prison.
Another claim by SS general Erich Bach-Zelewski suggested the capsule was hidden in a bar of soap. However, this account was dismissed as implausible, largely because of the documented mutual hatred that existed between Bach-Zelewski and Hermann Göring.
The 300 witnesses and the symbolism of the Nuremberg Trials
The Nuremberg Trials were designed not just as legal proceedings, but as a global symbol of accountability for the Nazi High Command. According to the report, nearly 300 witnesses testified over ten months to document the atrocities of the regime, making the planned execution of 11 key figures—including Göring, Hans Frank, and Joachim von Ribbentrop—a pivotal moment for the Allies.
The stakes were higher than simple justice; the Allies sought a figurehead to embody the end of the Nazi era... By avoiding the rope, Göring denied the international community the visual closure of his public execution, leaving an 80-year-old mystery in its place.
The missing motives of Airey Neave and Captain Wolfe Frank
The new investigation by author Paul Hooley points toward a different source for the poison: two high-ranking British officers. These individuals include Airey Neave, who later became a Conservative MP before his 1979 assassination, and Captain Wolfe Frank, the man known as the 'Voice of Doom' for his role in interpreting the death sentences at Nuremberg.
Captain Wolfe Frank's personal history adds a layer of complexity to the investigation . Born in 1913 to a Jewish industrialist who committed suicide following the rise of Hitler, Frank had been part of an underground resistance before fleeing to England and joining the British Army.
The report focuses exclusively on the claims presented in Paul Hooley's book, leaving several critical questions unanswered. Specifically, the text does not provide the evidence Hooley uses to link Neave and Frank to the poison, nor does it include responses from historians or the estates of the accused officers to explain why they would assist a mass murderer.
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