English Summary/英文概要： The number two man in the Third Reich was arguably the most extravagant and contradictory personality of National Socialism. This is the first complete biography of Hermann Goering in twenty years. Unlike all previous ones, it includes numerous explanatory maps - an absolute must for the comprehension of a story stretching over two world wars. Based upon a wealth of German, English, American, Swedish, Italian, Canadian and French documentary sources, as well as on interviews with witnesses including Hitler’s A.D.C., this lively narrative revisits the Nazi regime on the heels of a man who was always larger than life - in more senses than one.
Captain Goering emerged from the First World War as a highly decorated and wildly popular fighter pilot, endowed with superior intelligence and boundless charisma. He left a defeated and ruined Germany to seek fortune in Sweden, where he found a job as an airline pilot and married a beautiful Swedish countess. The beginning of a fairy tale? Rather the outset of a long nightmare, for this vain, ambitious, easily influenced and manic-depressive veteran was attracted to politics and eager to play a part in it. His chance came in the fall of 1922, when he met Adolf Hitler - a raving fanatic who was to fascinate him for life. In the Führer’s shadow, Hermann Goering collected numerous distinctions: beer-hall conspirator, wandering militant, jobless drug-addict, talented businessman, corpulent dandy, stirring orator, mercenary legislator, conquering Reichstag president, unscrupulous Interior minister, social-climbing Prime-minister, confirmed crook, occasional criminal, glittering Air Minister, parvenu millionaire, expert huntsman, armchair strategist, amateur economist, early ecologist, compulsive art collector… and accomplice to every crime committed by his master.
As a field marshal, Luftwaffe commander and Adolf Hitler’s heir-designate, Goering reluctantly entered the maelstrom of the Second World War. From Dunkirk to Stalingrad and beyond, he erred incessantly and disastrously, ultimately playing a prominent role in the fall of the Nazi regime. A great sentimentalist prompt to liquidate anyone who stood in his way, a bogus antisemite with a Jewish god-father and a half-jewish secretary of state, a lazy busybody with sybaritic proclivities, a swaggering warrior who did his utmost to prevent war, Hermann Goering remains a monument of contradictions to the inquiring historian. Something of a Shakespearean character, half Falstaff and half Macbeth, he remains by far the most colourful personality of the Third Reich. That this tragedy is not entirely devoid of comic aspects will appear time and again as the narrative unfolds.

Chinese Summary/中文概要： 纳粹德国的第二号要人，德国进行侵略战争的元凶之一。他既是德国法西政治、经济与军事的首脑，也是制定奴役劳工计划、镇压残杀犹太人和其他种族的主谋，因此，纽伦堡审判判定他是“仅次于希特勒而集全体被告罪恶活动之大成的人物”。 1893年1月12日生于罗森海姆。第一次世界大战期间为空军上尉，任飞行中队长，得过最高战功勋章。战后在丹麦任民航试飞员。1921年学习国民经济和历史学。1921年与A.希特勒相识。1922年加入纳粹党，希特勒委以整编和领导冲锋队重任。1923年参加希特勒暴动，失败后逃往奥地利。1927年回国，参加纳粹党竞选活动。1928年为国会议员。 1932年任国会议长。1933年任不管部长，航空总监、普鲁士总理、内政部长、狩猎部长，利用国会纵火案镇压共产党人和反法西斯主义者。建立国家秘密警察(盖世太保)和集中营。1935年兼任航空部长和林业部长。1936年任扩军备战的“四年计划”的全权总代表。1938年获陆军元帅称号，1939年被希特勒立为继任人，1940年获德国元帅称号。 戈林是纳粹党的主要领导人，纳粹法西斯国家的重要设计者，第三帝国建立空军、重整军备和实行战时经济的主要主持人。他多次充当希特勒的巡回大使,利用职权搜刮犹太人的财产，并大肆掠夺被占领国家的财富和艺术珍品。战争末期试图取代希特勒与同盟国谈判,1945年4月被希特勒撤职。同年 5月8日被美军俘获。1946年10月被纽伦堡国际军事法庭判处绞刑，刑前于10月15日在纽伦堡服毒身死。(RY)