Russell Crowe’s portrayal of Hermann Goering in the new film Nuremberg has rightly been hailed by critics.
But, according to a previously unpublished letter the Nazi henchman sent to his wife, there is one aspect of Crowe’s depiction that is not quite right: his weight.
Whilst Crowe ballooned to nearly 20st as he acted as Adolf Hitler’s deputy, Goering – who was so fat after he was captured that the chair in his cell broke when he sat on it – actually shed the pounds as he awaited trial for war crimes.
In the newly seen letter, written in German and typed on official Prisoner of War stationery, he tells his spouse, Emmy, he has lost 41kg (6st) and his clothes now ‘hang loosely’.
The war criminal seems pleased with his new 13.5st frame, telling her it has ‘done him no harm’ and he has plenty to eat.
The intriguing letter has come to light as the new film, which also stars Rami Malek, screens in cinemas.
Since filming the historical drama, Crowe has trimmed down to 15.5st.
Much like the film, Goering’s letter provides an insight into the military leader’s mindset as he was tried for the heinous war crimes the Nazi Party committed during the Second World War.
Russell Crowe ‘s portrayal of Hermann Goering in the new film Nuremberg has rightly been hailed by critics
Hermann Goering lost a lot of weight while he was awaiting trial at Nuremberg. Above: The Nazi eating a meal in the courthouse at Nuremberg
The letter has been owned by a private American collector since the 1980s and is now one of three Goring letters being sold at International Autograph Auctions, where they are expected to fetch £4,300.
In the psychological thriller US Army psychiatrist Douglas Kelley, played by Malek, seeks to assess the personalities and monitor the mental status of Goering and other high-ranking Nazis before and during the trials.
As the trial draws near, Kelley attempts to communicate with Hitler’s former deputy Rudolf Hess, who he believes is faking amnesia.
He asks Goring to help in exchange for delivering letters to his wife and daughter, Edda.
The letter being sold is one of those. Emmy was a German actress he married in 1935 with Hitler as his best man.
Goering had been taken into custody in May 1945 and was initially in a temporary prisoner of war camp.
He had a severe morphine addiction and had to be weaned off the pill-popping – he had been taking up to 320g a day – by prison doctors.
The Nazi was also put on a strict diet.
The letter is dated May 11, 1946.
In the newly seen letter, written in German and typed on official Prisoner of War stationery, he tells his spouse, Emmy , he has lost 41kg (6st) and his clothes now ‘hang loosely’
The typed letter that was sent to Hermann Goering’s wife on his behalf
Goering in court with other leading Nazis. To his left is Rudolf Hess. Also seen are Joachim von Ribbentrop (partly concealed) and at back left to right: Karl Doenitz and Erich Raeder
He writes: ‘Well, my dearest, I was bedridden for a few days. I contracted a cough which happens often to me here since one catches cold from the ever-present draught.
‘I lost 41 kilograms in weight. I am now weighing approximately eighty-six kilograms [13.5stone].
‘Yet that did me no harm. My clothes hang loosely around my body although I am always able to eat my fill.’
He also expresses his concerns for his family, writing: ‘I am greatly worried on account of all the difficulties which you face there on the remote, primitive small forest house.
‘I would prefer you to be at Sylt, should you be able to obtain fairly acceptable lodgings.
‘Over there, the winters are cold. No firewood! But perhaps you will be able to get into your house after all.’
He signs off: ‘My darling, I always think about you…..All the love that my heart pours out flows around you and Edda…..with many fervent kisses.’
Head of the Luftwaffe and the holder of the specially created rank of Reichsmarshall, Goering was one of the most powerful figures in Nazi Germany.
Hermann Goering at Nuremberg, seated next to fellow defendants Rudolf Hess, Joachim Von Ribbentrop and Wilhelm Keitel
By the end of the war, Goering – the one-time strapping flying ace who had performed brilliantly in the First World War – was a hugely obese monstrosity.
The drug-addled Nazi was so overweight that when his American captors wanted to move him, the assigned Piper plane could not take off.
When a larger plane was found, the size of Goering’s belly made it impossible to fasten the seatbelt.
Despite his status as a prisoner and suspected war criminal, Goering arrived in jail for the first time with a valet, monogrammed suitcases, jewellery and cash equivalent to more than a million dollars in today’s money.
Among his possessions were looted works of art, along with thousands of paracodeine (a combination of paracetamol and codeine) pills.
Kelley’s relationship with Goering became so close that the former Luftwaffe chief asked him to take care of his daughter if he and his wife were to die.
He told his wife that Kelley was ‘a gentleman you can trust completely’.
However, Kelley was less effusive about the Nazi, having noticed his amoral attitudes towards other human beings.
Goering in the dock seated next to Rudolf Hess and in front of Karl Doenitz
Goering dismissed the Auschwitz death camp in occupied Poland as ‘good propaganda’ and said he had ordered the shooting of his fellow Nazi Ernst Roehm in the 1934 purge because he was ‘in my way’.
He was also entirely unrepentant about his role in the Holocaust.
The Nazi told Kelley: ‘You know I shall hang. I am ready – but in 50 or 60 years there will be Goering statues all over Germany.’
The Nuremberg trials started in November 1945 and closing arguments were heard in August 1946.
Goering claimed to know nothing about what had happened in the concentration camps but he was convicted of conspiracy, crimes against peace, war crimes, and crimes against humanity.
He was sentenced to death by hanging, but committed suicide by ingesting cyanide the night before his scheduled execution.
The letter has an estimate of £1,050.
Nuremberg also stars Rami Malek as US Army psychiatrist Douglas Kelley
Richard Davie from International Autograph Auctions, said: ‘Herman Goring was the second highest ranking official tried at Nuremberg. He was initially placed in a temporary prisoner-of-war camp in Luxembourg following his capture by American forces.
‘It was at this time he was weaned off morphine and placed on a strict diet.
‘As Russell Crowe, the actor portraying Goering in the recently released movie Nuremberg, observed in a recent interview, Goering was in possession of some 40,000 pills when he was arrested, and had been addicted to drugs for several years.
‘Crowe added that Goring´s intake of drugs had overtaken his lifestyle, and that the former war hero, was a ‘fascinating and dangerous’ character to portray.
‘James Vanderbilt, director of the film, also noted that Goring was a family man who adored his wife and only child, Edda.
‘This aspect of Goring is clearly revealed in the letter he wrote to his wife from Nuremberg, which he closed in very affectionate terms.’
The film, which received a four-minute standing ovation after its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival, is currently showing in UK cinemas.
The letters will be sold on December 4.
Kelley had forged his reputation treating people with post-traumatic stress disorder, which was then known as ‘battle fatigue’.
Sure that he would find fault with the minds of his Nazi subjects, Kelley made them do the Roschach test.
The psychological test involves drawing conclusions from patients’ interpretations of inkblots.
However, Kelley’s hopes were dashed when the Nazi war criminals’ interpretations were as varied as any other group of inmates.
Using his interview notes and test results, Kelley wrote his book 22 Cells in Nuremberg.
It concluded that the condemned Nazis were not monsters, despite their immense character flaws and morally-deficient attitudes towards other human beings.
He argued that many people had it in them to act like the Nazis in the right circumstances.
Kelley became so concerned by the notion that similarly disposed individuals could be recruited in the US that he tried to warn Americans by appearing on TV shows and giving lectures.
Meanwhile, fellow interrogator Gustave Gilbert published his own book, which laid out the more popular argument that the Nazi criminals were psychopaths.
The label – applied to those who exhibit traits including a total lack of empathy with the suffering or feelings of others – was then a new term.
Gilbert’s analysis aligned more with the baying mood of the victorious American public than Kelley’s did.
It was perhaps ironic that it was the mental state of the workaholic Kelley – the medic who placed immense faith in the emerging subject of psychiatry – that then began to deteriorate.
He subjected his wife, Dukie, and their three children to increasingly regular angry outbursts.
On one terrifying occasion, while standing on the landing near his home office, he fired a gun at the feet of his wife.
Then, on New Year’s Day in 1958, he decided to take his own life in the most horrifying way.
After yet another violent row, he emerged from his office with a capsule in his hand and declared: ‘I don’t have to take this any more.
‘I’m going to take this cyanide and nobody will care!’
Ignoring the screams of his wife and children, Kelley then did exactly that. Foaming at the mouth, he fell down the stairs and died almost instantly.
After his passing, local newspapers questioned if Goering himself had given Kelley the capsule that killed him.
It remains a mystery as to how exactly he got his hands on it.
