Göring Telegram

The Göring Telegram was a message sent by Adolf Hitler's designated successor—Hermann Göring— on 23 April 1945 asking for permission to assume leadership of the crumbling Third Reich. The telegram caused Hitler to strip his hand-picked successor of power and appoint new political successors, Joseph Goebbels and Karl Dönitz.

Hermann Göring had been the second most-powerful man in the Nazi Party for some time before Hitler came to power in 1933. During the early years of the Hitler regime, Göring continued to pile on titles at will, including President of the Reichstag, Minister-President and acting Reichsstatthalter (governor) of Prussia and Reich Minister of Aviation, and commander-in-chief of the Luftwaffe.

On the first day of World War II, Hitler made a speech stating that Göring would succeed him "if anything should befall me." This status was underscored in a 1940 decree naming Göring as Reichsmarschall des Grossdeutschen Reiches (Reich Marshal of the Greater German Reich), a military rank second only to Hitler's rank of Supreme Commander.

On 29 June 1941, one week into Operation Barbarossa, Hitler issued a secret decree which formally named Göring his successor in the event of his death. It also gave Göring the power to act as Hitler's deputy with full freedom of action in the event Hitler ever lost his freedom of action—either by way of incapacity, disappearance or abduction.

Following the Red Army advance on Berlin in April 1945, Göring moved to the South while Hitler, his personal secretary Martin Bormann and Joseph Goebbels remained in the Führerbunker to lead the defense of the capital against the Soviets. Not long afterward, Hitler, who had by this time concluded Germany had lost the war, suggested that Göring would be better suited to negotiate peace terms.

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