On the night of 15 October 1946, Hermann Göring ended his life in his Nuremberg cell, just hours before his scheduled execution. His death closed his chapter in history, but it opened another one: what happened to the family he left behind? From the luxury of Carinhall to the uncertainty of postwar Germany, the Göring name faced a dramatic fall. In the final weeks of the war, Emmy and Edda Göring watched the world they knew disappear. In late April 1945, as Soviet forces advanced through Germany, Hermann Göring ordered his estate at Carinhall Estate destroyed.

By the time the last structure was turned into rubble, Emmy and Edda were already being moved deeper into Bavaria, first toward Berchtesgaden and then into scattered Alpine retreats controlled by the collapsing Reich leadership. On 6 May 1945, U.S. troops intercepted Göring near Radstadt, Austria. His surrender was reported within hours. Shortly afterward, Allied authorities located Emmy and Edda in the same region. They were escorted to temporary holding sites for “dependents of high-ranking officials,” a category created to prevent flight and secure potential witnesses.

The facilities ranged from requisitioned hotels to guarded houses, and living conditions varied, but the message was clear: freedom would not come soon. Allied interrogators questioned Emmy repeatedly. She had been one of the most visible women of the regime, often photographed alongside Hitler’s inner circle. They pressed her on her influence, her wartime privileges, and her proximity to official decisions. For the first time since the 1930s, she no longer had staff, status, or protection. For Edda, the transition was even more abrupt.

At just seven years old, she moved from a household surrounded by servants and ceremonial displays to a string of unfamiliar rooms under military guard. Allied personnel noted that she remained quiet and polite, often holding tightly to a small suitcase containing the few belongings she had been allowed to keep. She asked repeatedly when she would see her father. Meanwhile, Hermann Göring’s arrest changed Emmy’s legal position overnight. The Allies began a detailed inventory of the family’s assets, from jewelry and furs to art pieces linked to larger restitution investigations.

Personal items that Emmy attempted to keep were often confiscated for review. By the late summer of 1945, Emmy and Edda had been transferred several times. They lived for weeks in a requisitioned building near Garmisch-Partenkirchen before being moved again to facilities closer to Munich. The war was over, but for the Göring family the ordeal had only begun. With Hermann Göring now awaiting trial before the International Military Tribunal, Emmy and Edda entered a new and uncertain phase, caught between the legal machinery of denazification and the personal collapse of everything they had known.

Nuremberg: Impact on the Göring Family As the International Military Tribunal opened in November 1945, Hermann Göring became its most prominent defendant. His testimony, delivered across the winter and spring of 1946, dominated world headlines. He denied criminal responsibility, defended the regime’s decisions, and attempted to position himself as a statesman rather than a leading architect of the war. For Emmy and Edda, still under Allied supervision, the trial meant months of uncertainty and renewed scrutiny. Allied reports noted that Emmy asked repeatedly for updates but was not permitted direct communication with him.

The sentence came on 1 October 1946. Göring was found guilty on all major counts and condemned to death. Less than two weeks later, on 15 October, he took his own life in his cell using a hidden capsule. His death ended his role in world affairs but intensified the legal and political consequences for his family. When the news reached Emmy and Edda, observers noted a quiet but profound shock. Emmy reportedly refused to believe the details at first; Edda, then eight years old, asked where her father had gone.

Beyond the personal impact, the Nuremberg verdict triggered the full legal dismantling of the Göring estate. Allied and German authorities began formal seizure procedures covering properties, valuables, and financial accounts. Carinhall had already been destroyed, but the family still held art, jewelry, and personal collections. Much of this inventory was linked to larger restitution efforts involving art taken from across occupied Europe. The most famous case involved the Göring art collection, one of the largest private collections assembled during the Third Reich.

Allied investigators tracked hundreds of paintings, sculptures, and decorative objects to repositories in Bavaria and Austria. The collection was disassembled and distributed for restitution or held as evidence. When Germany entered the denazification phase in 1947, Emmy Göring’s case drew intense attention. Unlike many spouses of Nazi officials, Emmy had been a highly visible figure. As the wife of Hermann Göring, she attended public ceremonies, cultural events, and diplomatic functions. Some Allied investigators even referred to her informally as “the social First Lady of the Reich,” a description that shaped the proceedings that followed.

The loss she faced after 1945 was financial as well as symbolic. With no estate and no access to former privileges, Emmy entered the postwar years without security. Compensation claims she attempted to file in the late 1940s stalled under denazification regulations, and pension rights tied to her husband’s former state roles were denied. Edda’s situation was also marked by uncertainty. Although children were not subject to denazification, the Göring name carried considerable weight. Allied administrators briefly debated whether she should be placed under outside guardianship during the process.

The idea was ultimately rejected in favor of returning her to Emmy under supervision once the mother’s case was resolved. In early 1947, Emmy was summoned before a Munich denazification tribunal. Prosecutors presented photographs, witness testimonies, and records showing her involvement in state-sponsored cultural organizations. They argued that her public presence supported the regime’s image and contributed to the normalization of Nazi leadership. Emmy countered that she had been only a private person, forced into a role she never sought. The tribunal issued its ruling in March 1948.

Emmy was classified as a “Belastete,” or major offender, the second most serious category under the denazification system. She lost all remaining property rights, including claims to household goods held by the Allies. She faced a permanent ban from working in public sectors, as well as restrictions on travel, media appearances, and participation in cultural institutions. The verdict also barred her from receiving pensions tied to her husband’s former state positions. Appeals followed almost immediately. Emmy argued that her classification overstated her political involvement, emphasizing her lack of formal power within the government.

Defense attorneys cited her responsibilities as a mother, her limited knowledge of high-level decisions, and her withdrawal from public life after 1939. Appeals eased some restrictions over time, especially those affecting movement and personal employment. Still, the central penalties remained in place throughout her life. Her financial situation after the trial was challenging but not desperate. Emmy resettled in Munich, where she lived in modest accommodations supported by long-standing friends from the theatrical world. Some accounts portray her as destitute, while others suggest she managed a quiet, stable existence without luxury.

Historians still argue whether she dramatized her hardship in later interviews. In the late 1960s, Emmy briefly stepped back into public view. In 1967, she published her autobiography An der Seite meines Mannes. An English edition, My Life with Göring, followed in 1972. In the memoir, she portrayed Hermann as compassionate and attentive, defending him against the historical record and presenting her life with him as one of devotion and loyalty. She never altered this view. Her final years were marked by declining health.On 8 June 1973, Emmy died in Munich at age 80.

Edda remained with her mother until the end. Edda Göring was born on 2 June 1938, and the nazi regime treated her birth as a national celebration. Ten days later, crowds filled the streets of Berlin when Hermann Göring brought Emmy and their newborn daughter home. On 4 November 1938, Hitler served as her godfather during a formal baptism at Carinhall, an event covered by Life magazine. Among her gifts were paintings attributed to Lucas Cranach the Elder, a sign of the privilege surrounding her from birth.

Carinhall, the family estate in the Schorfheide forest, featured an indoor pool, a cinema, a gymnasium, and a small zoo. Members of the Nazi elite often called her the “little princess.” In 1940, the Luftwaffe built her a miniature palace in the orchard, a 50-meter structure complete with a small theater. Known as the Edda-Schlösschen. That world fell apart in 1945. For Edda Göring, childhood ended in an internment building under Allied guard. After her mother’s denazification case concluded, she returned to Munich.

Through the late 1940s and 1950s, she tried to build a normal life, attending local schools and living with her mother in modest rooms. The name “Göring” ensured she lived with a label she had not chosen, and firmly refused to remove. As Edda entered adulthood, she began studying law at the University of Munich. She worked briefly as a law clerk before moving into a hospital laboratory as a medical-technical assistant. She kept that career for decades, never married, and never had children.

In the 1970s, Edda briefly stepped back into public life. For several years, she was closely associated with journalist Gerd Heidemann, who had purchased the Carin II, the yacht once owned by her father. Their relationship placed her in social circles where the past was often discussed openly. On board the yacht, gatherings sometimes included former figures from the wartime era, among them Karl Wolff and Wilhelm Mohnke. What set Edda apart from many descendants of Nazi leaders was her unwavering defense of her father.

In interviews during the 1990s and early 2000s, she insisted her father had been a kind, protective figure in her life and claimed he had tried to restrain the excesses of the regime. When asked directly about his crimes, she simply replied that she remembered “a loving father.” She continued to live quietly, spending years in Schwaz, Austria, before returning to Munich. When she died on 21 December 2018, her obituary in The New York Times highlighted her unwavering loyalty, a loyalty that set her apart not only from German society, but even from members of her own extended family.

Edda was not the only living descendant of Hermann Göring. His grandniece, Bettina Göring, born after the war, took a radically different path. Raised outside the immediate family structure, Bettina grew up deeply aware of the Göring legacy and the impact it carried in Germany and internationally. Unlike Edda, she rejected the family narrative entirely. Bettina moved to the United States in adulthood and later settled in New Mexico. In interviews, she openly described the burden of carrying the Göring name and spoke about the psychological weight of being related to one of the most notorious figures of the Third Reich.

Her statements attracted international attention in the 2000s when she revealed that both she and her brother had voluntarily undergone sterilization. Her reasoning, as she put it, was to “end the line” and ensure that no future generation would inherit what she called “the shadow of Göring.” Bettina’s decision reflected a personal attempt to break from the family legacy entirely. Her choice stood in sharp contrast to Edda’s lifelong loyalty. While Edda defended her father until her final years, Bettina confronted the past head-on, discussing shame, responsibility, and the cost of inherited history.