Hermann Göring did not wake up early. While the disciplined officers around him were already at their desks, he was still buried in silk sheets at Karinhall, his vast estate north of Berlin. He usually slept until ten or eleven in the morning, sometimes later, and when he finally stirred, servants brought him breakfast in bed. Not a simple meal but a feast—eggs, sausages, pastries, breads, jams, cheeses, fruit.
He ate for an hour, sometimes longer, while flipping through reports and newspapers. But there was something most people did not know about him. Göring was a drug addict. He had been hooked on morphine since the 1920s, after he was wounded during Hitler’s failed Beer Hall Putsch.
Every morning, often several times a day, he injected himself with morphine or swallowed pills packed with opiates. The addiction clouded his judgment, made him erratic, and would eventually contribute to his downfall. His staff knew. Hitler knew.
But Göring was too powerful, too close to the Führer, for anyone to do anything about it. After breakfast and his morning dose, Göring spent an absurd amount of time choosing what to wear. This was not a simple matter of putting on a uniform. He had designed dozens of elaborate outfits for himself, each more ridiculous than the last—white uniforms with gold braid, sky-blue uniforms covered in medals, hunting costumes that looked like they belonged in a costume drama.
He stood in front of mirrors, posing, adjusting his medals, making sure everything was perfect. He wore makeup. He painted his nails. He used perfume.
For a man who claimed to embody German military strength, he was remarkably obsessed with his appearance. But no one dared mock him to his face. He was still Hermann Göring, commander of the Luftwaffe, president of the Reichstag, and Hitler’s designated successor. By noon, Göring might finally make his way to his office, though the word “office” was a generous description of what he actually did there.
Unlike other Nazi leaders who buried themselves in administrative work, Göring preferred grand gestures and big-picture thinking. He hated paperwork. He hated details. He wanted to make dramatic decisions and let other people handle the boring parts.
As head of the Luftwaffe, he was responsible for one of the most powerful air forces in the world, but he was a terrible administrator. He made promises he could not keep, approved unrealistic production goals, and ignored warnings from his own generals when they contradicted what he wanted to hear. When the Luftwaffe began to fail—first during the Battle of Britain, then as Allied bombers destroyed German cities—Göring blamed everyone but himself. He accused his pilots of cowardice, his engineers of incompetence, his intelligence officers of lying.
He could not accept that his leadership was part of the problem. What Göring really loved was acquiring things. Art, jewels, property—anything valuable. He used his position to loot art collections across occupied Europe, especially from Jewish families who had been murdered or driven into exile.
His agents confiscated paintings, sculptures, rare books, and furniture, sending the best pieces to Karinhall and his other properties. He amassed one of the largest private art collections in Europe, worth hundreds of millions even by 1940 standards. His afternoons were often spent examining his latest acquisitions. He had art dealers and experts brought to him, showing off his treasures and boasting about his taste.
He saw himself as a Renaissance prince, a cultured man who appreciated beauty. The fact that most of that art was stolen from murdered people did not seem to bother him at all. In his mind, he was rescuing masterpieces and giving them a proper home. Göring also loved hunting.
He owned vast hunting estates and spent many afternoons shooting deer, boar, and other game. He dressed in elaborate hunting costumes, some of which he had designed himself. These outfits were so theatrical that even other Nazis found them embarrassing. But Göring did not care.
He wanted to look like a medieval nobleman, and he had the power to make that fantasy real. Lunch was another enormous meal, often lasting two hours or more. Göring would invite guests to dine with him, holding court like a king. He was a good storyteller and could be charming when he wanted to be.
He told jokes, shared war stories from World War I when he had been a flying ace, and gossiped about other Nazi leaders. He loved being the center of attention. Beneath the charm, however, was something monstrous. Göring was directly responsible for some of the worst crimes of the Nazi regime.
He was one of the primary architects of the Holocaust. In 1941, he signed the order authorizing the Final Solution—the systematic murder of European Jews. He knew exactly what was happening in the concentration and death camps. He approved the logistics, the resources, and the personnel needed to carry out genocide on an industrial scale.
He was also responsible for creating the Gestapo, the secret police that terrorized Germany and the occupied territories. He established the first concentration camps, beginning with Dachau in 1933. He oversaw the brutal suppression of any opposition to Nazi rule. People disappeared in the night, were tortured in basements, and were sent to camps where they died by the thousands.
Yet Göring compartmentalized all of it. In his mind, he was simply doing what was necessary for Germany’s greatness. He would spend his afternoons admiring stolen paintings, then casually sign orders that resulted in thousands of deaths. The cognitive dissonance was staggering.
By evening, Göring was usually at his estate or one of his many properties. Dinner was another lavish affair—multiple courses, the finest wines, servants attending to every need. He often hosted parties, inviting foreign diplomats, artists, and even some aristocrats who had survived the Nazi rise to power. These gatherings were surreal.
Champagne flowed. An orchestra played. People danced—while outside the estate, Germany was at war and people were dying. Göring loved showing off during these parties.
He gave tours of his art collection, told stories about his adventures, and basked in the admiration of his guests. He needed constant validation, constant attention. As the war turned against Germany, Göring’s lifestyle became increasingly disconnected from reality. While German cities were bombed to rubble and soldiers died by the hundreds of thousands on the Eastern Front, Göring continued to live in luxury.
He gained even more weight, became more dependent on drugs, and made increasingly poor decisions. His relationship with Hitler deteriorated. Hitler began to see him as weak, a failure who had let the Luftwaffe collapse. By 1943 and 1944, Göring was largely sidelined.
He spent more time at his estates and less time in Berlin. He focused on his art collection, on hunting, on anything that would let him escape the reality that Germany was losing the war. In the final days of the war, Göring made a fatal miscalculation. When Hitler was trapped in his bunker in Berlin, Göring sent a telegram suggesting that he take over leadership of Germany since Hitler was cut off.
Hitler saw this as betrayal and stripped Göring of all his positions. It was a humiliating end to decades of loyalty. After the war, Göring was captured by American forces. At the Nuremberg trials, he was the highest-ranking Nazi to stand trial.
Unlike many of his co-defendants who appeared broken or tried to deny their actions, Göring remained defiant. He was charming, articulate, and utterly unrepentant. He defended the Nazi regime, argued with prosecutors, and tried to portray himself as a soldier who had simply followed orders and loved his country. He was convicted on all counts—crimes against peace, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and conspiracy.
He was sentenced to death by hanging. But Göring had one final act of defiance. The night before his execution, he swallowed a cyanide capsule he had somehow hidden from his guards. He denied the Allies the satisfaction of executing him.
Even in death, he needed to be in control. So what did Hermann Göring actually do all day? He slept late, took drugs, changed into absurd uniforms, and stole art from murdered families. He hosted lavish parties while signing orders for mass murder.
He lived in a fantasy world of luxury and power, disconnected from the suffering he helped create. He was vain, greedy, and monstrously evil, hiding behind a veneer of culture and sophistication. Behind the medals and the paintings was a man who enabled genocide, who built the machinery of terror, and who never once showed genuine remorse for any of it. Karl Dönitz was a different kind of Nazi leader.
A creature of routine and discipline, he saw himself as a true naval officer, a man of the sea. His morning started early, usually around six. The first thing he did was exercise—basic calisthenics and stretching. He wanted to stay fit and sharp, even as he aged.
After a brief workout, he washed, dressed in his crisp naval uniform, and sat down for a simple breakfast—black coffee, bread, butter, perhaps some cheese or cold cuts. He ate quickly and efficiently. Food was fuel, nothing more. He had no time for the long, indulgent meals that Hitler enjoyed.
By 7:30, Dönitz was at his desk. Whether he was at his headquarters in occupied France, later in Berlin, or aboard his command ship, the routine never changed. The first order of business was always the same: reports. Dozens of them.
Throughout the night, his U-boats had been prowling the Atlantic, hunting Allied convoys that carried supplies, troops, and weapons from America to Britain. Each submarine commander sent back coded messages about positions, targets, and kills. Dönitz read every single report personally. He did not delegate this task.
He wanted to know exactly where each of his submarines was, what they were doing, and how successful they were. He studied maps covered with tiny markers representing his “wolf packs”—groups of U-boats that hunted together like predators stalking prey. He moved the markers around, calculating distances, plotting intercept courses, deciding which submarine should attack which convoys. This was not just military strategy.
This was economic warfare designed to starve Britain into submission. Dönitz’s U-boats did not just sink warships. They sank cargo ships, oil tankers, and supply vessels. They sent thousands of merchant sailors to the bottom of the ocean.
Many of those men died slow, horrible deaths—freezing in the water or drowning as their ships went down. Dönitz knew this. He understood the human cost. And he did not care.
To him, it was simply war. What most people do not know is how personally involved Dönitz was in the U-boat war. He was not some distant commander giving vague orders. He knew many of his submarine captains by name.
He read their reports, praised their successes, and mourned their losses. When a U-boat failed to return—which happened more and more as the war went on—Dönitz would mark it as lost and move on. But privately, these losses ate at him. He saw his submariners as his sons.
Yet he kept sending them out, knowing that fewer and fewer would come back. By mid-morning, Dönitz held meetings with his staff officers. These sessions could last for hours. They discussed tactics, new technologies, and intelligence reports about Allied defenses.
Dönitz was obsessed with improving his U-boats. He pushed for faster submarines, better torpedoes, and new ways to evade enemy detection. He was a technical innovator, always looking for an edge. One of his most significant contributions was the development of the wolf pack tactic.
Instead of having submarines hunt alone, Dönitz coordinated groups of U-boats to attack convoys simultaneously from multiple directions. This overwhelmed the convoy escorts and led to devastating losses for Allied shipping. He spent hours at his plotting table orchestrating these attacks like a conductor leading an orchestra of death. Dönitz also personally reviewed every aspect of U-boat design and crew training.
He visited shipyards to inspect new submarines under construction, demanding modifications based on feedback from his captains. He established rigorous training programs for submarine crews, knowing that even the best technology was useless without skilled operators. He created specialized schools where men learned to operate in the claustrophobic, dangerous environment of a submarine. These vessels were essentially steel coffins—cramped, smelly, and terrifying.
One depth charge could crush the hull and kill everyone inside instantly. Yet Dönitz demanded absolute perfection. But here is where things get darker. Dönitz was not just a military professional doing his duty.
He was a committed Nazi. He believed in Hitler’s vision for Germany and supported the regime fully. In speeches to his men, he often spoke about loyalty to the Führer, about fighting for the survival of the German race, and about the need for total commitment to National Socialism. He was not forced to say those things.
He meant them. Dönitz also knew about and supported the Holocaust. While he did not personally operate concentration camps, he was fully aware of what was happening. He never spoke out against it.
He never questioned it. In fact, he actively worked to remove Jewish sailors and personnel from the Navy. He issued orders that aligned with Nazi racial policies and enforced them without hesitation. This was not a man who was just following orders.
He was a true believer. Lunch was usually around noon, and like breakfast, it was quick and functional. Dönitz might eat at his desk while continuing to work, or he would join his senior officers in a small dining room. The meals were simple, typically German military fare—potatoes, vegetables, meat, bread.
He did not drink alcohol during the day. He needed to stay focused. In the afternoons, Dönitz often traveled. He visited submarine bases along the French coast—places like Lorient, Brest, and Saint-Nazaire.
These bases were heavily fortified with massive concrete bunkers that protected the U-boats from Allied bombing raids. When Dönitz arrived, it was a major event. He inspected the submarines, talked to the crews, and gave speeches. His speeches were powerful.
He spoke with conviction and passion. He told his young submariners they were Germany’s elite warriors, that the fate of the nation rested on their shoulders. He praised their courage and sacrifice. He told them they were fighting for their families, for their homeland, for their future.
And then he sent them out to die. Many of the men who served under Dönitz genuinely loved him. He had a talent for making each sailor feel important, for remembering names and details about their lives. When a crew returned from a successful patrol, Dönitz would often be there personally to greet them, shaking hands, handing out medals, posing for photographs.
He cultivated this image of the caring commander who valued his men. But it was a calculated performance. He needed these young men to trust him completely, to follow his orders without question—even when those orders meant sailing into almost certain death. The psychological toll on U-boat crews was immense.
They spent weeks at a time submerged in darkness, breathing recycled air, never knowing if the next moment would bring a depth charge that would crush them. They could not shower. They could not escape the constant noise of the engines and the creaking of the hull. Some men broke down completely.
Others became numb to the horror. Dönitz was aware of all this, but he saw it as the price of victory. He believed that German willpower and discipline could overcome any obstacle—even mathematics and technology that proved the U-boat campaign was becoming unsustainable. Because that is what was happening by 1943 and 1944.
The Allies had cracked the German naval codes. They knew where the U-boats were. They had developed better sonar, faster escort ships, and long-range aircraft that could hunt submarines from the air. The Atlantic was becoming a graveyard for German submariners.
Out of roughly 40,000 men who served in the U-boat force during World War II, about 30,000 died. That is a 75 percent death rate—the highest of any military branch in the entire war. Dönitz knew the odds. He saw the casualty reports every single day.
But he kept sending them out. When his own son served on U-boats, and one of them was killed in action, Dönitz grieved privately but publicly called it an honor. He used his son’s death as propaganda, as proof of his own commitment to the cause. By evening, Dönitz retired to his quarters.
He lived modestly compared to other Nazi leaders—no grand palaces or lavish estates, just functional military housing. He had dinner, again something simple, and then spent the late evening reading reports, writing orders, and planning the next day’s operations. He also wrote in his diary and composed reports for Hitler. Dönitz had a complicated relationship with the Führer.
He respected Hitler’s authority but often disagreed with his decisions about naval strategy. Unlike some Nazi leaders who feared Hitler, Dönitz could speak relatively frankly. Hitler respected him because Dönitz delivered results, and because he was loyal without being a sycophant. That loyalty would lead to one of history’s strangest moments.
In April 1945, as the Nazi regime collapsed and Hitler prepared to die in his bunker, he chose Karl Dönitz to succeed him as the leader of Germany. Not Goebbels. Not Himmler. Not Göring.
Dönitz—a naval officer—became the last Führer of Nazi Germany. For 23 days, Dönitz led what remained of the Third Reich. He operated from northern Germany, trying to negotiate surrender terms and maintain some form of government. But it was all futile.
Germany was defeated. The war was over. On May 23, 1945, British forces arrested Dönitz and his government. Unlike many top Nazis who committed suicide or went into hiding, Dönitz faced trial at Nuremberg.
He was convicted of war crimes and crimes against peace. He served ten years in Spandau Prison. Throughout his imprisonment and for the rest of his life, Dönitz never truly accepted responsibility. He maintained that he was simply a naval officer doing his duty.
He denied being a committed Nazi despite all evidence to the contrary. He expressed no real remorse for the deaths he caused or the regime he served. After his release in 1956, he lived quietly in northern Germany until his death in 1980. He wrote memoirs that portrayed himself as a professional sailor caught up in events beyond his control.
Even decades after the war, Dönitz attended reunions of former U-boat crews. Old men who had served under him still called him Grand Admiral and treated him with reverence. He signed autographs, posed for pictures, and basked in their admiration. He never apologized for the war crimes committed under his command.
He never acknowledged the moral bankruptcy of the cause he had served. Instead, he spoke about duty, honor, and military professionalism—as if these concepts existed in a vacuum, separate from the evil regime he had loyally served. In private conversations recorded by historians and journalists, Dönitz continued to defend Hitler’s early policies and only criticized the Führer’s later military decisions. He claimed he had known nothing about the Holocaust, despite mountains of evidence proving otherwise.
He maintained this fiction until his death, refusing to confront the reality that he had been an integral part of one of history’s most monstrous regimes. His funeral was attended by hundreds of former Navy personnel, some of whom gave the Nazi salute at his grave. A final testament to the ideology he had never truly abandoned. So what did Karl Dönitz actually do all day?
He woke early, studied his maps, and sent young men to their deaths in the cold Atlantic waters. He gave inspiring speeches while enforcing Nazi ideology. He innovated deadly tactics while supporting a genocidal regime. He was not just a military officer following orders.
He was a true believer who knew exactly what he was fighting for and never looked back.
