This series paints an incredibly vivid portrait of Hermann Goering, the man who would become 'Reichsmarschall' and Hitler’s second-in-command. Even after he was captured by US forces, Hitler’s most brutal deputy would never acknowledge his own responsibility for Nazi atrocities, chillingly surmising that: "I have no conscience…my conscience is Adolf Hitler."

This documentary makes use of the most important recent single film find from the Nazi era, including never-before-seen material. Goering left behind no diaries and few personal documents. However, films from his private collection, which lay hidden for six decades, now reveal how this barbaric henchman viewed himself, and the world around him.

In this episode, we look at Goering’s early life, outlining his tangled family tree and his relationship with his sister. We visit his childhood home in Franconia, southern Germany. At Veldenstein Castle, Goering spent endless days reading medieval myths and playing ‘Knights’. Dressed as an Imperial Hussar, he frequently imagined himself leading his troops into battle.

During the First World War, Goering joined the Prussian Aviators: the Kaiser’s newest elite unit. Determined to become a ‘war hero’, he claimed twenty-two ‘kills’, winning Prussia’s highest military distinction: The Blue Max. We also look at Goering’s ‘wilderness years’ following World War One. Because the Versailles Treaty had stripped Germany of her air force, the rootless young aviator drifted aimlessly from one job to the next, delivering mail by plane and selling parachutes.

We describe Goering’s meeting with Carin von Kantzow: the woman who would abandon her husband and family to elope with him. His first encounter with Hitler would have more cataclysmic results. After they met in Munich, Goering became "devoted to Hitler, body and soul"; Hitler’s new ‘right hand man’ would soon be the head of the SA.

We outline Goering’s latent anti-Semitism, his fervent nationalism, and his role in the bungled Munich putsch of 1923. His well-known drug addiction can be seen as a direct result of this pitifully botched coup. His dependency on morphine, which he was given to dull the pain of the injuries he sustained, quickly spiralled out of control. He would soon need four or five shots of the drug per day simply to bear reality.

We examine the turmoil of Weimar Germany, and the inflation and mass unemployment bought about by the world economic crisis. In these desperate times, support for the Nazi’s grew; in 1933, Hitler was elected Chancellor of the Reich. In ensuring Nazi control the Interior Ministry, Goering opened the gates that would allow the party to crawl, crab-like, towards absolute power.

We go on to examine the SA’s internal campaign of terror, including the merciless persecution which followed the Reichstag fire, and the torture of political prisoners at Koepenick Prison. At the end of the episode, we examine the Anschluss, which marked the high point of the Hitler-Goering relationship. Goering’s part in the Munich Conference, where a European conflagration was narrowly and briefly avoided, is also afforded a comprehensive examination.