Cyanide, in its many deadly forms, is a lightning‑fast poison that has claimed countless victims throughout history. While most people remember the tragic mass‑suicide at Jonestown, cyanide also powered the infamous Zyklon‑B gas used in Nazi death chambers during World War II.[1] As the war turned against the Third Reich, a grim pattern emerged: many of the very men who ordered the gas to kill millions would later swallow the same poison to avoid capture. Here are the ten most notorious Nazis who sealed their fates with cyanide capsules.
Why 10 Nazis Who Chose Cyanide
The irony is stark – the very toxin they weaponised against millions became the instrument of their own demise. Whether driven by shame, fear of prosecution, or a twisted sense of honor, each of these men reached for a tiny pill that promised a swift exit. Below, we rank them from the most senior architect of Nazi terror down to the infamous air‑war chief, each accompanied by a brief look at their dark careers and final moments.
10 Hermann Goering
Hermann Göring rose to prominence as one of Adolf Hitler’s closest confidants and the mastermind behind the Gestapo, the secret police that enforced Nazi domination. He was instrumental in the 1934 Night of the Long Knives, a brutal purge that eliminated over 85 perceived rivals and solidified Hitler’s grip on power. Göring also helped design the concentration‑camp system, where Zyklon‑B would later claim untold numbers of lives.
When the war finally collapsed, Göring stood trial at Nuremberg, convicted of war crimes and sentenced to death by hanging. He famously begged the tribunal for a bullet to the head, a request that was denied. On the night of 15 October 1946, just hours before his execution, he slipped a cyanide capsule into his mouth inside his cell. The poison acted quickly, and he was found dead, the capsule having done its grim work.[2]
Göring’s demise epitomises the ultimate betrayal: the very chemical weapon he helped deploy to murder millions was turned against him in a final, desperate act of self‑destruction.
9 Odilo Globocnik
Odilo Globocnik, an Austrian Nazi, was a key architect of the Aktion Reinhardt extermination plan, which aimed to annihilate the Jewish population of occupied Poland. A fervent supporter of the Nazi cause, he helped recruit local collaborators and oversaw the construction of death camps where Zyklon‑B was used to exterminate countless victims.
Captured by Allied forces during a pre‑dawn raid on 31 May 1945, Globocnik faced the prospect of standing trial for his crimes. Rather than endure that fate, he placed a cyanide capsule under his tongue and held it there for several hours before finally crushing it at roughly 11:25 a.m. The poison took effect within minutes, ending his life in a bleak, quiet bunker.[3]
His final act underscores the chilling consistency: those who orchestrated the mass murder of millions often chose the same lethal chemical they had wielded as a weapon of genocide.
8 Joseph Goebbels’s Children
On 1 May 1945, as Soviet forces closed in on Berlin, Joseph Goebbels – Hitler’s ruthless propaganda minister – retreated to the Führerbunker with his six young children. Refusing to imagine a future for them under Allied rule, Goebbels ordered their deaths. Initially, a dentist‑turned‑Nazi doctor, Helmut Kunz, balked at the task, leaving the grim responsibility to another physician, Ludwig Stumpfegger.
Stumpfegger rendered the children unconscious and placed a half‑centimetre cyanide capsule between each of their teeth, crushing the tablets to ensure rapid death. The children died within minutes, their brief lives extinguished by the very poison that had been used to murder millions in gas chambers.[4]
The tragedy of the Goebbels children remains a haunting reminder that the cruelty of the Nazi regime extended even to its own families, sealing the fate of the next generation with cyanide.
7 Richard Glucks
Richard Glucks began his career as a regular soldier before the Nazi Party’s rise, eventually becoming a concentration‑camp inspector. In that role he decided who would live and who would be sent to the gas chambers, even collaborating with Heinrich Himmler on the grotesque plan to spin victims’ hair into yarn for German troops.
After surviving a severe Allied bombing, Glucks was hospitalized and, facing the inevitable reckoning for his crimes, swallowed a cyanide capsule. Some historians speculate that he may have been assassinated by Jewish resistance fighters, but the prevailing account holds that he chose the poison himself to escape justice.
Glucks’ fate illustrates the pattern of self‑inflicted death that many high‑ranking Nazis embraced when the Allied tide turned irreversibly against them.
6 Hans‑Georg von Friedeburg
Admiral Hans‑Georg von Friedeburg commanded the Kriegsmarine’s U‑boat fleet and later served as the chief of the German navy. Unlike many of his peers, he was not directly implicated in the Holocaust, but he played a pivotal role in negotiating Germany’s surrender to the Allies in May 1945.
Nonetheless, rumors that he would be tried for war crimes—simply because of his high rank—loomed large. On 23 May 1945, fearing the prospect of a post‑war tribunal, von Friedeburg ingested a cyanide capsule, ending his life in a quiet, self‑administered death.
His suicide underscores that even those peripheral to the regime’s most heinous policies sometimes opted for cyanide when the war’s outcome became inevitable.
5 Martin Bormann
Martin Bormann, the shadowy head of the Nazi Party Chancellery, operated as Adolf Hitler’s private secretary and wielded immense influence over the regime’s inner workings. He was instrumental in the creation of many concentration camps and helped orchestrate the forced‑labour system that fed the German war machine.
After the war, Bormann vanished, prompting rumors that he had escaped to South America. It wasn’t until 1998 that DNA testing confirmed his remains, discovered alongside those of Ludwig Stumpfegger, the doctor who killed the Goebbels children. Both men had died on 2 May 1945 after crushing cyanide capsules in their mouths.[7]
Bormann’s post‑war disappearance and eventual identification highlight how the very poison that powered the gas chambers also sealed the fates of those who orchestrated the Holocaust.
4 Robert Ritter von Greim
Robert Ritter von Greim rose through the Luftwaffe ranks to become a field marshal, overseeing aerial campaigns such as the Battle of Britain and the invasion of the Soviet Union (Operation Barbarossa). He was among the most senior air‑force officers, credited with numerous strategic victories for the Third Reich.
Captured by American troops on 8 May 1945 in Austria, von Greim faced the prospect of a war‑crime trial. On 24 May 1945, while in custody at Salzburg, he crushed a cyanide capsule in his mouth, ending his life within minutes.[8]
His suicide reflects the broader pattern of high‑ranking Nazis preferring a swift cyanide death over the humiliation of a public trial.
3 Heinrich Himmler
Heinrich Himmler, the architect of the SS and chief overseer of the Gestapo, was a central figure in planning and executing the Holocaust. Joining the Nazi Party in 1923, he swiftly rose to become one of its most powerful men, responsible for the creation of the concentration‑camp system that employed Zyklon‑B to murder millions.
In 1943, Himmler briefly fell out of favour and was expelled from the party, yet he remained a key player in the regime’s terror apparatus. As the war collapsed, he attempted to flee but was captured by Allied forces. On 23 May 1945, to avoid a trial at Nuremberg, he swallowed a cyanide capsule, dying within moments of ingestion.[9]
Himmler’s self‑inflicted death epitomises the ultimate irony – the man who oversaw the systematic use of cyanide on millions chose the same poison to escape justice.
2 Eva Braun
Eva Braun, Adolf Hitler’s long‑time companion and eventual wife, lived in the shadows of the Nazi regime, largely removed from direct political power but intimately tied to its leader. She attempted suicide twice during the final days in the bunker, reflecting her deep despair and isolation.
When the Soviet army closed in on Berlin, Braun entered the Führerbunker with Hitler. Together they ingested cyanide capsules hidden in glass vials, sealing their fate as the Third Reich crumbled around them. Braun’s death on 30 April 1945 marked the end of a personal partnership that had endured the war’s entire horror.[10]
Her tragic end underscores how even those peripheral to the Nazi hierarchy chose cyanide as the final, hopeless escape.
1 Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler, the architect of the Holocaust, oversaw the deployment of Zyklon‑B in gas chambers that murdered millions. While most historical accounts cite a self‑inflicted gunshot as the cause of his death on 30 April 1945, some Soviet reports claim he also swallowed a cyanide capsule, adding a second layer of lethal certainty.
In 1968, a Soviet intelligence officer published a book asserting that Soviet scientists had recovered Hitler’s body, performed an autopsy, and detected cyanide poisoning alongside the bullet wound. Whether or not the cyanide was truly present remains debated, but the possibility aligns with the pattern of other Nazi leaders who chose the poison as their final weapon.[11]
Whether fact or legend, Hitler’s alleged use of cyanide adds a chilling footnote to a regime that weaponised the toxin on a massive scale, and it serves as a fitting, if macabre, conclusion to the list of 10 Nazis who chose cyanide to end their lives.