Forerunner

While the reading public awaits the tell-all book by Donald Trump's niece, another new book provides a portrait of a historical figure whose character resembles the president's in a most uncanny way.

Erik Larson's The Splendid and the Vile: A Saga of Churchill, Family and Defiance during the Blitz includes a sketch of Reich Marshal Herman Göring, every bit of which feels like a description of Trump.

Göring, Larson writes, was "large, buoyant, ruthless, cruel," with an "ebullient and joyously corrupt personality."

With a "passion for extravagant sartorial display," Göring designed his own clothes, often changing his costume several times a day. Besides elaborate uniforms, he often wore gold-embroidered silk shirts, tunics and togas, painting his toenails red, dying his hair yellow, penciling his eyebrows and applying rouge to his cheeks. He also wore oversized diamond and emerald rings on the fingers of both hands.

British intelligence reports said Göring spent much of his time as Reich Marshal riding and hunting on his forested estate outside Berlin, when he should have been directing the Luftwaffe. He also devoted countless hours to running a private network of thugs, whose job was to raid art galleries and wealthy homes, stealing paintings for Göring's vast collection.

Although considered crazy by some, American intelligence reports said Göring was a "great actor and professional liar."

"The public loved him," Larson writes, "forgiving his legendary excesses and coarse personality." The American journalist William Shirer wrote at the time, "Göring is a salty, earthy, lusty man of flesh and blood. The Germans like him because they understand him. He has the faults and virtues of the average man, and the people admire him for both." Rather than resent Göring's "fantastic, medieval—and very expensive—personal life," the Germans admired it. "It is the sort of life they would lead themselves, perhaps, if they had the chance."

In the rare moments he did apply himself to his office, Göring often bungled, disregarding valid intelligence, dismissing unpleasant news, and quickly losing patience with subordinates. 

"He was easily influenced by a small clique of sycophants," one Luftwaffe pilot said at the time. "His court favorites changed frequently, since his favor could only be won and held by means of constant flattery, intrigue and expensive gifts. Göring was a man with almost no technical knowledge and no appreciation of the conditions under which modern fighter aircraft fought."