Was Hermann Göring a transvestite/cross-dresser?

Question

Although I have been unable to come up with the proper quote, Eddie Izzard - himself a transvestite - has allegedly remarked that he's not a

[...] drag queen or weirdo like J. Edgar Hoover and Hermann Göring.

Now, I was aware that Hoover has been known to cross-dress; but it's the first time I hear that remark in conjunction with Hermann Göring.

Wikipedia supports that Izzard made this claim but none of the citations seem to confirm him saying it:

In his show, Dress to Kill, Izzard describes himself as an "executive", "action" and "professional" transvestite, as "a male tomboy" rather than a drag queen or a "weirdo" transvestite (he cites J. Edgar Hoover and Hermann Göring as examples of the latter).

Are there any sources that confirm this, or was Eddie Izzard perhaps just making use of his artistic license to get his point across?

Answer 1

The only possible clues which indicted that Göring might be transvestite are, sorted from most relevant to least relevant:

• Hermann Göring's biography written by David Irving, Goring: A Biography, in which he confirms Göring was a transvestite:

  In page 193 you find,

  Nobody was celebrated with greater enthusiasm than Göring. “Göring,” Herbert Backe, the level-headed deputy to the minister of agriculture, told his wife after touring eastern Germany with the general in mid-May, “arrived at Breslau wearing a white air-force uniform. The citizenry went wild.” The cheers gave Göring the feeling of immortality: He was Germany - he was the law. The increasingly odd, sometimes even effeminate garments (many of them designed for him by Carin) were a part of his public image. He was at heart almost a transvestite, certainly an exhibitionist. “Herbert,” Frau Backe wrote in her diary, “says that out in the Schorf Heath [around Carinhall] he always has a spear with him.”⁽¹⁾

  The problem: Irving's reputation as a historian has been discredited⁽²⁾ after he brought an unsuccessful libel case against the American historian Deborah Lipstadt and Penguin Books. The English court found that Irving was an active Holocaust denier, antisemite, and racist, who

  associates with right-wing extremists who promote neo-Nazism. ⁽³⁾

  and he had,

  for his own ideological reasons persistently and deliberately misrepresented and manipulated historical evidence. ⁽³⁾⁽⁴⁾

  Irving was also sentenced also to three years of imprisonment in jail in accordance with the law prohibiting National Socialist activities.⁽⁵⁾

• The Biographical Encyclopedia of German Homosexuals (in Germany, Biographisches Lexikon zur Geschichte von Freundesliebe und mannmännlicher Sexualität im deutschen Sprachraum) had no entry on Hermann Göring, but mentioned that Göring had a violet nightshirt.⁽⁶⁾

• The 1988 television film, The Man Who Lived at the Ritz, based on A.E. Hotchner's novel featured Joss Ackland as a transvestite Hermann Göring; but it doesn't prove anything also.⁽⁷⁾

Conclusion: You can't conclude by proof or competent evidence that Hermann Göring was a transvestite or a cross-dresser.

^{(1) Goering: A Biography (1989) Find the free book here.}

⁽²⁾

^{- "Conclusion on meaning 2.15 (vi): that Irving is discredited as a historian." David Irving v. Penguin Books and Deborah Lipstadt/II.}

^{- "Deborah Lipstadt is Dorot Professor of Modern Jewish and Holocaust Studies and director of The Rabbi Donald A. Tam Institute for Jewish Studies at Emory University. She is the author of two books about the Holocaust. Her book Denying the Holocaust: The Growing Assault on Truth and Memory led to the 2000 court case in which she defeated and discredited Holocaust denier David Irving." "Task of Justice & Danger of Holocaust Deniers". Auschwitz: Inside the Nazi State – Understanding Auschwitz Today. PBS.}

^{- "If the case for competence applies to those who lack specialist knowledge, it applies even further to those who have been discredited as incompetent. For example, why ought we include David Irving in a debate aiming to establish the truth about the Holocaust, after a court has found that he manipulates and misinterprets history?" Long, Graham (2004). Relativism and the Foundations of Liberalism. Imprint Academic. p. 80. ISBN 1-84540-004-6.}

^{- Wyden 2001, Wyden, Peter (2001). The Hitler Virus: the Insidious Legacy of Adolf Hitler. New York: Arcade Publishing. ISBN 1-55970-532-9. p. 164. "[Irving] claimed that Lipstadt's book accuses him of falsifying historical facts in order to support his theory that the Holocaust never happened. This of course discredited his reputation as a historian. [...] On 11 April, High Court judge Charles Gray ruled against Irving, concluding that he indeed qualified as a Holocaust denier and anti-Semite and that as such he has distorted history in order to defend his hero, Adolf Hitler."}

^{- "In Britain, which does not have a Holocaust denial law, Irving had already been thoroughly discredited when he unsuccessfully sued historian Deborah Lipstadt in 1998 for describing him as a Holocaust denier." Callamard, Agnès (April 2007), "Debate: can we say what we want?", Le Monde diplomatique}

^{(3) "The ruling against David Irving". The Guardian (London). 11 April 2000. Retrieved 27 March 2010.}

^{(4) "Hitler historian loses libel case". BBC News. 11 April 2000. Retrieved 2 January 2010.}

^{(5) Holocaust denier Irving is jailed". BBC News (BBC). 20 February 2006. Retrieved 16 June 2009.}

^{(6) 2010 man for man - Biographical Dictionary of the History of friends and love man masculine sexuality in the German language . Berlin Lit-Verlag; 2 vols, 1732 pp. ISBN 978-3-643-10693-3. See also this and this.}

^{(7)The Man Who Lived at the Ritz. IMBD. 1989.}