Göring was much more than just the commander of the Luftwaffe; he was one of the most powerful figures in Nazi Germany from its earliest days. He was one of Hitler's closest advisors, and in September 1939 was officially designated as the Führer's successor.

According to Richard Overy, Hitler admired Göring as "an example of the new generastion of German leaders. He spoke of Göring as a 'second Wagner', as an example of the Renaissance man, with interests alike in culture, war and politics." Their relationship collapsed and Göring's influence waned starting in 1943, as the war turned against Germany — but that hardly detracts from the key role he had already played in Nazi Germany's wars and genocide.

Göring's official responsibilities within the Nazi state were extensive: as Minister of Aviation, he had played a key role in German rearmament in the years leading up to the war. As plenipotentiary of the Four Year Plan from 1936, he exerted significant control over the German war economy. From August 1939, he also chaired the Council of Ministers for the Defense of the Reich, giving him far-reaching authority over the Reich's domestic affairs. And finally, as Reichsmarschall and supreme commander of the Luftwaffe, he was directly involved in the conduct of the war.

In July 1941, Göring wrote to Reinhard Heydrich, chief of the SS security services, ordering him to "carry out all preparations with regard to organization, the material side and the financial viewpoints for a final solution of the Jewish question in these territories in Europe which are under German influence." That memo, and the Wannsee Conference that Heydrich organised six months later, mark key turning points in the Nazi regime's adoption of genocide as official state policy. Along with SS chief Heinrich Himmler, Göring is among the most senior Nazi officials directly implicated in explicitly ordering the annihilation of Jews in occupied Europe.

At Nuremberg, the International Military Tribunal set out to prosecute four specific crimes:

1. Participation in a common plan or conspiracy for the accomplishment of a crime against peace
2. Planning, initiating and waging wars of aggression and other crimes against peace
3. Participating in war crimes
4. Crimes against humanity

Göring was among eleven Nazi officials indicted on all four charges, and was one of six found guilty of all four (the others were Wehrmacht commanders Wilhelm Keitel and Alfred Jodl; former foreign ministers Konstantin von Neurath and Joachim von Ribbentrop; and race theorist and minister for the occupied eastern territories Alfred Rosenberg.)

In their final verdict, the IMT judges wrote:

Goering was often, indeed almost always, the moving force, second only to [Hitler]. He was the leading war aggressor, both as political and as military leader; he was the director of the slave labour programme and the creator of the oppressive programme against the Jews and other races, at home and abroad. [...] His guilt is unique in its enormity. The record discloses no excuses for this man.

There are some Nazi military officers and functionaries where you can debate the extent of their knowledge of or role in Nazi Germany's atrocities (see the endless back and forth around Erwin Rommel, for example) — but Göring is absolutely not one of them. From the Beer Hall Putsch in 1923 to his attempt to assume control of the Reich in April 1945, he was deeply and inextricably involved in the development of the Nazi regime, and its efforts to establish dominion over Europe.