Göring surrendered in Bavaria on 9 May 1945. The Nuremberg Trials started on 20 November 1945. On 18 March 1946, Göring was questioned by the Allies. After this, he was imprisoned in Nuremberg. He was the third-highest-ranking Nazi official tried at Nuremberg. Only Reich President (former "Großadmiral") Karl Dönitz and former Deputy Führer Rudolf Hess had higher ranks than Göring. The judges decided he was guilty. Because of this on 1 October 1946 the court reached a verdict that he was to be hanged. One day before he was to be hanged, he committed suicide by taking a tablet of cyanide. It is not known how Göring got the cyanide or how long he hid it but there was a claim that he was given it by an American soldier who was in love with a German woman who was in touch with him. It is not known if this is the truth.