Albert Göring
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Albert Göring (1900 - 1966) was a German businessman, notable for helping Jews and dissidents survive in Germany during World War II. His older brother Hermann Göring held the rank of Reich Marshal of Nazi Germany and was a convicted war criminal.
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[edit] Early life
Göring was born near Mauterndorf to an aristocrat Heinrich Ernst Göring and his wife Franziska "Fanny" Tiefenbrunn (1859-July 15, 1923), who came from a Bavarian peasant family. Among his father ancestors were Eberle/Eberlin, Swiss-German patrician bourgeoisie family who were originally Jewish converts to Christianity in the 15th century. Goring was a relative of numerous descendants of Eberle/Eberlin in Switzerland and Germany, among them German Counts Zeppelin, including aviation pioneer Ferdinand von Zeppelin, German nationalistic art historian Hermann Grimm (author of concept of the German hero as a mover of history which was embraced by the Nazis), great Swiss historian of art and culture and political and social thinker Jacob Burckhardt, Swiss diplomat, historian and President of International Red Cross Carl J. Burckhardt, family Merck, the owners of German pharmaceutical giant Merck, major German Catholic writer and poet Gertrud von LeFort. (See, Wolfgang Paul, "Wer war Hermann Goring. Biographie," Esslingen: Bechtle Verlag, 1983, p. 33.) The Göring family lived with their children’s aristocratic godfather, Ritter Hermann von Epenstein, in his Veldenstein and Mauterndorf castles. Von Epenstein was a prominent physician and acted as a surrogate father to the children as Heinrich Göring was often absent from the family home. Göring was one of five children, his brothers were Hermann Göring and Karl Ernst Göring, his sisters were Olga Therese Sophia and Paula Elisabeth Rosa Göring, the last of whom were from his father's first marriage[1].
According to the author Leonard Mosley, who had interviewed Göring family members, von Epenstein began a long-term affair with Franziska Göring about a year before Albert's birth. Mosley also states that the strong physical resemblance between von Epenstein and Albert Göring led many people to believe that they were father and son. If this belief was correct then Albert Göring had a Jewish paternal grandfather.
[edit] Anti-Nazi activity
Göring also seemed to have acquired his godfather's love of the bon vivant and looked set to lead an unremarkable life as a filmmaker, until the Nazis came to power in 1933. Unlike his older brother Hermann, who was a leading party member, Albert Göring despised Nazism and the brutality that it involved. On one occasion he is reported to have got down on his hands and knees and joined a group of Jews who were being forced to scrub the street; the SS officer in charge, unwilling to see Hermann Göring's brother also publicly humiliated, ordered the street scrubbing to stop.
Albert Göring also used his influence to get his former Jewish boss Oskar Pilzer freed after the Nazis arrested him. Göring then helped Pilzer and his family escape from Germany. He is reported to have done the same for many other dissidents.
Göring intensified his anti-Nazi activity when he was made export director at the Skoda Works in Czechoslovakia. Here, he encouraged minor acts of sabotage and had contact with the Czech resistance. On many occasions Göring forged his brother's signature on transit documents to enable dissidents to escape. When he was caught he used his brother's influence to get himself released. Göring would also send trucks to Nazi concentration camps with requests for labour. These trucks would then stop in an isolated area and their passengers would be allowed to escape.
After the war Albert Göring was questioned during the Nuremberg Tribunal. However many of the people whom he had helped testified on his behalf and he was released. Soon afterwards Göring was arrested by the Czechs but was once again freed when the full extent of his activities became known.
[edit] Late life
Göring then returned to Germany but found himself shunned because of his family name. He found occasional work as a writer and translator, living in a modest flat far from the baronial splendour of his childhood. He died in 1966 without having his wartime activities publicly acknowledged and is not honoured on the Yad Vashem memorial.
[edit] References
- Leonard Mosley, The Reich Marshal: A biography of Hermann Göring, Doubleday, 1974 (ISBN 0385049617)
- The Goering Who Saved Jews, by Vida Goldgar, 10 March 2000, Jewish Times (Atlanta)
