Albert Goering

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Albert Günther Göring (born March 9, 1895 in Friedenau near Berlin; † December 20, 1966 in Neuenbürg ) was a German mechanical engineer , businessman and the younger brother of the National Socialist politician Hermann Göring . In contrast to the latter, he was a staunch opponent of National Socialism and helped many persecuted during the Nazi era .

Live and act

Albert Göring was born as the youngest of five children of the German diplomat Heinrich Göring and his wife Franziska, née Tiefenbrunn.

youth

Mauterndorf Castle (2008)

Göring grew up in the then Berlin suburb of Friedenau in a country house at Fregestraße 19, then on the castles of Veldenstein and Mauterndorf , all three of which were owned by the Prussian medical officer a. D. Ritter Hermann von Epenstein , a friend of the family and godparent of all Goering children. The journalist Leonard Mosley developed the thesis that Epenstein was Albert Göring's biological father from the fact that Heinrich Göring lived most of the time apart from his family due to work and that Albert Göring and Hermann von Epenstein looked similar. On the other hand, William Hastings Burke writes that Franziska Göring stayed with her husband in Haiti from March 1893 to late summer 1894 , which is why Albert is very likely Heinrich Göring's son.

Early years

During the First World War Albert Göring worked as a communications engineer on the Western Front. His personnel file was burned on April 14, 1945 when the Royal Air Force destroyed the Prussian Army Archives in an air raid. The medical record from his military service has been preserved at the State Office for Public Health. Among other things, he had to repair communications cables that were destroyed under fire. These missions were so dangerous that he spent a large part of the war wounded in hospitals. He was injured in the First Battle of Flanders near Ypres and sent to a military hospital in Dortmund on November 14, 1914 . During the spring offensive of 1918 he was badly wounded in the stomach. Shortly before the armistice, he received the discharge papers and drove back to Munich with his poorly treated abdominal wound , where his family had moved shortly before the start of the war.

There he began to study mechanical engineering in 1919, which he finished in 1923 with the grade "very good". In 1921 he married Marie von Ammon, then 21 years old, from whom he divorced two years later after having met Erna von Miltner. He married them on September 10, 1923. The marriage lasted 16 years; he divorced her shortly before her death. In 1925 Albert Göring took up a position at Junkers & Co. in the Kaloriferwerk in Dessau and in 1928 went to Vienna as a general agent for Junkers & Co.

Attitude to National Socialist ideology

In contrast to his older brother Hermann Göring , who rose steadily on the National Socialist career ladder and eventually became one of the most powerful men under Hitler, Albert despised the National Socialists and their brutality. He did not join the NSDAP and demonstratively took Austrian citizenship in protest against the National Socialist regime . After the " Anschluss of Austria " in March 1938, Albert Benpassat said he showed solidarity with fellow Jews who were publicly humiliated and mistreated by the SS in Vienna. Benpassat tells of a scene in which Albert Goering a group Jews , which was forced by SS men at a " Reibpartie " on all fours the road to scrub, gleichtat and helped her when scrubbing. The SS officer on duty then ordered the scrubbing to be stopped because he did not want to answer for a public humiliation of Hermann Göring's brother.

resistance

Albert Göring used his influence to free his Jewish boss at Tobis-Sascha Filmindustrie AG , Oskar Pilzer , after he was arrested. He also helped him to flee Germany. It is reported that he did the same for many others, including those politically persecuted like Kurt Schuschnigg . Göring also stood up for Franz Lehár's Jewish wife and Henny Porten's Jewish husband.

Göring intensified his activities against the National Socialists when he became head of export at the Škoda plants in Pilsen . He repeatedly used his contacts with the regime to protect members of the Škoda workforce. Here he supported minor acts of sabotage and maintained contacts with the Czech resistance . In many cases, he forged his brother's signature in order to sign travel documents for the escape of dissidents . Therefore his brother Hermann had to speak out for Albert several times so that he could be released from Gestapo custody . Albert Göring also sent trucks to concentration camps with demands for workers. These trucks then stopped in remote areas to allow workers to escape.

In 1942 Göring married Míla Klazarová, a Czech beauty queen, in his third marriage. From this marriage Albert Goering's only child, Elizabeth, was born.

After the war

Towards the end of the Second World War , Goering reported to the American Counter Intelligence Corps (the army's counterintelligence department) and was immediately arrested. His brother Hermann was later detained in cell five of the same interrogation center . Goering was interrogated at the Nuremberg trials . At first, the Allies could not believe that Hermann Göring's brother was not only not involved in the crimes of the dictatorship, but even helped the persecuted. Many people whom he had helped testified in his favor; He was therefore not convicted, but initially held in custody. After his last case worker recommended his release, the American authorities extradited him to Czechoslovakia in August , where he was tried for possible war crimes during his time at Škoda. During the trial there, he was acquitted in March 1947 after many of his former work colleagues and employees at Škoda had testified in his favor as witnesses and his Gestapo files had become known.

After his release, Göring moved to Salzburg, where he initially lived with his family. Because of an affair, his wife divorced him in 1948 and three years later moved to Peru with their daughter. Göring eventually returned to Germany, where he lived in Munich. Albert Göring, the rescuer of numerous persecuted persons by the National Socialist regime, for whom his brother was partly responsible, was avoided because of his family name. During these years he was supported by survivors of the Nazi regime whom he had helped. Occasionally he worked as a writer and translator. The modesty of his apartment in Munich was far removed from the luxury of his childhood. He died on December 20, 1966 at the age of 71 from complications from pancreatic cancer in a hospital in Neuenbürg, without his activities during World War II having been recognized by the public.

An application for the honorary title Righteous Among the Nations has been in Yad Vashem since at least 2016 . But there is no evidence that Albert Göring saved Jews from deportation and death “at extraordinary risks”.

Film documentaries

Radio broadcasts

literature

Web links

Commons : Albert Göring  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. James Wyllie: The Warlord and the Renegade; The Story of Hermann and Albert Goering. Sutton Pub. Ltd., 2006, ISBN 0-7509-4025-5 , p. 7. (English)
  2. a b Alexander Heilemann: Trace of the "good Göring" in Neuenbürg. Pforzheimer Zeitung, January 16, 2016 ( preliminary report on the website )
  3. Burke, pp. 18, 24 (all page numbers refer to the English edition)
  4. Guido Knopp : Göring - a career. Gütersloh 2006, p. 15ff
  5. a b Burke, pp. 26-27.
  6. Burke, pp. 43-45.
  7. In Burke's original edition and some other publications, the name of the first woman is incorrectly given as Maria von Ummon . In the German edition of 2012 (pp. 50, 58, 208) this has already been corrected for Maria von Ammon . However, the full correct name is Marie Sophie von Ammon (see a relative's note on the discussion page and Marie Sophie von Ammon on Geneall ).
  8. Burke, pp. 47, 55, 114-116, 206.
  9. Burke, pp. 57-58.
  10. Burke, pp. 57-58, 65.
  11. Burke, p. 72.
  12. Burke, pp. 65, 89.
  13. Annemarie Mitterhofer: The list of Albert Göring. In: Die Presse, October 22, 2012.
  14. Gudula Hörr: "Black Sheep" and public enemy of the Nazis Göring's good brother. NTV, July 2, 2012.
  15. Burke, pp. 112, 138-141, 149, 162, 164-169.
  16. Christoph Gunkel: The good Göring: Brother of the Nazi criminal. "One day - contemporary stories" on Spiegel Online ; last accessed on April 23, 2012.
  17. Jacques Schuster : Hermann Göring's brother saved Jews from death. In: Die Welt , May 21, 2012.
  18. Burke, pp. 175, 188-192.
  19. Tony Paterson: Goering's brother was another Schindler. In: The Independent , April 29, 2012.
  20. Burke (2012), p. 8.
  21. Burke, pp. 205-214.
  22. top Israeli honor eludes Goering's brother, who heroically saved Jews; The Times of Israel. Retrieved January 15, 2020 .