Albert Göring
Encyclopedia
Albert Günther Göring was a German
businessman, notable for helping Jews and dissident
s survive in Germany in World War II
. His older brother, Hermann Göring
, held the rank of Reichsmarschall
of Nazi Germany
and was convicted as a war criminal.
. He was the fifth child of the former Reichskommissar
to German South-West Africa
and German Consul General to Haiti
, Heinrich Ernst Göring
, and Franziska "Fanny" Tiefenbrunn (1859 — July 15, 1923), who came from a Bavaria
n peasant family. Among his paternal ancestors were the Eberle/Eberlin
. Göring was a relative of numerous descendants of the 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 that was embraced by the Nazis); the great Swiss historian of art and cultural, political and social thinker Jacob Burckhardt
; Swiss diplomat, historian and President of International Red Cross Carl J. Burckhardt; the Merck family
, the owners of the German pharmaceutical giant Merck
; major German Catholic writer and poet Gertrud von Le Fort
.
The Göring family lived with their children’s aristocratic
godfather of Jewish heritage, 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 children of his father's first marriage.
Von Epenstein began a long-term affair with Franziska Göring about a year before Albert's birth. A strong physical resemblance between von Epenstein and Albert Göring led many people to believe that the two were father and son. If this is true it would indicate that Albert Göring had Jewish paternal ancestry.
and the brutality that it involved.
Many anecdotal stories exist about Göring's blatant, obstreperous and often dangerous resistance to the Nazi ideology and regime. On one occasion he is reported to have joined a group of Jewish women that had been forced to scrub the street; the SS officer in charge, discovering Göring's name after inspecting his identification, was unwilling to see Hermann Göring's brother publicly humiliated and ordered the group scrubbing activity to stop.
Albert Göring also used his influence to get his Jewish former boss Oskar Pilzer freed after the Nazis had 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 Škoda 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 also sent 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.
concluded with a call for Albert Göring to be honoured at the Yad Vashem
memorial.
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
businessman, notable for helping Jews and dissident
Dissident
A dissident, broadly defined, is a person who actively challenges an established doctrine, policy, or institution. When dissidents unite for a common cause they often effect a dissident movement....
s survive in Germany in World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
. His older brother, Hermann Göring
Hermann Göring
Hermann Wilhelm Göring, was a German politician, military leader, and a leading member of the Nazi Party. He was a veteran of World War I as an ace fighter pilot, and a recipient of the coveted Pour le Mérite, also known as "The Blue Max"...
, held the rank of Reichsmarschall
Reichsmarschall
Reichsmarschall literally in ; was the highest rank in the armed forces of Nazi Germany during World War II after the position of Supreme Commander held by Adolf Hitler....
of Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
and was convicted as a war criminal.
Early life
Albert Göring was born on the 9th of March 1895 in the Berlin suburb of FriedenauFriedenau
Friedenau is a locality within the borough of Tempelhof-Schöneberg in Berlin, Germany. Per population density it is the highest one into the city.- Etymology :...
. He was the fifth child of the former Reichskommissar
Reichskommissar
Reichskommissar , in German history, was an official gubernatorial title used for various public offices during the period of the German Empire and the Nazi Third Reich....
to German South-West Africa
German South-West Africa
German South West Africa was a colony of Germany from 1884 until 1915, when it was taken over by South Africa and administered as South West Africa, finally becoming Namibia in 1990...
and German Consul General to Haiti
Haiti
Haiti , officially the Republic of Haiti , is a Caribbean country. It occupies the western, smaller portion of the island of Hispaniola, in the Greater Antillean archipelago, which it shares with the Dominican Republic. Ayiti was the indigenous Taíno or Amerindian name for the island...
, Heinrich Ernst Göring
Heinrich Ernst Göring
Heinrich Ernst Göring was a German jurist and diplomat who served as colonial governor of German South-West Africa. He was the father of five children including Hermann Göring, the Nazi leader and commander of the Luftwaffe....
, and Franziska "Fanny" Tiefenbrunn (1859 — July 15, 1923), who came from a Bavaria
Bavaria
Bavaria, formally the Free State of Bavaria is a state of Germany, located in the southeast of Germany. With an area of , it is the largest state by area, forming almost 20% of the total land area of Germany...
n peasant family. Among his paternal ancestors were the Eberle/Eberlin
Eberlin
-List of people with surname Eberlin :* Daniel Eberlin , German composer and violinist* Johann Eberlin von Günzburg , German theologian* Johann Ernst Eberlin , German composer and organist...
. Göring was a relative of numerous descendants of the Eberle/Eberlin in Switzerland
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
and Germany, among them German Counts Zeppelin
Zeppelin
A Zeppelin is a type of rigid airship pioneered by the German Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin in the early 20th century. It was based on designs he had outlined in 1874 and detailed in 1893. His plans were reviewed by committee in 1894 and patented in the United States on 14 March 1899...
, including aviation pioneer Ferdinand von Zeppelin
Ferdinand von Zeppelin
Ferdinand Adolf Heinrich August Graf von Zeppelin was a German general and later aircraft manufacturer. He founded the Zeppelin Airship company...
; German nationalistic art historian Hermann Grimm (author of concept of the German hero as a mover of history that was embraced by the Nazis); the great Swiss historian of art and cultural, political and social thinker Jacob Burckhardt
Jacob Burckhardt
Carl Jacob Christoph Burckhardt was a historian of art and culture, and an influential figure in the historiography of each field. He is known as one of the major progenitors of cultural history, albeit in a form very different from how cultural history is conceived and studied in academia today...
; Swiss diplomat, historian and President of International Red Cross Carl J. Burckhardt; the Merck family
Merck family
Friedrich Jacob Merck purchased the second town pharmacy in Darmstadt, known as the Engel-Apotheke or Angel Pharmacy. When Friedrich died, the pharmacy was passed on to his nephew and ever since has gone from father to son...
, the owners of the German pharmaceutical giant Merck
Merck KGaA
Merck KGaA is a German chemical and pharmaceutical company. Merck, also known as “German Merck” and “Merck Darmstadt”, was founded in Darmstadt, Germany, in 1668, making it the world's oldest operating chemical and pharmaceutical company. The company was privately owned until going public in 1995...
; major German Catholic writer and poet Gertrud von Le Fort
Gertrud von Le Fort
Gertrud von Le Fort was a German writer of novels, poems, and essays. She came from a Protestant background, but converted to Catholicism in 1926. Most of Gertrud's writings come after this conversion...
.
The Göring family lived with their children’s aristocratic
Aristocracy (class)
The aristocracy are people considered to be in the highest social class in a society which has or once had a political system of Aristocracy. Aristocrats possess hereditary titles granted by a monarch, which once granted them feudal or legal privileges, or deriving, as in Ancient Greece and India,...
godfather of Jewish heritage, Ritter
Ritter
Ritter is a designation used as a title of nobility in German-speaking areas. Traditionally it denotes the second lowest rank within the nobility, standing above "Edler" and below "Freiherr"...
Hermann von Epenstein, in his Veldenstein and Mauterndorf
Mauterndorf
Mauterndorf is a market town in the Tamsweg district in the Austrian state of Salzburg. The municipality also comprises the Katastralgemeinden Faningberg, Neuseß and Steindorf.-History:...
castles. Von Epenstein was a prominent physician
Physician
A physician is a health care provider who practices the profession of medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring human health through the study, diagnosis, and treatment of disease, injury and other physical and mental impairments...
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 children of his father's first marriage.
Von Epenstein began a long-term affair with Franziska Göring about a year before Albert's birth. A strong physical resemblance between von Epenstein and Albert Göring led many people to believe that the two were father and son. If this is true it would indicate that Albert Göring had Jewish paternal ancestry.
Anti-Nazi activity
Göring seemed to have acquired his godfather's character as a bon vivant and looked set to lead an unremarkable life as a filmmaker, until the Nazis came to power in 1933. Unlike his elder brother Hermann, who was a leading party member, Albert Göring despised NazismNazism
Nazism, the common short form name of National Socialism was the ideology and practice of the Nazi Party and of Nazi Germany...
and the brutality that it involved.
Many anecdotal stories exist about Göring's blatant, obstreperous and often dangerous resistance to the Nazi ideology and regime. On one occasion he is reported to have joined a group of Jewish women that had been forced to scrub the street; the SS officer in charge, discovering Göring's name after inspecting his identification, was unwilling to see Hermann Göring's brother publicly humiliated and ordered the group scrubbing activity to stop.
Albert Göring also used his influence to get his Jewish former boss Oskar Pilzer freed after the Nazis had 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 Škoda Works
Škoda Works
Škoda Works was the largest industrial enterprise in Austro-Hungary and later in Czechoslovakia, one of its successor states. It was also one of the largest industrial conglomerates in Europe in the 20th century...
in Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia or Czecho-Slovakia was a sovereign state in Central Europe which existed from October 1918, when it declared its independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, until 1992...
. Here, he encouraged minor acts of sabotage
Sabotage
Sabotage is a deliberate action aimed at weakening another entity through subversion, obstruction, disruption, or destruction. In a workplace setting, sabotage is the conscious withdrawal of efficiency generally directed at causing some change in workplace conditions. One who engages in sabotage is...
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 also sent 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
Nuremberg Trials
The Nuremberg Trials were a series of military tribunals, held by the victorious Allied forces of World War II, most notable for the prosecution of prominent members of the political, military, and economic leadership of the defeated Nazi Germany....
. 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.
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. Before his death Göring was living on a pension from the government. He knew that if he was married, the pension would transfer to his wife after his death. As a sign of gratitude, in 1966 Göring married his housekeeper so she could receive his pension and not have to work any more. One week later, he died without having his wartime activities publicly acknowledged.Thirty Four
Göring's humanitarian efforts are recorded in a book by William Hastings Burke called Thirty Four. A review of the book in The Jewish ChronicleThe Jewish Chronicle
The Jewish Chronicle is a London-based Jewish newspaper. Founded in 1841, it is the oldest continuously published Jewish newspaper in the world.-Publication data and readership figures:...
concluded with a call for Albert Göring to be honoured at the Yad Vashem
Yad Vashem
Yad Vashem is Israel's official memorial to the Jewish victims of the Holocaust, established in 1953 through the Yad Vashem Law passed by the Knesset, Israel's parliament....
memorial.
Further reading
- The Good Brother, A True Story of Courage - A very detailed account of Albert Göring's heroic actions during World War IIWorld War IIWorld War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
. - The Holocaust, Crimes, Heroes, and Victims - A site containing detailed information about Albert Göring's actions and the activities of many other Holocaust Heroes.
- 'Thirty Four' by William Hastings Burke - The latest biography of Albert Göring.