January 12, 2017 | 2 Comments Just over seventy years after his death, the name Hermann Goering (1893-1946) is still sadly familiar to most of us today. A leading member of the Nazi Party, he founded the dreaded German secret police known as the Gestapo, and was appointed Commander in Chief of the Luftwaffe, Germany’s Air Force, from 1935 until the last days of World War II. However, his infamy stems from his involvement in the establishment of concentration camps, and the extermination of approximately six million Jews throughout the duration of the Second World War. As a young man Goering had served, with distinction, as a fighter pilot during World War I. By the time hostilities were renewed in 1939, however, he was addicted to morphine and had become seriously overweight. Following the surrender of Nazi Germany in 1945, Goering was found guilty of war crimes, and crimes against humanity, at the Nuremberg Trials. He was sentenced to death by hanging. His request to be executed as a soldier by firing squad, instead of being strung up as a common criminal, was refused. However, Goering cheated the hangman’s noose by committing suicide the night before his planned execution, by way of a capsule of potassium cyanide. Along with Adolf Hitler and other senior Nazis, surely one of the twentieth centuries most heinous individuals. Hermann Goering (1893-1946) But enough of the corpulent, drug addled, mass murderer. I want to tell you about a very different kind of man indeed. Albert Goering (1895-1966) might have been the younger brother of the loathsome Nazi, but as human beings go, he was worlds apart. Unlike his brother, Albert was a man of profound moral conviction. He was quick to recognise Nazism for what it was, and was not afraid to speak out against Adolf Hitler and the inhumanity of his policies. Unable to coexist with a regime he found abhorrent, Albert decided to cross the border and set up home in Austria. Unfortunately for him, his new halcyon life was short lived, as Austria was annexed into Nazi Germany in March 1938. As an outspoken opponent of the regime, he was at grave risk of the extreme brutality of the Gestapo, but brotherly love won out, and he was protected by Hermann. Albert Goering (1895-1966) It soon became apparent that Nazi antisemitism was escalating into a plan for the total extermination of Jews, and so Albert took the courageous decision to actively help people escape whenever he could. Many Jews were able to leave Vienna thanks to travel documents and passports procured by Albert. He was even able to help those beyond his immediate field of influence, through his family connection. On many occasions he approached his elder brother, beseeching him to intervene on behalf of individuals who had already been interned in concentration camps. Hermann, it seems, almost always acquiesced to his brother’s requests, Approximately one hundred people were freed from concentration camps as a result of Albert’s involvement. Contemporary accounts suggest Albert knew, that by massaging his brother’s ego, he could get him to sign release papers. As one might have expected, it does not seem as though the freeing of Jewish prisoners was any kind of humanitarian gesture on behalf of the elder Goering. It would appear instead, that the acts of clemency were simply a demonstration to his sibling of his power and influence. His job as export director at the arms factory Skoda, often brought Albert into direct contact with Nazi officers. When greeted with the Nazi salute, he always refused to reciprocate; an inaction deemed insulting by Nazis, and punishable by imprisonment. On one occasion a high ranking SS officer arrived and entered his office unannounced. Albert ordered him to wait outside, and instead asked his assistant, Karel Sobota, to step in to the room. They spent the next 30-40 minutes casually looking through his family picture albums, before Albert begrudgingly allowed the officer to enter. On anther occasion, when recognised by two Nazi officers who saluted him with “Heil Hitler”, he immediately responded with “You can kiss my arse!” Unsurprisingly, he was arrested several times by the Gestapo, but was always released through his brother’s intervention. Another act of kindness and solidarity occurred when Albert chanced upon a group of Jews, who had been ordered, by the Nazis, to scrub the pavement on their hands and knees as an act of public humiliation. Survivors recall he simply removed his jacket, got down on his own knees, and began scrubbing the pavement along side them. The attendant Nazis, aware of his identity, immediately put a stop to the proceedings, lest they caused embarrassment to their obese overlord. Shortly before he committed suicide, Hermann wrote to Albert imploring him to take care of his wife Emmy and daughter Edda. Perversely, Albert was himself imprisoned for several years after the war, simply for being the brother of a prominent Nazi. Upon his release, Albert found himself virtually unemployable for the same reason. Fortunately, grateful survivors whom he had helped to escape, rallied round and supported him during his jobless years. He eventually found work as a designer for a construction firm in Munich. Albert Goering’s Prison Photograph One final act of benevolence occurred when Albert was on his death bed. His housekeeper was a woman of modest means, and so he married her in order that she would receive his pension as his widow. He died in 1966, at the age of 71. The last word is best left to Tatiana Guliaeff, who was just 6 year old when Albert had helped her family to escape from Vienna with false papers. Upon learning he had passed away, she wrote him a posthumous letter, which concluded; “Truly we were blessed to have had you in our lives. God rest your soul, my dearly beloved godfather, my Uncle Bear.” Sources: http://www.auschwitz.dk/albert.htm https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermann_Goring