Thread by @ajcdeane

This is the 36th instalment of #deanehistory. Hat tip @gavinesler.

A Göring is our subject today. Not Hermann the Nazi Göring. Albert the anti-Nazi Göring, his younger brother.

The Görings were a well established family, but lacked cash. They lived in a couple of fine properties with Albert & Hermann’s godfather, who was, as it happens, of Jewish descent.

Said godfather had an affair with their mother, before Albert was born, & Albert may or may not have been his son.

(Albert’s daughter says he believed it. The dates don’t work given time spent in different countries by the parties concerned… Perhaps he just devoutly wished it.)

Albert served his country in the First World War in the trenches, as his brother served her in the air.
Between the wars, Albert sought an inoffensive life in engineering and then in the arts in Vienna.

But of course, peace was not to be found for almost anyone in that post-Versailles world, and the Anschluss came for Austria.

From the beginning, Albert had no truck with Nazism. As the persecution of the Jews increased, so did his resistance to it.

One anecdote I particularly like. One day, some Jewish women forced by the Nazis to clean the street were no doubt surprised to find a distinguished looking chap kneel beside them to lend a hand.

Outraged, the officer in charge of the detail demanded this oddball’s identification papers – upon seeing the name Göring, rather than risk controversy with this illustrious family he cancelled the whole thing as a bad job.

More substantively, he helped Jews to escape Germany. Definitely, not possibly. Like his former boss in the film industry, Oskar Pilzer, & his family, who attest to this rescue. He even forged his brother’s signature on papers to help opponents of the regime get away.

Family is a funny thing. No doubt the behaviour of his brother was a source of ire for Hermann Göring – but the brothers were and remained close, and he protected Albert.

Effectively, by protecting him, whilst obviously he didn’t initiate any of them, once underway Hermann actually *helped* Albert in some of his endeavours in saving individuals, even as he went about orchestrating the persecution of the Jews at the highest level.

This is perhaps the best thing that can be said about Göring major, in his Nazi period at least. In the 1st World War, the elder Göring was a brave man & served his country well. What that young fighter ace would make of the hate-filled blimp he became is a good question.

Anyway, Albert was not alone in his endeavours. He was in touch with the Czech resistance, as he became the export director of the Skoda factory, and helped them as best he could, even to the extent of sabotage at his own works, as the Czech workers attested after the war.

The Gestapo files show him to have been known as an enemy of the Reich. His anti-Nazi remarks were recorded and reported. His passport was seized by the authorities. An order was even made to have him arrested– & even shot. But whenever caught, his brother would get him released.

In an industrialist ploy reminiscent of Schindler’s List, Albert didn’t just help the Jews who happened to be around him: he used his business endeavours to actively find and release more. He sent for workers from the concentration camps and promptly released them somewhere safe.

The younger Göring spent over a year in Allied custody after the war and was questioned during the Nuremberg trials, but he was, swiftly released as his story of assisting Jews and others was verified by his interrogators– Nuremburg was the last time he saw his brother.

He was tried once again in Czechoslovakia over allegations of Nazi activities in his time at the factory; the former workers gave masses of evidence on his behalf and he was vindicated once again.

For all that this has been verified and demonstrated, Albert Göring struggled after the war. He never really found work, and has never received the recognition he deserved, because of his name.

One lesson to take from this story is the determining factor that character, rather than background or upbringing, can have over a man’s life. Two more starkly different lives can hardly be found than those shown in the behaviour, and the fates, of the Göring brothers.