London wedding during the WWII Blitz; 1940.

Life must go on

Albert Gunther Goering, younger brother of the Reich Marshal, and inveterate rescuer of Jews and political prisoners during the Third Reich period.

The Goerings were originally a peasant family, but developed high connections, many of them Jewish.  The Goering boys spent much of their youth living in palatial splendor, presided over by a Jewish godfather.  The reactions of Hermann and Albert to this background could scarcely have been more different.

While the brothers were very close from boyhood, Albert never seems to have converted his exposure to Jewishness (at any level of society) into visceral hatred.  Far from it.  When the Nazis' approach to the Jews - not to mention political dissent - he initially relocated to Austria, and began to assist Jews and others in escaping the grip of the Nazis, using his connections to secure exit visas for the victims.  This activity increased with the German/Austrian Anschluss. 

Later, as Export Manager of the Skoda firm in Bohemia (strange job for the time), he expanded his activities further.  Apart from obtaining exit visas, his industrial role allowed him, for example, to requisition slave workers from concentration camps and somehow contrive to "lose" them en route to the factory; in fact, he simply let them go.  He is also alleged to have encouraged low-level sabotage, Shindler-style, in Skoda.

One might ask, how did someone involved in such activities at this level, and who was openly contemptuous of the SS, the Gestapo and Nazi Party leaders, survive the war ?  The answer, surprisingly, is that he was consistently bailed out by his affectionate brother, Hermann.  Arrested several times by the Gestapo, Albert was always able to rely on Hermann to get him out.  Also, Hermann apparently signed no shortage of exit visas and such for Jews and political "offenders" presented to him by Albert.  I rather suspect that Gestapo and SS dealing with Albert were more worried than if they had been dealing with Hermann himself.

Albert served a good term in German Occupied Zone and Czechoslovak prisons after the war.  Eventually, he was released, largely due to testimony from persons and families he had helped. He died on 20 December, 1966, and was buried in the Goering family plot at Munich.

Research into the resistance activities of Albert Goering are still, after all these years, at a fairly preliminary stage.  This, presumably, was the reason given by Yad Vashem for declining to present Albert as a candidate for the award of Righteous among the Nations, on the basis that there was an absence of "direct evidence" to support his candidature.  Well, they have their procedure but, in view of the quantity of anecdotal (but pretty direct) evidence that does exist, one would have to suspect that there was an element of cowardice in this decision; there must be a reluctance among some Yad Vashem luminaries to offer Hermann Goering's brother as a candidate for "Righteous" status.  Hopefully, as research on the subject develops, this position will change.  With respect, JR.

Albert Goering - not yet "Righteous" enough ...

Journalists from a Fleet Street newspaper office watching the sky and the horizon through binoculars on the top of their building during an air raid warning in London.
