Article about: Hi this is a very intersting article from the English Daily Mail:link here. The Goering who saved Jews: A new book reveals that while Hermann masterminded the Final Solution his brother Albe
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Standing before the war crime investigators, the German prisoner hung his head.
It was May, 1945, and he was being held at the U.S. Army's Interrogation centre in Augsburg, Bavaria.
A soldier marked his name off on a list: Goering.
But this was not Hermann Goering, Hitler's right-hand-man; Commander of the Luftwaffe and architect of the Holocaust - 'the final solution'.
No, Hermann Goering waited down the corridor in cell number 5. The man who stood here, defending himself against a charge of complicity with the Nazi regime, was Hermann's brother, Albert.
Hero: In stark contrast to his brother, Albert Goering risked his life to save the lives of Jewish people
Hero: In stark contrast to his brother, Albert Goering risked his life to save the lives of Jewish people
Surely his guilt, too, was beyond doubt. But lifting his head, Albert Goering told the investigators an extraordinary story.
He said that he had used his family name - by now synonymous with evil - to help innumerable Jews escape the clutches of the Gestapo.
Risking his own life, he had saved old Jewish ladies from being humiliated by Nazis in the street, and set up money-smuggling syndicates to spirit refugees across the border.
Most daringly of all, he had driven to a concentration camp and convinced guards to load hundreds of Jews into trucks, before driving them to freedom. Three times, he had evaded Gestapo arrest warrants.
The tale he spun was one of heroism, espionage and audacity. The investigators looked at each other incredulously. A likely story, they agreed.
Hermann Goering
Estranged: Hermann Goering drifted from his brother after adopting Nazi politics
The man before them was, after all, Nazi royalty thanks to his high-ranking brother. Surely this was a desperate ploy to escape the death penalty?
Major Paul Kubala scribbled on the file: 'The results of the interrogation of Albert Goering constitute as clever a piece of whitewash as we have ever seen.'
Undeterred, Albert Goering handed his interrogators a list of 34 names written across five sheets of paper - people he had personally rescued.
The list would eventually secure his freedom, for Albert Goering was indeed the heroic man he described.
Now his story is told for the first time in a new book, Thirty Four, by William Hastings Burke.
So just who was Albert? And how did he become the Goering brother that history forgot?
Born in 1895 in the Berlin suburb of Friedenau, Albert was the fifth son of Heinr ich Goer ing, a German diplomat.
After the death of his first wife - with whom he had three children - Heinrich married Fanny Tiefenbrunn, a buxom 19-year-old who was nearly 30 years his junior.
Their first child, Hermann, was born in 1893. Within two years, Fanny had begun an affair with a wealthy Austrian doctor of Jewish origins, Hermann von Epenstein - reputed to be Albert's father.
Heinrich Goering apparently turned a blind eye to his wife's infidelity but from an early age, Hermann and Albert were markedly different.
Albert was said to be 'a sad boy, apt to cry before even being hurt'. In contrast, Hermann was a confident child who led the village boys in mock battles.
While Hermann went to train at a military academy, Albert became an engineer, manufacturing heating elements.
Hermann would later tell an American psychiatrist from his Nuremberg cell: 'Albert was always the antithesis of myself. He was not politically or militarily interested.
'He was quiet, reclusive. I like crowds and company. He was melancholic and pessimistic, and I am an optimist. But he's not a bad fellow, Albert.'
Most daringly of all, Albert Goering had driven to a concentration camp and convinced guards to load hundreds of Jews into trucks
During World War I, Hermann distinguished himself as a fighter ace in the mould of the famous Red Baron. By the end of the war, he was a national celebrity.
In contrast, Albert took a bullet in the stomach on the Western Front. In 1921, he married 21-year-old Maria von Ummon but divorced her two years later after meeting Erna von Miltner, a titled woman of 37 and nine years his senior.
There was speculation that the relationship began before his divorce from Maria. He married Erna on Sept 10, 1923.
By now, Hermann had adopted Nazi politics - which were anathema to Albert - and the brothers became estranged.
Hermann rose up the ranks of Nazi high-command, and in 1933, as Commander-in-Chief of the Prussian Police and Gestapo, he established the first concentration camps in Germany.
In the same year, Albert left Germany in protest at the Nazi regime, and fled to Austria, where he worked in the film industry. Increasingly, Albert was taking a public political stance against the Nazis. In Vienna, he came upon Nazis forcing some old Jewish ladies to scrub the cobbled streets on bare knees. A mob had assembled, lashing and mocking the women.
Albert took off his jacket, took a scrubbing brush from one of the women, and knelt down to take her place. The SS hauled him to his feet and asked him for his papers.
According to an observer: 'When he showed him the papers, that was the end of that scene.'
War crimes: Hermann Goering, bottom left, joins Adolf Hitler's deputy Rudolf Hess, Joachim Von Ribbentrop and Wilhelm Keitel in the dock of their war crimes trial at Nuremberg in 1946
Punishment: Hermann Goering, far left on the front row, joins Adolf Hitler's deputy Rudolf Hess, Joachim Von Ribbentrop and Wilhelm Keitel in the dock of their war crimes trial at Nuremberg in 1946
This is the first recorded instance of Albert using his name to help others. For any other person, his actions would have been tantamount to suicide.
Soon after, Albert was arrested by the Gestapo for helping a 75-year-old grandmother. A group of thugs had put a sign round her neck proclaiming, 'I am a Jewish sow'.
Fighting through the crowd, Albert freed the woman, punching two Gestapo officers in the process.
Again he was released on account of his name.
But more trouble was inevitable because, by now, pressure was mounting on Albert's Jewish friends in Austria.
He helped one of them, Jacques Benbassat , escape to Switzerland, telling him: 'A friend is someone who will risk his fortune, his safety, even his life, when you need him.'
But Jewish people were still suspicious of Albert on account of his name. Scriptwriter Ernst Neubach remembered being wary of him, only to find that he passionately denounced the Nazis.
Albert would later rescue Neubach from the concentration camps.
As the situation in Austria escalated, Albert began to work more overtly against the Nazis, who, amidst mounting panic, were freezing Jewish bank accounts and seizing their assets. Visas were hard to procure, and every day more people were arrested.
Soon, Albert was receiving calls for help day and night.
His Jewish colleague Oskar Pilzer was taken by the Gestapo. Albert used his influence to obtain his release, and took him to the Italian border, where he gave him foreign currency.
Although a good Samaritan, Albert was not a saint - and at this point he divorced his sickly wife of 16 years, despite the fact that she was on her deathbed
Pilzer's name was scribbled against the number 24 on Albert's list.
He helped Dr William Szekely, a Jewish film director - number 33 on the list - escape to Switzerland.
Yet despite their diamaterically opposite views, Albert and Hermann became reconciled to a degree when, in May 1938, they both went on a family holiday.
In his new book, Hastings Burke explains: 'They were political and ideological rivals on the streets, but in this private world, they remained devoted brothers.'
During that holiday came the news that the Nazis occupying Austria had dragged an elderly member of the country's distinguished royal family, Archduke Joseph Ferdinand IV, from his home, shaved his head and transported him to Dachau concentration camp.
Puffed up by this triumph, powerful Hermann offered Albert and his sister one wish each.
Albert later wrote: 'I wished for the immediate release of the old Archduke. Hermann was very embarrassed. But the next day the imprisoned Habsburger was free.'
He took his place as number 12 on Albert's list.
Even as the favoured brother of the Reichmarschall, Albert's interference was dangerous. Increasingly, he undertook his Samaritan work in secret - not least because he was sometimes helped by Hermann, who responded out of familial duty but could not afford to be seen doing so.
Unsettled by the situation in Austria, Albert moved to Italy and began funnelling his own money into the underground movement of assistance for Jews and other refugees.
To a friend at Buchenwald concentration camp, he sent food and money; to a Jewish physician friend, he granted immunity from the Gestapo by attesting that he was his personal doctor.
He also began conveying information on German military strategy to the Resistance. Increasingly, the Goering name carried extraordinary weight among rankobsessed Nazis.
Eventually, Albert left fascist Italy for Prague. There, in May 1939, he took a job with Skoda Works, which provided a perfect front for more anti-Nazi work.
One manager said: 'Goering always spoke out against Nazism. He never used, as far as I know, the Nazi greeting. Nor did he have Hitler's picture in his study - even though that was mandatory.' When one Dr Charvat was taken to Dachau, Albert wrote on letterheaded paper to the camp commander demanding Charvat's release. He signed it simply ' Goering'. Honest, yet clearly designed to deceive.
Thinking the order came from his leader, the commander let two Dr Charvats, both of whom were incarcerated at Dachau, go free.
Although a good Samaritan, Albert was not a saint - and at this point he divorced his sickly wife of 16 years, despite the fact that she was on her deathbed.
Ever the womaniser, he pursued a former Czech beauty queen, Mila, with whom he had his only child, Elizabeth.
Womaniser: Albert Goering with Czech beauty queen Mila, whom he pursued after leaving his wife on her deathbed
Womaniser: Albert Goering with Czech beauty queen Mila, whom he pursued after leaving his wife on her deathbed
By now, the SS knew of Albert's work. From 1939, they kept a file documenting his 'acts of terrorism'. Albert was declared a 'public enemy' of the Third Reich.
An arrest warrant was issued, but his brother Hermann quashed it.
Hearing reports of the atrocities taking place at concentration camps, Albert confronted his brother, who brushed the claims aside. So Albert made his most audacious move of all - driving a convoy of trucks to Theresienstadt concentration camp, where 33,000 prisoners died.
His friend Benbassat says: 'He said: "I am Albert Goering, Skoda Works. I need workers."
'He filled up the truck. The head of the concentration camp agreed because it was Albert Goering. Then he took them into the woods and let them out.'
THIS would be Albert's last intervention during the war. His trail of good deeds was beginning to catch up with him. In August 1944, a wire was sent to Heinrich Himmler by the General of Police in Prague, SS Obergruppenfuhrer Karl Hermann Frank, requesting permission to seize Albert for interrogation.
An order was issued by Berlin to shoot him. Albert f led to a safe-house.
The Nazi regime was now juddering towards its demise. When Hitler celebrated his 56th birthday in April 1945 in his Berlin bunker, the mood was anything but jovial.
Himmler, Joseph Goebbels, Goering, Albert Speer and Eva Braun sat with him as reports of defeats rolled in.
Three days later, Hermann Goering sent a dramatic telegram to Hitler inquiring whether the moment had arrived for him to succeed as Fuhrer. Hitler fell into a fit of rage, before 'weeping like a child'.
In one of his last acts as Leader, he expelled Goering from the party - and sent a telegram declaring that Hermann Goering was to be shot upon the capitulation of Berlin.
Instead, Hermann was captured by the Allies on May 7 and taken to the U.S. interrogation centre in Berlin. Just two days later, Albert presented himself in Salzburg to the American Intelligence Service. He, too, was sent to Berlin.
There, they were given permission to take a final walk together before Hermann said goodbye to his younger brother.
On October 16, 1946, he would end his life by taking a cyanide pill.
Finally, after 15 months of interrogation, Albert found someone who would listen to him: Major Victor Parker. He handed him his list entitled 'People whose lives or existence I saved at my own peril'.
In an extraordinary twist of fate, Major Parker recognised the name of his own uncle on the list and was able to verify Albert's claims. Albert was at last released.
In 1947, Albert rejoined his family in Salzburg. Ironically, given his exoneration, he was unable to get work because of his family's Nazi history. Increasingly bitter, he turned to drink.
He survived on food parcels sent to him by the many Jews he'd helped escape from the Gestapo, but died at 71 of pancreatic cancer in December 1966, his life relegated to a footnote of his brother's brutal history.
Goering saved some Jews
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