The Curious Case of the Brothers Göring

Albert Göring, bon vivant, covert dissident

Last night I watched a fascinating documentary about the life of Albert Göring, younger brother of Hermann the infamous Nazi Reichsmarschall, two siblings who were diametrically opposed, yet whose familial ties formed a bizarre relationship throughout the rise and fall of Nazi Germany.

Albert, a bon vivant aspiring film producer enjoyed the finer things in life but, unlike his brother, he despised Naziism and the cruelty it engendered, and thus didn't seem to think that the best way to procure those fine things was to take them from others, at gunpoint.

He left Germany for Rome when his company was forced to produce propaganda films during the Nazi's rise to power. Subsequently, he left his position in Rome when the Germans later occupied that city, and yet he was appointed, by virtue of his name to a series of high paying, influential posts, most notably as a Director of the Sköda factory in Czechoslovakia, an important facility for the German war machine. Here, as in previous positions, he cast a blind eye to sabotage and dissidence, covertly and lavishly funded the Resistance from his extravagant pay (despite complaints from envious party members, brother Hermann declared that Albert's remuneration was fitting and justified, and that was that), and actively aided in the release of prisoners and their escape to the West.

No one dared question a Göring.

You have two sides of a fraternal coin, darkness and light, polar opposites and yet inseparable. Albert, using his family name, undermined all that his brother held dear and still, despite Hermann's fervent loyalty to the Führer, the Reich and National Socialism, he not only couldn't bring himself to reign in his brother, but spent time cleaning up his "messes", kicking him upstairs, promoting him to higher positions of authority where he could be even more of a thorn in the side to the Nazis.

After the war, both Görings were arrested and held in Nuremberg for war crimes. Albert, in his defense, produced a list of all the people he had helped save during the war, but the prosecutors scorned this as an outrageous, cynical attempt to escape justice; to all outward appearances here was a man who profited greatly from the war and his brother's high position in the Nazi Party. Only by an incident too convoluted to explain here, was his story confirmed and he was released.

However, his name--which had allowed him to perform acts of kindness with impunity during the war--had become poison in the post war period. Unable to attain a position of status, he worked low paying odd jobs and eventually received a small pension. None of the many people he'd help save from deportation and concentration camps and execution (some of them wealthy doctors and industrialists), stepped up to help him; there was no place for the Göring name in postwar Europe.

Albert Göring died penniless and forgotten in 1966.