You probably know that Hermann Goering was one of the architects of the hellish Nazi concentration camps for political dissidents and Jews among others. You probably know that next to Hitler, Herman Goering was the man who played the largest role in the holocaust and The Final Solution.
You probably didn’t know, however, that Herman Goering’s little brother Albert, “a devout Catholic,” was a hero who struggled against the Nazis and risked his life many times to save possibly hundreds of people from the grasp of the Nazis, to the point of being arrested four times and even had him fleeing an execution order. But his heroics have been hidden, obfuscated by the evil last name which he bore.
Albert is believed to be an illegitimate son from a long-standing affair his mother had with a rich Jewish businessman with whom the Goerings lived. Herman and Albert couldn’t have been more different.
William Hastings Burke wrote that Herman Goering described his brother this way:
“He was always the antithesis of myself,” Hermann told the American psychiatrist Leon Goldensohn, who interviewed him at the Nuremberg war crime trials in 1946. “He was not politically or militarily interested; I was. 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.”
As Herman became enchanted with a young Adolf Hitler, the artistic and sensitive Albert moved to Austria to pursue film making.
It wasn’t until the Nazis invaded Austria that Albert’s conscience prompted him to action. At first he simply spoke out publicly against the Nazis’ violence. A man without the name Goering certainly would have been arrested and likely killed but Herman seems to have protected his little brother, keeping him out of the clutches of the Gestapo, according to The Holocaust, Crimes, Heroes, and Villains. As the Nazis entered Austria, Albert used a large amount of his money and his brother’s name arranging exit visas to help Jews flee the country. In one instance he defended little old ladies who were being forced to clean cobblestone on their knees. He got down on his knees to aid them. He knew he was taking his life in his hands by doing such a thing. But he persisted.
In one instance, Herman was so happy and pleased with the quick annexation of Austria that he granted each one of his family members a wish. Albert surprised his brother by asking that Archduke Josef Ferdinand of Austria be released from the Dachau concentration camp. And the next day, he was freed.
According to Burke, Albert would often plead the case of someone to his brother, often successfully.
Richard Sonnenfeldt, chief interpreter and youngest member of the American prosecution team at the Nuremberg War Crimes Trial, later recalled how the Reichmarshal enjoyed displaying his power to Albert by freeing Jews from the concentration camps. “Albert would go to his brother Hermann and say, ‘Hermann you’re so big and so powerful, and here’s a Jew who’s a good Jew and doesn’t belong in a concentration camp’,” Sonnenfeldt said.
” ‘Can’t you just sign a paper?’ And Hermann would say, ‘This is absolutely the last time I’m going to do this, don’t come back’,” said Sonnenfeldt, 80, on a tour of Germany to promote a book about his Nuremberg experiences Mehr als ein Leben. “A month later, Albert would be back,” he said. “We found a hundred people on Albert’s list that were freed. All because Goering had such a need to show off to his younger brother.”
Albert even went so far as to sign passports himself in order to help people flee the country at his own peril. He protected members of the resistance and refused to return the Nazi salute. He was eventually arrested four times and an execution order was even promulgated once and he was forced to go on the run in Prague.
Herman, his older brother, smoothed this incident over in 1944 but told Albert it was the absolutely last time he could do anything to save him.
Sadly, at the end of the war, Albert Goering was arrested essentially for the crime of being Herman Goering’s brother. He stayed in prison for two years, explaining to his interrogators that he resisted the Nazis but they simply believed it to be a “whitewash.”
In their last meeting in prison, Herman reportedly told Albert, “I am very sorry, Albert, that it is you who has to suffer so much for me.”
Herman eventually killed himself in prison and Albert was eventually released. But Albert’s life was ruined. With his name, he was unable to find work anywhere and he died years later alone and penniless. Ironically, the very name which protected him and allowed him to do good was now destroying him. He became an alcoholic and he cheated on his wife and eventually left his family.
Albert Goering wasn’t a saint but there aren’t many who can say that when evil had the upper hand, they resisted with every fiber of their being. When the law was terror, Albert Goering practiced compassion and saw the dignity in others.
A woman who’d been saved by Albert Goering as a six year old girl wrote a letter to “Uncle Bear” years later expressing her thanks.
From the time I can remember I loved and cherished you, I remember every moment we were together, the walks in the parks, the treats you bestowed on me, the way you taught me to pray, always accompanying me to church, although you were a devout Catholic and I Russian Orthodox.
How hurt I was when I was forbidden to enter the study in our house, where you sat grim faced, clutching a telephone with reams of papers, pens and inkwells surrounding you. Through the mists of cigarette smoke that encircled your being, I saw you, haggard and tired, yet with a determination to fulfill some dreadful task.
Little did I know that you, at the risk of your own life, gave orders in the name of your half brother, a high ranking German official, to release prisoners, to issue exit papers to thousands of Jewish and other ethnic peoples, thus saving their lives. How you forged your half brother’s name on the documents, how you changed your voice and bearing to sound like he.
Neither did I know that, after saving the life of the composer of the “Merry Widow” Franz Lehar and his family, he composed an important musical piece in your honor…
Truly we were blessed to have had you in our lives.
God rest your soul, my dearly beloved godfather, my “Onkel Baer”
HT William Hastings Burke who literally wrote the book on Albert Goering.
Thanks to Harry Cosgrove of In His Sign Network for telling me about this fascinating life.
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I pray that such a brave, flawed man (as we all are) was able to be penitent at the time of his death. There are so many people who defied the Nazi regime, in and out of the military, who are not recognized to us in history as it is written. God bless him and pray for them. Peace and God bless.
Thank you! God bless Albert!
My dear Catholic brothers and sisters,
For the first 33 years of my life I was “more Catholic than the pope”, becoming a Dominican friar at one point with the given name of “Pius”. After being ordained I became a seminary professor. But the excellent education the church gave me led to me ask so many questions the church could not answer satisfactorily that I left both the priesthood and the church, in order to promote the teaching and example of Christ - rather than his fradulent “Vicar”.
As wonderful of stories like Albert Goering are, shouldn’t Catholics ask themselves how their church could have produced not only the OTHER Goering, but most of the OTHER leaders of the Nazi regimes, not only in Germany, but in most of the other AXIS nations of Roman Catholic Europe, as I show at http://jesuswouldbefurious.org/NaziLeadership.html !!!
Great article… though I do have a minor quibble. While Goering was certainly involved with the Holocaust, I think most historians would say that Himmler was far more directly involved in the Holocaust than Goering.
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Still, this is a great article showing how even those surrounded by evil can find a way to resist.
Hey Ray, The Church is full of sinners, like me, those who became Nazi leaders, and even has a place for people like you who broke their vows, made themselves a god, and now bash the Church for, gasp, having sinners in her midst! Take this Divine Mercy week-end and pray for forgiveness, while examining the works of Blessed John Paul the Great,one of the “fraudlent vicars” you disparage, including his face-to-face forgiveness of the man who shot him. And say a prayer for Albert if it’s not beneath you. It’s time for you to regain your life.
Ray, it is a shame that you take an article that celebrates the heroic actions of one man as an opportunity to bash the Church. Members of the Church are imperfect and always will be; we are fallen beings given to sin even as we struggle through God’s grace to overcome it. Not everyone uses God’s grace, unfortunately.
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If we critique the Church for having sinners as its members, we loose sight of the purpose of the Church (which is to save the souls of sinners). Further, if you wonder what is wrong with the Church because Hitler and Himmler were Catholic, don’t you also have to wonder what was wrong with Jesus to pick Judas as one of his apostles?
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My final thought is this; you claim that the Church could not answer your questions satisfactorily? Do you mean the Church provided no answers that really answered the question, or does it mean they provided an answer you disagreed with? If the latter, how can you be sure that you are not the one in error?
Don’t feed the troll.
Glory and praise be to you, Lord, Jesus Christ! For our brother, Albert “Onkle Baer” Goering: may The Divine Mercy have mercy on your soul so that you are with Him in paradise, this day, and for all eternity! Amen! Alleluia! Thank you, Lord!
Brother Robert,
Who’d a thunk when you woke up this morning you’d be praying for Hermann Goering’s little brother?
Ray, why do you suppose Our Lord picked Judas? He came to save sinners, not the righteous.
Wow! Talk about opposites from the same family. I’ve seen this in many families but never to this extent. Wow!
......very enlightening…....thanks !!!!!!
Ray, you say that for the first 33 years of your life you were “more Catholic than the pope”. That is your problem. And now you think you are the pope. May God have mercy on you.
Nice slice of life. I grew up thinking Germans were bad because every year, I saw a WWII movie. Later, I saw what Caritas and Miserior, 2 German Catholic Charities, did in mission lands and developing nations. Of course, there’s Schindler’s list that showed a real Nazi who had a change of heart. There’s also a female version of Oskar in the person of Irena Sendler ( video at http://divine-ripples.blogspot.com/2011/04/irena-sendler-female-oskar-schindler.html ) I think many Germans were coerced or deceived into supporting Hitler just like many Muslims are today. Speaking of which, have you seen Heidi, the German woman who confronted Muslims in their rally cfr. http://divine-ripples.blogspot.com/2011/04/our-model-against-islamists-woman-spoke.html She certainly learned her history well and is a model for us all - imho.
Ray, how many of these monsters of Nazi Germany and their allies were attending Mass and the other Sacraments? None!!! WE have to make those decisions. As for me, I will stay with the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church. It is, has been, and will be long after your decision to quit is shown to be rather foolish and self-centered. Peace and God bless.
Ray Dubuque, So you think that the Catholic Church produced Herman Goering? through spontaneous generation, maybe? It is more likely, Herman Goering came into the world through the laws of gravity like Stephen Hawkins proposes. How did you get here, Ray? Through the words of Jesus in the Gospel? Ten more men like Albert Goering and there would have been no holocaust. The Catholic Church produces men like Albert Goering. In another time he would have made a great missionary.
I won’t feed trolls. I suspect their mind is made up anyway and is not after the truth. Otherwise, they’d do their own research or ask politely instead of coming at you jihad sytle. They’re most likely Obama shills or Muslims.
My dear R.C.brothers and sisters, You can be angry at me if you like. But who do you think God is more angy with? With ME for being concerned not only about the millions of innocent Jews who lost their lives for no good reason at the hands of Germans who considered themselves either “Christian” (2/3rds) or “Roman Catholic” (1/3rd) but also about the millions of our R.C. brothers and sisters who were the MORAL victims of the Nazi Holocaust, if not PHYSICAL victims of it? Or with your pope and bishops doing so little to dissuade millions of your brothers and sisters from going along with their Nazi rulers and doing things which propelled them directly and inevitably to ETERNAL DAMNATION ????
See http://jesuswouldbefurious.org/RC_victims.html and http://jesuswouldbefurious.org/StFranz.html .
Ray,
I think you need to get some better history training. So you know why the Nazis targeted Catholics before other Christians in their crackdown? *because* the Catholic Church was speaking out so forcefully against the Reich. The closure and seizure of Catholic schools and other institutions, the assassination of priests in the street, the fact that Catholics were only outnumbered by Jews in the Concentration Camps. This is because the Catholic Church so defied the Nazis. As the New York Times noted, Pope Pius XII was the lone voice in the silent winter against the atrocities committed by the Nazis.
So the Catholic Church does not kick out sinners and evil-doers, does not excise the non-practicing from her ranks. That is only the more proof that she is what she claims: the Church of Christ. Because the Church of Christ exists not for saints, but for the salvation of sinners and evil-doers. She can’t do that if she kicks them out.
Please, educate yourself, and in the meantime keep you un-informed anti-Catholic bigotry and hatred to yourself. When you ask what God will be angry about, ask yourself why he included not bearing false witness in the 10 Commandments?
I think your advice was the best, Therese Z.
@R.D. re: “pope doing so little…” Check out: http://divine-ripples.blogspot.com/2010/05/blog-post.html or click <a > here</a>. It’s an entertaining and informative movie video about those times. Have a little faith in the Lord, His people and their shepherds whom he guides through His Holy Spirit.
wineinthewater,
Not only am I familiar with all of your efforts to whitewash the actual record, but I’ve published answers to all of them at http://JesusWouldBeFurious.Org/RCscandal.
As for the abuse of the good name of the New York Times, I’m leading an effort by REAL historians to persuade the paper to stop allowing apologists for Pius XII to get away with using the NYT as part of their campaign of misinformation.
See http://JesusWouldBeFurious.Org/NYTimesvsHitlersPope.html.
As for your diatribe, “Please, educate yourself, and in the meantime keep you un-informed anti-Catholic bigotry and hatred to yourself.”
Whereas I CARE about the MILLIONS of Roman Catholics who were allowed to cooperate with Hitler and go to hell, all YOU seem to care about is the reputation of the clergy who sat back and let them go to hell. Do you also feel the critics of the pedophile priests and the bishops who protected them were guilty of “un-informed anti-Catholic bigotry and hatred” ???
Ray,
I should have taken the advice not to feed the trolls.
I claimed no impeccability of Catholics in that era, no status of white purity for the leadership of the Church, only denied your blanket condemnation. Did the Church do enough? almost certainly not. But by the Grace of God she did more than most.
After all, since Catholics were barred from the Nazi party and Catholics made up 2/3 of the population (as your own site proclaims), most of the Nazi’s must have been Protestant. Do you have a similar site for Protestants? After all, your own assertions put them much more to blame. Where is your treatise on how Protestant theology made them so susceptible to Nazi ideology? or even formed Nazi ideology? why didn’t their pastors do more? What fundamental flaw in Protestantism lead to that? You talk about the long history of antisemitism in Catholicism, do you spend any time on the impact on German culture of Luther’s profound (even for his era) antisemitism and advocacy of Jewish ghettos? As your treatment is so unbalanced, so skewed to showcasing just Catholic fault, I can only conclude that you are motivated not out of care for Catholic souls, but something else. You can be right about certain facts and still be anti-Catholic and hateful.
Sadly, it seems that Ray has a personal ax to grind because his tone is very angry and confrontational. In fact, his attitude comes across as Protestant in nature because Protestants usually refer to our church as the “ROMAN Catholic Church” instead of just the “Catholic Church”...and I was raised a Baptist so I am pretty good about understanding that angle.
Let Ray light his fire and have his say because in the end it is God who always has the last word, right? And, Ray, if my comment incenses you, then please examine your inability to accept constructive criticism from those on this forum. After all, you drew “first blood” it seems to me (a line from the first Rambo movie). In answer to your statement in your original post, the Catholic Church didn’t “produce” evil persons…people have always had the free will to choose their own actions. Even though Hitler set out to annihilate Jews, I have heard it said that he was of Jewish heritage. God have mercy on us all, for we are all capable of anything.
Now you see what Ray has accomplished here? He has managed to turn the discussion from Albert Goering onto something completely different: an attack on the Catholic Church. If that isn’t Protestant I don’t know what is. Ray, I do feel sorry for you. I really do. You are just a pawn and you don’t see it.
Jesus won’t be furious. HE already KNOWS how humans can treat other humans. Yes, especially innocent ones. He responded with not fury, but with Love and Forgiveness.—And Jesus will say, “what have you been talking ab’t?” We will say, “ab’t who is right, who is more important.” And he will say become the servant of others. If Jesus forgave those who beat and murdered him, He will forgive me who decides to stay with my Mother Church; you don’t need to waste your time trying to prove me wrong. I will not change my mind. (I have read the history too. 1)Jewish leaders thanked Pius XII profusely after WWII- 2)When Pius XII spoke out against the Nazis they would respond by exterminating many people. He had to pick his battles with precision and timing.)
-Rev Ray, I, a nobody, ask only ONE thing from you. You might scoff, but do it at least three times. Go sit in front of the Tabernacle. Jesus is there.
Item: The Jan. 30 1937 edition of the NY Times announces that the Nazi govt. has closed all the catholic schools in Germany.
Item: Well before the takeover of Austria (the Anschluss) in 1938, an encyclical is issued in German (With Burning Sorrow), criticising actions by the Nazi govt, both those against the Jews and those against the Church.
Item: the Nazi party, like the Communist party was officially atheist. In strongly Christian areas, they sometimes published articles trying to disguise their actions against Jews as having a Christian basis; but they also intended to wipe out practicing Christians, both Catholic and protestant.
Item: In the Nazi concentration camps were murdered about eleven million: six M. Jews, three M. Polish catholics, one M. other Christians and one M. miscellaneous. Consider Edith Stein, Maximilian Kolbe, e.g.
Item: Take a tour of the Dachau concentration camp. Even before WW II officially began in Sept. 1939, the Nazis were arresting catholic priests. One barracks at Dachau planned to hold six hundred was eventually jammed with four thousand priests. More than half of the catholic clergy in Germany and Austria were sent to concentration camps during WW II. When a bishop would speak against the Nazi policies, their rebuttal was to arrest many of the priests in his diocese, and take them to the death camps.
At the time of the death of Pius XII, (1958) his role in saving Jewish lives in Italy and elsewhere was widely acknowledged, particularly from survivors who had reached Israel. The libel against Pius XII as being sympathetic to Hitler was manufactured by the Soviet govt beginning in 1963.
TeaPot562
I have published more than enough information here, along with sources that people with open minds can pursue, But heeding what Jonathan Swift once said, “You cannot reason people out of positions they were not reasoned into”, I know that there is no reaching people who can’t think for themselves for fear of losing their souls as their church has drummed into them.
Good luck to all of you who would rather follow the “Vicar of Christ”, instead of Christ himself.
Come home Ray. You have been away too long. The gift of your intellect, I gave you. Why do you persecute me?
“The libel against Pius XII as being sympathetic to Hitler was manufactured by the Soviet govt beginning in 1963.” -TeaPot562
I guess that would make Ray a tool of the Soviet disinformation machine. What’s even more ironic is that the Soviet empire is all but gone, thanks in part to the efforts of a Polish Pope. But such as Ray feed their blind hatred of the Catholic Church with whatever source they can find, be it from an evil atheist regime or not.
So sad. And yet people say Michael Voris is insensitive. Go figure.
Ah…yes, I do choose to follow the Vicar of Christ because I know that that is following Christ Himself…who ordained it that way. I am sorry for you, FATHER Ray. Remember this beloved title that you still hold and will always hold? I am only sorry for you that you have seemed to have forgotten the true and tender love that Our Lord has for you in a special way as priest forever! But do not worry, you will come to realize the beauty and truth of the Catholic Church once again, as the Bride of Christ and as your Bride. I promise you this! And then you will be joyful to stay within Her love forever. For Her love IS His love and He loves you, NO MATTER WHAT, even though you have these false opinions of Him right now. When you come back to Him, all will be forgiven and forgotten. May God bless you and keep you close by His side always.
Individuals become Catholic or leave the Church for various reasons. I became Catholic without any Catholic convincing me to become one [well, I give the credit to our Blessed Mother], and subsequently asked a Catholic priest to grant me a conditional baptism.
When I see people or hear people criticizing the Catholic Church and doesn’t want to be dragged into polemics, I just say “Whatever it is that you think the Church did or did not do - don’t give me your response now - but when you go home, imagine that the Catholic Church didn’t exist, and instead it was the Protestant ‘church’ or other that was on spot. And ask yourself if they would have done better…And you don’t have to tell me.”
And for “Mr. Ray” or ex?-“fr. Pius”, perhaps you may want to recall that our Lord Jesus did not deny ‘fraudulent’ Peter even after ‘fraudulent’ Peter denied our Lord three times. And your chosen name, ‘Pius’ signifies piety and prayerfulness. Can you please pray for the Church…and for me, as well? I’m always in danger of becoming fraudulent even as I aim to be among the ‘Creative Minorities’ - probably the only minorities who don’t resent being labeled as such.
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