阿尔贝特·戈林1895—1966

他的兄长赫尔曼·戈林是纳粹德国的帝国元帅，二战后被宣判为战犯。兄弟两虽然在政治立场上相背，但感情很好。赫尔曼·戈林一直庇护阿尔伯特·戈林，并帮他救了许多人。

Albert Günther Göring (9 March 1895 – 20 December 1966) was a German engineer, businessman, and the younger brother of Hermann Göring (head of the German Luftwaffe, founder of the Gestapo, and leading member of the Nazi Party). In contrast to his brother, Albert was opposed to Nazism, and helped Jews and others persecuted in Nazi Germany. He was shunned in post-war Germany because of his family name, and died without any public recognition, receiving scant attention for his humanitarian efforts until decades after his death.

Early life and family

Albert Günther Göring was born on 9 March 1895 in the Berlin suburb of Friedenau. He was the fifth child of the former Reichskommissar to German South-West Africa and German Consul General to Haiti, Heinrich Ernst Göring, and his wife, Franziska "Fanny" Tiefenbrunn, who came from a Bavarian peasant family.

The Görings were relatives of numerous residents of the Eberle/Eberlin area in Switzerland and Germany, among them German Counts Zeppelin, including aviation pioneer Ferdinand von Zeppelin; German nationalist art historian Herman Grimm, author of the concept of the German hero as a mover of history that was later embraced by the Nazis; Swiss historian of art and cultural, political and social thinker Jacob Burckhardt; Swiss diplomat, historian and President of the International Red Cross Carl J. Burckhardt; the Merck family, owners of the German pharmaceutical giant Merck; and German Catholic writer and poet Gertrud von Le Fort.

Anti-Nazi activity

Göring seemed to have acquired his godfather's character as a bon vivant and looked set to lead an "unremarkable life" as a filmmaker, until the Nazis came to power in 1933. Unlike his elder brother Hermann, a leading party member, Albert Göring despised Nazism and the brutality involved.

Many anecdotal stories exist about Göring's resistance to the Nazi ideology and regime. For example, Albert is reported to have joined a group of Jewish women who had been forced to scrub the street. The SS officer in charge inspected his identification, and ordered the group's scrubbing activity to stop after realizing he could be held responsible for allowing Hermann Göring's brother to be publicly humiliated.

Albert Göring used his influence to get his Jewish former boss Oskar Pilzer freed after the Nazis arrested him. Göring then helped Pilzer and his family escape from Germany. He is reported to have done the same for numerous other German dissidents.

Later life

On his release, Göring returned to Germany, but was shunned because of his family name. He found occasional work as a writer and translator, and lived in a modest flat far from the baronial splendour of his childhood. Having known of his infidelities, his Czech wife Mila divorced him and migrated to Lima, Peru, with their daughter Elizabeth. In his last years, Göring lived on a pension from the government. He knew that if he married, on his death the pension payments would be transferred to his wife. As a sign of gratitude, he married his housekeeper in 1966 so she would receive his pension. One week later, Albert Göring died without his wartime anti-Nazi activities having been publicly acknowledged.

Although Göring lived out his last years in Munich in Bavaria, he died further away in a hospital in Neuenbürg in the neighbouring state of Baden-Württemberg.

Reception and popular culture

Albert Göring's story remained largely unknown to the public even three decades after his death. While his brother Hermann Göring was the subject of many publications, Albert received little or no attention. One exception was a short article in German weekly magazine aktuell by writer Ernst Neubach in the early 1960s, when Göring was still alive. At the end of the 20th and beginning of the 21st century, Albert Göring and his work became the subject of several books and documentaries, in turn triggering a larger number of new publications.

Documentaries

Göring was the subject of film documentaries, the first and most extensive being The Real Albert Goering, produced by 3BM TV and broadcast in the United Kingdom in 1998. The documentary was picked up by the History Channel for foreign distribution and made its way to other countries, notably the United States, during the early 2000s.