Albert goering
Albert Goering was born near Mauterndorf (circa 1896) to Heinrich Ernst Goering and his wife Franziska. His older brother Herman Goering later gained notoriety as a Nazi war criminal.
The Goering family lived with their children’s aristocratic godfather, Baron Hermann von Epenstein, in Mauterndorf castle. Von Epenstein was a prominent physician and acted as a surrogate father to the children as Heinrich Goering was often absent from the family home. According to the author Leonard Mosley, who had interviewed surviving Goering family members, von Epenstein had begun a long-term term affair with Franziska Goering about a year before Albert Goering's birth. There was also a strong emotional bond and physical resemblance between von Epenstein and Albert Goering, so much so that people often though they were father and son. If this belief is correct then Albert Goering had a Jewish paternal grandfather.
Albert Goering also seemed to have acquired his godfather's love of the bon vivant. He looked set to lead an unremarkable life as a filmmaker until the Nazis came to power in 1933. Unlike his older brother Herman, who was at one time second in command of the Third Reich, Albert Goering despised Nazism and the brutality that it involved. On one occasion he is reported to have got down on his hands and knees and joined a group of Jews who were being forced to scrub the street. The SS officer in charge was unwilling to have Herman Goering's brother also publicly humiliated and so ordered the street scrubbing to stop.
Albert Goering also used his influence to get his Jewish boss Oskar Pilzer freed after the Nazis arrested him. Goering then helped Pilzer and his family escape from Germany. He is reported to have done the same for many other Jews. Albert Goering intensified his anti-Nazi activity when he was made export director at the Skoda works in Czechoslovavia. Here, he encouraged minor acts of sabotage and had contact with the Czech resistance. On many occasions Goering forged his brother's signature on transit documents. When he was eventually caught he used his brother's influence to have himself released. Albert Goering would also send trucks to concentration camps with requests for labour. These trucks would then stop in an isolated area and their passengers would be allowed to escape.
After the war Albert Goering was arrested by the Americans who accused him of profiteering. However many of the people who he'd helped testified on his behalf and he was released. Unfortunately Goering was then arrested by the Czechs but was once again freed when the full extent of his activities became known.
Goering returned to Germany but found himself shunned because of his family name. He found occasional work as a writer and translator, living in a modest flat far from the baronial splendour of his childhood. He died in 1966 without having his humanitarian activities publicly acknowledged.
References
Mosley, Leonard, The Reich Marshal;: A biography of Hermann Goering, Doubleday, (1974) ISBN: 0385049617
The Goering Who Saved Jews, by Vida Goldgar 10 March 2000, Jewish Times (Atlanta)