- 02 Aug 2012 19:40
#14021971
Göring's Nephew
Air&Space - The Smithsonian
March 13, 2012
I'm not so sure if it was Karl's fault so much as it was the US govt.'s.
Really? Killing someone solely because of the propaganda value his capture would be to the enemy?
Now if he was privy to some very sensitive intel, then yes....arguably there may be grounds for such a measure, but that's not the impression I'm getting from this article.
Killing someone just so that he won't end up as a show pony for enemy propaganda....yet another example of finding ourselves behaving not so differently from our dictatorial rivals.
Also a bit weird though, that his dad sought to increase social status by bragging about (false) ties to the highest echelons of the Third Reich.
What, was his neighborhood a German-American Bund stronghold or something?
Air&Space - The Smithsonian
March 13, 2012
Was Hermann Göring’s nephew a B-17 commander with the U.S. Army Air Forces during World War II?
USAAF Captain Werner Goering certainly thought he was related to the infamous Commander-in-Chief of the Luftwaffe. The American Goering was born in Salt Lake City, Utah, in 1923, shortly after his family emigrated from Germany. His father, Karl, often boasted to the local German-American community and to his family that his younger brother Hermann was a World War I fighter ace and adviser to Adolf Hitler.
According to Stephen Frater (whose new book, Hell Above Earth, St. Martin’s Press, 2012, tells Werner Goering’s bizarre tale), when the United States entered the war in December 1941, Werner enlisted, completing flight training in Santa Ana, California. But his military career stalled when intelligence officers realized the implications of having a Goering in command of a B-17.
After an FBI investigation, Werner was allowed to serve—under one condition, which was kept hidden from him. His co-pilot, First Lieutenant Jack Rencher, had orders to kill Werner should the B-17 be forced to land in Europe. Under no circumstances could Werner be captured alive, for fear that he would be used for propaganda purposes by the Nazis.
The men were assigned to the 303rd Bomb Group, Eighth Air Force B-17 squadron based at Molesworth, near Cambridge, and bonded during training, eventually becoming best friends.
The crew’s B-17, Teddy’s Rough Riders, was nearly shot down on November 21, 1944, over the Leuna chemical complex in eastern Germany. Hit hundreds of times by flak, with two engines gone, the aircraft slowly limped home. Rencher waited for Werner to give the command to bail out; once he did, Rencher would have to assassinate Werner and take control of the aircraft. At the last possible moment, the men spotted the English Channel. They had made it.
In the course of writing his book, Frater discovered that Hermann Göring and Werner Goering were not related after all. It seems that Karl Goering’s kinship claims had been nothing more than a way to gain recognition in Salt Lake City’s German community, and he would never know that his false claims almost cost his son his life. When Frater learned that there was no relation, he immediately called Werner. “His response was calm, muted, and, I believe, profoundly grateful,” he recalls.
I'm not so sure if it was Karl's fault so much as it was the US govt.'s.
Really? Killing someone solely because of the propaganda value his capture would be to the enemy?
Now if he was privy to some very sensitive intel, then yes....arguably there may be grounds for such a measure, but that's not the impression I'm getting from this article.
Killing someone just so that he won't end up as a show pony for enemy propaganda....yet another example of finding ourselves behaving not so differently from our dictatorial rivals.
Also a bit weird though, that his dad sought to increase social status by bragging about (false) ties to the highest echelons of the Third Reich.
What, was his neighborhood a German-American Bund stronghold or something?
"What do you think happens after you die?"
"I think they give your hospital bed to someone else."
[ Forum Rules ][ Newbie Guide ][ Mission Statement ][ FAQ ]
"I think they give your hospital bed to someone else."
[ Forum Rules ][ Newbie Guide ][ Mission Statement ][ FAQ ]