'During a war, everybody loots a little'. Göring's daughter loses fight for assets

Edda Göring, the 77-year-old daughter of Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring, the Nazi WW2 leader who supervised the greatest art theft in modern history, has just lost her fight for a share of 'his' assets, confiscated after the end of World War II. He was estimated to have personally collected (stolen or coerced people into selling for virtually nothing) over 3000 almost priceless artworks.

Goering had profited from perhaps the greatest organised art theft in modern history, one that continued for years and was supervised by an agency of the German state, and removed colossal quantities of paintings, sculptures and other items from occupied Europe (26,000 railway wagons of it from France alone). Yet more was snatched from museums and collections in Germany itself.

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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/wor...racking-the-case-of-the-Nazis-stolen-art.html

Edda Göring wrote in her petition that the Bavarian government's seizure of her father's assets after the Second World War was a contravention of the law, arguing it was against her rights of inheritance.

She argued that because the assets were taken two years after the death of her father, who killed himself during the Nuremberg trials in 1946, she had been illegally dispossessed.

Göring did not demand the entirety of her father's assets back, but at least enough for a “subsistence livelihood.”

But the parliament only took a couple of minutes to reach its decision, citing the two-plus-four agreement, signed in 1991 which ended any further claims for compensation related to Germany's Nazi past.

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http://m.thelocal.de/20150424/grings-daughter-fails-in-bid-to-win-fathers-assets

Photo link: http://ww2gravestone.com/people/goering-hermann-wilhelm

zwiebel said:

Edda Göring, the 77-year-old daughter of Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring, the Nazi WW2 leader who supervised the greatest art theft in modern history, has just lost her fight for a share of 'his' assets, confiscated after the end of World War II. He was estimated to have personally collected (stolen or coerced people into selling for virtually nothing) over 3000 almost priceless artworks.



http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/wor...racking-the-case-of-the-Nazis-stolen-art.html



http://m.thelocal.de/20150424/grings-daughter-fails-in-bid-to-win-fathers-assets

Photo link: http://ww2gravestone.com/people/goering-hermann-wilhelm

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Those assets should be donated to Yad Va Shem.

Seems like if your daddy was Goering, you'd want to just, oh, I don't know- LIE LOW?

Why is she even picking this scab? Yes, I get for $$, but really? At 77 she didn't make another plan for her retirement?

EllieBee said:

Seems like if your daddy was Goering, you'd want to just, oh, I don't know- LIE LOW?

Why is she even picking this scab? Yes, I get for $$, but really? At 77 she didn't make another plan for her retirement?

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I bet she has retirement plans as it would be very unusual not to in Germany. But there is also good state care, as well.

I feel a little sorry for her as she was an only child I believe, and as Germany's little princess, made headlines if she crossed the street as a toddler. She maintains that news of her dad being executed was broken to her quite brutally by US military, I think, (when she was in custody with her mom, age 14/15?) and that various promises were broken.

I'm thinking the case might be more about retribution for taking away her dad? I can understand that more than purely wanting to profit from the tragedy of countless others, at such an advanced age.

Edda Göring as the little princess in WW2 Germany. With mom, dad...and a very influential admirer.

http://imgkid.com/carin-goering.shtml

I suppose I see your point. I cannot know what it was like to grow up as Edda.

But surely in the years since, she surely has some kind of understanding of the horrors her father committed. And I would think she would not demand a piece of his ill-gotten gains. Which were not his in the first place nor at the time she petitioned.

I appreciate your sensitivity towards this woman, and would never heap onto the child the sins of the father, but really I think she is a bit insensitive to the atrocities her father was responsible for. Asking for a piece of the pie makes me think she views her father as the victim in all this. And that ain't so.

Such a strange, strange family. Edda's uncle tried to profit from the family name too ...to save Jews. He was Hermann Göring's brother and a complete rebel, but on the right side of history.

http://jewishcurrents.org/december-20-goerings-anti-nazi-brother-34374

zwiebel said:

Such a strange, strange family. Edda's uncle tried to profit from the family name too ...to save Jews. He was Hermann Göring's brother and a complete rebel, but on the right side of history.

http://jewishcurrents.org/december-20-goerings-anti-nazi-brother-34374

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Wow. Thanks for that. Very strange, indeed.

zwiebel said:

I feel a little sorry for her as she was an only child I believe, and as Germany's little princess, made headlines if she crossed the street as a toddler. She maintains that news of her dad being executed was broken to her quite brutally by US military, I think, (when she was in custody with her mom, age 14/15?) and that various promises were broken.

I'm thinking the case might be more about retribution for taking away her dad? I can understand that more than purely wanting to profit from the tragedy of countless others, at such an advanced age.

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Goring was not executed. He committed suicide by ingesting cyanide the night before he was due to be hanged.

AlwaysShocked said:

Goring was not executed. He committed suicide by ingesting cyanide the night before he was due to be hanged.

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Thank you so much, of course he did. Don't know what I was thinking.

I think Edda's account was in a book by Gitta Sereny that I read. Sadly it's one I lost on my travels and I'm sorry I can't look it up. I only remember distinctly she complained about the way news of her father's death was broken (but note, my recollection it was a US serviceman could be mistaken, he could have been British) and about the low quality of her food. She refused to eat it.

I remember thinking she was an immature teen and her complete incomprehension about how her 'deprivations' compared to others' would sound, was understandable. Some (but not all) teens can be a bit like that. And nobody could expect a teen to be happy that their beloved dad was dead and much of the world was glad.

The lack of insight is something people grow out of. But this court case, simultaneous with the Oskar Gröning Auschwitz trial and launched by a woman in her 70s over an estate of really doubtful origin, does make me wonder if the earlier incomprehension may have been just a lifelong character trait....