There were all the difference in the world between the two brothers, though they were very fond of each other. The elder Hermann with his bright blue eyes, bold, resolute and completely without fear, loved his youngest brother, Albert, who was a sad boy with doe-brown eyes, looking uncannily like his godfather, Baron Hermann von Epenstein, intimate with their mother Fanny.

The author Leonard Mosley tells in his great biography The Reichmarshal that the resemblance became so noticeable that most people who saw them together assumed that they were father and son. And with the birth of Albert, von Epenstein announced that he was adopting all five of Fanny' s family as his godchildren. "Godfather had made Hermann his favorite godchild until then," said his sister Olga in later years, "but after Albert's birth he was always fussing over him ..."

Albert and Hermann

All his life Albert was a man of deep moral conviction. He soon became disenchanted with the Nazis, went to Austria and lived for a time on an allowance from von Epenstein. He worked in the Tobis Sacha film studios in Vienna and often spoke out against Adolf Hitler and the Nazis. Once the Germans marched into Austria, he might be in trouble, but Hermann Goering protected him and kept him out of the hands of the Gestapo.

When the SS rounded up his former boss, a Jew named Oskar Pilzer, Albert Goering exerted all of his influence to have Pilzer freed and helped him and his family get out of the country.

In his authoritative book The Devil's Disciples the author Anthony Read tells that Albert Goering spent much of his time, both then and right through until 1945, doing what he could to help individual Jews to survive, often with his brother's collusion.

The actress Henny Porten had been forced out of the German film industry because she was married to a Jew - Albert Goering was asked to intervene and he arranged a contract for Henny.

Franz Lehar - and Goerings List

And when the Nazis threatened the famous composer Franz Lehar because his wife was Jewish, Albert Goering used his influence to get honorary Aryan status for Frau Lehar and had his brother guarantee the safety of Lehar's wife.