15h 44min, may 4, 1939 y -

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ALBERT WAS NOW IN Prague after fleeing the circus of the Italian (fascist) film industry and accepting a position at the Škoda Works, the mega Czech industrial conglomerate.

called to account by Albert’s interrogators at Nuremberg. “You obtained your job with Skoda through your brother, is that right?” Ensign Jackson prodded during the Nuremberg process. Albert, far too proud of his engineering credentials, refuted: “No, quite the contrary is the case. Several Czech gentlemen asked me to come there and there was a Bruno Soletzky [sic], who came to look me up in Vienna and asked me to come to work for the Skoda Works.” He then made the point: “I had to ask my brother for permission to go to work there.”[112]

“Göring always openly spoke out against Nazism, and often so openly that I preferred to leave his company .... He always protected the interests of the Škoda factories and Czech employees. He never used, as far as I know, the Nazi greeting, nor did he have Hitler’s picture in his study, although that was mandatory. In my company, as well as in the company of other Czech directors, he always openly spoke out against Hitler.”

By the time Albert had moved to the Škoda Works in 1939 there was already a tall stack of SS reports documenting Albert’s ‘acts of terrorism’ against the Reich.

‘How long is this public gangster going to be allowed to continue?’

BY 1940 ALBERT HAD found his niche in life, and what a comfortable niche it was. He retired each night to the embrace of a Czech beauty queen. Exempt from war rationing, he indulged in an extravagance and excess enjoyed only by (Nazi) royalty: free-flowing Champagne, smoke-filled cabaret dens and authentic coffee, not the crude Eichelkaffee (acorn coffee) allotted to the masses. He was a thorn in the backside of Škoda’s Nazi management and a hero to his Czech colleagues. He was in his element; a man rolling in style, quite literally. If he was not cruising through Eastern Europe in his luxury cabriolet donated by the Mlada Boleslav Škoda factory, he was in his head-turning Steyr-Daimler-Puch auto.

With the Nazis installed in Prague, the Skoda management heard of a plan to dismember and relocate their company. Something had to be done. Bruno Seletsky, Skoda’s export director, had a brainwave. He was an old friend of Albert and had recently visited him in Rome. The two had first met in Argentina in 1930 when Albert was in South America doing business for the Kaloriferwerke. Bruno suggested they ‘accept into Skoda’s employment his friend Albert Goering who in his thinking is an anti-Nazi and an Austrian citizen and who, as brother of Hermann Goering, could provide us with valuable assistance.’8 Without hesitation the company offered Albert a job, hoping he might ‘prevent the liquidation of Skoda enterprises and transfer of machinery and equipment to other German businesses’, and ‘avoid orders for arms for German military power by increasing exports’.

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Albert accepted their offer, but only after he had gained Hermann’s permission: ‘I asked my brother as head of the family, and not in his official capacity . . . I thought I would ask him as a matter of courtesy.’10 Hermann had no objections, even though ‘He knew my aversion to National Socialism and must have expected that I would make all sorts of difficulties. However, he was very generous and when he heard that I could prove myself he said, “Well, by all means go and work there.”’

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