[Gletkin]

Göring's Nephew
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?

[Potemkin]

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.

They were fighting a World War. No holds were barred. All sorts of serious shit went down during the War. Remember Tarantino's movie Inglorius Basterds? Fucking documentary.

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?

In the 1920s, and even into the 1930s, it was respectable in the West to praise Hitler. Boasting of family ties with Hermann Goering would have been acceptable back then, regardless of one's political opinions.

[Gletkin]

They were fighting a World War. No holds were barred. All sorts of serious shit went down during the War. Remember Tarantino's movie Inglorius Basterds? Fucking documentary.

Yeah but if you're going to be ruthless, at least do it the name of pragmatism...how useful will it be?
Special forces units wreaking havoc behind enemy lines? VERY useful.
Killing someone just so he won't be paraded in front of cameras as a prisoner? Not so much. Yeah they captured a guy (wrongly) thought to be Goring's nephew. And? In and of itself, really just a novelty item.

In the 1920s, and even into the 1930s, it was respectable in the West to praise Hitler. Boasting of family ties with Hermann Goering would have been acceptable back then, regardless of one's political opinions.

True.
The article wasn't clear exactly when Karl bragged of these Nazi ties.
It could be that he stopped once war began, but by then the story was already out there.

[Potemkin]

Yeah but if you're going to be ruthless, at least do it the name of pragmatism...how useful will it be?
Special forces units wreaking havoc behind enemy lines? VERY useful.
Killing someone just so he won't be paraded in front of cameras as a prisoner? Not so much. Yeah they captured a guy (wrongly) thought to be Goring's nephew. And? In and of itself, really just a novelty item.

Propaganda mattered in WWII, and both sides knew it. Weighed against a propaganda coup for the Axis Powers, one man's life was unimportant.

The article wasn't clear exactly when Karl bragged of these Nazi ties.

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.

That answer your question?

It could be that he stopped once war began, but by then the story was already out there.

Indeed. Boy, was his face red!

[Gletkin]

Propaganda mattered in WWII, and both sides knew it. Weighed against a propaganda coup for the Axis Powers, one man's life was unimportant.

Sure it did....but this one had too much potential for blowback for minimal gain.
"Did you hear what the 'freedom-loving' Amerikaner wanted to do to poor Goring's nephew? What hypocrites of them to question our methods of defending our Reich and homeland!"

"WHAT!!!? We were about to execute one of our boys just for being related to that fascist fatass!!??
Yeah, well...it would've been embarassing!"

That answer your question?

Not really. That stated when Werner was born, not when or for how long Karl was blowing smoke up his fellow German-Americans' asses about being related to the arch-Nazi.

[Potemkin]

Sure it did....but this one had too much potential for blowback for minimal gain.
"Did you hear what the 'freedom-loving' Amerikaner wanted to do to poor Goring's nephew? What hypocrites of them to question our methods of defending our Reich and homeland!"

"WHAT!!!? We were about to execute one of our boys just for being related to that fascist fatass!!??
Yeah, well...it would've been embarassing!"

No-one would ever have known that he had been summarily executed by his buddy. The Americans simply couldn't take the chance that he might be instrumentalised by the Nazis for propaganda purposes. You have to bear in mind how little an individual life was worth during WWII.

That stated when Werner was born, not when or for how long Karl was blowing smoke up his fellow German-Americans' asses about being related to the arch-Nazi.

It's likely he was doing it from the day he set foot on American soil. After all, who would be able to prove he was lying?

[Smilin' Dave]

Would it have been that great a propaganda coup for the Nazis? To me it would have been more likely to backfire. "Hey guys, it's Goering's nephew!.... and he's fighting for the other side... maybe he bombed your house?...awkward." I have a mental image of German civilians joking about 'Goering' being better at bombing German cities or similar.