This morning I came across a news article in a British newspaper about the children of the Nazi war criminals, which had this sentence in the headline: “I had myself sterilized so I would not pass on the blood of a monster.”
"German monster" Hermann Goering
The person who said this was Bettina Goering, great niece of Adolf Hitler’s second in command, Hermann Goering; she spoke these words on camera in a documentary, entitled “Hitler’s Children,” made by Israeli director Chanoch Zeevi.
Of course, Hitler had no children, even though his love of children, and dogs, has been well documented. Maybe he didn’t want to pass on the monster genes that he knew he had. Hitler’s only known relatives, who are now living in America, have never married, and they say it is because they don’t want the Hitler name to continue.
Hitler loved children and dogs
Hermann Goering was the Commander-in-Chief of the Luftwaffe (German Air Force), President of the Reichstag, Prime Minister of Prussia, and Hitler’s designated successor. Goering set up the German secret state police, which was called the Gestapo, and he also authorized a conference to plan “the Final Solution to the Jewish Question.”
After reading more of the news article, I learned that Bettina Goering, who now lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico, is not really a blood relative of a Nazi monster. Bettina said that her father, Heinz Goering, was adopted by his infamous uncle, Hermann Goering, after his own father died. Still, one can’t be too careful. Both Bettina and her brother had themselves sterilized so that they could never breed any little monsters.
Also featured in the documentary is Niklas Frank, the son of Hans Frank, whom the news article describes as “the Nazi governor of occupied Poland responsible for the death camps in which six million Jewish people were killed.” (Four of the Nazi death camps were in occupied Poland: Majdanek, Belzec, Treblinka, and Sobibor. The other two, Auschwitz and Chelmno, were in the Greater German Reich.)
Niklas says in the documentary that he “despises” his father’s past and describes his father as “a slime-hole of a Hitler fanatic.”
Monika Hertwig, daughter of Amon Goeth
The most pathetic of the children of the Nazi monsters, in my mind, is Monika Hertwig, the daughter of Amon Goeth. In the documentary, Monika describes her meeting with a man who tells her how her father shot women and babies “for sport.”
Monika was featured in another documentary, in which the house where her father allegedly shot prisoners from the balcony is shown.
Tourists at the house where Amon Goeth allegedly shot prisoners from the balcony
In 1998, I visited the house where Amon Goeth lived, which is shown in the photo above, and my tour guide told me that Amon Goeth actually shot prisoners from the top of a hill that is in between the house and the camp. As anyone can plainly see, the camp is not visible from the balcony of Amon Goeth’s house because of that hill.
There is a famous scene in Steven Spielberg’s movie, Schindler’s List, in which the Commandant of Plaszow is shooting prisoners at random from his balcony. In the novel Schindler’s Ark, on which the movie is based, the author explains that Amon Goeth was allowed to shoot prisoners from his balcony because Plaszow was not at that time a concentration camp under the control of the Economic office in Oranienburg. However, Goeth and Monika’s mother did not live in the house with the balcony while Plaszow was a labor camp, so this scene is total fiction.
Scene from the movie "Schindler's List"
Later, in the movie, Amon Goeth is no longer there, but there is no explanation for why he is gone. In real life, Goeth was arrested by Dr. Georg Konrad Morgen, the SS judge who investigated all the concentration camps for corruption and crimes against the prisoners. When the war ended, Goeth was awaiting trial in Morgen’s court, on a charge of stealing from the camp warehouses. Goeth was put on trial in a Polish court, but he was not charged with personally shooting anyone, nor with beating his maid.
Daughter of Amon Goeth is made into a monster with bad lighting
In 1968, after a visit to Germany, Elie Wiesel wrote these famous words in “Legends of Our Time”:
“Every Jew, somewhere in his being, should set apart a zone of hate — healthy, virile hate — for what the German personifies and for what persists in the German.”
Should all Germans have themselves sterilized because of “what the German personifies” and for “what persists in the German?”
Should the Germans be forbidden to adopt children because the genes of German monsters can be passed on, even to children that are not blood relatives?
You can read the whole story here.
I recently posted a review of the documentary “Inheritance” on Amazon, and the responses to it are developing into quite an interesting thread. I invite you to read it here:
http://www.amazon.com/Inheritance/product-reviews/B003LSY2JS/ref=cm_cr_dp_qt_hist_one?ie=UTF8&filterBy=addOneStar&showViewpoints=0&tag=appmatic-20
Comment by deenibeeni — February 16, 2013 @ 8:37 am
I read your review. I have not seen the documentary, so I cannot write a review of it.
Susanna was the name that Amon Goeth gave to one of his maids, both of whom were named Helen. Susanna was Helen Sternlicht. Helen Hirsch was the main one who worked for Amon Goeth. In the book Schindler’s Ark, which is fiction, it is pointed out that Amon Goeth considered Helen Hirsch to be his friend. On page 286 of the novel, it is mentioned that, after Amon Goeth was arrested, he wrote a polite note to Helen Hirsch asking her to send him some things for his use in prison. “It was, she thought, like a letter from a relative.” Amon Goeth called Helen Hirsch as a defense witness at this trial. Would he have done that if he had abused her?
On page 278 in the novel Schindler’s Ark, it is mentioned that Goeth offered to give Helen Hirsch a good reference if she needed it to get a job after the war.
On page 279, the author of Schindler’s Ark wrote that Amon Goeth “was a gentleman cusser; he seemed to be too fastidious to use obcenities.” Amon’s girlfriend, Monika’s mother, said that Amon had “nice manners.”
I think that it is possible that Amon Goeth was given a bad rap. He is one of the arch villains of the Holocaust, along with Dr. Menegele. We know that the story of him shooting prisoners from his balcony is a lie. How many more lies have been told about Amon Goeth?
I think that it was wrong for Helen Sternlicht, who SNEAKED INTO THE PLASZOW CAMP, to make Monika feel bad about her father.
Comment by furtherglory — February 17, 2013 @ 1:27 pm
Helen Jonas (Goeth’s maid) gave her account of Goeth’s actions in “holicaust voices”. I believe that nazi’s used the trial of unlawful killing of a prisoner when it suited them. It would have been the one crime that most nazis would have committed; without fear of reprimand. Goeth was tried as a war criminal, and it is thought that was responsible for tens of thousands of deaths through orders, and around 500 on his own.
I feel the children of the perpetrators can either live in guilt and shame, or try to defend the actions of their parents (as Helen Jonas feels that Monka Goeth has done). To end their family lines by sterilisation is a drastic action, but also a significant testament to how affected they are by the events of the past. If I was a survivor, I think that would reassure me that they have some comprehension of the awful experiences that had been inflicted on millions of innocent people.
Comment by Cassandra — February 3, 2013 @ 5:48 pm
why is monika goeth pathetic?? she can’t be blamed for her father’s actions.
Comment by misha — September 19, 2012 @ 2:23 pm
In answer to your larger, rather interesting question, obviously rhetorical, should Germans be allowed to adopt children: I was born in a so- called “Home for Fallen Girls” and adopted (in 1961) by Nazis who were in denial all their lives. I’m not making a joke. It is not a childhood I wish on you. These people projected all their shame (“you will turn out like your mother”), unfulfilled grief and obedience-leading-to-catrophe and false victimhood onto me. They thought of me in a Nazi way (as “asozial” and inferior to them) to their death. No, former Nazis ought NOT to have been allowed to adopt. And I find no fault, at any rate, with the famous Nazi childrens’ decision not to have children themselves.
Comment by mipochka — December 23, 2011 @ 11:48 am
I believe the larger point regarding Monika Goeth is that Amon Goeth SHOT PEOPLE FOR SPORT, and that is what haunts his daughter, not whether it was from the balcony or the hill. Whether they got it wrong in the movie or not, it has been well documented. He was not charged with beating his maid because it would have seemed unimportant at the time, considering the larger crime of running a camp. The victim, Helen Jonas, did not speak of it until many years later. Its too bad you visited the area of the camp but seem to have lost sight of what a crime its very existence represented – because from the balcony you can only see the hill?
Comment by mipochka — December 23, 2011 @ 11:34 am
You wrote that Amon Goeth shot people for sport and that “it has been well documented.” Has this documentation been published where I could read it for myself? Are there photos of Amon Goeth killing people for sport? Why wasn’t this documentation presented at the trial of Amon Goeth in Poland. He was not charged with “killing people for sport.” Why not?
Before the end of the war, Amon Goeth was arrested by the Nazis themselves and charged with stealing from the camp. Why wasn’t he also charged with “killing people for sport”? The Nazis did charge Karl Otto Koch with ordering the death of two prisoners at Buchenwald. Koch was convicted in a Nazi court and executed. Why wasn’t Amon Goeth charged with killing prisoners for sport? Monika’s mother stayed with Goeth even after he was arrested. She was a beautiful woman who was a former movie actress. Why would a beautiful woman, who could have had any man that she wanted, stay with a man who killed people for sport?
Comment by furtherglory — December 23, 2011 @ 1:31 pm
If you enter the U.S. library cataloguing system called “WorldCAT” and enter “Amon Goeth” as a SUBJECT you will get a list of various books, the film that your still is from, “Inheritance,” with Helen Jonas’ testimony (she lived in the house as his maid), and in addition to that, over a dozen survivor testimonies recorded at various times and places, that all mention Amon Goeth killing and shooting people. Their testimony is available at the Yale Fortunoff LIbrary and at various other places, the Holocaust Museum in Texas, for instance. If you wish, I can send you the citations, but the list is too long to post here. If you don’t believe all these people (i would like to know why), and think that post-war justice was somehow thorough or caught all the minor crimes of these people, I must say I find that naive. Why did the wife stay? Maybe she was a Nazi, too, ever considered that? Some women were, you know….Niklas Frank wrote that his mother enjoyed trading for furs,
Comment by mipochka — December 23, 2011 @ 6:32 pm
or rather, “getting” for “free” them from Jewish and Polish victims….I don’t know if you would consider her good looking – what exactly does that have to do with it, whether the women who stayed with Nazis looked beautiful or not?
Comment by mipochka — December 23, 2011 @ 6:45 pm
No.
Only the children of the guilty parties. Besides there was a Croatian camp called Jasenovac in which the same kind of murders occurred. Nazism was some kind of political disease.
Comment by Paul — February 22, 2010 @ 7:27 am