Posted on 01/20/2006 12:37:32 PM PST by Alouette
Matias Goering is a direct descendant of Hitler's right-hand man and the commander of the Nazi air force. He also keeps Shabbat, wears a kippa, and identifies with the Greater Israel vision of West Bank settlers
If Field Marshall Hermann Goering, commander of the Nazi Air Force and Hitler's right-hand man, knew how his descendant Matias Goering was living today, he'd surely roll over in his grave.
Matias Goering , a distant relative of the senior Nazi (his great grandfather was Goering's grandfather's brother) wears a kippa and keeps kosher, observes Shabbat and wears an orange anti-disengagement bracelet reading 'Jews Don't Evict Jews'.
His family thinks he's crazy, but his innocence and his passion are convincing. Goering, who lives in Switzerland, is in Israel on his second visit in a year as part of his new love affair with the very same Jewish people his forbear did his best to exterminate.
"It is amazing for me that I am here with this entire heritage around me," said the 49-year-old Matias as his blue eyes scanned the Jerusalem coffee shop where we were chatting. "I feel at home here."
Voice of God
Hermann Goering, was a decorated World War I pilot who helped Hitler capture the heart of the masses and led the Nazi Party until it took control of the government in 1933, upon which he was appointed chairman of the Reichstag (German parliament), founded the Gestapo and was one of the architects of the Final Solution.
As World War II drew to a close he was dismissed from his post after a fight with Hitler, apprehended following the war and sentenced to death at the Nuremberg trials. However, he committed suicide in his jail cell.
55 years later, in the year 2000, Matias' situation was desperate. His physiotherapy clinic had gone bankrupt, he'd lost his home and his wife had left him and taken their son.
Depressed and desperate, Matias prayed to God, whose existence he had denied until that point:
"I said to him, 'if You do exist, I need help right now. Not in a few days, or weeks – right now. I don't know what to do.' It was the first time in my life that I prayed," he says.
Goering is convinced his prayers were heard. "After a few minutes, the phone rang. It was someone I had worked for in Zurich. He said he needed help installing some physiotherapy equipment."
He arrived at the interview trembling from the miracle he had experienced and started work the next morning. Goering doesn't believe in coincidence, he immediately started reading the Bible, and registered for theology classes to deepen his knowledge of the Bible.
Second sign
Two-and-a-half years later, he received a second sign.
"I woke up at dawn and heard the voice of God," he says. "This was not the first time I thought God was talking to me. He told me that he wants me to guard the walls of Jerusalem. I was very surprised by what he said. Afterwards I found the passage in the Bible. What is amazing is that at that time I had never read these passages."
Goering says he began to cry when the voice of God came to him and asked him to pray for the Chosen People.
"'Okay', I told him, 'but I think you've knocked on the wrong door. You know what my name is'," he says now.
"But God told me, 'Yes, you.' And then I had a feeling I had to go, at least once, I had to travel to Israel."
What did you think of Jews up to then?
"In my family we all learned to hate them, not to love them. We grew up understanding that Israel and the Jewish people are to blame for the fact that our family had no money. When we were little and wanted new toys, our parents said all their money was going to pay the Jewish people."
In August of 2005, Goering made his first visit. For two weeks he traveled around and contacted with Rabbi Haim Bachar who helps victims of Arab terror.
"I understood they needed financial assistance. Ever since then I have been looking for Swiss groups who will help them," he says.
His second visit came when he was already swept up in his burning love for the nation living in Zion.
"Since I started reading the Bible I've come to believe there is the Jewish people and everybody else. I have a Jewish prayer book and I can recite the prayers fluently."
The orange band around his right wrist indicates that Goering believes in the vision of a Greater Israel. When he is asked in Switzerland what the inscription means he explains in great detail.
"The Bible provides many explanations as to how God entrusted the custody of the :and to the Jews and I think that this is what will be. I think there will be peace and the Jews will still have historical custody of the Land."
Do you feel guilty because of the Holocaust?
"I don't feel any guilt because of my family. My name is only a name. I didn't do anything, but I think God is taking this opportunity to use my name, a name that caused so much pain, to change something in the hearts of others."
How does your family feel about all this?
"It's not easy. My siblings say they have a crazy brother. I still have good relations with them but they just don't understand what I am doing. They ask 'What's happened to him? He's got a screw loose.'"
Goering wears a large knitted kippa even in Switzerland. He prays several times a day, keeps some of the laws of kashrut and observes Shabbat. He has also begun to mark the Jewish holidays. His business card features a Chanukah menorah underneath the flag of Israel.
Like any returnee to the faith, Goering also complains about how Israelis should be more connected to their roots. "If only the Jews could have as much faith as me. If I succeeded after 44 years of hating the Jewish people, to completely change my ways – anyone can do it. One has to feel in one's heart what is written in the Torah."
"I told God that if he helps me, I would do whatever he commanded. Then my heart changed. I am not the same person I was before," he said. "I think if there were more people like me, there would be fewer problems."
Warning! This is a high-volume ping list.
Doesn't that mean he is not a direct descendent of Goering?
Yeah that's what I was figuring.
That's a "direct descendent"?
his great grandfather was Goering's grandfather's brotherHe's Goering's second cousin once removed.
Good pickup - good article but sloppy on the point you mentioned.
--hasty calculation says they were second cousins, once removed--
Yes. The fist and third paragraphs of this article conflict.
It is very interesting how God changes men's hearts and puts people just where they are supposed to be at certain times.
Been reading Ester today, and this topic is on my mind.
Was his last name Hitler?
(There's actually an old German family here with that name; they changed it circa 1941 to "Hiffler" or something."
> Hitler had a nephew the served in the US Navy during WWII
Asd memory serves, his service record was almost entirely undistinguished. He wanted to serve (originally in the British navy - they wouldn't take him), but once he got in, he stayed pretty quiet. I guess that's understandable.
I never understood all that "once removed" stuff. Cousins is cousins.......
He changed it to Chamberlain after immigrating to the US. He was actually raised in England. Google "William Patrick Hitler", and that will give you all the info.
Worth repeating.
I just looked that up, and you're absolutely correct.
As it relates to this thread, it turns out he blackmailed A. Hitler on the "Jewish Grandfather" issue, lending some weight to that old rumor.
The nephew had three sons, and they lived secluded lives, with a pact that they would not marry or have children, so that the family line would die out.
Here:
http://archives.cnn.com/2002/SHOWBIZ/books/02/05/last.hitlers.cnna/
See the link I just posted above. Fascinating.
It was when he was in the Navy. I can't *imagine* the ribbing he took. I read about this guy and his family- he had two sons who decided that the line should end with them, and have vowed not to have children. They live in the northeast someplace, under a different name.
I knew a guy in Sheboygan who's family name was Naushitz. He changed it to Naushultz.
Yes, but maybe thats because we are Americans and think like Americans. My uncle has a saying: You can also pick your nose, but you can't pick your family. In America, we don't care who your father was, or your mother, and don't hold sons accountable for the sins of the father. I don't think Europeans think like that at all (like John Kerry), although in some parts in eastern europe and Britain, this is becoming less so.
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