Daughter of Hermann Goering loses bid to win back Nazi’s money

Edda Goering, 76, petitioned Bavarian parliament to return father’s legacy
In 1960s she also tried to have painting looted by her father returned to her
Today she refuses to criticise the military leader, calling him a ‘loving man’
Goering was deputy to Hitler and was the Nazi regime’s greatest art thief

Alan Hall In Berlin For Mailonline

and
Jack Crone for MailOnline

Published:
15:27 GMT, 24 April 2015

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Updated:
18:16 GMT, 24 April 2015

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The daughter of Second World War Nazi strongman Hermann Goering has failed in her bid to get the state of Bavaria to return family money confiscated after the collapse of the Third Reich.

Goering, who cheated the hangman at Nuremberg by committing suicide shortly before he was due to be executed for war crimes, was deputy to Hitler and the regime’s greatest art thief.

The infamous military leader plundered private collections and museums wherever the swastika flew but his daughter Edda, 76, has always refused to criticise him.

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Edda Goering has always refrained from criticising her father for his part in the mass extermination of Jews

Showing his soft side: Hermann Goering appears on the front cover of a magazine with daughter Edda in 1940

Ms Goering petitioned the Bavarian parliament’s Legal Affairs Committee for compensation for her ‘father’s legacy expropriated in the year 1948’.

The exact sum she was seeking was not disclosed but the petition was refused by lawmakers.

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She claims the posthumous expropriation of his assets two years after his death was illegal.

Edda, born out of his second marriage with actress Emmy Sonnemann, tried back in the sixties to have a painting – looted by her father and presented to her at birth – returned to her.

This attempt also failed.

Hitler’s goddaughter: Edda Goering, pictured at her christening with Hitler in 1938, has failed in her bid to get the state of Bavaria to return family money confiscated after the collapse of the Third Reich

Infamous military leader: Goering, who cheated the hangman at Nuremberg by committing suicide shortly before he was due to be executed for war crimes, was deputy to Hitler and the regime’s greatest art thief

Today she lives in Munich and talks fondly of her father as a ‘loving man,’ refusing to criticise him for his role in ordering the Blitz on British cities or for ordering the extermination programme against the Jews which led to the deaths of six million people.

Edda was famously pictured stroking the cheek of Hitler, her godfather, at her christening.

The ceremony took place in November 1938 – ten months before the outbreak of the Second World War.

The christening gown given to her by Hitler and embroidered with swastikas was rumoured to have gone on auction in 2010.

The 3ft-long gown came from one of the Luftwaffe chief’s maids and fell into the hands of a collector who is thought to have sold it in the UK.

High-ranking father: Goering, second from right, is photographed during a Nazi salute with (L-R) Joachim von Ribbenntrop, Count Ciano and Adolf Hitler in Berlin in 1939