Autumn 1945. Germany lies in ruins. Those who have survived the bombardment are starving and fighting to survive. Germany’s leader and dictator Adolf Hitler has taken his own life. The Nazi regime has collapsed. But he, who was seen as Hitler’s first man and heir, still believes he has an important task. The man is Hermann Göring. In 1939, Adolf Hitler appointed him as his successor and leader of the Third Reich, should anything happen to the dictator. TOGETHER: Adolf Hitler left, receiving flowers from a girl from the BDM (Bund Deutscher Maedchen). Hitler’s right-hand man, Hermann Göring on the right. Photo: NTB / NTB Just before the end of the war in April 1945, Göring fled from his palace and office in Berlin to Berchtesgaden in the south of Germany. From there, Göring proposed that Hitler hand over the leadership of the German Empire to him. Instead, the former Reich Marshal, head of the German Air Force and Hitler’s right-hand man was arrested and surrendered to the Americans. Among other things, Hermann Göring helped establish the first concentration camps for political opponents and had millions of lives on his conscience. But he was also known for a lavish life of luxury. When he was arrested in May 1945, he had 16 suitcases with his own monogram on them, a red hat box and a large collection of rings, wristwatches and cufflinks. In the ruins In Berlin, as in other German cities and towns, the destruction is total in the autumn of 1945. In the middle of this chaos, several Norwegian journalists are at work. Among them was the writer Sigurd Evensmo from Hamar. ON TOUR; Sigurd Evensmo on a reporting trip in Germany in the autumn of 1945, together with several journalists. Evensmo No. 2 from the left. Photo: Private/photographer unknown For several weeks in the autumn of 1945, he and some other Norwegian journalists traveled around Europe and Germany. They were supposed to report home about the horrors of the war and Nazism and what was left of the German Empire. Evensmo delivered 40 articles to Arbeiderbladet. In the end, the journey ended in a bombed-out Berlin. SÖNDERSKUTT; The picture shows the ruins of the German Reichstag in August 1945. Most of the city was in ruins. Photo: Ap After days in a country and city characterized by death and poverty, Sigurd Evensmo longed for home. One day he and the other Norwegian journalists meet an American colleague. He says it is possible to enter what is left of Hermann Göring’s scuttled Ministry of Aviation on Unter den Linden in Berlin. The walls are standing, but otherwise everything is destroyed. They enter what was Göring’s private secretariat and archive. Here there is dusty paper, dusty films and a multitude of photographs. They kick the stacks of dusty paper and pick something up. Bunker of paper from Göring’s archive. It is also part of the Gestapo’s secret reports to him. REPORTED: Sigurd Evensmo himself tells about the discovery of the photo album by Hermann Göring in the book In your time. Photo: Geir Olav Slåen / news In the chaos is also what turns out to be a private photo album by Hermann Göring. Sigurd Evensmo takes the album, photos and documents home to Oslo. In 1946, Evensmo and journalist Eilert Eriksen published the book Documents from the ruins – Gestapo reports to Göring found and presented by Norwegian journalists. Göring’s album PHOTO ALBUM: cover of the photo album by Nazi leader Hermann Göring. The picture was taken when he was a fighter pilot during the First World War. Photo: Geir Olav Slåen At the top of the page, a picture of Herman Göring in aviator’s uniform is pasted. The photo is damaged both at the top and bottom. On the front of the album is printed “Kriegserinnerungen” in white letters. Neither albums nor photos have previously been shown publicly. The album consists of 76 framed squares, where pictures can be inserted. It was probably intended to be a photo of war comrades. A brown cotton thread runs through the sheets and holds the album together. There is a mix of different photos in the album. Some of the pictures show Göring in various situations beyond the 1930s. Among other things from the funeral of his first wife, the Swedish noblewoman Carin von Kantzow in 1934. Adolf Hitler was also present. SIGNATURE: Signature with Göring’s surname written inside the album. LAYOUT; Hermann Göring during one of many gatherings during the war. FUNERAL; The funeral of Göring’s first wife, Swedish Carin, in 1934. To the right of Göring stands Adolf Hitler.IDYLL: Hermann Göring’s second wife Emmy Sonnemann and daughter Edda.POSING; Hermann Göring on the right on the steps in front of Carinhall, his grand residence and hunting lodge northeast of Berlin. Was named after his first wife Carin. SIGNERS: Hermann Göring signs a document. TO BE HANGED: The picture was taken by Germans and shows a resistance fighter just before he is hanged in the town of Kragujevac in the then Yugoslavia in 1941. DIFFERENT CONTEXTS: Hermann Göring and General Marshal and Supreme Commander of the German Army, Wilhelm Keitel in front of Carinhall. Top right Adolf Hitler with officers. At the bottom, Göring and a young boy by a horse. Mari Finess has spent a lot of time examining the private album of Hermann Göring, which her father-in-law Sigurd Evensmo found in Berlin one autumn day in 1945. Not least, she has examined the signature in blue ink on the inside of the album. In the photo album it says lieutenant Göring, not Hermann Göring, which he used in later signatures. The signature in this album may date from 1915. Hermann Göring was then 22 years old. – It has not been easy to obtain Göring’s signature from around the First World War and live up to what is written in the album, says Mari Finess. INVESTIGATED; Mari Finess has spent a lot of time examining the photo album that her father-in-law Sigurd Evensmo found in the ruins of Berlin in the autumn of 1945. Photo: Geir Olav Slåen / news But she found something to compare it with, a signature on a passport belonging to Hermann Göring from 1920. Below the signature in the album it says “Feldflieger 25 Stenay”. It indicates that he was stationed in the small town of Stenay in the north-east of France. Göring was a fighter pilot and took part in air battles in the border area between Germany and France. The image on the cover of Göring as a fighter pilot is most likely taken from the First World War. According to Kari Finess, the father-in-law himself also used the album as his private war memorial album. The reason was probably a lack of both money and opportunities to buy photo albums in the autumn of 1945 in Oslo. In the attic The material that had been brought from Berlin in the autumn of 1945 was taken care of by Sigurd Evensmo in the house in Oslo. It included photo albums with pictures and documents. – It was a big surprise that we had this album in the attic of our childhood home, says Ivar Evensmo, one of the children. DID NOT KNOW; It was a big surprise that we had this album in the attic of our childhood home, says Ivar Evensmo, one of the children. Photo: Geir Olav Slåen / news He was well into adulthood before he realized what they had been hiding in the attic of their childhood home in Oslo since 1945. We meet Ivar Evensmo and his wife Mari Finess in Kvikne, a little north of Tynset. Since a few years ago, they have lived here for large parts of the year. Then the plastic bags with photo albums and documents were also included in the moving load from Oslo. -A couple of years ago I was looking for something completely different and then this bag appeared again, says Mari Finess. The museum – We have struggled to find out how to make this available to more than just us in the family, she says. She admits that it was not easy to find a place to exhibit the material and that at the same time it had to be put in context and make sense. An acquaintance gave them a tip about a private war museum in Sollia in Nord-Østerdal. HISTORY: The photo album and documents by Hermann Göring can be seen by the public at the war museum in Sollia in Østerdalen. Photo: Geir Olav Slåen / news Quite quickly both the album and the documents were in place in the museum by Atnbrua in Sollia. – I almost didn’t believe that there was any material like this in Norway and that I would get an offer for it for the museum. The words belong to Jo Øvergaard. He is standing in one of the many rooms in the war museum he has built on his farm. He would be more than happy to accept both the photo album and the documents, which the writer Sigurd Evensmo brought home from Germany in 1945. Jo Øvergård has been interested in history and the Second World War all his life. THE MEDIATOR; Here, Jo Øvergaard has welcomed a group from the Czech Republic in his museum on the farm in Sollia. Photo: Geir Olav Slåen / news Father Rolf Øvergaard was a member of Grebe, a group in Kompani Linge. – After the war, when my father was visited by old comrades and the prank glasses came on the table, one story often came after the other, says Jo and smiles a little. RESISTANCE MAN: Jo Øvergaard’s father, Rolf Øvergaard, was central to the resistance during the Second World War. Photo: Oddvar Dobloug He had the boy’s room right next to the living room where his father and his friends sat. The young boy had long ears and a good memory. Most of it was committed to memory and he still uses some of this in his communication at the museum. The mediator 20 years ago there were sheep in the outbuilding on the farm. Then he also received the message that the eye disease he has would eventually make him completely blind. Then the choice was made. He and his wife decided to convert the barn and barn into a museum, where Jo could display objects and communicate about both sides of the Second World War. He wants to communicate and make people reflect on what happened and can happen. Not least it is important in our time, with dramatic events happening in our vicinity in Europe, is the message from Jo Øvergaard, addressing the war in Ukraine. The setting in which Jo Øvergaard runs his museum was an important point for the descendants of Sigurd Evensmo. – There must be a story with such objects and everything must be put in context. Jo does that very well, says Mari Finess. She is supported by former defense chief Harald Sunde. – The most important thing is not the huge number of objects in such a context, says Harald Sunde. His point is that the mediator Jo Øvergaard makes us who come there think about what happened and why it happened. The private war museum is one of the most comprehensive in the whole country. Not least when it comes to objects connected to Milorg. What was the military resistance organization in Norway during the Second World War (1940–1945). A LOT OF EQUIPMENT: Here from the room with objects from the resistance struggle during the Second World War in Norway. Photo: Geir Olav Slåen / news The family of Sigurd Evensmo are quite satisfied that the material is in place in the museum in Sollia. They are also clear that there is a collector’s market, where this material is sought after. -For now, we are comfortable with it being where it is now, says one of the four children, Arne Evensmo. He emphasizes that there is no desire from the heirs to sell and make money from this. For them, the cultural-historical part is the most important. For the time being, the private photo album of Adolf Hitler’s most trusted man, Nazi leader Hermann Göring, is at the private war museum in Sollia in the interior. 1,300 kilometers away from where it was picked up in the autumn of 1945 by the writer and journalist Sigurd Evensmo in a bombed out and destroyed Berlin. The man who once owned the album was sentenced to death as a war criminal in the Nuremberg Trials. But he committed suicide on 15 October 1946, a few hours before he was to be executed. THE ALBUM: signature and photo of Hermann Göring in the album in the museum in Sollia. Photo: Geir Olav Slåen / news
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Private photo album by Hitler’s most trusted man at the war museum in Sollia. – Long reading from Inlandet
