tendency to let things slide. He felt that Hitler should get his other men boning up
already on their later duties. (‘My task,’ he already knew in 1929, ‘is to be Propaganda
and Public Enlightenment.’)71 Only Alfred Rosenberg towered above the
‘beerhall’ niveau of Hitler’s Munich cronies.
Goebbels feared too that Munich’s flirtation with the bourgeois and reactionary
rightwingers like the Stahlhelm and the D.N.V.P. would compromise their own revolutionary
identity. Stahlhelm in particular had begun agitating for a public referendum
on the new Young Plan for reparations payments. Uneasily Goebbels decided, ‘I trust
in the Chief’s sound political instinct, which has not let us down so far.’72 He feared
however that Hitler was the victim of over optimism. ‘I’m afraid,’ he wrote, referring
to the failed beerhall putsch, ‘of a re-run of the Ninth of November 1923.’73 He
wrote to Hitler, and discussed his worries with Horst Wessel; Hitler did not reply.
‘Sometimes I despair of Hitler,’ he wrote. ‘Why is he keeping silent?’74 Eventually
Hitler came to Berlin and took him out to Sanssouci park in Potsdam together with
Göring and Hess and set his mind at rest. He promised to write to the Stalhelm
rejecting the idea of a referendum; but a month would pass before he did so.75
BACK in Berlin after Weimar, Goebbels is subjected to a scene by Tamara. He feels
sorry for her, but she has lost the submissive quality he valued before in her. What
else is he looking for? It is not sex. Later the ‘sweet chatterbox’ Jutta Lehmann, still
one week shy of eighteen, turns up and keeps him ‘tempestuous’ company—stür-
GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICH 149
misch, evidently another diary buzzword—until eleven P.M. ‘How Jutta will weep,’
he notes, almost sadistically, ‘when the time comes for us to part!’76
His fickleness upsets a lot of more loyal females. Mrs Schweitzer throws the book
at him and Goebbels has to ask his cartoonist to put his jealous shrew of a wife in her
place.77 He is addicted to the company of teenage girls, and prefers them perhaps to
bare anything but their intellects. When Kütemeyer’s widow turns out to have opinions
of her own he shrieks in his diary, ‘For God’s sake let’s keep women out of
politics.’78 In fact, he hates most if not all of the human race except for Jutta and
Anka, both of whom know how to mother him.79 The other ladies at HQ have little
patience with all this. Josephine von Behr, an ex-girlfriend, writes him a shameless
letter; under pain of dismissal, he forces this ‘vain and silly goose’ to retract it.80
He yearns for Anka, the forbidden passion of his life. On February 25, 1929 he
takes a sheet of Reichstag notepaper and tries to set up a another rendezvous: ‘It
would be glorious if you could come to Berlin for a few days. On Friday March 8
there is an important and sensational session in the Reichstag .Ê .Ê . and on Sunday the
tenth my new drama [‘Blood Seed’] is being premiered at the Wallner Theatre. It’s
sold out already.’ He signs off as ULEX, just as in the old days.81
MARCH 9, 1929. Anka phones. She’s coming this afternoon for two days’ visit… In
the afternoon worked at home. Frightful news: communists have stabbed two
S.A. men to death in Schleswig-Holstein [Hermann Schmidt and Otto Streib].
The first stormcones! Blood seed, from which the new Reich shall grow.
At Veterans’ Building in the evening [to hear General von Epp]. Around 3,500
people…Ê Afterwards the police wade ruthlessly into our people. Forty arrests…
Tomorrow dress rehearsal of ‘Blood Seed’ at the Wallner. I’m all worked up.
Anka arrives looking the picture of a cultured lady. He shows her over the Reichstag,
then takes her to a patriotic movie starring Emil Jannings with a powerful plot about
a man giving his life for his people. In the Rheingold afterwards she yet again pours
out her heart about her unhappy marriage, until two A.M. They sit side by side at
Sunday’s premiere of his play, which events in Schleswig Holstein have suddenly
150 GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICH
rendered so topical. Over a meal at Kempinski’s he has one unexpected difference
with Anka, on the Jewish Problem: now it is she who does not grasp it. Privately he
reflects on the happiness that might have been: ‘But,’ he adds, priggishly distorting
history, ‘I had to choose: her, or something greater, my Mission.’ Then, ‘Leavetaking!
Farewell,’ he writes, slipping effortlessly into the role of scriptwriter again. ‘She
smiles.’82
His private life is becoming more dishonest. While he writes, and his teenaged
Jutta cooks for him, he is agonizing over the married Anka returning to her worthless
Georg. A few days later his diary encodes him as gossipping with ‘the Gipsy,’—
Anneliese Haegert, another ‘darling child.’ ‘Most women are boring,’ he concludes,
‘particularly the good lookers. But I suppose it’s enough that they do look good.’83
After he sees Anka again at Weimar on March 19, her husband comes to fetch her.
She seems ashamed of Georg. ‘That is her husband?’ sympathises Goebbels. ‘Oh,
Anka!’ Georg Mumme civilly invites him to lunch the next day. It is his first visit to
their little household at No.14 Johann-Albrecht Strasse, which he has so often tried
to visualise. Her baby Christian is a stubborn little boy; seeing the child hurts Goebbels
more than he expects. ‘That was some situation you snared me in,’ he reproaches her
in a letter. ‘I felt like a fifth wheel on the wagon.’ Later he invites her to join the gau’s
Easter outing to the Harz mountains (‘The car’s at the doctor’s,’ he writes with a
levity that belies his nervousness, ‘but will be discharged at the weekend.’) He adds
that she must of course invite her Georg along too. ‘Pity you can’t see from the letter
how I stammer out those words.’ ‘Say hello to your little boy,’ he continues. ‘He
should always stay so obstinate, and learn never to give way. Then he might make it to
minister one day.’84
Goebbels has the dull but comforting sensation that perhaps he can never marry,
because there are so many women that he is fond of. Anka turns up in Berlin, sits late
with him in a Kurfürstendamm bar talking, crying, and laughing. She visits gau HQ
the next day and there are gratifyingly wet tears in her eyes as she leaves his city.85
GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICH 151
MARCH 24, 1929. Afternoon at home. Anneliese Haegert is coming round. How
am I to meet her? Anka, sweet woman!
Evidently he comes clean about Anka because The Gipsy also leaves in tears. Women,
he ruminates, have only one real use—as moles planted inside hostile agencies like
police HQ or the League of Human Rights.86
On the Easter outing Anka arrives wearing a costly leather coat, as green as her
eyes are grey. She has brought Georg Mumme along but pointedly ignores him
throughout although he continues to sing the gauleiter’s praises to her. Goebbels
finds him insufferable: he gulps his beer and cracks painfully pointless jokes; but it is
Georg who shares Anka’s bed each night and not the gauleiter. ‘Thus,’ writes Goebbels,
‘vengean
ce exacts a belated, but infinitely crueller, revenge.’ Georg utters not a
murmur of protest as Goebbels squeezes into the back seat next to Anka and, Goebbels
silently asks himself, staring at the husband, why should he? ‘Don’t I have a greater
right to this woman than you, you ignoramus?’ In ancient Goslar Georg tactfully lets
them stroll off together like lovers and returns that evening reeking of lust and liquor.
Goebbels spends another sleepless night elsewhere under the same roof.
At daybreak they drive off through the rain, snow, and ice. Beneath the warming
travel rug Goebbels feels Anka’s hand seeking his. Unseen, she slips onto his finger
the ring her widowed mother gave her.87
1 Diary, Aug 20, 1928.
2 Ibid., Feb 4, 24, 1929.
3 Ibid., Aug 12, 1930. The correct transcription is ‘Auwi’—I disagree with Dr Fröhlich’s
‘Anni.’ In an entry for Mar 11, 1930 he however scoffed at magnetopaths, and in the unpubl.
diary, Jun 22, 1939 he mocks that ‘Görlitzer has comically enough become a sucker for
astrology.’
4 Ibid., Oct 2, 1930.
5 Ibid., Jul 20, 1928.
6 Ibid., Aug 8, 10, 13, 1928.
7 Ibid., Aug 24, 1928.
8 Under Emil Holtz. Diary, Sep 1, 8, 1928; Dokumente, 280f.
152 GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICH
9 Diary, Sep 23-25, 1928.
10 Facsimile in Dokumente, 285.
11 He was prosecuted for cursing the Republic at this Sport Palace meeting. Case files in
Landesarchiv Berlin, Rep.58, item 697.
12 Diary Oct 1, 1928.
13 Ibid., Oct 4, 1928.
14 Ibid., Oct 4-6, 9, 11; Nov 2, 1928.
15 Ibid., Nov 5, 1928.
16 Confidential circular, Oct 31, 1928, signing off: ‘Mit Hitler Heil!’ (Irene Prange papers).
17 Diary, Oct 21, Nov 4, 1928. Schweitzer ‘thinks just as I do.’
18 Ibid., Nov 2, 1928.
19 Ibid., Jan 22, 1929.
20 Ibid., Jun 6, 1929.
21 Ibid., Oct 13, 27, 30; Nov 3, 4, 1928.
22 Ibid., Nov 8, 1928.
23 Ibid., Nov 15, 1928.
24 Ibid., Nov 21, 27, 29; Dec 1, 2, 1928.
25 Ibid., Nov 4, 1928.
26 Public prosecutor, letter of Dec 20, 1928 (police file).
27 Diary, Nov 10, 13, 1928.
28 Ibid., Nov 25, 1928.
29 Ibid., Nov 13, 15, 16, 1928.
30 Ibid.and VB Nov 17, 1928.
31 JG, ‘Kütemeyer,’ in Angriff, Nov 26, 1928.
32 Diary, Nov 23, 24, 1928.
33 Dokumente, 283.
34 Diary, Jun 20, 1929.
35 Ibid., Apr 26, May 30, Jun 11, 1929.
36 Ibid., Jun 18, 1928.
37 Ibid., Dec 3, 1928.
38 Ibid., Jan 31, 1929.
39 Ibid., Feb 15, 1929.
40 Ibid., Apr 26, 1928.
41 Ibid., Jan 3, 1929.
42 Ibid., Jun 30, 1928.
43 Ibid., Jun 24, Jul 5, 1928.
44 Ibid., Feb 3, 8, 9-11; Mar 2, 3, 1929
45 Ibid., Apr 5, 1929.
46 Ibid., Apr 21, 28, 1929.
47 Ibid., Sep 22, Oct 24, 1928.
48 Ibid., Dec 8, 1928; Feb 5, 6, 9, 1929; premiered on Mar 10.
49 JG to Ilse Hess, Dec 22, 1928 (Hess papers, Hindelang).
50 Diary, Dec 14, 1928.
GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICH 153
51 Ibid., Dec 15, 16, 1928.
52 JG to Anka Stalherm, Dec 16, 1928, handwritten on Reichstag notepaper (Irene Prange
papers).
53 Diary, Dec 18, 1928; she was not eighteen until Jan 26, 1929.
54 Ibid., Dec 20, 1928.
55 Ibid., Dec 22-24, 30, 1928; Jan 3, 1929.
56 Ibid., Jan 4, 6, 7, 1929.
57 Ibid., Jan 20, 1929.
58 Dokumente, 291.
59 Diary, Jan 21, 1929.
60 Treaty of Mar 22, 1921, articles 176 and 177; Grzesinski MS, 1933 (BA: Kl.Erw., 144).
61 In NSDAP Hauptarchiv (NA film T581, roll 26a; BA file NS.26/1768)
62 Diary, Dec 4, 9, 1928; Jan 5, 6, 8, 27, 1929.
63 Ibid., Mar 13, 23, May 15, 16, 1929; police file.
64 Ibid., Feb 26, 1929.
65 Ibid., Apr 17, 1928; Feb 5, 1929.
66 Ibid., Jan 31, Feb 1, 6, 1929.
67 Angriff, Feb 18, 1929; duly noted in Prussian ministry of the interior minute of Feb 1932
(BA: R.18/3864).
68 Heinrich Heim: Hitler’s table talk, Jan 18-19, 1942.
69 Krebs, 160.
70 Diary, Jan 28, 1929.
71 Ibid., Mar 1, 1929.
72 Ibid., Mar 2, 1929.
73 Ibid., Mar 20, 1929.
74 Ibid., Mar 24, Apr 5, 28, 1929.
75 Ibid., Mar 24, 27; Apr 12, 16; May 16, 17, 1929.
76 Ibid., Jan 26, 1929.
77 Ibid., Feb 7; JG’s views on Mrs Schweitzer: diary, Apr 9, 1929.
78 Ibid., Feb 12, 1929.
79 Ibid., Feb 15, Mar 10, 1929.
80 Ibid., Feb 15, 21, 24, 1929; for cryptic references to Miss von Behr’s relationship with
JG, see the May 1934 testimony of Helene Labes (BA file R.55/65).
81 JG to Anka, Feb 25, 1929 (Irene Prange papers).
82 Diary, Mar 10-12, 1929.
83 Ibid., Mar 13, 17, 1929
84 JG to Anka, Mar 20, 1929 (Irene Prange papers).
85 Diary, Mar 23, 24, 1929.
86 Ibid., Mar 25, 26, 1929.
87 Ibid., Apr 1, 1929.
154 GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICH
Goebbels
10: A Rather Obstinate Gentleman
HE had the uneasy feeling that he was leading a charmed life. He wrote to
Anka that he would actually welcome some setback, preferably a minor
one, to help break the spell. ‘I have liquidated everything ugly from the past,’ he
wrote, referring perhaps to ‘Michael’ and ‘Blood Seed,’ ‘and can now contemplate
the future with greater fortitude.’1
One ugly item from the past still haunted him: the Catholic charity in Cologne
now instructed lawyers in Berlin to extract from him the four hundred marks still
unpaid from his student loan twelve years before. The lawyers served a writ.2 The
court awarded judgement in default on April 6, 1929. A few days later the bailiffs
called and glued their traditional paper cuckoo to his radio set, the only item of value
in his apartment. Still he did not pay up. ‘We are evidently dealing,’ the lawyers
reported to Cologne, ‘with a rather obstinate gentleman… It is to be hoped that this
spokesman of the National Socialist party will fight shy of declaring bankruptcy.’3
The charity calmly ordered the lawyers to have him bankrupted. On May 16 the
bailiffs removed his beloved radio—with his piano, the only instrument he had wherewith
to amuse his girlfriends—and sent it to be auctioned.4 When he appealed, the
Catholics claimed they acted repressively only when there was evidence of a ‘ruthless’
attitude on the debtor’s part. Not until February 1930 would he make the final
payment, closing the ledgers on a rather puzzling episode.
Doctor Goebbels: His Life & Death Page 25
