Doctor Goebbels: His Life & Death
Page 30
him the unwelcome news that two of the three judges were Jewish. He challenged
them right away, but his motion was denied. ‘Then,’ he recorded immodestly in his
diary, ‘I speak: ninety minutes and I am in tip top form. The whole court is deeply
impressed. The prosecutor demands nine months’ prison. Goltz speaks, very effective.
Then I wind up with a brief, juicy speech.’
Incidentally [Goebbels said in his closing speech] I wish to contradict my defence
attorney on only one point. I do not ask for an acquittal, because given the
182 GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICH
composition of this court I consider that fruitless, and since I am conscious of my
rights I consider it unworthy to plead for what is my right.44
After a two hours recess the judges announced their verdict—a trifling fine of
eight hundred marks. Their judgement all but exonerated Goebbels, who wrote, “I
could have yelped with joy.” Only the cartoon was considered libellous inasmuch as
it portrayed one arm of Hindenburg’s presidential throne as a Jew-nosed, Star-of-
David wearing gargoyle. No longer mentioning that the judges who had served him
so fairly were themselves Jewish, Dr Goebbels recorded in his diary only the wonderful
propaganda effect of this ‘victory.’ The news even made the far-away columns
of the New York Times.45
He had lunched during the long recess with Hermann Göring, and noticed that the
aviator was by no means comfortable with Goebbels’ attack on the old warrior. His
attitude to Göring was now one of scorn tinged with envy. Relying on his war record
Göring had established himself firmly in Berlin’s society; still lacking home comforts
of his own, Goebbels often spent his evenings with Hermann and Carin and one or
other of the Nazi princes.46 His own principles had begun to fray under from exposure
to the corrupt, blue-blood loving Göring. He must have realized that Göring
could only finance his life-style with hefty bribes from the aviation industry, precisely
the kind of behaviour that Goebbels thundered against when detected in Jews
like the financiers Max Sklarek or Julius Barmat. In March Göring grandly offered to
procure a new car for Goebbels; this offer proved as empty as the apartment he had
promised earlier.47
They had disparate interests. Goebbels would spend an evening with Hermann and
Carin Göring reading ‘Blood Seed’ to them. Göring would talk about aerial dogfights
and the beginnings of the Movement.48 Goebbels had no permanent lady companion;
his diaries record only that he told Erika unfeelingly that he needed more than
just one woman around him.49
When Easter came in 1930 Göring invited him along to visit his Swedish in-laws.
They made a memorable couple—the swaggering aviator and the diminutive figure
GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICH 183
limping at his side. It was Dr Goebbels’ first trip overseas. Every time he awoke the
train seemed to be passing a boulder strewn landscape. The Swedes themselves made
up for it. He lusted greedily after the statuesque blonde women, and concluded that
they were superior to their menfolk. The Swedish men were doormats, from their
monarch downwards. ‘It makes you weep, how numb the blond race has become,’ he
wrote, seeking to rationalize his feelings. ‘German on the outside, half-Jews within.’50
When he left the Görings he decided that Carin was ‘on the verge of’ tears and
added, using his coded doublespeak, ‘She is fond of me’ (meaning, he was of her);
and more meaningfully, ‘I revere her like a mother.’ Hermann Göring,’ he decided,
‘was a good sport.’51
Hitler’s birthday came during the absence. Goebbels did not write his customary
eulogy. He was still aggrieved about Hitler and the Strassers. By mid March sales of
the Strassers’ new daily National Socialist in Berlin were soaring, and both Angriff
and Völkischer Beobachter were in difficulties. Reluctant to carry out his threat of resigning,
Goebbels wrote: ‘Munich, and that includes the Chief, have run out of credit
with me.’ He added, ‘Hitler hides away, he takes no decisions.Ê .Ê . he just lets things
drift.’52 His office manager Franz Wilke returned from Munich with more empty
Hitler promises.53 Himmler came and assured Goebbels that Hitler really wanted
him as Reich Propaganda Director. Goebbels had heard that before.54 He had brooded
for months on Hitler and his broken promises. ‘He doesn’t dare make a move against
Strasser,’ he noted. ‘What’s going to happen later when he has to act the dictator in
Germany?’55 When Hitler suddenly surfaced in Berlin for a conference with Hugenberg
on ways of bringing the government crisis to a head, Goebbels tackled him, taking
along Göring for moral support. He frankly accused Hitler of slackness. A second
meeting with Hitler left Goebbels with the impression that he was losing his nerve.
In the event, Hugenberg’s party refused to join Hitler in forcing a vote of confidence.56
The government’s crisis peaked on April 12. Brüning just survived, his majority
reduced to seven. Since Hitler had again come to Berlin in eager anticipation, Goebbels
once again tackled him about the Strassers’ rival newspaper: they could never engage
in serious politics, he warned his Chief, without control of the press. Hitler
184 GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICH
called Otto Strasser his ‘greatest disappointment,’ which sounded encouraging. But
still he did not act. Not for the first time, Goebbels urged him to expel both Strassers
from the party; otherwise they might find their party split as hopelessly as
Hugenberg’s. Hitler accepted the logic—‘but there’s a big difference between accepting
and acting,’ commented Goebbels sourly. ‘The Strasser rot,’ he decided, ‘has
got to be stopped.’57 On April 14, Brüning’s majority slumped to three; but again he
survived, and Hitler returned to Munich. None of their opponents wanted an election
from which only the Nazis and Communists were likely to profit.
AS the depression bit deeper Hitler’s party had begun to expand. It ended 1930 with
389,000 registered members. Dr Goebbels doubled his gau’s membership, although
the wealthier districts were still sparsely represented: the huge West End Ortsgruppe
(local) extending from Schloss Strasse to Pichelsdorf and from the grimy Siemensstadt
industrial suburb to Halensee still yielded only forty-five members.
Late in April 1930 Goebbels learned in Munich that Hitler had at last reprimanded
Gregor Strasser. Hitler confirmed that he had issued an ultimatum to Strasser to
drop either his newspaper in Berlin or the Organisation Department in Munich.
Since everybody now had their eyes on Reichstag seats, Hitler had regained his
influence. ‘Thank goodness,’ wrote Goebbels. ‘Everybody is right behind him. Strasser
… sits there like guilt personified. Hitler has strung him up—polite to the last rung
of the scaffold.’ Then came the moment that Goebbels had badgered Hitler for. Hitler
announced—‘amid,’ if Goebbels is to be believed, ‘a breathless hush,’—his appointment
as the party’s national chief of propaganda.58 With it went the rank of
Reichsleiter, making h
im one of a very select body indeed. Goebbels saw Strasser go
pale. Afterwards, the whole bunch except for Himmler flip-flopped to Goebbels’
side.
The Berlin gau HQ now had about thirty on its payroll including Muchow, in charge
of perfecting the factory cell-system. Goebbels had twice been able to raise their
pay.59 Since the previous autumn Goebbels had been looking for larger premises,
GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICH 185
perhaps even an entire building.60 In this building Rathenau himself had worked during
the war. Six outsized swastika banners draped the facade of the building.
Cleverly mollifying Goebbels, the party’s national HQ had purchased for him a
brand new open Mercedes with a supercharged engine. Goebbels was a big-car enthusiast
like all the top Nazis.61 His modest budget was quite strained. His brother
Konrad’s business had folded, leaving Hans and Joseph as providers for their mother.
‘I want to look after Mother as best I can,’ wrote Goebbels. ‘Good old Mum, she
deserves an old age free of worries.’62 The glittering Mercedes soaked up his income
however. It was an essential mobile display of might and rank, with some of the
attributes of a tank as well. One night after his S.A. men killed three communists he
was driving with six Brownshirts to a parade when he was recognized by his enemies
—‘My heart missed a beat,’ he recorded, ‘but our magnificent Supercharger
rampaged triumphantly through the howling mob.’63
His disenchantment with his Führer continued. Horst Wessel’s mother complained
that Hitler had not written even one line of sympathy. Privately Goebbels blamed
Hitler’s waywardness on his ‘womanizing.’64 Two days after the new Mercedes arrived,
Hitler came back to Berlin to speak at the Sport Palace. He again brought his
young niece Geli. Goebbels again pleaded with him to kill off the rival newspaper
National Sozialist. From Goebbels’ new offices Hitler phoned Otto Strasser and forbade
him to sell the newspaper that evening.65 But Otto proved more slippery than
that. True, he undertook to sell off the newspaper to Hitler’s publisher Max Amann
and to cease publication from the twentieth; but he broke both promises. On May 21
Hitler returned to Berlin for a showdown. This time even Gregor disowned his brother
Otto. Hitler threatened open war against them.66
Goebbels returned to the fold. In Munich Hitler enthusiastically showed him his
plans for the Brown House, the party’s new national HQ. It seemed rather overopulent
even to Goebbels.67
WHEREAS the departed Social Democatic chancellor Heinrich Müller—unlovingly
described by Goebbels as having ‘a badly rusted voice well oiled by slime’—had
186 GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICH
ruled by the truncheon, Brüning’s two years in office would be marked by emergency
laws and prohibitions. On April 1 Hanover banned the activities of the Hitler
Youth. On June 5 Bavaria banned political uniforms—in theory those of all parties,
in practice only of the Nazis. On June 11, as Goebbels had anticipated, Prussia’s new
minister of the interior Dr Heinrich Waentig banned the S.A.’s brown shirts, and
two weeks later Prussia forbade its civil servants to join the Hitler party. Attired in
white shirts with beer-bottle rings as badges, one thousand of Stennes’ S.A. men
marched through Charlottenburg that evening and Friedrichshain two days later.
The police had to adopt ludicrous tactics to enforce the bans.68 Goebbels no longer
feared them. He had their measure. ‘The real enemy,’ he recognized, ‘is at our rear’—
meaning the Strasser faction.69
Their newspaper continued to appear, spiced with cruel remarks about Goebbels
and his cult of personality. Several section heads (Kreisleiter) declared for Otto
Strasser. Goebbels blamed Hitler and his procrastination, and meeting him in Leipzig
he told him so. Hitler again promised to act against him.70 Sick with worry,
Goebbels wrote: ‘Hitler’s got to act—he’s got to. Or there’ll be a catastrophe.’ He
found out which of his men were traitors, and lodged complaints with the Party’s
powerful arbitration committee, particularly about Eugen Mossakowsky, editor of
the N.S. Pressekonferenz and two section heads. Mossakowsky had done the
unforgiveable: at gauleiter conferences in Berlin and Brandenburg he had accused
Goebbels of lying about his heroism during the Ruhr struggle and of forging documents
to make his entry into the party earlier than it was. These were sore points for
Goebbels. Hitler told Göring that he would authorise their expulsion on Monday the
twenty-third, and personally confirmed this to Goebbels while electioneering at
Plauen in Saxony on June 21.71
Again however he did not act. When Goebbels phoned him he said he preferred to
wait. ‘Typical Hitler,’ wrote Goebbels. ‘Rampant at Plauen, and procrastinating here.’72
With Hitler’s permission however he expelled the mutinous small fry like
Mossakowsky. Mossakowsky pre-empted his expulsion by issuing a statement through
GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICH 187
the wire services repeating all the lies, and several cruel truths, about Goebbels
before resigning.73
Gregor Strasser saw the storm signals and assured Goebbels he had broken with
his brother Otto. Goebbels trusted none of them. ‘If only we had acted in February!’
he wailed. The entropy inside his organisation increased. There were disturbing reports
from Neukölln of scuffles between rival S.A. fractions. Hitler (‘the familiar old
Hitler .Ê .Ê . the eternal procrastinator!’) kept a low profile. Göring told Goebbels
that he too was shattered by Hitler’s disloyalty. But the very next day, June 30, he
phoned Goebbels: victory was theirs. Hitler had now written a powerful open letter
excoriating both Strasser brothers. Gregor laid down the editorship of his newspaper
and survived; Otto was expelled from the party. As Hitler’s bluntly phrased
letter was read out in Berlin party meeting there were shouts from the floor of
‘string ’em up!’ Three disgruntled Angriff employees left the hall, but that was all.
The meeting ended with a spectacular vote of confidence in Hitler and Goebbels.
Goebbels persuaded Hitler to decree defining Kampf Verlag as an enemy of the party.
With that, Otto Strasser’s goose was cooked.74
ONE problem which remained for Dr Goebbels that summer was the law courts. Dr
Weiss was determined to see him serve his two months in jail. On May 13 the prosecutors
confidentially asked the Reichstag if it was still formally in session.75 On
Goltz’s advice Goebbels persuaded Dr Leonardo Conti, the gau’s medical officer, to
sign a sick note. That would give him four weeks’ grace. The prosecutor’s office
demanded an independent examination. The mailman brought to Goebbels’
Württembergische Strasse lodgings a new summons, for libelling Albert Grzesinski
(by calling him ‘Cohn’); it was returned to the courthouse with a note, ‘Gone away,’
and ‘no forwarding requested.’76