Doctor Goebbels: His Life & Death
Page 38
By now Daluege was also in Weimar. Hitler gave Goebbels sweeping powers to
smash the putsch in Berlin, ‘regardless of consequences’ and to dismiss the disruptive
elements regardless of rank or office in the party. ‘You have my backing,’ wrote
Hitler in this document, ‘whatever you do.’85 At that evening’s public meeting in
Weimar both Goebbels and Daluege swore undying loyalty to Hitler.86 In Berlin
meanwhile Stennes had printed thousands of handbills announcing that Goebbels
was sacked as gauleiter for ‘breach of faith’ and replaced by Wetzel; the handbill once
more rubbed in the Brown House scandal.87 Ignoring frantic appeals from his HQ to
return to Berlin, Goebbels went south to Munich, sharing a railroad compartment
with Hitler.
Hitler was undoubtedly shaken by these events. The next day’s bourgeois press
crowed over his embarrassment. In an article in the VB Hitler vigorously attacked
Stennes for his treachery.88 Goebbels now wondered which dark powers might have
bribed Stennes and Weissauer to act as they had. The party later obtained copies of
urgent Berlin police instructions ordering police officers not to seized Stennes’ handbills
announcing his takeover.89 Hitler signed an authorisation for Goebbels to act
‘ruthlessly’ in purging his Berlin gau. ‘Better no National Socialist movement at all,’
this read, ‘than a party in disarray, without discipline or obedience.’90 It was time for
backbiting all round. Hearing that Göring had pleaded with Hitler to give these
powers to him, Goebbels noted: ‘I’ll never forgive Göring… He’s a mound of frozen
crap.’91 Acting from Munich HQ, he issued appeals for loyalty and sacked the mutinous
S.A. men. Stennes took perhaps two hundred others with him, and began a
brief flirtation with Dr Otto Strasser.
Goebbels was worried by the accumulated evidence of his own latent unpopularity
in Berlin, but Hitler loyally stood by him.92 The radical left-wingers among the Berlin
Nazis circulated an ironic news sheet attacking Hitler, Goebbels, and the new legalism
hamstringing the party:
Hitler and his fellow doctrinists have … finally turned their backs on socialism
over the last few months. Only a few weeks ago he has Goebbels gagged because he
GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICH 231
knows he’s his deadliest rival. Then, after the S.A.’s dust-up with the party, he assures
Goebbels of his unalloyed confidence and calls him his trustiest henchman. Will Hitler
break his word to Goebbels in a few months’ time, just like his promise to Stennes?
Perhaps—unless Goebbels breaks Hitler’s neck first. 93
WORRIED and ill Goebbels finally slunk back to Berlin on Wednesday April 8, 1931.
Paul Schultz, who had replaced Stennes, assured him that the Berlin S.A. now stood
behind them. Goebbels’ five district commanders confirmed that evening that not
one party official had defected, only S.A. men.94 Addressing his officials on the tenth
he explained why he had put so much distance between himself and Berlin during
the crisis. During a battlefield crisis, he said, the generals did not go into the mutinous
trenches either.95 ‘Of course the whole Jewish press is shrieking with glee,’ he
realized privately, and confined himself to bed with a thermometer for company.96
1 Hans Hinkel stated in Jun 1969 he had ‘got to know’ her before JG (IfZ, ZS.1878).
2 Bismarck, a counsellor at the German embassy in Rome, was quoted in Count Ciano’s
diary, Oct 17, 1941—The bitchy Bella Fromm included similar canards about ‘Magda
Goebbels, divorced Quandt, née Nothing at All’ in her diary, mid Dec 1932: Magda, wrote
this Jewish Berlin gossip columnist, had been brought up after WWI by the Nachmann’s, a
family of Berlin Jews, and had met Quandt at the Ullstein publishing house. ‘So she struck
real lucky with the Jews.’ (Boston Univ. Libr., Special MS Division, Fromm papers, box 1).
3 She was born Oct 31, 1879; Alexander Hubert Theodor Wilhelm Oskar Ritschel died in
Duisburg, Apr 4, 1941.
4 Birth certificate No.101/1901, No.4 Registry Office Kreuzberg, Berlin (IfZ: F82, Heiber
papers).
5 Diary, Jan 26, 1933.
6 Auguste Behrend, ‘My daughter Magda Goebbels,’ in Schwäbische Illustrierte, Stuttgart
(cit. hereafter as Behrend), No.13, Mar 29, 1952.
7 Heiber is also dubious about Auguste Behrend’s marriage, though inclined to accept it. In
the Jul 1931 amendment of Magda’s birth certificate, later referred to, there is mention of
Ritschel only as her father, and not as Behrend’s divorced husband.
8 Ritschel, supplementary testament, Apr 3, 1941 (ZStA Potsdam, Rep 90 Go 2, Magda
Goebbels, letters); it benefited Ritschel’s two brothers Gustav and Wilhelm, paying off the
latter’s debts.
232 GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICH
9 Diary, Jul 24, 1931.
10 I have found no source which furnishes Friedländer with a first name. See e.g. the series
by ‘Jürgen Peters and Hans Roos’ (Dr Erich Ebermayer and Dr Hans-Otto Meissner), ‘Magda
Goebbels,’ in Revue, Munich, Feb 22, 1952. Since Behrend does not specify any dates of
marriage to or divorce from Friedländer, this may have been an equally loose arrangement.
11 Ebermayer & Meissner state he acquired a small cigar store.
12 Behrend, Mar 8, 1952.
13 Quandt was born at Pritzwalk (Prignitz) on Jul 28, 1881; he had a brother Werner.
Before his first wife Antoine, neé Ewald, died in 1918 she bore him two sons—Hellmut, and
Herbert, born Jun 22, 1918 at Pritzwalk. For more on Günther Quandt see NA, RG.226,
OSS reports, No.106,145, Dec 1, 1944.
Goebbels
14 See Quandt’s own version of all this in his privately...
and Harald Quandt (Mensch & Arbeit Verlag, Munich, Jul 1961).
Goebbels
15 Magda’s Jewish background was frequently bowdlerized,...
Forbes of the British embassy in a telegram to Anthony Eden on Jan 6, 1938: ‘He [JG] is
married to the former (divorced) rather pretty wife of a rich Jew…’ (PRO: FO.371/21671).
16 Amendment to birth register approved by minister of justice on Jul 15, 1920; Magda
was ‘declared legitimate … at her father’s request.’ (IfZ, F.82, Heiber papers.)
17 Behrend, Mar 8, 1952.
18 Harald Quandt was born in Charlottenburg on Nov 1, 1921. Under interrogation by K.
Frank Korf on Apr 4, 1948 he stated he last saw his grandmother ‘Auguste Friedländer,
divorced Ritschel’ in Berlin in Jan 1944 (Hoover Libr: Korf papers).
19 Quandt memoirs.
20 Hans-Otto Meissner, Magda Goebbels, ein Lebensbild (Munich, 1978); based largely on the
testimony of the late Ello Quandt.
21 Her interest in Buddhism, which became profound, came from Ritschel. Revue, Feb 22,
1952.
22 According to Curt Riess (Das war mein Leben. Erinnerungen, Munich, 1986, 326) this was
Viktor Arlosoroff; Viktor Chajim Arlosoroff, born in the Ukraine in 1899, emigrated to
Palestine, became a fanatical leader of the Labour-Zionist movement and was assassinated in
Tel Aviv in 1933 by Revisionist-Zionists of the Jabotinsky movement.
23 Eleonore Quandt, born at Eisenberg on Sep 28, 1899, had married Günther’s brother
Werner. Lying about her age she told Magda they were th
e same age; Ello was two years
older. Like millions of others she joined the NSDAP on May 1, 1932 (BDC file).
24 Quandt memoirs.
25 BDC file, Magda Quandt.
26 Hinkel.
27 Behrend, Mar 29, 1952.
28 Die Rote Fahne, Jan 30; Berliner Tageblatt, Feb 2, 1931.
29 Reichstag transcript, 17th session, Feb 5, 682ff; cf diary, Feb 7, 1931.
30 Ibid., Feb 13, 18931.
31 Wagener.
32 Diary, Feb 15–16, 1931.
33 Ibid., Feb 18–22, 1931.
GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICH 233
34 Ibid., Feb 26, Mar 10, 1931.
35 Ibid., Feb 26–27, 1931.
36 Ibid., Mar 10, 15, 1931.
37 Ibid., Mar 11, 13, 1931.
38 Ibid., Feb 22, 1931.
39 Ibid., Jan 29, Feb 19, 1931.
40 Ibid., Feb 20, 1931.
41 Ibid., Feb 22, 1931.
42 Ibid., Mar 1, 8, 1931.
43 Ibid., Mar 15–16, 1931.
44 Ibid., Mar 16; on Mar 28 JG described Göring as a man ‘sick with megalomania.’—
AngriffÊ articles on Feb 19 and 26, 1931 had praised Stennes as a brave soldier and Freikorps
veteran.
45 Angriff, No.47, Mar 7, 1931; police file (author’s film DJ-81).
46 Vossische Zeitung, Mar 14, 17.—Grzesinski noted on Mar 27: ‘The suspicion can not
altogether be ruled out that the attack on Dr Goebbels was staged by the NSDAP itself for
publicity purposes’ ( Landesarchiv Berlin, Rep.58, item 509). Eduard Weiss came clean
with a sworn affidavit published in Stennes’ new newspaper Arbeiter, Bauern, Soldaten, May 4;
which JG assured his diary, May 6, 1931, were just ’Stennes’ lies.’
47 Ibid., Mar 14, 1931.
48 Ibid., Mar 3, 13, 1931.
49 Ibid., Mar 14, 1931.
50 Ibid., Mar 15; Angriff, No.54, Mar 16, 1931.
51 Diary, May 17–19, 1931.
52 Hans Grimm to Goltz (BA file Kl.Erw. 653/2, p.192ff); JG diary, Mar 21, 1936, and
Angriff No.59 of the same date.
53 NYT, Mar 22, 1931.
54 Diary, Mar 22, 1931.
55 Ibid., Mar 25, 1931.
56 Ibid., Feb 26, Mar 6, 1931.
57 Ibid., Mar 26, 1931.
58 Ibid., Mar 13, 27, 1931. He learned that Grzesinski had three police oficials whose daily
task was to check each new Angriff for sufficient cause to ban it.
59 VB, Apr 1, 1931.
60 Diary, Oct 9, 1930.
61 Jahn.
62 See the duplicated circular to S.A. comrades, Feb 25, 1931 in the files of No.8 Standarte
(BA file NS.26/322). ‘… Do Hitler and Röhm think we’re stupid enough not to notice
what’s going on?’
63 Jahn.—A further duplicated circular of Jul 25, 1931 scurrilously mentioned Röhm’s
prosecution for homosexual offences in 1925 and the cost of the Brown House where the
staircase alone had cost 30,000 marks and the sixty ornate chairs for the Senate Chamber
180,000 marks. ‘But Hitler is frightened of Dr Goebbels and daren’t do anything against
him, in case he starts a revolt because he knows what’s going on.’ (BA file NS.26/322).
234 GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICH
64 Diary, Oct 10, 1928.
65 Ibid., Nov 12, 27, 1930.
66 There were frequent references to Röhm’s perversion in the underground S.A. circulars
(BA file NS.26/322), e.g. a spoof advert from Röhm on Jun 30, 1931: ‘Wanted, first class
riding breeches with zip flies in perfect working order for uniforms of my palace guard! Size
175—!’ On Röhrbein and Ernst, see Fischer to Hitler, Nov 1, 1932 (BDC, Helldorff’s file).
67 See Stennes to Röhm, Feb 28, 1931, cited by Jahn; copy in Stennes papers, NSDAP
archives (BA file NS.26/325).
68 Diary, Nov 28, 30, 1930.
69 Ibid., Jan 15, 1931.
70 Ibid., Feb 27, 1931.
71 The police file, Feb 18, 1931, refers to the strained relations between JG and Stennes
after the first putsch.
72 Stennes to Röhm, Feb 28, 1931 (loc. cit.)
73 Diary, Mar 4, 1931.
74 Jahn.— And see the well-informed report No.9, on the second Stennes putsch, circulated
by the Berlin Landeskriminalpolizei, May 1, 1931 (BA file NS.26/1368; Schumacher
collection, file 278).
75 Ibid.
76 Ibid.
77 BA file NS.26/322.
78 Albert Krebs, Erinnerungen an die Frühzeit der Partei (Stuttgart, 1959), 162ff
79 Diary, Mar 29, 1931. In the Stennes papers is a petition beginning, ‘We the undersigned
S.A. commanders of Pomerania hereby declare …’ etc. (BA file NS.26/325).
80 Landeskriminalpolizei report.
81 Ulrich von Hassell diary, Jul 11, 1942.
82 Jahn.
83 Daluege to Röhm, Apr 1, 1931 (BA file NS.26/325).
84 Jahn, and Stennes MS (IfZ: ZS.1147).
85 Published in Vossische Zeitung, Apr 3, 1941.
86 Diary, Apr 2, 1941.
87 Extrablatt an Nationalsozialisten (IfZ: Alfred Conn papers)
88 VB, Apr 4, 1931.
89 Police order, Apr 2, 1931 (BA file NS.26/325).
90 Hitler to JG, Apr 3, 1941; Borresholm, 76.
91 Diary, Apr 4, 1931.
92 Ibid., Apr 6, 9, 1931.
93 Circular dated Apr 8, 1931 (BA file NS.26/322).
94 Diary, Apr 9, 1941. Stennes claimed 1,500 supporters in Berlin, but the police noted
that only 600 attended his meeting in late Apr 1931.
95 Report No.9 by the Berlin Landeskriminalpolizei, May 1, 1931 (BA file NS.26/1368;
Schumacher collection, file 278).
96 Diary, Apr 10, 1931.
GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICH 235
Goebbels
16: The Stranger and the Shadow
THE thermometer’s mercury thread has climbed to 40°C. Goebbels is ill, but
Magda phones only once, saying she’s at the Quandt estate in Mecklenburg.1
He struggles out of bed on the Friday, April 10, 1931, to speak to two thousand party
officials. On Saturday he learns that she is back in Berlin; she does not contact him.
Ilse and Olga fuss around the invalid. He is too weak to resist. On Sunday he phones
her home. She is not there; later however she phones him, and admits that she has
been seeing off a young lover—but he has brought things to a head and fired a revolver
at her. She tells Goebbels she is injured (in fact the Jewish law student’s bullet
has struck the door frame next to her. ‘If you had really aimed at me and hit me,’ she
scoffs, ‘I might have been impressed. I find your behaviour ridiculous.’)2
Too late Goebbels realizes how much he loves her. Must he always be lonely? These
and other thoughts lay siege to him. He spends Sunday pining for her and writing a
gripping description of his jealous delirium. Perhaps thirty times he telephones her
home, but nobody answers. He glares at the phone, willing it to ring. Staying home
on Monday the thirteenth he at last reaches her by phone. They drive out to a remote