Doctor Goebbels: His Life & Death
Page 43
up Goebbels’ funds because he would spend two hundred thousand marks on propaganda
for this presidential campaign.48
With Angriff already banned, the government now banned the rest of his posters
and leaflets.49 Goebbels’ demands that Hitler be allowed broadcasting time like
Hindenburg were refused.50 On March 9, with four days to go, he addressed eighty
thousand people in Berlin’s Lustgarten park. The press published doctored photographs
to suggest only a sparse attendance.51 Two days later Grzesinski sent police to
raid his HQ again. The next day Goebbels addressed an election eve rally at the Sport
Palace.52 After that he gathered his officials at his apartment to await the first results.
GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICH 261
By ten P.M. it was clear that while eleven million votes had been cast for Hitler,
Hindenburg was far ahead—indeed, only one hundred thousand votes short of an
absolute majority.53 Goebbels, overcoming his dejection, issued these guidelines to
all gauleiters that same Sunday: ‘The N.S.D.A.P. has won an unparalleled victory in
the first election round. In one and a half years the Party has succeeded in almost
doubling its vote.’
Their task now would be to win 2·5 million more voters for the run off. Goebbels
ordered the Nazi gauleiters to concentrate their scarce resources on the most promising
sections of those who had not voted for them. Thus they must tell the bourgeois
voters what to expect if Hindenburg was re-elected: the stopping of pensions, huge
tax burdens, and renewed inflation, as well as further territorial encroachments by
Poland and Lithuania, and civil war with the communists.54
Refusing even to look at the gloating headlines of the ‘Judenpresse’ that Monday
morning, he flew down to Munich with Kampmann for a campaign conference with
Hitler. The second round would be held on April 10. Tossing more dirty-trick spanners
into the Nazi works, Brüning ordered virtually simultaneous provincial elections
for Prussia, Anhalt, Württemberg, and Bavaria. He also ordered an electioneering
moratorium until after Easter. ‘We’re fighting a war,’ snarled Goebbels, ‘but
there’s to be no shooting for three weeks!’ Carl Severing joined in the spanner tossing,
arresting scores of Goebbels’ Berlin officials on mostly trumped up charges,
while Grzesinski and Weiss had their police search for evidence that justify an outright
ban on the S.A.55
Goebbels responded with innovative electioneering techniques as soon as the brief
but unequal battle was rejoined. He had originally planned to issue four pictorial and
sixteen text posters to be released day by day from March 22 onwards.56 The moratorium
knocked that plan on the head. Hitler again appealed to the radio stations to
allow him air time; but again Brüning permitted only Hindenburg to get near the
microphone.57 The campaign got dirty on both sides. Hitler’s opponents distributed
leaflets in old people’s homes warning that he would take away their pensions and
insist on compulsory euthanasia at sixty; other election ‘lies’ against which Goebbels
262 GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICH
warned the other gauleiters in a circular were that the Nazis would bring war, inflation,
expropriation, destruction of the unions, dissolution of the civil service,
disemancipation of women, forced labour, civil war, and the renunciation of all claims
to the South Tyrol, East Prussia, and Alsace-Lorraine.58 (With the passage of time,
about three quarters of these ‘lies’ would come true.)
In the same circular Goebbels suggested that Hindenburg was benefitting from the
emotional female vote (‘fear of war’) and from civil servants’ anxieties about their
future. The gauleiters had to concentrate on this ‘Hindenburg front’—they must ask
the butchers, bakers, and innkeepers why they had voted for the field marshal, and
then tailor their own propaganda accordingly. (This field operational analysis would
become a hallmark of Goebbels’ propaganda strategy.) He suggested they send groups
of girl members into the old folks’ homes to read to them, and the bands of the S.A.
and S.S. to serenade them. He hatched a secret plan to triple the print of all Nazi
newspapers for election week, the additional copies being sent free to all Hindenburg
voters. The Völkischer Beobachter alone should send out 800,000 free copies each day.
As for Hitler, Goebbels brought in air power: flying from city to city in his own
plane D-1720 Hitler would address three or four huge meetings a day in twenty-one
cities beginning on April 3, tackling a new enemy ‘lie’ each day. Goebbels printed
four pictorial posters: they targeted the farming community, city dwellers, women,
and vested interests.59 A glossy photogravure magazine illustrated with pictures of
the Führer would round off his campaign package. True, its title, Flamethrower, was
unlikely to attract the female fear-of-war vote—but he still had a lot to learn about
them. (‘The woman,’ Hitler had lectured him, ‘is man’s partner in sex and work…
Man is the organizer, woman his aide and executrix.’60)
Then the election got dirtier. The government banned Goebbels’ free-newspaper
stunt. Infuriatingly, their opponents obtained details of Hitler’s lavish Kaiserhof expenses.
61 Goebbels called the bill a forgery.62 He retaliated by claiming to have annihilating
material on Severing’s ‘womanizing’, but declared that, after consulting with
the Führer, they would not release it. In fact neither he nor Hitler had evidence to
justify criticising their opponents on this score.
GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICH 263
The moratorium ended on Sunday April 3. While Hitler set out by plane, Goebbels
spoke three times that day at Wiesbaden, then at Frankfurt. On the fourth he and
Hitler addressed 150,000 people in the Berlin Lustgarten, then fifty thousand more
in Potsdam. In Goebbels’ absence police chief Grzesinski suddenly ordered the gau
HQ in Hedemann Strasse padlocked, and banned the election posters that Goebbels
had designed for the upcoming Prussian campaign.63
VOTING was on April 10, 1932. Though again failing to defeat Hindenburg, Hitler now
clearly emerged as a statesman of equivalent stature. His vote increased to 13,418,547
(Hindenburg won with 19,359,983 votes.) The Nazi vote in Berlin had grown by
two hundred thousand, attracting thirty-one percent of the vote in the capital as
compared with 36·8 percent nationwide. The communist won only 3,706,759. Seen
in this light, Goebbels should have been delighted; but in the privacy of his apartment
he made no secret of his disappointment. According to her mother, Magda
chose this moment to reveal that she was four months pregnant. Any elation at this
was tempered by the announcement that the defence minister Groener had banned
the S.A. and S.S. nationwide and ordered their immediate dissolution.64
Polling in Prussia, the next round of elections, would be on April 24. Goebbels
now directed his propaganda venom at Otto Braun and Carl Severing, and their
police minions Grzesinski and ‘Isidor’ Weiss.65 He devised more new techniques,
including loudspeaker trucks illegally broadcasting the Horst Wess
el anthem. One
stunt tickled the fancy of the international press: his posters cheekily announced a
public debate with Chancellor Brüning in the Sport Palace. In fact he had obtained
recordings of a recent Brüning speech in Königsberg, from which he played extracts
to his audience, together with his own devastating replies. Brüning’s humourless
response was to sue Goebbels for infringing the copyright in his intellectual assets.66
After dropping dark hints in Angriff that he had some dirt on Severing, he detected a
softening in Vorwärts’ line. Struggling with ’flu and a 40°C fever he addressed a hundred
thousand people in the Lustgarten. On election eve one of his S.A. men was
264 GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICH
shot dead with a bullet between the eyes. The next day saw every swastika flag in
Prussia draped in mourning.
These were the Goebbels methods, and thanks to them the Nazi party increased its
numbers in the Prussian parliament from six seats to 162; with 38·3 percent of the
votes they were the strongest party. In Bavaria meanwhile the Nazis had swollen
from nine seats to forty-three, in Württemberg from one to fifty-one, and in Anhalt
from one to fifteen.
In Anhalt German’s first Nazi prime minister was appointed. Elsewhere, Brüning’s
allies were still strong enough to form a coalition against the Nazis and stay in power.
‘We’ve got to get into power sooner or later,’ wrote Goebbels in understandable
frustration at this outcome. ‘Otherwise our victories in all these elections will be the
death of us.’67
1 National Union Catalog pre-1956 Imprints, 317ff. JG, Vom Kaiserhof zur Reichskanzlei. Eine
historische Darstellung in Tagebuchblättern (vom 1. Januar 1932 bis zum 1. Mai 1933). (Berlin,
1934), cited hereafter as Kaiserhof.
2 JG’s ‘Tagebuch für Ferien und Reisen,’ May 22, 1932—Dec 17, 1935, is in box 1 of the
Moscow archives (Goebbels papers, Fond 1477); the missing diaries for the Kaiserhof period
are on a dozen microfiches in box 4, his original manuscripts of the Era of Struggle
(Kampfzeit) around 1930 will be found in box 3,—vol.i on 21, and vol.ii on 15 microfiches.
3 Diary, Jun 8; Kaiserhof, Jun 7, 1932.
4 Kaiserhof, Jan 4, 1932.
5 Ibid., Jan 9, 24, 1932; when JG speaks at the Reichstag, it too is ‘overflowing’ (Mar 23,
1932).
6 Ibid., Jan 4, 1932.
7 Ibid., Jan 9, 1932.
8 Ibid., Jan 7, 1932.
9 Ibid., Jan 12, 1932; see e.g., Jan 6, and May 28, 1932.
10 Ibid., Jan 19, 1932.
11 Ibid., Jan 30, 1933.
12 Ibid., Jan 6, 1932.
13 Ibid., May 10, 18, 19, 1932.
14 Ibid., May 10, 1932.
15 Diary, Jun 14; Kaiserhof Jun 14, 1932. The unpubl. diary of Apr 11, 1934 shows that
Hitler advised JG to flatter Göring in the book (Moscow archives).
GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICH 265
16 Kaiserhof, May 4, 19, 1932.
17 Kaiserhof, Jan 22, 1932 records his indignation when the press speculates on his family
life.
18 Ibid., Jan 5, 1932. Yet according to a note by Staatssekretär Hermann Pünder, chief of
the Reich Chancellery, dated Apr 16, 1932, the party was receiving substantial protectionracket
payments (‘Terror-Abwehrprämien’) from the Jewish businessmen Oskar Tietz (owner
of the Hermann Tietz superstore) and Schapiro of the Sport Palace (Akten der Reichskanzlei.
Weimarer Republik, vol.iii, [Boppard 1990] No.722, p.2455)
19 Diary, May 22, and see Jun 8, 11, 12, 1932.
20 Diary, Sep 19, 1932.
21 Diary, Oct 5, 1932.
22 Section Ia police report on the No.6 SA Standarte (regiment) function at the Clou
concert hall on Jan 4, 1932 (NA film T581, roll 523; BA file NS.26/1224).
23 Kaiserhof, Jan 7, 1932. Hindenburg had taken office on May 5, 1925; the constitution
limited his term to seven years.
24 VB, Jan 19, 1932.
25 According to the Statistisches Jahrbuch der Stadt Berlin, 8th year, 1932, page 8; published by
Berlin city statistical office.
26 Kaiserhof, Jan 8; police dossier, report dated Jan 13, 1932.
27 Weiss to JG, Jan 25; Angriff, Jan 26, 1932.
28 Police circular No.71 to all Regierungspräsidenten Jan 28, 1932 (DBC, JG’s file; author’s
film DI-81).
29 Angriff, No.17, Jan 26, 1932. For the trial of the murderers Stolt et al., see Landesarchiv
Berlin, Rep.58, item 9 (10 vols.)
30 Kaiserhof, Jan 26, 1932; for the trial of the murderers Adam et al., see ibid., item 37 (22
vols.)
31 Kaiserhof, Feb 4, 1932.
32 Kaiserhof, Feb 12, 1932.
33 Text in Leipziger Volkszeitung, Feb 8; and see Grzesinski MS and Angriff, No.31, Feb 11,
1932.
34 JG referred to the dog whip several times in the Reichstag during Feb 1932, as did Hitler
on Mar 23, 1933: ‘They even offered to drive me out of Germany with a dog-whip. [Storms
of jeers from the National Socialist benches.]’
35 Thus JG was prosecuted for incitement to violence in a funeral eulogy on Jul 25, 1932
(Landesarchiv Berlin, Rep.58, item 759).
36 Kaiserhof, Feb 10, 1932.
37 Police file, Feb 20; Berliner Lokalanzeiger, No.86, Feb 20; Kaiserhof, Feb 20, 1932.
38 According to Vossische Zeitung, Feb 23, JG said he was ‘authorised’ to tell them of Hitler’s
decision to stand.—The speech was published as Schluss jetzt! Das deutsche Volk wählt Hitler!
Rede im Berliner Sportpalast am 22. Februar 1932 (Franz Eher Nachf., 1932). On Apr 4, the
‘Opposition within the NSDAP’ circulated a pamphlet blaming JG for the fait accompli.
‘Without being authorised to do so he proclaimed in the Sport Palace at the end of February,
“Hitler will be our Reich President.”’ After remarking yet again on JG’s Jewish appearance
266 GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICH
the pamphlet suggested that JG intended to profit either way, whether Hitler won or lost.
(BA file NS.26/322).
39 Albert Krebs, 167. In conversation with Krebs in May 1932 Hitler exonerated JG by
saying that he had been speaking to a huge audience.—See too Krebs’ diary, Sep 19, 1930–
May 30, 1932 in the Hamburg archives.
40 Kaiserhof, Feb 22, 1932.
41 See Reichstag proceedings, 58th session, Feb 24, 1932, p.2270, and Angriff, Mar 5,
1932, for the controversy about his precise words.
42 Reichstag proceedings, 57th session, Feb 23, 1932, 2245ff.
43 Reichstag proceedings, 59th session, Feb 25, 1932, 2346ff.
44 Vossische Zeitung, Feb 28, 1932.
45 Historical essay by Kampmann as Gaupropagandaleiter May 13, 1938 (NA films T581,
roll 546 and /5; BA files NS.26/546 and /133); JG’s drafts of the posters and leaflets for the
Mar 13, 1932 election are in NSDAP archives (BA file NS.26/287).
46 Kaiserhof, Feb 29, 1932.
47 Diary, Oct 31, 1930; Kaiserhof, Feb 29, Mar 3, 1932. The JG film was directed by
Häussler. JG to all gauleiters, Mar 13, 1932 (NSDAP archives, NA film T581, roll 29, BA file