heavy drapes. A refit was out of the question. The building’s custodian, Hofrat Schwebel,
nervously lectured the young newcomer that not even the minister’s own office could
be changed. Goebbels ignored him. Had there not been a revolution? He recruited
builders and decorators from the ranks of his S.A. and they stripped out the offending
plaster and stucco overnight. ‘You might go to prison for that,’ gasped Schwebel.34
Goebbels moved in on Wednesday March 22, 1933.
The international Big Lie campaign (as the Nazis saw it) against Hitler’s Germany
had redoubled in intensity since the election. Disgruntled opponents committed
outrages in stolen Nazi uniforms. The Cabinet approved harsh penalties for such
impersonations—Goebbels even urged the death penalty.35 Emigré journalists published
lurid reports from Berlin. One said that Hitler had ordered Torgler’s ears cut
off; another, that the body of Hirsch, the editor of Red Flag, had been found floating in
a canal; a third, that Ernst Thälmann had been tortured to death. Enraged by the
newspaper dispatches, the international Jewish community started a boycott of German
goods.36 In London, Jewish restaurants refused to serve Germans. Goebbels
retaliated by inviting Sefton Delmer, a British newspaperman who had covered the
Reichstag blaze, to visit Torgler, Hirsch, and Thälmann in custody. Offered the front
page of the London Sunday Express, he challenged the émigrés to name even one Jew
who had yet died. ‘The Jews living in Germany,’ he wrote in his article, ‘have held
such an enormously large number of powerful posts in the life of the nation that the
GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICH 299
German element seemed almost completely excluded from the leading positions.’
He blamed the Jews for spreading similar atrocity stories during the world war. ‘The
German nation today has other business to do than to stage blood baths and indulge
in Jew baiting.’37 Berlin wiretaps confirmed that Hearst’s Berlin correspondent was
the arch culprit.38
The upshot of the Jewish campaign overseas was that Goebbels secured from Hitler
—or so he claimed—approval to threaten a short, sharp counter-boycott of the
Jews. He told his Cabinet colleagues on March 29 that this threat had been extremely
effective and that the main Jewish agency in Berlin, the Central-Verein, had promised
that the foreign smear campaign would cease. Nevertheless on March 31 he announced
a one-day boycott of all Jewish stores: ‘Tomorrow,’ he said, broadcasting
from a mass rally, ‘not one German man or woman is to enter a Jewish store.’ There
would follow a three day period to assess the impact of the boycott, and it would be
repeated if necessary until, as he put it, ‘German Jewry has been annihilated.’39 Raising
the boycott at midnight on April 1, he told a cheering throng in the Lustgarten
that he could easily reimpose it. ‘If it must be resumed,’ he threatened, ‘we shall
crush German Jewry.’40
The world’s press greeted Goebbels’ crude but effective boycott with uproar (while
ignoring the Jewish boycott which had triggered it.) Speaking to an official British
visitor Goebbels quoted in justification the familiar figures on the preponderance of
Jews among Germany’s lawyers, doctors, and other wealthy professions. As for isolated
anti-Jewish outrages reported during the boycott, he claimed that communists
disguised in Nazi uniforms had perpetrated them.41
He enjoyed the thrill of unbridled power; he fancied that the world’s Jews were
whimpering with fear.42 Yet his antisemitism was still broadly tactical, rather than
innate. He needed the stimulus of a visible enemy. He could still split his sides laughing
at the Jewish comedian Otto Wallburg, who would later die in Auschwitz.43 When
Furtwängler, conductor of the Berlin Phblharmonic, bravely protested at the discrimination
against Otto Klemperer, Bruno Walter, and Max Reinhardt, he replied:
‘We can see no objection to having Leo Blech [another Jew] direct some German
300 GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICH
masterpiece at the State opera, because no one gets the feeling of any violence done
to the national spirit. But it is not necessary that the majority of opera conductors
should be Jews… Those of Jewish blood who have real ability should be free to
exercise their art: but they must not rule.’44
HE attended virtually every Cabinet that year. Intellectually far above the rest, he
easily worsted them in debate. Between them the dialectician Goebbels and the brutal
Göring made opposition impossible. ‘They attacked every problem,’ Vice-Chancellor
von Papen recalled, ‘with the furious élan of the rabble-rouser.’45 Goebbels’
secret diary now bristled with barbed references to Göring’s pathological ambition,
his pompous megalomania, and his ever gaudier uniforms.46 Goebbels had to fight
hard to wrest control of the radio from Göring’s porcine clutches.47 He found Göring
cavorting with his ladyfriend Emmy (still married to another) at the Berghof in August.
Hitler delivered an outspoken speech to his gauleiters about uniforms—‘no
names,’ chuckled Goebbels, ‘but everybody knew what was what.’48 Learning that
‘Fatso’ was demanding the rank of general, Goebbels wrote, ‘Why not field marshal
and be done with it!’49
ON April 25 he returned home to receive the civic dignities that Rheydt hastened to
bestow upon him. The townsfolk had hung out a sea of flags; the catholic church bells
pealed, no doubt equally willingly. He had let it be known that he desired a torchlight
parade past his home. His mother stood beside him at an upstairs window. ‘For
eight years she has been vilified on my account,’ he lectured the mayor. ‘And she was
the only one who understood me.’50 At his old school he spoke once more from the
stage where had had delivered the valediction sixteen years before. Local boy makes
good: but his career in infamy was only just beginning.
GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICH 301
1 Extracts from the diary of Sir Walter Layton, Apr 3, 1933 (PRO file FO.371/16722).
2 Memoirs (UK ed.), 289.
3 Interrogation, SAIC/FIR/46, Sep 13, 1946 (NA file RG.407, entry 427, box 1945i).
4 Albert Grzesinski, typescript memoirs (BA: Kl.Erw.144).—See too Jürgen Wetzel,
‘Monarchie gegen Hitler. Aus der Korrespondenz Otto Brauns mit Albert Grzesinski 1934
bis 1936,’ in Der Bär von Berlin, Jahrbuch des Vereins für die Geschichte Berlins, 1977, 7–14.
5 Rosenberg diary, Mar 1, 1939.
6 Interview of Rudolf von Ribbentrop, Jul 20, 1989.
7 Goebbels papers (Hoover Libr.)
8 Diary, Sep 24, 1933.
9 Ibid., Aug 25, 1933.
10 Text of the broadcast in Joseph Wulf’s documentation, Presse und Funk im Dritten Reich
(Frankfurt, 1983), 284ff.
11 Ibid., Feb 1; Kaiserhof, Jan 31, 1933; gau history (NA film T581, roll 5, BA file NS.26/
133); Angriff, Jan 31–Feb 6, 1933.—Maikowski, born in Charlottenburg Feb 28, 1908, had
joined the Berlin S.A. in 1926 and been stabbed by communists in Dec 1927; after shooting
a communist in 1931 he fled to Venice, was arrested Oct 1932 and had been released only in
December (NSDAP archiv
es, Maikowski papers, BA file NS.26/323).—For the trial of
Schuckar et al., murderers of Maikowski and police constable Zauritz, see Landesarchiv
Berlin, Rep.58, item 30.
12 Report by Eberhard Assmann, Sep 20, 1934 (BDC file, Helldorff).
13 Unpublished Brüning typescript in Dorothy Thompson papers (Univ. of Syracuse Libr.)
14 See JG’s testimony of Nov 8, in Vossische Zeitung, Nov 9, 1933.—Heinrich Hoffmann,
who was also present, confirms this in Hitler was my Friend, 71ff; as does Hanfstaengl in his
1970 interview with John Toland (FDR Libr.)
15 Diary, Feb 28, 1933; on the microfiche for Feb 16–May 1, 1933 (Moscow archives, JG
papers, box 4).
16 JG’s testimony Reichstag arson trial, Nov 8, 1933, pp.6ff; transcript provided by Fritz
Tobias archives.
17 Wilfred von Oven, Mit Goebbels bis zum Ende, 148 (‘Jul 27, 1943’); and Table Talk, Aug 21,
1942 (Heim, 356f).
18 The leading article was published in Angriff, Feb 28, 1933. Communism, JG argued,
must now be wiped out so thoroughly that not even the name survived; Hindenburg must
give Hitler the powers to do so.
19 SS Oberführer Alfred-Ingemar Berndt, born in Bromberg 1905. His ancestors for six
hundred years had been farmers near Thorn and in the Warthegau; after the Poles annexed
these regions in 1919 and 1920 and seized the estates he and his family were expelled.
Berndt had been sacked by Wolff’s Telegraph Agency—forerunner of the Nazi DNB agency—
in Dec 1932 and became Otto Dietrich’s adjutant in Feb 1933; from Apr 1, 1936 he was
deputy press chief, and headed the government’s press office; he served as an infantry NCO
Jul–Aug 1939, as ADC to Rommel in North Africa from Feb 1, 1941, then returned to take
over JG’s press division on Sep 5, 1941. In Jan 1945 he was given a Panzer IV company in
Hungary, where he died in action (BDC file, Berndt; and see Berndt to Himmler, Jul 11,
1944: NA film T175, roll 33).
302 GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICH
20 Manchester Guardian, Apr 27; cf NYT, Apr 238, 1933. The NYT obituary of JG on May 3,
1945 stated, ‘It was he who conceived the spectacle of the Reichstag fire.’
21 Diary, Apr 9, 1941.—In general see Fritz Tobias, Der Reichstagsbrand (Rastatt/Baden,
1962); and the critique by Martin Broszat on the controversy in VfZ, No.3, 1960, 275ff.
22 Cabinet, Mar 7, 1933 (BA file R43I/1460).
23 JG had preferred ‘Reichsminister of Culture and Public Enlightenment.’—Lammers
memo, May 9, 1934 (BA file R.43II/1149).
24 He issued repeated directives insisting that ‘propaganda’ be used only in a positive sense;
and that it be called ‘agitation’ when conducted by the enemy. E.g. directive of Jul 28, 1937
in Brammer collection, BA file ZSg.101/10; RMVP directive, Nov 8, 1940 (BA file R.55/
1410); confidential briefing, Feb 9, 1942 in Oberheitmann collection, BA file ZSg.109/28;
RMVP circular in files of Propaganda-Staffel North-west, Jul 24, 1944 (Hoover Libr., Lerner
papers).
25 Interrogation at CCPWE No.32, report DI–32, Jul 16, 1945 (NA file RG.407: entry
427, box 1954q).
26 Schäffer diary, Mar 8, 1933 (BA file Kl.Erw. 614/17c; IfZ: ED.93, vol.24a).
27 Fromm diary, Mar 15, 1933 (typescript in Boston Univ., Mugar Libr., Fromm papers,
box 1.) Bella Steuermann-Fromm was a childhood friend of Ludwig III of Bavaria. She fled
to the USA in 1938 with, she claimed, only $3.96 (but brought out her entire furniture
including a grand piano!) Hanfstaengl described her as an unappetizing and malodorous
creature. ‘This frump,’ he wrote on Jun 23, 1944 to his son, ‘was one of those semi-ladies
whose mere entrance sufficed to tell me that the company concerned had begun to become
what one might call “mixed”’ (NA file RG.219, X-7141141, Hanfstaengl).
28 Fromm diary, Mar 29; and see ‘bf’s’ column in the Berliner Zeitung, Mar 30, 1933.
29 Gutterer affidavit Jul 6, 1948 (IfZ, ZS).
30 Cabinet Mar 11, 1933 5 P.M. (BA file R43I/1460 and /1149).
31 Reichsgesetzblatt (Reich Law Gazette, cit. hereafter as RGBl.), 1933, I, 104. An addendum
of Jun 30, 1933 (ibid., 440) stipulated that the ministry would perform ‘all tasks of spiritual
influence on the nation, of publicizing the state, culture, and economy at home and abroad,
and administering all bodies serving those functions.’—In general, see Z A B Zeman, Nazi
Propaganda (London, 1964), ‘Ernest Kohn Bramsted,’ Goebbels and National Socialist Propaganda
1925–1945 (Michigan State Univ. Press, 1965), and Wolfram Werner, Zur Geschichte
des Reichsministeriums für Volksaufklärung und Propaganda und zur Überlieferung (Koblenz, 1979).
32 Kaiserhof, Mar 15; NYT, Mar 20, 1933.
33 William E Dodd to FDR, Mar 27, 1933 (FDR Libr., PSF file 45, Germany, Dodd).
34 Borresholm, 94f; Kaiserhof, Mar 11, 1933. There are detailed floor plans in a 70pp. paper
(PW paper 80) on the propaganda ministry by Dr Richard Arnhold; and see his PW paper
108, ‘Party Control of Propaganda,’ a 19pp. analysis of the Reichspropagandaleitung and its
associated agencies (PRO file WIO.208/4174). On the ministry’s later organisation and
personalities see interrogation SAIC/CIR/4 of Hinkel, Immanuel Schäffer, Martin Schönicke,
Rolf Hoffmann, Eugen Maier, Karl Cerff, Paul (‘Presse’) Schmidt, Jul 10, 1945 (NA file
RG.332, ETO MIS-Y, Sect box 116), and PWB/SAIC/22 of Hoffmann, Jul 12, 1945 (ibid.);
also Special Interrogation Report on Otto Dietrich, CSDIC/WEA, SIR.2, Oct 16, 1945
(NA file RG.332, Mis-Y, box 16).
GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICH 303
35 Cabinet, Mar 20, 1933 (BA file R43I/1460).
36 Sunday Express, London, Mar 26; its main Mar 24, 1933 headline had read JUDEA DECLARES
WAR ON GERMANY; NYT, passim.
37 Sunday Express, Mar 26, 1933.
38 Cabinet, Mar 29, 1933 4:15 P.M. (BA file R43I/1460); and see Kaiserhof Mar 27, and his
press conference reported in NYT, Mar 28, 1933.
39 Reported thus in NYT, Apr 1, 1933.
40 NYT, Apr 2; Kaiserhof, Apr 1, 1933. For a sample leaflet protesting against Jewish ‘atrocity
propaganda’ see file G-127 in the archives of the Yivo Institute for Jewish Research in
New York, Record Group 215 (cited hereafter as Yivo).
41 Sir Eric Layton diary, Apr 3, 1933 (PRO file FO.371/16722). JG used to state that 75%
of Berlin’s lawyers were Jews. Writing to him on Nov 30, 1936 Heydrich gave detailed
figures. ‘Before March 1933 altogether 3,890 lawyers were active in Berlin. Of these 1,998
(51·36%) were Jews. Since the new admission regulations the overall number of Berlin
lawyers has sunk to 3,095. Of these 1,203 (38·87%) are Jews.’ (ZStA Potsdam, Rep.50.01,
propaganda ministry: Diewerge papers, vol.994).
42 Kaiserhof, Mar 27, 1933.
43 Diary, May 16, 1933.
44 JG to Furtwängler, quoted in NYT, Apr 16, 1933.
45 Papen, memoirs, 289ff.
46 Diary, May 12, 25, Jul 22; uniforms: Jun 15, 20, Jul 27, 1933.
47 Ibid., Jun 20, 21, 24, 1933.
48 Ibid., Aug 6–7, 1933.
Doctor Goebbels: His Life & Death Page 49
