Doctor Goebbels: His Life & Death
Page 55
the Polish prime minister, his cabinet, and many ambassadors, Goebbels reassured
them that National Socialism was not for export, and repeated that Germany
desired rapprochement.82 He had consulted Hitler and Neurath closely on the text
of this speech.83 Afterwards he drove round Warsaw, saw the Jewish quarter (‘stinking
and filthy. The eastern Jews. There they are’), had meetings with Marshal Pilsudski
and foreign minister Beck, then flew on to Cracow. At the same time Hitler had been
to Venice to meet Mussolini on a similar mission.
Back in Germany Goebbels resumed his round of ‘grouser’ speeches—in Freiburg
(‘I get quite nostalgic. Here I lived, loved, and suffered’84) and Gera. Here Hitler,
just back from Venice, confided to him the outcome of his first talks with Mussolini:
1. Austria. Out with Dollfuss! New elections under a neutral man of confidence.
Influence of Nazis depending on number of votes. Economic issues to be resolved
jointly by Rome and Berlin. Both are agreed. Dollfuss will be notified.
2. Disarmament: Mussolini fully endorses our position. ‘France has gone mad.’
He’ll back us.
GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICH 335
3. The East: we must build further on friendship with Poland. (Vide my visit).
Seek a modus vivendi with Russia.85
ON their return to Berlin that evening Goebbels learned that Vice Chancellor von
Papen had delivered an amazing speech attacking him at Marburg university, speaking
of the public’s revulsion at the S.A., expressing veiled support for a monarchy,
and siding with what Goebbels called the ‘whingers and whiners.’ ‘A genius,’ said
Papen, in a pointed criticism of Goebbels himself, ‘is never created by propaganda.’
A transcript of Papen’s words reached Goebbels’ villa that evening. His adjutant found
him in a blue dressing gown and a tantrum, hurling clothes-hangers downstairs. ‘I’ll
teach this scoundrel a lesson,’ he was screaming. ‘Humiliating me like this!’ On Hitler’s
orders—or so he claimed in his diary—he ordered the speech suppressed at
once. It was almost too late, as his ministry’s foreign desk had already released it and
the Frankfurter Zeitung had already plated it up. Annoyed that a junior minister had
suppressed his speech, Papen threatened to resign. Hitler undertook to censure
Goebbels.86
The Papen speech was a slap in the face for Goebbels. On June 21 he presided over
the monthly tea party for the foreign press and listened in delight to the Reichsbank
governor Dr Schacht’s witty speech; his grin vanished as Papen arrived uninvited,
nonchalantly planted himself in Schacht’s vacant chair just to his left, and sat nodding
affably to the journalists.87 He repaid Papen at his gau’s midsummer festival that
night in Neukölln, delivering another speech against the ludicrous armchair critics
who had been too weak to seize power themselves.88 Although he mentioned by
name the Crown Prince, whose hand he wrongly suspected behind the Marburg
speech, the foreign journalists recognized his real target as Papen. Hitler told him on
the twenty-second that he had seen through his vice-chancellor: ‘He’s caused himself
a heap of trouble.’
For the next week Goebbels continued to fulminate about Papen and the Marburg
speech—to Ruhr coalminers, to Berlin civil servants, and to his diary. Papen enjoyed
every minute of Goebbels’ discomfiture. Sunday June 24 found them both at
336 GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICH
the Hamburg Derby. According to Papen’s account, when the more expensive
racegoers sighted him, sporting a light grey top hat, there were cheers of ‘Heil
Marburg!’ Goebbels, pink-faced and piqued, flaunted himself before the cheaper
galleries; the workers’ applause turned to cheers when they sighted Papen however.
‘This fellow Papen,’ Goebbels told his deputy gauleiter Görlitzer, ‘is getting too big
for his boots.’89 Thus Papen’s account; Goebbels’ unpublished diary puts a very different
spin on the episode: ‘Derby. One big mess. Public sharply against Papen. Hard
put to avoid a scandal. Ambassadors there. Embarrassing scene. At the end together
with Papen. Public totally on my side. I walk right into their midst. These ovations!
Poor Herrenklub, if it ever comes to the crunch.’90 Licking his wounds and seeking
scapegoats, the next day Goebbels had the entire racecourse management sacked.91
On June 22 he had delivered his stock speech against the grousing ‘diehards’ to a
gigantic audience of two hundred thousand in Halle.92 He repeated this theme at
Duisburg and Essen on the twenty-fourth. ‘There are,’ he defined at Essen, ‘the reserve
officers, the intellectuals, the journalists, the clergymen. You need a sharp eye to
detect this type of person… The public has got to see through this clique.’93 These
words caused uproar among those classes thus branded by Goebbels. After the coming
bloody events showed that he had been way off-target, he was forced to issue
what he called an ‘unabridged’ text of what he had said, making plain he was referring
only to those who put on the airs of reserve officers, intellectuals, journalists and
clergymen and not to those worthies themselves. ‘You need a sharp eye to detect
these people.’ He had had no intention of attacking the actual people named, only
the renegades whom they had already cast out of their ranks.94 If all of this verbiage
proved anything, it was that Goebbels still had no idea of which of many windmills
he was supposed to be tilting at.
HITLER had his sights on clearly defined if very different prey. Deferring to the generals,
he had decided to decapitate the S.A. On June 22 he summoned Viktor Lutze by
plane from Hanover, swore him to secrecy, and told him that the Gestapo had informed
him of that Röhm was plotting against the ‘reactionary‘ Reichswehr on the
GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICH 337
pretext that it was plotting against the Führer and the S.A. He was going to retire
Röhm, he said; Lutze, a reliable if colourless S.A. commander, was to stand by for
orders.95
Goebbels knew nothing of any S.A. ‘plot’. His target was still Franz von Papen.96
‘There is a ferment around,’ he wrote on June 27. ‘The Reichswehr is not quite
clean. Führer’s too good-natured. Hess has made a good broadcast, against revolution.
Siding strongly with Führer, veiled attack on Papen. Latter’s calmly carrying on
his intrigues. His [Marburg] speech was drafted by E[dgar] Jung.’ Compromising
letters, Goebbels learned, had been found. ‘We must watch out. If things get critical,
then hit hard.’97 Lunching at the chancellery on June 26 he found Hitler on the alert
too.98
After gossipping with Hitler on Wednesday June 27, Goebbels left for engagements
in Kiel. He was still none the wiser. Writing that Friday he would recall vaguely
that the situation had deteriorated. ‘The Führer must act. Otherwise the Reaktion’—
which he still did not identify—‘will get out of hand.’99 In Kiel he found ‘universal
concern about the Reaktion,’ and ‘embitterment within the Reichswehr.’ The public,
he felt, was waiting for them to do something. Flanked by his adjutant
Schaumburg-
Lippe, himself an S.A. Sturmführer, Goebbels delivered his stock ‘whinger’ speech
to eighty thousand people in and outside the North Baltic Hall in Kiel. By what right,
he challenged them, did somebody who had not lifted a finger before 1933 now
point at those who had toiled day and night for power?100
Back in Berlin that Wednesday he again noted that Papen’s seditious Marburg speech
had been written for him by Jung, whom the Gestapo had now arrested.101 Later Karl
Hanke brought him the latest equally seditious catholic pastoral letter. ‘Now,’ wrote
Goebbels, still wholly misjudging Hitler’s intentions, ‘let’s go for them.’102
Hitler had gone to Essen for Gauleiter Terboven’s wedding to Ilse Stahl, an old
flame of Goebbels’. He was on the brink of committing his first mass murder. On
Thursday Goebbels took the afternoon off at Cladow. ‘Gloomier and gloomier,’ he
recorded, adding the vague and helpless comment: ‘The Reaktion is at work everywhere.’
After a cruise with Magda and the children out on the summery lake, he
338 GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICH
went downtown to speak at Spandau. ‘Talked tough and grim,’ he said. ‘The people
understand.’ He drove back out to Cladow. ‘How much longer?’ he exclaimed in his
diary, writing the next day as the uncertainties suddenly began to clear.103
1 Basil Newton to Sir John Simon, Sep 13, 1933 (PRO file FO.371/16728).
2 NYT, Oct 9, 1933.
3 Phipps to FO, No.224, Oct 16, 1933 (PRO file FO.371/17368).
4 NYT, Oct 27; Lochner to Betty, Nov 12, 1933, loc. cit.
5 The forged article was entitled, ‘Germany’s Aim: She wants More Territory.’ See NYT,
Nov 18, 19, 22, 1933.
6 NYT, Nov 18, 1933.
7 ‘Querschnitt durch die Tätigkeit des Arbeitsgebiets Dr Taubert (Antibolschewismus)
des RMVP bis zum 31.12.1944’ (Yivo Inst., file GÊ PA-14); cited hereafter as Taubert report.
— For records of Anti-Comintern see BA files R55/70, 207, 369, 373, 374–6, 730.
8 Diary, May 8, 1933; at the Reichstag Fire trial an incriminating memorandum allegedly
by Oberfohren was produced. JG commented (transcript, p.23), ‘Why pick as the author of
such a document a dead man who can’t defend himself any more?’
9 Trial observations of Professor Justus Hedemann, a Jena lawyer (BA file Kl. Erw. 433.)
10 Court record; Borresholm, 122.
11 Court record, Nov 8, p.114; cf. Vossische Zeitung, Nov 9, 1933. At the press desk was
Louis Lochner—see his descriptive letter to Betty, Nov 12, 1933 (Lochner papers, box 47).
12 Borresholm, 118f.
13 DNB release, Jan 27, 1934: ‘Dr Goebbels favours saying yes to life and joy’; NYT, Jan
27, 1934.
14 Ullstein’s Morgenpost sold 4–5m daily, Berliner Illustrierte Zeitung 1m, Grüne Post 400,000,
Berliner Zeitung 100,000, Berliner Allgemeine Zeitung 80,000, and Vossische Zeitung 60,000.
15 Unpubl. diary, May 11, 1934.—Interrogations of Amann: Nuremberg Sep 30, 1947
(IfZ: ZS.809) and Jan 10, 1948 (NA: RG.260, box 15); by Frank Korf, May 1, 1948 (Hoover
Libr., Korf papers), and CSDIC(UK) PIR.79.—And CSDIC(UK) report, SS OGruf. Otto
Ohlendorf, ‘Notes on Corruption and Corrupted Personalities in Germany,’ PW papers
133, Aug 11, 1945 (PRO file WO.208/4174), and CSDIC(WEA) BAOR report on Winkler,
op.cit.
16 Unpubl. diary, Apr 30, May 2 and 11: ‘The gentlemen from Ullstein. Bluntly told them
my opinion. About Jews and suchlike. Ban on Grüne Post won’t be lifted. They should eliminate
the Jews.’— NYT, May 9, 1934.
17 CSDIC(WEA) BAOR report FIR.80, appendix Jul 6, 1946: ‘Winkler’s connection
with Party publishing firms’ (NA file RG.332, Mis-Y, box 18).
GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICH 339
18 Diary, Jan 2, 1934.
19 Ibid., Sep 1, 1933.
20 JG to Frau Dr Mumme, Nov 3, 1933 (Irene Prange papers).
21 See JG’s unpubl. diary, Mar 20: ‘Marianne Hoppe tells me about her new film. I’ll help
her;’ on May 13 he added, ‘Talk with Marianne Hoppe. She evidently went shooting her
mouth off. Now she’s cut down to size.’ On Jun 20, JG notes eloquently: ‘Marianne Hoppe:
I’ve become thoroughly sick of her.’
22 Ibid., Apr 24, 1934: ‘Käthe Dorsch, with whom I discuss film matters. She is very
charming.’
23 Diary, Dec 11, 1936.
24 Interview of Irene Prange, Sep 6, 1990; see the letter written by Deutscher Verlag to
Anka Oswald, Apr 20, 1943 (Irene Prange papers).
25 Eher Verlag to JG, Feb 3, 1933 ( ZStA Potsdam, Rep.90 Go 1, Goebbels, vol.3).
26 Diary, Mar 25, 31, Apr 4, 6, 13, 1394.
27 Unpubl. diary, Mar 11, 12, 17, 1934.
27 Ibid., Apr 9, 1934.
28 Ibid., Apr 13–14, 1934.
29 Ibid., May 28, 1934.
30 Ibid., Jun 3, 1934.
31 See the reference, ibid., Jun 7, 1934, to a countess with whom he sees the film ‘Zwischen
Heute und Morgen’; he ‘parlavers’ (as he routinely spells this buzz-word) at length with her,
finds ‘she is very nice.’ On Jun 13 he notes meeting Käthe Kruse, ‘She is very nice. Drive late
through the Grunewald.’
32 JG (ibid., Jun 22) also called it eine Art Profanierung, ‘a kind of blasphemy.’
33 NYT, May 13, 27, 28; unpubl. diary, May 13, 1934.
34 See the German FO file on the ‘Jewish atrocity lies’ on NA film T120, roll 4673.
35 A Turkish Jew, Wilhelm Rose, born Aug 18, 1898, who had repeatedly been arrested
during the Weimar period for passport forgeries, etc., and was arrested and deported on
Feb 22, 1934. Ibid.
36 Unpubl. diary, Apr 24, 1934.
37 DNB release, Feb 27; and see Berliner Börsenzeitung, Jan 31, 1934.
38 Unpubl. diary, Apr 13, 1934.
39 Gauleiter conference in Berlin, Feb 2, 1934 (BA file NS.26/1290).
40 Thus spake JG in Essen, Jun 24: OUTRIGHT FIGHT AGAINST THE DIEHARDS. DR GOEBBELS
SPEAKS OUT AGAINST THE HIDDEN ENEMIES OF STATE. National Zeitung, Essen, Jun 25, 1934.
41 VB, Jan 15, 1934.
42 Memo by WIIb, Jan 18, initialled by Fritsch and Reichenau (Reich defence ministry file
H35/29 on JG’s lectures: NA film T78, roll 372, p.5199f); VB, Jan 19, 1934.
43 His speech on all these occasions was the 16pp. ‘Wesen und Grundbegriffe des
Nationalsozialismus.’ (ibid., pp.5229ff).
44 Unpubl. diary, Mar 16, 1934. ‘Spoke to Reichswehr. On top form. General von Kleist
very pleasant. I speak two hours.’
340 GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICH
45 For JG’s speech in Königsberg, May 14, see ibid., 5292ff; and the Ostpreussische Zeitung,
May 15 (with photo), and unpubl. diary, May 15, 1934. He found Brauchitsch ‘very nice, but
a monarchist like many in the army.’ He also spoke in Munich, and Münster.
46 E.g., ibid, pp.5262f.
47 See the Braunbuch des Hitler-Terrors, p.62; and JG’s testimony at the Reichstag fire trial,
Nov 8, 1933, p.28.—Afterwards, JG’s condemnation of homosexuals became extreme, e.g.