Switzerland, Mussolini’s daughter Edda Ciano philosophizes that an unfaithful spouse
is but one trivial annoyance in ones mortal span. Magda begins to go out more alone.
One day Goebbels records moodily that the moment Magda returns home he leaves
for Schwanenwerder— ‘I have no place I can call home when she’s there.’19 Oppressed
by the chains of marriage, he lies out late on the darkening meadow gazing at
the stars.20 He indulges in a large motor launch, and spends many an afternoon lolling
about the lake, chatting on its mobile phone to his friends; he buys another boat
for Magda and the children.21 Hanfstaengl describes one ghastly incident at a Goebbels
party: as the last guests leave, the crippled minister trips and falls; Magda helps him
to his feet. Purple with rage, he seizes her by the throat and forces her sideways to
her knees. ‘There,’ he screams, ‘now you see who is the stronger, who is the master.’22
After one tiff she resorts to tears. ‘Sometimes she gets into a state,’ he writes helplessly,
‘like all women. Then you’ve just got to bare your teeth at her.’23
His own circle expands. She becomes accustomed to all the other lovelies fluttering
around her powerful husband.24 There is a stream of delectable wannabee-actresses.
‘I’ll try,’ notes Goebbels succinctly after Eva Vanya visits, seeking a role.25
Anny Ondra, the blonde, cheerful and naïve wife of boxer Max Schmeling, comes to
Schwanenwerder; Goebbels finds Edda Ciano, who also comes, ‘frightfully painted,
like just about every other Italian woman.’26 At the Italian embassy’s reception for
Edda a woman burbles loudly about Erich Maria Remarque’s ‘wonderful’ new book.
‘That communist,’ the minister shrills, casting the first stone. ‘He writes about war
without ever having been in the trenches.’ Bella Fromm notices that Goebbels ventures
only the curtest nod in Leni Riefenstahl’s direction.27
It is the children who hold the Goebbels marriage together in the mid-Thirties.
Helga, the apple of Hitler’s eye too now, sits on her papa’s lap singing lustily as they
return from the seaside near Peenemünde that July.28 ‘Grandma is old,’ she defines
solemnly that summer. ‘But Papa is—new!’29 The three children are his sunshine. As
GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICH 389
they splash around in a new rubber dinghy, his heart aches with parental love.30 He
persuades the Cabinet to approve the death-penalty for child kidnappers. Hitler will
say that if little Helga were twenty years older, and he twenty years younger, she
would have made the ideal wife for him. An enchanting, precocious, graceful girl she
will captive everybody with remarks that are as genuine as Hitler’s are contrived.
‘My little heart is thumping,’ she squawks in one moment of girlish panic, and her
doting father remembers the words in his diary.’31
AMONG the cavalcades of English ladies passing through Berlin that summer of 1936 is
Diana Mitford. Staying with her sister Unity at Schwanenwerder for the Olympic
Games, she conveys to Goebbels a plea for secret funds from Sir Oswald Mosley, an
upstanding and forceful former minister who has resigned from the British Labour
party to set up his own radical movement along fascist lines. (When Mosley had
visited Hitler on April 25, 1935, Goebbels noted in his unpublished diary: ‘He makes
a good impression. A bit brash, which he tries to conceal behind a forced pushiness.
Otherwise acceptable however. Of course he’s on his best behaviour. The Führer has
set to work on him. Wonder if he’ll ever come to power?’32) By 1936 Mosley is
already receiving substantial secret aid from Mussolini, and now he is boldly asking
Hitler for an infusion of one hundred thousand pounds (around half a million dollars).
33 Taking Diana and her sister Unity to see Hitler on June 19, 1936 Dr Goebbels
procures (his diary claims) £10,000 for Mosley—less than the asking amount, but
still a very substantial contribution given Germany’s currency shortages.34 He is dubious
as to what good it might do, and nominates Franz Wrede, of the Party’s press
office, to smuggle the cash over to London.35 ‘Mosley must work harder,’ summarizes
Goebbels after Wrede reports back to him, ‘and be less mercenary.’36 Diana will
recall years later that brilliant orator though he was, Goebbels was amazingly jealous
and small-minded. When she returns in August, asking for more, he fobs her off
(with Hitler’s approval). ‘They must learn to help themselves,’ he comments, recollecting
his own penniless start in Berlin.37
390 GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICH
As her private sorrows increase, Magda drinks more heavily, and sometimes her
eye wanders. It is Rosenberg, of all people, who tips off Goebbels about a certain
Lüdecke in her life.38 At first she cries a lot and denies it when he asks her, leaving
him agonizing over whether she’s lying. On the first night in August, the day the
Berlin Olympiad opens, she admits that she has strayed. ‘A great blow to my trust,’
he writes, downcast. ‘It’ll take me a while to get over it.’39 He spends sleepless nights
brooding, and evidently mentions it to Hitler. ‘He praises Magda a lot,’ he writes
after that. ‘Finds her bewitching, “the best wife I could ever find”.’ ‘When I speak
alone with him,’ records the young minister the next day, ‘he talks to me like a father.’
40
Not for the last time, Magda leaves for the White Hart sanatorium in Dresden,
playground of the wealthy, leaving her children at Schwanenwerder for the summer.
Goebbels barely misses her. He has his hands full with planning the Nuremberg rally;
Hitler has flatly rejected his half-hearted suggestion that they skip the rally this year
because of the Olympics.41
THE Olympic games of 1936 were a sporting and propaganda triumph for Germany.
Tourists flooded in.42 Confounding foreign expectations Hitler ruled that all competitors
be treated with equal respect regardless of race or religion. Goebbels ordered
the party to keep a low profile.43 As Leni Riefenstahl’s crews filmed the events,
awash with a 1.2 million mark loan from the ministry, Goebbels found her increasingly
tiresome. ‘I have had to knock some sense into La Riefenstahl,’ he wrote. ‘Her
behaviour is unspeakable! A hysterical woman! Anyway, no man.’44 Their spat would
continue until Hitler lost patience, banged their heads together, ordered Goebbels
to accompany him to Riefenstahl’s villa in Dahlem and had a joint photograph printed
in the entire press the next day.45
At the end of the games Goebbels staged the most sumptuous all-night party of his
life. Benno von Arent’s stage designers and craftsmen had laboured for weeks to
convert Peacock Island, an unspoilt wilderness near Potsdam, into a fairy grotto;
thousands of butterfly shaped lamps graced the trees, and there were three outdoor
GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICH 391
dance floors, brightly coloured marquees, and tables for thousands of guests—among
them Gustav Fröhlich and his eye-catching film star fiancée Lida Baarova, upon whom
Goebbels heaped particular compliments this night; he had again noticed her talents
in her latest film a few weeks earlier
.46 ‘Everybody with legs was there,’ recorded the
Little Doctor proudly afterwards, knowing he had outdone Göring at last. He sashayed
around in an elegant white suit; Magda, never one to miss a party, had returned from
Dresden, and glided at his side in a bright organdy outfit. ‘Not only was a gorgeous
dinner served,’ described Louis Lochner in a letter home, ‘not only did wine, strawberry
bowle, and champagne flow freely … but each lady was, in addition, presented
with a piece of china. At 11 P.M. the ballet of the Opera performed charmingly,
in brand new sets of costumes designed especially for this fête, and at midnight
we were treated to fireworks the likes of which I haven’t seen in years. Where the
government gets the money from to entertain thus lavishly, I don’t know.’47
The good times rolled for Dr Goebbels all that summer. He had the new launch,
and a new Mercedes 5·4 litre two-seats sports car.48 He had ordered yet another
limousine, an open Horch tourer just like the Führer’s.49 He test-cruised an even
classier motor boat.50 And yet, in the more distant valleys of his mind, it was as if he
could already hear a bell tolling—more persistent, more penetrating than the great
peal of Cologne. He sat brooding at his desk, drafting his speech for the Nuremberg
rally, reading up on the communist reign of terror in Republican Spain. The Reds
there had slain priests and nuns, and butchered seven thousand of their enemies in
Madrid alone. Might not the same one day come to pass in Berlin?
‘Woe betide us in that event,’ he wrote thoughtfully in his diary. ‘We and our
families would all be done for. The best thing then would be to finish yourself off
first.’51
1 Aktionsfähig nach außen. These words were once more omitted from the newspaper texts.
Report by Phipps to FO, Mar 12, 1936 (PRO file FO.371/19890).
2 Diary, Mar 28, 1936.
3 JG proclamation, Mar 24, 1936; PRO file FO.371/19884.
392 GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICH
4 Diary, Mar 19, 1936.
5 See Phipps to Eden, Mar 31, 1936 (PRO file FO.371/1923).
6 Diary, Feb 17, 1936. Wilhelm Baur of Eher Verlag told him his royalty account balance.
Between Dec 16, 1935 and Dec 2, 1936 JG drew advances of 290,000 marks. He declared
earnings of 63,654 marks to the tax authorities over this period (Hoover Libr.: Goebbels
papers, box 2.); small wonder that the tax inspectors plagued him—’plundering me and
cheeky to boot’ (diary, Jun 10, 1936).
7 Diary, Mar 15, 1936.
8 Ibid., Mar 22, 1936. Recollections differ on how JG financed this deal, e.g. Winkler,
interrogated by Korf on May 1, 1948. It seems JG merely promised to pay and completed
the deal in Nov 1936. Amann confirmed to Korf, May 4, 1948 that he recalled Hitler said to
him in Thiersch Strasse, Munich that he wanted JG to have a stylish home in Berlin, and that
JG needed 300,000 or 370,000 marks to buy a property: ‘If I had the money,’ said Hitler, ‘I’d
give it him. Goebbels is one of Eher’s best authors.’ Amann, no fool, checked his firm’s
royalty accounts before advancing the money. His version, and Hitler’s role, are independently
confirmed by his accountant Joseph Pickel, questioned by Korf on May 13, 1945 (Hoover
Libr.: Korf papers).
9 Basler National Zeitung, Dec 11, 1945. The lot No.8–10 Insel Strasse was finally 8,740
square metres. The West Berlin authorities confiscated it in 1954. Tagesspiegel Berlin, Nov 24,
1954.
10 Reuth, 340, citing the Schwanenwerder Land Registry in Schöneberg magistrates
court; the sale was registered on Apr 25, 1935.
11 Ernst ‘Putzi’ Hanfstaengel, report on JG for Pres. Roosevelt, Jul 16, 1943 (FDR Libr.
PSF box 126)
12 Diary, Mar 29, 1936.
13 Ibid., Apr 20, 1936.
14 Ibid., Apr 4, 6, 8, 11, 1936.
15 Ibid., Oct 22, 1936. Winkler and Amann, questioned by Korf, May 1 and 3, 1948,
were vague as to the details. In the Goebbels papers at the Hoover Library, box 2, is a tax
statement showing that JG duly received 290,000 marks advance royalties from Eher Verlag
from Dec 16, 1925 to Dec 23, 1936, against which his books earned 63,416·31 marks
during 1936.
16 The real estate files of the Zehlendorf courthouse confirm that JG paid the whole
270,000 marks in cash. See Korf’s interview of JG’s conveyancing attorney Dr Alfons Knatsch,
Apr 12, 1948.
17 Diary, Apr 20, 1936; Behrend, loc. cit., No.17, Apr 26, 1952.
18 JG to Reichshauptkasse, Apr 7, 1936 (ZStA, Potsdam, Rep.90, Go 1, vol.3)
19 Diary, May 2, 5, 7, 11, 1936 records constant rows.
20 Ibid., May 8, 1936.
21 Ibid., Jul 8, 9, 1936.
22 Ibid., Apr 16, May 3, Jun 13, Jul 9, 1936.
23 Ernst Hanfstaengel, report on JG for Pres. Roosevelt, Jul 16, 1943 (FDR Libr. PSF
box 126)
24 Diary, Jul 9, 1936.
GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICH 393
25 Ibid., Apr 18, 19, 26, May 8, 13, Jun 23, 1936.
26 Ibid., Jul 14, 1936.
27 Ondra: Ibid., May 19, Jun 11; Edda: Jun 8, 9: ‘The Führer does not like painted ladies
either.’
28 Fromm diary, Jun 12, 1936 (Boston Univ. Libr, Fromm papers, box 2; cf MS in box
61).
29 Diary, Jul 2, 1936.
30 Ibid., Jun 25, 1936.
31 Ibid., Jun 16, 1936.
32 Ibid., Feb 2, 1937.
33 Unpubl. diary, Apr 27, 1935 (Moscow archives).
34 Diary, Jun 19, 1936: JG noted that Mosley said he had been promised £60,000 and ‘has
already received £2,000.’—Despite contemporary denials by Sir Oswald, I found in Italian
ambassador Dino Grandi’s files the receipts and reports on transfers of substantial cash sums
to Mosley in 1936 (Archivo Segreto dello Stato, Rome). While it must be said there is no
such evidence in German files, Diana Mosley now says, ‘It is difficult to argue with a diary’
(Letter to the author, Jan 22, 1994).
35 Diary, Jun 20, 1936.
36 Otto Dietrich called Wrede in a self-serving interrogation 6824DIC(MIS)/M.1169
‘an arrogant, stupid, fanatic Nazi.’
37 Diary, Jun 24, Jul 29, 1936.
38 Ibid., Aug 6, 7, 1936.
39 Perhaps Hitler’s former adviser Kurt G Lüdecke; JG also employed a manservant
Lüdecke at Lanke—but Magda is unlikely to have crossed the class-barrier. Rosenberg had
met JG in the training centre of the Party’s foreign policy agency (APA) in Dahlem on Jul
31, to set aside their differences. (Rosenberg to JG, Aug 28, 1936. Rosenberg papers, NA
film, T454, roll 74, 0601ff); JG diary, Aug 1, 1936.
40 Diary, Aug 2, 1936.
41 Ibid., Aug 5, 7, 1936.
42 Ibid., Jul 7, 8, 1936.
43 See BA file R.55/509.
44 Diary, Jun 26, 1936.
45 Ibid., Aug 6, 1936; Cooper C Graham, Leni Riefenstahl and Olympia (London, 1986).
46 Schaub MS (IfZ, ED.100/203, Irving collection).
47 Gustav Fröhlich, 367; the film was Stunde der Versuchung—JG noted (Jun 10, 1936) it
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