Doctor Goebbels: His Life & Death
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too; Breker rates only three mentions over the same period, one of them a terse:
‘Never again.’81
On visits to Magda at the clinic her jealous tirades drive their relationship almost
to destruction.82 His diary celebrates her homecoming on March 23 most touchingly.
‘She is my One and All. When she’s not there, house and home lie empty and
desolate.’83 With Magda home again, he fills Schwanenwerder with friends from the
film industry like the Veit Harlans, the Willy Birgels, the Höpfner sisters, and Lida
Baarova. ‘Magda is against the most beautiful of all,’ he writes, helplessly caught
between the two women: ‘Women are a plague on us all,’ he reflects in April.84 In
July he discusses his wife’s indifferent health with Ilse Hess, who writes to Magda:
‘Your husband told me that he’s worried about you, and that you ought to have a
pause to recuperate before getting down to the next five offspring you’ve promised
the Führer and the Third Reich.’85
Indifferent to the needs of his own Berliners, but at their expense, he sequestrates
still more of the forest terrain surrounding his villa at Lanke. Labour service gangs
clear paths and erect boardwalks through ‘my forest’, as he brazenly terms it, and
begin laying down a private beach with a little jetty.86 Officials import swans and
wild duck to the lake.87 On Hanke’s advice he commissions Hitler’s young architect
Albert Speer to redesign his official residence in Hermann-Göring Strasse.88 As he
watches the newly imported reindeer stealing across his lawn at Lanke, he is becoming
more detached than ever from the ordinary Berliners to whom he owes so much,
yet Hitler still does nothing against this blatant corruption.
Goebbels proudly shows him the new Baarova film ‘Patriots’ and hastens out to
Lanke afterwards to tell her that it has delighted him. Twice that May Hitler comes
over to Schwanenwerder to cruise aboard the Goebbels yacht, surrounded by the
latest handsome women in the minister’s life. And once, as they again cruise alone
amongst the blossoms of Potsdam, Hitler unburdens himself to Goebbels about his
secret, innermost ambition—to undo for ever the humiliation done to Germany by
GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICH 419
the Peace of Westphalia which had concluded the Thirty Years’ War in 1648 greatly to
her disadvantage.89
ENCOURAGED by these confidences, Goebbels publicly stated his views on foreign affairs.
Speaking in Berlin on February 12, 1937 of the new Czech alliance with Moscow
he warned, ‘Let the world take note that Germany is a great power.’ London
bridled. ‘We are now gradually coming out with our colonial demands,’ he recorded
the next day, ‘and the people who pilfered our colonies don’t like this at all.’90 He got
on well with the new British ambassador, Sir Nevile Henderson, and both men hoped
that if Britain’s new prime minister Neville Chamberlain could only rein in the Jewish
press clamour there was a real chance of rapprochement despite all the gaucheries
that the Nazi ambassador von Ribbentrop was committing in London.91
Hitler had no firm plan of action mapped out as yet. Like Goebbels he believed in
the Goddess of Good Fortune—in seizing opportunities as they arose.92 Goebbels
had however begun preparing his ministry for war: at Hitler’s instigation he had
begun installing a cable radio system (Drahtfunk) which would free transmitter capacity
for a propaganda war while rendering the German listening public impervious
to enemy radio propaganda.93 He issued contracts for five powerful one-megawatt
transmitters.94 He also began installing networks of loudspeakers in city streets.95
By this time, though without perceptible immediate cause, he had become concerned
about his own safety. He underwent pistol training96, and in December 1937
he called off at the last minute a private trip to Egypt which he had been planning for
three months—one phone call from Rudolf Hess, warning of possible risks, sufficed.
‘On occasions,’ reported the British embassy, ‘he has shown a certain nervousness
about his own skin.’97
Political events in Central Europe were slowly building up their own head of steam.
At the end of July 1937 he staged a spectacular choral festival at Breslau. Among the
thirty thousand Germans from overseas was a large contingent from Austria. The
Austrians chanted Goebbels’ latest slogan, ‘Ein Reich—ein Volk!’ There were emotional
scenes in the main square as the massed choirs marched past. Newsreel cam-
420 GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICH
eras whirred. The scenes remained engraved on the memory of event member of
Hitler’s staff. ‘For a quarter of an hour the procession halts,’ described Goebbels,
‘the people just standing still, singing, laughing, weeping.’ Everybody knew what
Hitler was thinking at that moment, he said later. When—it was now no longer a
question of if—they went marching in to Austria, hardly a shot would be fired. He
showed Hitler the newsreels two days later, but Hitler ordered him not to release
them to avoid reprisals against those seen cheering.98
On the day after Breslau, Hitler visited Schwanenwerder—Goebbels’ sister was
celebrating her engagement—and again took him into his confidence. He planned to
make a ‘clean sweep’ in Austria. ‘Let’s hope we all live to see that day,’ wrote Goebbels.
He day-dreamed about the Führer’s triumphal entry into Vienna. After that, he mused,
it would be Czechoslovakia’s turn.99 At the Nuremberg rally in September the Austrian
contingent again staged an emotional scene. Here, Hitler assured Goebbels:
‘Austria will be dealt with one day by force.’ After further scenes of fraternization
(‘Maidens hug and kiss me. Oh, thou wunderbares Volk!’) Goebbels promised grimly
in his diary: ‘We ’re on our way!’100
‘DR GOEBBELS does these things well,‘ remarked one British official drily, after reading
his fifty-page speech at Nuremberg, yet another attack on bolshevism and the Jews.101
In Russia, said Goebbels, Stalin had murdered 42,000 priests; in Spain, his agents
had already killed seventeen thousand priests and monks by February yet the world
resounded with horror if one Jew in Germany had his ears deservedly boxed. The
Jew, he said, was a parasite, ‘the destroyer of culture … the ferment of decomposition.’
Hitler’s line again marginally varied from Goebbels’. As joint winner of the
new National Prize, Hitler had nominated Professor Ernst Sauerbach, despite objections
from Goebbels that the surgeon was a ‘vassal of the Jews.’ Goebbels now asked
the surgeon to join the party. Sauerbach politely declined.102
Opinion was divided about Goebbels’ real influence on Hitler. Which was the evil
genius, and which the spellbound princeling? George Ward Price, the perceptive
Daily Mail journalist, was emphatic that Goebbels was more dangerous even than
GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICH 421
Himmler, because he committed Hitler to courses of action by presenting him with
faits accomplis.103 (The presidential election; the trials of the priests; the later pogroms
against the Jews, and total war are all supporting examples.) Only rarely d
id
Hitler actually apply the brake: In November for instance he phoned Goebbels to
back off on their colonial demands.104 When Goebbels initiated a raucous campaign
against the Czech government, alleging maltreatment of their German ethnic minority,
first the Sudeten German leader Konrad Henlein, and then Hitler asked him
to slow down.105 Over lunch at the chancellery Hitler reminded him that Germany
could not do anything about it yet. ’The Czechs,’ sulked Goebbels, ‘are crazy. They
are surrounded by a hundred million enemies whose land and people they have
usurped. Na, prost!’ he exclaimed, ironically toasting them. Before lunch ended Hitler
had again told him to downplay both the colonial and the church problems too.
‘We must keep our propaganda powder dry,’ agreed Goebbels.106
THAT afternoon however, in Goebbels’ absence, Hitler called a secret Cabinet level
meeting at which he revealed to his foreign ministers and his commanders-in-chief
his intention to launch a way of territorial conquest, beginning with a ‘lightning
attack’ on Czechoslovakia during 1938.107
Winning over Britain in the meanwhile, without offending Mussolini, would be a
challenge.108 Here Goebbels was a greater hindrance than Ribbentrop. While Ambassador
Henderson respected Goebbels, his principal officials believed that he was
trying to whip up anti-British sentiment.109 This was not true. While mocking the
hypocrisy of the English, he echoed Hitler’s regrets that they were losing their Empire.
He blamed this on the foolish statesmanship of Eden, and compared him unfavourably
with Lord Halifax, the Lord Privy Seal, who was visiting Germany for
Göring’s international hunting exhibition.110
Goebbels took tea with this aristocratic English statesman, this ‘very calm, collected,
and clever’ Cabinet minister, and pleaded with him to rein in Britain’s unruly,
sensation-hungry editors.111 He drew attention to his own newspapers’ restraint during
the British abdication crisis. ‘I had expected to dislike him [Goebbels] intensely,’
422 GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICH
confessed Lord Halifax in his own private diary, ‘—but didn’t. I suppose it must be
some moral defect in me, but the fact remains.’112
1 Diary, Jan 29, Mar 3, 1937; passim, 1938.
2 Ibid., May 5, 15, 1937.
3 Table talk, dinner, May 24-5, 1942. Heinrich Heim, Monologe im Führerhauptquartier 1941-
1944 (Munich, 1980) 295.
4 Darré diary, Feb 8, 1937, lunch. ‘Der Spötter des Dritten Reiches.’
5 Magda told Count Ciano (Ciano diary, May 21, 1939) that dinner with Hitler was stupendously
boring.
6 Friedelind Wagner, Nacht über Bayern (Munich, 1947).
7 Traudl Humbs MS.
8 Capt. Herbert Friedrichs, interview, Nov 19, 1972, and letter to author, Apr 4, 1989; in
his diary, Jan 31, 1938 JG notes one dinner: ‘Frau von Dirksen goes rabbiting on, pure
rubbish. I’m furious with her. The Führer is much too indulgent toward her.’
9 Auguste Behrend, op. cit., No.19, May 10, 1952.
10 Diary, Jun 13, 1941.
11 Hanfstaengel, report on JG for Pres. Roosevelt, Jul 16, 1943 (FDR Libr. PSF box 126)
12 Affidavits by Karl Bodenschatz, Wilhelm Brückner, and others in the Irving collection,
IfZ.
13 Interviews of naval adjutant Karl-Jesco von Puttkamer in 1967.
14 Karl-Wilhelm Krause, 15ff.
15 Ibid., and Hans Leo Martin, Unser Mann bei Goebbels (Neckargemünd, 1973).
16 Diary, Feb 24, 1937: ‘Greeted everywhere most warmly by the people.’
17 Minute by Stevenson, FO., Jun 15, 1937, citing former diplomat Count Albrecht
Bernstorff (FO.371/20733); Bernstorff was shot after the July 1944 plot.
18 Diary, Dec 1, 12, 13, 1937. ‘One has to make an example of him.’
19 Traudl Humbs MS.
20 Julius Streicher diary, Nov 13, 1945; by kind permission of Karl Höffkes.
21 Diary, Aug 15, 1937.
22 Darré diary, Feb 22, 1938.
23 This was on Apr 24, 1937. Hans Kehrl, Krisenmanager im Dritten Reich (Düsseldorf, 1973),
82ff. JG’s diary, May 1, 1937 puts a different gloss on it: he had been ‘cordially welcomed’
everywhere. He then admitted that the ‘ill-disciplined’ Kreisleiter had all muttered against
his speech and he was going to draw the necessary conclusions. ‘I tick off [Ley] again about
the Vogelsang scandal.’ On Jun 13, 1937, he said it was the last time he would make such a
speech. ‘The Kreisleiter are little demigods,’ he wrote on Jan 11, 1938, still furious about
the humiliating episode.
GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICH 423
24 Diary, Dec 25, 1937: he listens to the broadcast of his conversations with the children as
presents are handed over.
25 Ibid., Dec 5, 1937. The first day of the 1937/8 WHW raised 8·5m marks, 32.5 percent
more than the year before.
26 ‘Material received by the Minister of Propaganda,’ Libr. of Congress, film reel 20, containers
43, 44.
27 Diary, Oct 30, 1937.
28 Illustrierter Beobachter, Oct 21, 1937.
29 Kurt Prager to Magda Goebbels, Nov 7, 1937 (Libr. of Congress, loc.cit.).
30 Kirkpatrick to Strang, FO., Jan 12, 1938 (PRO file FO.371/21660). He traded in the
Maybach for a Horch, then a 200hp Mercedes (diary, Oct 26, 1937; Jan 1, Feb 19, 1938);
Ogilvie Forbes to Eden, Jan 4, 1938 (PRO file FO.371/21671).—For more detail on the
RMVP’s cars 1935–43 see BA file R.55/418.
31 Diary, Mar 21, 24, 1937.
32 Ibid., Mar 31, Apr 2, 1937.—Hans Günter Hockerts, Die Sittlichkeitsprozesse gegen
Katholische Ordensangehörige und Priester 1936/37. (Mainz, 1971).
33 Ibid., Apr 4–6, 1937.
34 Ibid., Apr 6, 7, 13, 1937.
35 Ibid., Apr, 26, 29, 1937.
36 Ibid., Apr 30, 1937.
37 Ibid., May 1, 1937.
38 Ibid., May 4, 1937.
39 Ibid., May 12, 13; further church trials that summer, ibid., Jul 1, 4, 1937.
40 Ibid., May 25–6, 1937; this claims that Hitler, cruising with him off Schwanenwerder,
gave him tips for the speech.
41 Sir Nevile Henderson to F.O., May 29, 1937 (PRO file, FO.371/20727).
42 Diary, Jun 14, 1937.
43 Ibid., Jun 3, 4, 1937.
44 Ibid., Aug 1, 4, 1937.
45 Ibid., Aug 7, 1937.
46 Ibid., Aug 8, 13, 1937.
47 Ibid., Dec 22, 1937; Jan 15, 1938.
48 Gestapo Nuremberg to Gestapo Berlin, Sep 23, 1938, with attachments; the open letter
circulated in Eichstätt Oct 3–15, 1937 (NA film T81, roll 184, 3495ff).
49 Diary, Oct 5, 9, 16, 1937.
50 Ibid., Aug 11, 12, Oct 27, 1937.
51 Ibid., Mar 3, 8, 10, 11; and Dec 31, 1937, further allegations about Funk.
52 Ibid., Oct 7, 8, Nov 5, 1937.
53 Unpubl. diary, Mar 7, 1938.
54 Diary , Feb 3, May 5, Jun 4, 30, Sep 21, 1937, Oct 9, Dec 3, 1937; Jan 13; unpubl. diary,
Mar 16, May 18, Oct 5, 1938, Mar 16, Jun 23, 1939, etc.