an admiring Goebbels, ‘believes in his mission with the sureness of a sleepwalker.
Not for one moment does his hand tremble. A great genius in our midst… One has
to serve him with profound devotion. He is more true, more simple, more farsighted
than any German statesman that has gone before.’52 The German public was
spared these insights. War panic now gripped its heart. That evening Hitler ordered a
mechanized division to rumble through the capital. He sat watching from the darkened
foyer of the chancellery as the armour rattled past, while Goebbels mingled
GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICH 473
unseen with the crowds.53 ‘The public,’ he wrote, concerned, afterwards, ‘is filled
with a profound worry. They know that we’re coming into the last lap now.’
As the deadline for Hitler’s ultimatum approached Goebbels decided to head him
off. The British and French ambassadors got to Hitler first, bringing fragrant fresh
proposals. Ribbentrop was furious that war might be averted. ‘He nurtures a blind
hatred of Britain,’ decided Goebbels. ‘Göring, Neurath, and I urge Hitler to accept.…
You can’t get into what may well turn into a world war over procedural issues. Göring
… totally shares my viewpoint and gives Ribbentrop a piece of his mind.’ ‘Mein
Führer,’ he blurted out over lunch in Hitler’s chancellery on the twenty-eighth, ‘if
you think that the German public is thirsting for war, you are wrong. They watch its
approach with a leaden sense of apathy.’54
In that instant Hitler changed his mind. According to Ribbentrop’s Staatssekretär
Ernst von WeizsäckerÊ it was primarily Goebbels who persuaded Hitler to back off
from war at this, the eleventh hour.55 Perhaps Hitler even welcomed his moderating
influence. He immediately approved suggestions for a four-power conference to take
place in Munich the next day. Goebbels saw the likely outcome thus: ‘We take the
Sudeten territories peacefully; the grand solution remains wide open, and we gird
ourselves for future contingencies.’ He was due to address half a million people in
the Lustgarten that evening. He prudently decided not to revealing anything of the
morrow’s certain victory. ‘Nothing would be more improper,’ he explained to his
staff after that historic luncheon, ‘than to announce Chamberlain’s coming. That would
unleash incredble public scenes of jubilation; and then the British would realize the
truth—that all our belligerence is just bluster.’56
Remaining in Berlin, he warned his editors not to let their campaign about ‘Czech
terror’ flag either. Soon Hanke, sent to Munich as his observer, reported that Mussolini,
Chamberlain, and Daladier had agreed to Hitler’s demands. Czechoslovakia should
hand over the disputed territories in the first ten days of October. ‘So that’s all we get
for the time being,’ noted Goebbels. ‘Under the circumstances,’ he added, hiding his
relief, ‘we are unable to realize our grand plan’—seizing allÊ of Czechoslovakia.57
474 GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICH
Hitler had dramatically increased the Reich’s international prestige. In a stinging
rebuff to Beneoar(s,ˇ), the four powers had not even invited the Czechs to the Munich
conference. ‘And now,’ triumphed Goebbels in his unpublished diary, ‘let us
rearm, rearm, and rearm!’ Once more he ordered his gau to prepare a hero’s welcome
for the Führer at the Anhalt railroad station.58
He had other causes to rejoice. ‘Ribbentrop fell flat on his face,’ he wrote. ‘Göring
is livid with him. Calls him a pompous primadonna.’ He had already commented
during June on the foreign minister’s pathological hatred of the English—a relic of
the treatment meted out by the British establishment to him as ambassador.59 ‘The
Führer,’ Goebbels had added in September, ‘is in for a big surprise with him.’60
Back in Berlin, Hitler told his lunch guests about the famous ‘piece of paper,’ the
Anglo-German declaration that Chamberlain had sprung on him afterwards for signature.
He did not believe that the British meant to honour it, he said. Chamberlain
was a fox. ‘He tackles each issue ice-cool,’ he reiterated. ‘We’re really going to have
watch out for these British.’61
Over dinner the next day he again revealed his unshatterable resolve to destroy
Czechoslovakia, as Goebbels recalled his words. He doggedly argued that London
and Paris would not have intervened. Goebbels still differed on that score.62
A few days later however Hitler personally inspected the Czech fortifications and
he realized that it was fortunate after all that there had not been any fighting. ‘We
would have shed a lot of blood,’ he privately admitted. It was a good thing, Goebbels
decided, that things had turned out the way they did.63
1 Hitler’s secret speech to Nazi editors, Nov 10, 1938 (BA file NS.11/28).
2 Taubert report.
3 Berndt was chief of JG’s press department (Abteilung Presse). On his role in fabricating
these atrocity stories see the testimony of Schirmeister on Jun 28, 1946 (IMT, xvii, 262, and
the Nuremberg interrogation of Heinz Lorenz, Dec 3, 1947 (IfZ, ZS-266).
4 See JG diary, Aug 30, 1938: ‘Henlein’s propaganda minister Höller reports to me from
Prague…’ On Höller see VB, Oct 13, 1938, p.2.
GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICH 475
5 From the memoirs of JG’s press officer (Pressereferent): published anonymously by E.G.
Schoor as ‘Ein enger Mitarbeiter des Reichspropagandaministers erzählt,’ copyright Hermann
Laatzen Verlag, Hamburg, in Nord-West-Illustrierte, in 1949 (IfZ archives). Cited hereafter as
‘Pressereferent memoirs.’ The author was Moritz von Schirmeister, as both the memoirs
and he misdate a certain episode as Jul 20, 1939 (Cf. interrog., May 6, 1946, NA film M.1270,
roll 19). Schirmeister, an SS Hauptsturmführer, entered the party on Oct 1, 1931, was JG’s
Pressereferent from Jul 1, 1938 to Jul 1, 1943.
6 Diary, Jul 25, 1938.
7 Ibid., but see Aug 17, 1938: Dietrich told JG, Hitler had intended nothing special with
this visit, merely to reassure Britain.
8 The Times, Jul 30; NYT, Jul 30, 1938; Henderson to FO, Jul 30 (PRO file FO.371/2163);
BA file R.55/961.—JG advised people to compare the newsreels of Hitler and the other
‘dictators.’ ‘We have to take care,’ he said, ‘that flowers are not thrown at our statesmen.
Elsewhere they have to protect their statesmen against rotten eggs.’
9 Diary, Aug 1, 1938.
10 Ibid., Aug 22, 1938.
11 Ibid., Aug 17, 1938.
12 Ibid.
13 Ibid., Aug 18, 1938.
14 Ibid., Aug 19, 1938.
15 He repeats these adjectives in the diary on Aug 17, 18, 19, 20, 1928.
16 Ibid., Aug 21, 1938.
17 Ibid., Aug 27, 1938.
18 Ibid., Sep 1, 1938.
19 Unpub. diary, Sep 2; he does not see the children again until Oct 14, 1938.
20 Diary, Aug 28, 30; unpubl. diary, Sep 2, 1938.
21 Diary, Aug 30; JG (ibid., Sep 16, 1938) called this attaché der alte Hosenscheißer.
22 Ibid., Aug 31, 1938.
23 Ibid., Sep 1; Wünsche diary, Aug 31, 1938.
24 And see too diary, Aug 28, 1938.
25 Unpubl. diary, Sep 2, 1
938.
26 Ibid., Sep 2, Wünsche diary, Sep 1, 1938.
27 Ibid. Sep 3; Wünsche diary, Sep 2; NYT, Sep 2, 1938.
28 Unpubl. diary, Sep 5, 1938.
29 Ibid., Sep 6, 1938.
30 Ibid., Sep 6, 7, 1938.
31 Ibid., Sep 8, 1938.
32 Ibid., Sept 9, 1938.
33 Ibid., Sep 10, 1938.
34 Ibid., Sep 11, 1938.
35 See Ogilvie Forbes to FO, Sep 14, 1938 (FO.371/21760); and unpubl. diary, Sep 11,
12, 1938.
36 Ibid., Sep 14, 1938.
37 Ibid., Sep 15, 1938.
476 GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICH
38 Ibid., Sep 18, 1938.
39 Ibid., Sep 16, 17, 1938.
40 Ibid., Sep 18; Wünsche and Bormann diaries, Sep 17, 1938.
41 Unpubl. diary, Sep 18; and again on Sep 19, 1938.
42 Ibid., Sep 20, 1938. Hitler gave a file of these Beneoar(s,ˇ) wiretaps to the British (PRO
file FO.371/21742). See David Irving, Das Reich hört mit (Kiel, 1988), appendix. Interrogation
of Legationsrat Emil Rasche (NA file RG.226, file XE.4986); and Hitler’s remarks to
the editors on Nov 10, 1938 (BA file NS.11/28).
43 Unpubl. diary, Sep 20, 1938.
44 JG was unprintable about Hungary’s ‘shameless’ weakness, cowardice, and greed: see
his unpubl. diary, entries of Sep 21, 22, 26, 27, Oct 6, 9, 15, 16, 18, 20, 24, and Nov 4,
1938.
45 Transcript of Hitler’s meeting with Lipski, Sep 20; and unpubl. JG diary, Sep 21, 1938.
46 Ibid., Sep 22, 1938.
47 Ibid., Sep 23, 1938.
48 Ibid., Sep 24, 1938.
49 Ibid.
50 Ibid., Sep 26, 1938.
51 In JG’s own circle he noted warnings from Funk, Hanke, and Crosigk (Ibid., Sep 22);
Helldorff (Sep 14); the editors (Sep 15); and that Fritz Wiedemann was to be sacked for
having lost his nerve (Oct 24, 1938).
52 Ibid., Sep 28, 1938. JG had originally planned to seal all German radio receivers to
immunize the public from enemy propaganda; Keitel dissuaded him.
53 Ibid., Sep 28, Oct 2, 1938.
54 Ibid., Sep 28, 1938.
55 Wiedemann, 176.
56 In stummer Obstruktion. Wiedemann, 176. JG’s unpubl. diary, Sep 29 and especially Oct 2,
1939. See too Klaus-Jürgen Müller, Das deutsche Heer und Hitler, 373, n.136.
57 Private letter from Weizsacker’s wife Marianne to his mother, Sep 30, stating that he
gave JG the main credit after Göring over the last few days for averting war. In his diary
Weizsacker wrote on Oct 9, 1938 that JG made his remarks ‘in front of everybody and out
loud to the Führer,’ which he reiterated in his Oct 1939 survey of historical events.
58 Pressereferent (Schirmeister) memoirs. Precisely confirmed by JG’s unpubl. diary, Sep
29, 1938.
59 Unpubl. diary, Sep 30, 1938.
60 Ibid., Oct 1, 1938.
61 Ibid., Jun 3, 1938.
62 Ibid., Sep 5, 1938.
63 Ibid., Oct 2, 1938.
64 Ibid., Oct 3, 1938.
65 Ibid., Oct 10; Hanke echoed this view. ‘Capturing the fortifications would have cost us
rivers of blood.’ (Ibid., Oct 12, 1938.)
GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICH 477
Goebbels
31: The Real Chum
ON the day of Hitler’s triumph in Munich an ugly revelation awaits Goebbels
in Berlin. Given the evasions of his diary in matters matrimonial, however,
we cannot properly speculate on what it is. Suffice to say that police chief Helldorff
visits him late that day and Goebbels then records: ‘A sad and difficult day for me
personally.’ He adds philosophically, ‘If it isn’t one thing it’s another.’1
Four painful weeks have already passed since he last visited Schwanenwerder and
saw his children. ‘Papa has been naughty,’ Magda cruelly tells them. ‘He’s not allowed
to come here any more.’2 She herself has begun drinking heavily and hitting
the night spots—a world of chrome, black leather, and subdued lights. She frequents
cabarets where the stand-up comics make fun of her own husband. Admiral Raeder’s
adjutant is drinking in one such club when Magda utters a boozy invitation to him to
share her bar-stool. After a flurry of indiscretions about her marital problems, she
invites the navy captain and his pals back to her home.3 Five years later, when Goebbels
snarls in his famous Total War speech about ‘the nightclub crowd who crawl from one
bar to the next,’ there Magda—seated in the front row—has no doubt whatever
who is meant by that.4
Joseph Goebbels thought he had friends, as Lida Baarova would sadly remark years
later: but he had none. Behind his back Karl Hanke starts the sniggering rumour that
in the street confrontation early in 1937 Lida’s lover Gustav Fröhlich had actually
478 GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICH
socked Goebbels: improbable though it is—given that the minister throws men into
concentration camp just for their opinions—the story sweeps Germany and delights
foreign capitals.5 A cabaret artiste guffaws, ‘We’d all like to be fröhlich sometime!’—
the word means contented. Schacht calls the minister’s affairs a public scandal.6
Himmler complains to Hitler that he has never liked the Goebbels genus, but has so
far kept his views to himself: ‘Now he’s the most hated man in Germany,’ he said.
There was a time, continues Himmler, when Goebbels used to sound off against the
Jews who sexually coerced their female employees; now the minister is doing the
same himself. ‘It’s obvious,’ adds the Reichsführer, ‘that they are not doing it for love,
but because he’s propaganda minister.’7
Shocked by all this, Hitler orders a watch kept on Goebbels’ former girlfriend
Lida Baarova. Gestapo limousines cruise up and down outside her rented villa in
Grunewald. But Goebbels makes no overt effort to contact her.
During the four dramatic weeks preceding Munich, what he calls his private misère
has receded into the background. For four more weeks he does not see Magda at all.
On the verge of a nervous breakdown he resorts to subterfuge to see Lida. He directs
Hilde Körber to take Lida to the theatre, and feasts his eyes upon her from a
few rows away. He phones Hilde repeatedly to ask how Lida is. He sees the Nuremberg
rally as a welcome distraction from ‘dumb thoughts,’ evidently meaning suicide
because the next day, after talking a party official out of shooting himself over a silly
blunder, he remarks grimly in his diary: ‘We all make silly blunders.’8 He gets his
mother to see Magda in Berlin—to whom alone, ultimately, he is beholden—but it’s
‘the same old melody.’9 ‘I can expect no quarter,’ he writes the next day.10 After
phoning his mother again he gives up. ‘In Berlin there’s the devil to pay. But I’m
immune to all that now.’11 Deprived now of both Magda’s and Lida’s company, he
risks a ‘motor outing’ upon his return from Nuremberg to Berlin (‘just to get some
Doctor Goebbels: His Life & Death Page 78
