Doctor Goebbels: His Life & Death
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were still to take precedence over the new pact.55
They decided it was high time to fly back to Berlin.
During the flight Hitler was on edge; Goebbels wondered how he kept his nerve in
crises like this.56 That it was a crisis became plain when Goebbels read the telegrams:
Chamberlain had told the House of Commons that Britain still stood by her promise
to Poland. The radio waves were filled with the chatter of panicking commentators
—and Goebbels too lay awake for hours that night.57
Friday August 25, 1939 dawned, the eve of war—or so Hitler had planned. At twothirty
P.M. the final mobilisation against Poland was due to start. At the noon press
conference the ministry instructed editors of the next day’s newspapers to highlight
Polish preparations for attacking Germany, the Polish blockade of Danzig, and Polish
acts of terrorism.58 A lieutenant-colonel briefed Goebbels that the attack was scheduled
to begin at 4:30 A.M. the next day: a swift coup de main against Gdynia, Danzig
to declare for the Reich, and then an all-out military onslaught against eastern Up-
GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICH 553
per Silesia. At midday Hitler told him to get two declarations ready, one to the people
and one to the party. Forster phoned from Danzig—evidently heedless of telephone
security—and demanded leaflets for the Polish army and population. Goebbels
heard that the British ambassador had gone to see Hitler again, and that Hitler had
offered Britain the closest cooperation after Poland had been dealt with. ‘Britain
doesn’t believe us any more,’ commented Goebbels. When Hitler said much the
same to France’s ambassador, the latter replied stiffly that ‘on his word as an officer’
France would be obliged to fight.
Undeterred, at 3:02 P.M. Hitler issued the secret executive order for ‘White’, the
attack on Poland at dawn. Japan’s ambassador briefly saw him after that—a frosty
meeting under the circumstances.
THE Japanese ambassador was followed by the Italian, Bernardo Attolico. Embarrassed,
he conveyed to Hitler the shocking news that Italy, his new ally, would not
join in this war.
‘There you have it,’ commented Goebbels acidly. ‘As I always feared and probably
knew too ever since Venice. Italy wants out.’
It was a hideous new situation: Hitler had to cancel all his orders for ‘White’.
Goebbels rushed out a ‘supplemental’ directive to his editors revoking the midday
directive. The new instructions called for ‘press discipline’ and ‘caution’—editors
were to hold back their stories on the Poles’ military actions and terrorism.59 A
photographer snapped Hitler and Bormann with Otto Dietrich and Dr Goebbels, all
in plain clothes; the propaganda minister was looking at his feet, baffled.60 ‘The Führer,’
recorded Goebbels, ‘is brooding and thinking things over. It’s a hard blow for him.
But he’ll find a way out, even from this devilish situation. He’s always found one
before and he’ll do so this time too.’ As grim-faced generals dashed this way and that,
Goebbels hurried back to his ministry to throw his whole machinery into reverse as
well. It took him until midnight; Magda, ashen-faced with worry, came to be with
him. Everything depended on maintaining the pressure, he decided: on keeping a
stiff upper lip.
554 GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICH
So he wrote afterwards, recording this eventful day.61 And that was the directive he
issued at next morning’s press conference. It adumbrated for the first time ‘preventive’
German operations, but forbade speculation on dates and deadlines; there must
be no talk of ‘one minute to twelve’, or ‘an attack is expected hourly.’ The tame
newshounds there thus led briefly back to their kennels.62
Not surprisingly the Wehrmacht was in a foul mood—they had been all set to
attack. Gauleiter Forster phoned from Danzig, depressed by this unexpected turn of
events. Dino Alfieri phoned Goebbels from Rome, asking it if was true that Hitler
was to broadcast; Goebbels called the rumour a foreign fabrication.63
He too was in two minds—Britain had now signed her pact with Poland, encouraged
evidently by Italy’s defection. When the French and British ambassadors both
asked to see Hitler, Goebbels clutched at straws—‘Perhaps we’ll manage to extricate
ourselves from the current sticky situation,’ he wrote. ‘We’ve got to be very
cunning now.’
The introduction of food rationing confronted him with serious propaganda problems
arose. He harangued Herbert Backe, Darré’s Staatssekretär, in the middle of
that night about the minute fruit and tea rations allowed for, then gave vent to his
feelings about the secretiveness of the foreign ministry. The whole world knew, he
grumbled, that the British and French amnbassadors had been to see Hitler, but
Germany’s own radio said nothing—which forced German listeners willy-nilly into
the arms of the B.B.C.64 After that he sat up until three A.M. reading further worrying
reports on public morale.65
The embassy wiretap reports which he read the next day, Sunday August 27, gave
cause for cautious optimism; but not the one-page digest on morale that Gutterer
had compiled for Hitler from their propaganda agencies throughout the Reich. In
short, the whole population was against war. The document, typed out in half-inch
characters on the special typewriter used for the short-sighted Führer, was dynamite.
Goebbels, aware of his own precarious position, had no desire to hand it over
himself. He took Gutterer along with him to Hitler’s lunch table wearing his black
S.S. Brigadeführer’s uniform. Hitler read the document, purpled with rage, and took
GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICH 555
Gutterer through into the winter-garden. But Himmler, joining them there, soberly
backed the propaganda official: his own Gestapo morale reports painted just the
same picture. Both men had reports of anti-war demonstrations in Vienna. Goebbels
said nothing.66
Later that day Hitler reviewed the whole situation with him. ‘It is very grave,’
recorded Goebbels, adding the familiar nostrum: ‘But the Führer will pull us through.
On Poland, our minimum demand is Danzig and a corridor across their corridor.
Maximum—that’s a matter of record. The Führer can’t abandon our minimum demand.
And he’ll get his way. It’s become a matter of honour. Nobody can say what
will transpire. The Führer is glad we don’t have a monarchy any more. The Italy
business has been declared top state secret. Death penalty for treason.’
Hitler spoke to all the Reichstag deputies at five P.M. in the ambassadors’ suite of
the Chancellery. He appealed for courage, and was rewarded with an ovation. He
told them that Danzig and the Corridor were his minimum demands. If war came, he
would be in the front line. ‘As long as I live,’ he said dramatically, ‘there is to be no
talk of capitulation.’ He justified his controversial deal with Stalin as being a pact
with the devil to drive out Beelzebub.67
FOR the next five days Dr Goebbels held the editors like acrobats frozen in mid-leap:
in suspended animation until Hitler gave the o
rder for White to proceed. It was not
easy. Germany must not lose the initiative. He released to the front pages a welter of
stories about visits of ambassadors and exchanges of letters. The wiretaps meanwhile
showed a further deterioriation in the situation.68
The press conference on August 28 was long and difficult. Goebbels still forbade
newspapers to play up ‘Polish terrorism’. Birger Dahlerus, Göring’s secret emissary,
had brought word from London that the British might swallow Hitler’s minimum
demands but they would insist on a guarantee of Poland’s frontiers. They could adjourn
the issue of colonies until later. A long peace with Britain would follow, which
might set Germany at loggerheads with Italy: ‘But Rome left us the lurch,’ reflected
556 GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICH
Goebbels. ‘And Moscow would also have to guarantee Poland’s frontiers’—which
Stalin would never do.
Tipped off by Rome, London must surely know of Hitler’s present predicament.
Chamberlain believed he could let Germany stew in her own juice. (‘Italy is standing
well back,’ Goebbels wrote contemptuously. ‘Her diplomats promise to fight with us
to the last drop of ink.’69)
Consumed by these anxieties, Goebbels had long worried talks with press chief
Otto Dietrich—he too saw the gravity of the hour—and Göring, who was also, as
Goebbels put it, pleading for moderation.70
A sweltering August heat baked the capital. There were fist-fights outside foodstores,
as crowds began hoarding for the coming war; a run on the banks began. Lunchtime
found Hitler grim and rather worn down.71
The postponement of hostilities had dislocated Goebbels’ timetable. With the war
machine crassly halted, there was nothing to report. He directed the press on August
29 to step up the attack on Poland, although it was both difficult and unpopular.
From the frontline areas like the Saar he had reports that the mood was anything but
blind jingoism. Hitler suggested to Ambassador Henderson that there be a plebiscite
in the Corridor. ‘He hopes to detach London from Warsaw after all,’ assessed Goebbels,
‘and thus to find some pretext for attack.’
Hitler agreed that Britain might invite a Polish negotiator to come to Berlin.
His head throbbing with the round-the-clock load of ministerial duties, Goebbels
feared that the arrival of a Polish diplomat might result in a ruinous wave of optimism
in Germany.72 At the press conference on the thirtieth Goebbels again pleaded
for a stiff upper lip: editors were to reserve their vitriol for Poland and her ‘atrocities,’
while still holding back the most glaring examples, and going easy on England
for a while as London seemed to be softening towards Hitler’s demands.73 But this
directive was later overtaken by one announcing Polish mobilisation: ‘The news …
is to be given top billing and editorial commentary.’74 (In a significant sentence, editors
were asked not to mention a ‘frontier incident at Hochlinde near Gleiwitz’: a
phoney raid by S.S. men wearing Polish uniforms had gone off at half-cock.)75
GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICH 557
At midnight Hitler sent for him:
He sets out the situation. The British are still hanging tough. Not a peep out of
Poland yet. The Führer thinks there will be war. Italy’s defection is not all that bad
for us, as Italy is the most vulnerable to attack by the Entente powers. The Führer
has drafted a Memorandum: Danzig to be German, a plebiscite in the Corridor in
twelve months’ time on the basis of 1918; fifty-one percent of the vote to be
decisive. Loser to get a one kilometer wide corridor across the Corridor. Minorities
problems to be examined by an international commission. When the time is
ripe the Führer will toss this document to the world community.76
His head reeling from worry, late nights, and overwork, Goebbels found it hard to
write up his diary on September 1—even as Hitler’s war began. The situation changed
hourly. He recalled having turned the press conference loose on Britain the day before.
Karl Bömer had brought over the latest sheaf of embassy wiretaps from Göring’s
Forschungsamt: they made clear that alarm bells were ringing in Paris and London.
The French and British ambassadors had been overheard agreeing to beg their Polish
colleague, Lipski, to go on his own initiative to Hitler.
‘But he can’t be found,’ observed Goebbels, ‘for hours at a time. Poland is obviously
playing for time.’
‘Göring is still sceptical,’ he recorded. ‘The Führer still does not believe Britain
will intervene. Nobody can say as yet. The S.S. is given special orders for the coming
night’—commando-style operations behind the Polish lines.77 In the evening the Polish
ambassador was heard asking for an audience. But Hitler had ordered an end to the
talking, and Lipski was not allowed to see Ribbentrop until too late. When he confessed
that Warsaw had given him no instructions, Ribbentrop brusquely ended the
meeting.
‘So that’s that,’ noted Goebbels. ‘The Führer is now incommunicado.’
They all talked until midnight, watching the hours tick past. Göring saw a slim
chance that London might not act. Goebbels was less sanguine. Hitler released the
558 GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICH
text of his Memorandum, they all hung around a map for a while, then Goebbels
returned home to Magda who was waiting for him.78
1 Leopold Gutterer had a working television set in his apartment throughout the coming
war (interview.)
2 Unpubl. diary, Aug 4, 1939.
3 Ibid., Jul 29, 1939.
4 Ibid., Aug 1, 5, 1939.
5 See the hectographed list of ‘what to wear to the party rally,’ attached to a letter of Aug
8, 1939 (Hoover Libr., Goebbels papers, box 2).
6 RPA Berlin, press circular, Jul 31, 1939.
7 MinConf., Feb 2; diary, Feb 3, 1940.
8 RPA Berlin, press circular, Jun 3, 9, 20, 23, 27, 28, 30, Jul 1, 8, 10, 12, 13, 17, 31, 1939.
9 Ibid., Aug 2, 1939.
10 Ibid., Aug 1, 2, 1939.
11 Ibid., Aug 7, 1939.
12 Ibid., Aug 5, 1939.
13 At 265,000 marks per month. Brückner to Funk, Aug 18 (BA file NS.10/38); and unpubl.
diary, Jun 2, 16, 17, Aug 19, 1939.
14 RPA Berlin, press circular, Aug 10; VB, Aug 12, 1939.
15 Freybe to Waldegg, Aug 10, 1939 (Hoover Libr.: Goebbels papers, box 2).
16 Unpubl. diary, Aug 9, 10, 1939.
17 Ibid., Aug 13; Frankfurter Zeitung and DAZ, Aug 9, 1939.
18 Ibid., Aug 10, 1939.
19 Ibid., Aug 11, 1939.
20 RPA Frankfurt, confidential briefing, Aug 8, 1939.
21 RPA Frankfurt, special briefing, Aug 10, 1939.
22 Ibid., Aug 12, 1939.
23 RPA Berlin, press circular, Aug 11, 1939.
24 RPA Frankfurt, confidential briefing, Aug 14, 1939.
25 RPA Berlin, press circular, Aug 16, 1939.