had finished telling them of the battle, every minister and Staatssekretär present gave
him a standing ovation. The last time that had happened was in 1933 when Hitler
pulled Germany out of the League of Nations. Going behind Ribbentrop’s back he
began sending regular commentaries on foreign policy to Hitler.48 His star was in the
ascendant. He spent all day with Hitler again on December 19.49 ‘I was able to join
GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICH 803
you at headquarters more frequently than ever this year,’ he wrote him afterwards.
‘These visits have given me far more than you, mein Führer, could possibly divine.’50
A FIFTH raid had hit Berlin with over two thousand tons of bombs on December 2.
Forty more bombers had been destroyed. Grimly fought and with no quarter given
on either side, the aerial Battle of Berlin continued all winter. While Goebbels directed
the city’s civil defence, Magda handled the tide of public queries and complaints.
Her files contain harrowing letters from mothers robbed of their children,
and from widows of party ‘martyrs’—she had looked after their needs ever since
1934; she controlled a small account from which she judiciously dispensed welfare
(NSV) funds to those in need, often asking local party agencies to make discreet
inquiries first. (‘Subject frequents pubs and tobacco stores’, she might be told; or
‘Miss A— has seven illegitimate children, not just three as she claims’). Her advice
was always tactful. When women asked whether to baptise their infants Magda, who
had baptised none of hers, replied quoting Frederick the Great—‘Blessed be each in
their own way.’ Her replies could be uncompromising too. A Miss Charlotte Goebel,
who had lost everything in the November air raids and wanted only to return to her
native—and remote—Danzig was informed: ‘In all such cases where blitz victims
with employment here have deserted Berlin, Mrs Goebbels has refused any aid whatsoever
and they have had to return to their workplace in Berlin.’51
Addressing a youth film festival on November 28 Dr Goebbels warned the britischen
gentlemen that they would never score an ‘easy, cheap, and totally unmilitary’ victory.
The British were hoping to win by a war of fire and flame against women and children.
‘In the name of the citizens of this capital, and in the name of the entire German
people, let me give them this reply. Never!’ To rising applause he announced: ‘In
Germany today there is no more urgent demand than that we pay back the criminals
on the Thames with added interest for what they have done to us.’ Day and night, he
promised, this reprisal was being prepared. ‘When one day retribution comes, and
it’s the British people’s turn to hurt, then we shall weep not one tear for them.’52
804 GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICH
A few days later he harangued two score German air attachés seated around a long
table at his ministry; rapping his index finger on the table he taught them about the
rift that must come between the Allies, and compared Germany’s situation now with
the Nazi party’s on the eve of power. He invited no discussion afterwards, but silently
shook each officer’s hand on leaving. ‘You had the feeling,’ wrote one, ‘that
Mephistopheles himself had just shaken hands with you.’53
A fifth raid hit Berlin with over two thousand tons of bombs on December 2. Forty
more bombers were destroyed. Writing in Das Reich Goebbels struck an upbeat note.
‘When the skies darken and there is scarcely a gleam of light,’ he wrote, ‘then the
people’s gaze turns unbidden to the Führer. He is the rock in the surging seas of
time.’54
‘ANYTHING in the air?’ Goebbels would now ask Lieutenant Oven before going to
bed. If an alert sounded, Oven would let him sleep and dial the minister’s extension,
2–4, only after the bombers had reached Mecklenburg. ‘About twenty minutes, Herr
Minister!’ After a while Goebbels would appear in the bunker, immaculately dressed,
his tie perfectly knotted.
Göring meanwhile had left for France, sent there by Hitler to prepare revenge
raids against London. Before he left, he asked Goebbels to find another word for
catastrophe—it injured his vanity each times he saw convoys of trucks labelled ‘Catastrophe
Relief’ dashing to the latest bombed city.55
At Christmas Goebbels did crack, but only briefly. His adjutants had arranged to
show an American movie at Lanke, but Magda had set up her Christmas tree slap in
front of the screen. Goebbels threw a tantrum and stormed back to Schwanenwerder,
thirty-five miles away. Angry and depressed, he sulked there, glowering over a book
of Schopenhauer throughout the festivities.56 Reviewing the year in his diary he decided
it had been one run of bad luck after another. The British called again, 656
bombers this time laden with death and destruction, if not ‘catastrophe,’ even now.
He reached the command bunker just as the flak batteries opened fire. Afterwards he
drove over to Neukölln, a working-class district which had been hard hit. The people
GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICH 805
joked with him, cursed the British, and even shouted Heil Hitler as he left. ‘Who
ever would have thought that possible of our Neukölln workers,’ he exclaimed to
Otte.57
In fact the Allies now discovered that recently captured German prisoners like
those from the battleship Scharnhorst had more confidence in victory than ever. ‘We
must win,’ said one, simply, ‘and therefore we shall win.’ One Viennese-born Luftwaffe
lieutenant called Goebbels’ emphasis on ‘Strength through Fear’ particularly effective.
58 ‘Butcher’ Harris, as he liked to be known, had under-estimated the Berliners.
His first twelve raids had killed 5,166 people and destroyed one-fifth of the available
housing; but Speer’s arms output in Berlin actually increased.59
Visiting the Wolf’s Lair Goebbels found workers again strengthening the bunkers.
Sixteen feet of reinforced concrete protected Hitler, three times the thickness of the
gauleiter’s air raid shelter in Berlin.
1 Diary, Sep 13. He explained in Das Reich, Sep 19, why ‘JG’ had published no article after
the Duce’s overthrow. ‘A few spiteful people believed that events … had taken his breath
away,’ he wrote. ‘There’s probably no need for any further proof now that this was not so.’ In
his diary on Sep 25, 1943 he added: ‘People now understand why I had to hold my tongue for
a while.’ In fact he had known nothing of the plans to free Mussolini (NA film T84, roll 265).
2 SD report Sep 16, 1943 (NA film T175, roll 265, 0456ff.)
3 RPÄ reports summaried in diary, Sep 17; mail analysis, in Sep 18, 1943.
4 Kurt Lange, Vice President of Reichsbank, to JG, Mar 16, 1944. The ministry of the
interior had stated that air raids had destroyed 58,500 residential buildings in Hamburg by
Nov 1, 1943; Lange gave a figure of 324,351 for the Reich as a whole (ZStA Potsdam,
Rep.50.01, vol.5).
5 Diary, Sep 17, 1943.
6 Ibid., Sep 14, 1943.
7 Ibid., Sep 21, 23; Milch diary, Sep 20, 1943 (author’s film DI–59).
8 Unpubl. diary, Sep 18, 19, 21, 1943 (NA film T84, roll 265).
/>
9 Ibid., Sep 23; Heinz Linge, Hitler’s appointments register, Sep 22, 1943 (NA film T84,
roll 387).
10 Diary, Sep 23, 1943.
806 GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICH
11 Heinz Linge, Hitler’s appointments register, Oct 26, 1943 (NA film T84, roll 387).
12 Rosenberg’s note on the meeting, Nov 17 (NA film T120, roll 2474, E255448); Linge,
op. cit., Nov 17, 1943 (NA film T84, roll 387).
13 Note by his adjutant, Oct 29, 1943. The three were Countess ‘Sigi’ Welczek, the actress
Käthe Haack and her daughter.
14 Interrogation of soldier Kloss, Sep 1, 1944: ‘Goebbels’ Estate on the Bogensee nr Berlin,’
CSDIC(UK) report SIR.1008 (NA file RG332, Mis Y, box 5; also RG.165, entry 79, box
773,); and see Oven, 171.
15 Diary, Sep 21, 1943.
16 Semler, ‘Oct 15, 1943.’
17 Speer chronicle, Nov 4, 1943 (IWM file FD.3949/49).
18 Diary, Sep 2, 1943.
19 Diary, Nov 2; and police reports by Prince zu Waldeck, HSSuPf., Kassel, Nov 30 and
Dec 6, 1943 (IfZ, Irving collection).
20 Diary, Nov 6; Oven, 184f; VB, Nov 7, 1943.
21 Gutterer MS (Lower Saxony archives, Gutterer papers); and interview, Jun 30, 1993.
22 Police reports by Prince zu Waldeck, HSSuPf., Kassel, Nov 30 and Dec 6, 1943 (IfZ,
Irving collection).
23 Ibid.; and JG diary, Nov 19, 1943.
24 Ibid., Nov 6, 1943.
25 Berndt, air war notice No.62, Nov 11, 1943 (NA film T84, roll 322, 1254f).
26 Ditto (NA film T84, roll 322, 1257ff).
27 Unpubl. diary, Sep 29, 1943.
28 Fritzsche testimony, IMT, xvii, 181 (Jun 28, 1946).
29 Diary, Nov 16, 1943.
30 Ibid., Nov 16, 1943.
31 Unpubl. diary, Nov 11, 1943.
32 Diary, Nov 4, 1943.
33 Speer chronicle, Nov 4, 1943.
34 Jodl’s lecture is printed in OKW war diary, vol.iv, 1534ff.
35 Diary, Nov 8; and Himmler diary, Nov 7 (NA film T84, roll 25). Himmler had telephoned
JG’s ministry and Bormann several times on Sep 1, 1943, about the gau’s planned
swoop on defeatists (ibid.)
36 Unpubl. diary, Nov 16, 1943 (NA film T84, roll 266).
37 As of Sep 1943. United States Strategic Bombing Survey, A Brief Study of the Effects of Area
Bombing on Berlin (Washington, DC), No.39, 12a.
38 Webster & Frankland, vol.ii, 190ff. The average load of each bomber was about 7,500
lbs.
39 Semler, ‘Nov 24’; JG diary, Nov 20, 1943.
40 I rely on Semler, ‘Nov 22, 1943,’ Speer’s chronicle, and other sources.
41 Diary, Nov 24, 1943.
42 VB, Nov 24, 1943.
43 Diary, Nov 25, 1943.
GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICH 807
44 See SD report, Dec 20, on the Berliners’ morale during and after the Nov 1943 raids
(NA film T175, roll 265, 1196ff).
45 Diary, Nov 25; the result was a Führer decree of Dec 22, 1943, setting up a Reich
Inspectorate for Civil Defence under JG with Gauleiter Albert Hoffmann as his deputy (BA
file, R.43II/669d; IfZ film MA.795, 4890ff). Hoffmann’s papers are in BA. Under BAOR
interrogation (032/Case No.0164) Hoffmann said, ‘Goebbels was undoubtedly one of the
best National Socialist ministers; sober, precise, and very ambitious … [and] remarkably
industrious and was at all times during the day and night at the disposal of the gauleiters or
any other important people.’ (NA file RG.332, ETO MIS-Y Sect., box 50).
46 Diary, Nov 27, 1943.
47 Unpubl. diary, Nov 28 (NA film T84, roll 266); Oven, ‘Dec 20, 1943,’ 196.
48 Unpubl. diary, Dec 4, 1943 (NA film T84, roll 266); the British could not get good
aerial photos that winter (Webster & Frankland, vol.ii, 264).
49 Diary, Dec 4, 7; on Nov 24, 1943 JG complained to Hitler, ‘Despite the directive you
have several times issued that matters in dispute were only to be put jointly to you,
Reichsminister von Ribbentrop has appealed directly to you, mein Führer, without bringing
me in and with inadequate information on this matter’—namely JG’s propaganda work in
occupied France (BA file N L.118/106).
50 Heinz Linge diary, Dec 19, 1943 (NA film T84, roll 387).
51 JG to Hitler, Dec 1943 (BA file NL.118/106); Oven, ‘Jan 25, 1944’, 208, also draws
attention to the increasing frequency of JG’s visits to HQ.
52 ZStA Potsdam, Rep.90, Go 2, Magda Goebbels correspondence with the public, 1933–
45, vol.2.
53 JG’s speech, ‘Ganz Deutschland ruft nach Rache!’, inVB, Nov 29; translation of the DAZ
summary in OSS file 52614; see SD report, Dec 3, 1943, for the public’s reaction (NA film
T175, roll 265, 1057ff).
54 Milch diary, Dec 8, 1943; Major (res.) Karl von Winterfeld, report dated Aug 24, 1945,
in Milch papers (author’s film DI–59).
55 JG, ‘Die Lehren des Krieges,’ in Das Reich, Dec 5. ‘This,’ commented an OSS report
from Switzerland on Dec 22, 1943, ‘is Goebbels in his mystic strain. There is no cry of
victory, but a stress on the uncertainties of war, and the expression of a plaintive hope that
willpower will win over material force.’ (NA file RG.226, file 58658).
56 JG to Keitel, Dec 9, 1943 (Hoover Libr., Lerner papers, file S.115). JG had the offending
word Katastropheneinsatz changed to Soforthilfe.
57 Selmer, ‘Dec 24, 1943.’
58 Unpubl. diary, Dec 30, 1943 (NA film T84, roll 266).
59 CSDIC(UK) survey dated Feb 24, 1944 of German prisoner of war opinion, Nov 1943–
Jan 1944 (NAS file RG.165, entry 79, box 765; and RG.332, entry ETO, Mis-Y, Sect., box
11).
60 Webster & Frankland, vol.ii, 267.—Kurt Lange, vice president of the Reichsbank, told
JG on Mar 16, 1944 that one third of Berlin’s 200,000 homes had been destroyed or damaged
(ZStA Potsdam, Rep.50.01, vol.5); for statistics on destruction as of Mar 1944 see
Gutterer’s file (ZStA Potsdam, Rep.50.01, vol.865).
808 GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICH
Goebbels
52: When the Going gets Tough
We do not know how long this war will last,’ admitted Goebbels in his
broadcast on the eve of 1944. ‘It would be idle to speculate.’1 To the party
faithful he dictated a new slogan: ‘Everything is possible in this war except for one
thing—that we ever capitulate.’2
On this he and Hitler saw completely eye to eye. During their ten recorded meetings
during 1944 they never seriously discussed suing for peace. Goebbels invariably
returned to his ministry with his engines recharged by contact with Hitler. To the
end of his life he felt totally inferior, even intellectually, to him. ‘My dear Naumann,’
he would say to his closest aide, ‘Right now I don’t know what the Führer is planning.
But I am convinced that he will see us through.’3 On this occasion, the first days of
January 1944, they examined a map of London and picked out the most rewarding
targets for their rockets and flying bombs. After three undisturbed years, the British
Doctor Goebbels: His Life & Death Page 132
