21 Hoffmann suggests the colonel may have been Lieutenant Colonel Walter Horstmann.
22 The times are from Remer’s and Hagen’s testimonies. For what follows we also have
JG’s version in his broadcast of Jul 26, text in Zürcher Zeitung, Jul 27; Front und Heimat,
No.13, Juni [sic] 1944 (BA file NS.6/28); VB, Jul 27, 1944.
23 Remer’s loyalty to Hitler endured to the end. Aged 82, he was sentenced in 1994 to two
years in prison for doubting the authenticity of the ‘gas chambers’ at Auschwitz—a criminal
offence in Germany; he was granted political asylum in Spain.
24 Hitler told ENT-specialist Erwin Giesing on Jul 26, ‘The loyal chap [Remer] recognized
my voice at once on the phone and confirmed my orders to him by repeating them to the
letter’ (Giesing MS, in IfZ, Irving collection.)
25 Major-Gen. Helmuth Schwierz, CO of No.1 Army Bomb Disposal School, Lichterfelde,
undated report in IfZ, Irving collection. A Capt.(W) Messing from the same school had a
similar mission: letter intercept, [Horst] von Buttlar to Herbert Steinert, Mar 27, 1947
GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICH 851
(‘…Messing had orders to arrest Dr Goebbels dead or alive.’) CCD report, in NA file RG.407,
entry 427, box 1954a.
26 Oven, ‘Jul 23, 1944’; Hoffmann, 855; Speer.
27 Kehrl, 398.
28 Dr Immanuel Schäffer, interrogation, PWB report SAIC.16, Jun 6, 1945 (NA file RG.332,
entry ETO, Mis-Y, Sect., box 116).
29 Balzer, liaison officer between OKW/WPr and RMVP, report to chief of WPr (Hasso
von Wedel), ‘Jun 21’ [sic: read Jul 21] 1944 (NA film T84, roll 16, 6614; BA file NS.6/31).
30 Hoffmann, citing Hase’s testimony to the People’s Court, trial vol.xxxiii, 488ff; and
Spiegelbild einer Verschwörung, 45.
31 Hadamowsky to JG, Aug 3, 1944 (ZStA Potsdam, Rep.62 Re 3, vol.1); he named the
lieutenant colonels Pridun, Herber, von der Heyd[t]e, and Kuban, and suggested that JG
receive them together with the panzer colonels Bolbrinker and Glaesemer for drinks one
day.
32 Hadamowsky to JG, Aug 1 (ZStA Potsdam, Rep.62 Re 3, vol.1); JG referred to this
incident in his broadcast of Jul 26, 1944.
33 Remer’s report.
34 JG’s text is repeated in the KR-Fschr. from HSSuPolF Stuttgart to Gauleiter Wagner
(Karlsruhe), Jul 20, 1944, 9:16 P.M. (Records of the Annexed Territory of Alsace, NA film
T81, roll 179, 7965f).
35 Bormann to all gauleiters, Jul 20, 1944, nine P.M. and 9:40 P.M. (Trevor Roper papers,
IfZ, Irving collection).
36 Bearer of the Knight’s Cross and a veteran Nazi, Bolbrinker commanded an SA brigade
in Styria during the failed 1934 putsch in Austria, and had to flee to Germany
37 Remer stated in his Jul 22, 1944 report: ‘I was unsure of Colonel-General Guderian’s
attitude.’
38 On the role of the Panzer-Reserve-Brigade at Cottbus, see Peter Hoffmann, Claus Schenk
Graf von Stauffenberg und seine Brüder (Stuttgart, 1992), 400–407, 421, 432–434. There is
evidence, states Hoffmann on p.421, that upon Mertz von Quirnheim’s intervention Guderian
had agreed on Jul 19, 1944 to delay the removal of the Krampnitz armour to East Prussia by
a few days.
39 Rosencrantz.—And see his British interrogation, Nov 16, 1945 (Trevor Roper papers,
IfZ, Irving collection.)
40 Rosencrantz.
41 Balzer report. Fromm was court martialled and shot for cowardice in Mar 1945.
42 Himmler also emphasized the delicacy of his position in speeches on Jul 21 and 26, 1944
(NA film T175, roll 93, 3904ff, 4146ff.)
43 Bormann to the gauleiters, Jul 21, 1944, 3:40 A.M. (Trevor Roper papers, IfZ, Irving
collection.)
44 Balzer.
45 Diary, Dec 4, 1944.
46 Balzer.—Himmler’s remark does not bear closer scrutiny.
47 Dr Immanuel Schäffer, interrogation, PWB report SAIC.16, Jun 6, 1945 (NA file RG.332,
entry ETO, Mis-Y, Sect., box 116).
852 GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICH
48 JG circulars to all RPÄ, Jul 21, 1944, 12:31 and 2:20 P.M. (Trevor Roper papers, IfZ,
Irving collection.) The next day Hitler directed him to organise nationwide demos to demand
an end to the treacheries of the generals and that the Führer punish the guilty so
severely that there would never be a repetition (diary, Jul 23, 1944).—On Jul 22, 1944 JG
issued Propaganda Parole No.68 ordering all gauleiters to stage mass meetings (BA file R.55/
614).
49 The OSS in Berne (Allen Dulles) reported to FDR on Jan 27, 1945 that Stauffenberg had
planned to make peace with the Soviets and establish a workers’ and peasants’ regime in
Germany; the generals had disliked this plan, but Stauffenberg was the only officer willing to
risk his life by planting the bomb. One of Dulles’ sources who was ‘with Helldorff when he
heard of the fiasco’ (probably the Abwehr traitor Hans-Bernd Gisevius) blamed it on the
failure of General Fellgiebel to destroy the communications centre at the Wolf’s Lair, and on
‘the defection of Major Remer at the last minute’. Dulles also reported, Feb 1, 1945, that
Stauffenberg favoured the Ostlösung and was in touch with Seydlitz and the National-Komitee
Freies Deutschland in Moscow through Stockholm (FDR Libr., PSF box 170).—Gisevius
confirmed in Bis zum bitteren Ende (Darmstadt, 1947), vol.ii, 255f, that he was with Helldorff
at police HQ at 11 A.M. on Jul 20, 1944, but Peter Hoffmann has exposed his canarde about
Stauffenberg’s eastern alignment in the appendix to his Stauffenberg, 472–474.
50 Dr Immanuel Schäffer, interrogation, PWB report SAIC.16, Jun 6, 1945 (NA file RG.332,
entry ETO, Mis-Y, Sect., box 116).—For an RMVP analysis on Jul 24, 1944 summarising
RPÄ reports on the universal public condemnation of the plot, see BA file R.55/601.
GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICH 853
Goebbels
55: Total War
CATAPULTED to the Nazi equivalent of stardom for crushing the putsch in Ber
lin, Dr Goebbels arrived by train in East Prussia on Saturday July 22, 1944.
He was determined to speak his mind to Hitler about total war and the need for a
major show trial of the plotters.1 Lieutenant von Oven gave him the latest cables.
The British press was bragging about Stauffenberg’s English-born wife. Other foreign
sources claimed that ‘the Jews in the neutral capitals’ had known in advance
about the bomb plot.2 Moscow’s newspapers were more logical, pointing out that
the war would only be won on the battlefields—now barely one hundred miles from
the Wolf’s Lair. Goebbels saw this as proof that Stalin fully appreciated the hidden
strength of ideological mass movements, and that they could talk with him when the
time came.3
He called first at Hans Lammers’ nearby field HQ. The change in attitude towards
him was dramatic. Bormann and Lammers could not have been more friendly. Taking
him aside, Keitel admitted that he had cried tears of joy on seeing that their Führer
was unscathed. ‘A miracle,’ agreed Goebbels. The staff conference called by Lammers
was soon over. Lammers himself proposed giving Himmler sweeping powers to rationalize
the armed forces, and Goebbels the same powers over state and public life.
Goebbels was somewhat astonished, but still orated to them for an hou
r on the need
to present a united front to Hitler. ‘The Führer,’ he said, ‘must be relieved of all
minutiæ so that he can dedicate himself to his great tasks.’ Even Keitel backed him;
he freely admitted that the Wehrmacht had manpower to spare.4 When Speer flourished
854 GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICH
his own Total War document, Goebbels swatted him like a bothersome insect, casting
doubt in particular on the statistics. Lammers agreed to see Hitler the next day
to win the agreed powers for Himmler and Goebbels.5
Goebbels was flabbergasted at how easy it had been. If Hitler endorsed it, they
would have created ‘practically a domestic dictatorship’––with Dr Goebbels as the
dictator.6
He drove over to the Wolf’s Lair with Naumann that afternoon in a broiling sun.
He found Göring snorting about the army generals in Berlin—less for having tried a
coup d’état than for declaring martial law without consulting him, the lawful successor
if Hitler was indeed dead.
HIS head and legs still bandaged and sore from the myriads of splinter-wounds, Hitler
limped over from his bunker to greet Dr Goebbels. The spectacle tore at the loyal
henchman’s heart.7 Goebbels flung a Nazi salute with exaggerated formality. Hitler
responded awkwardly, proffering his left hand. He told Goebbels that his first instinct
after the blinding flash and explosion was to check that his eyes, arms, and legs
were intact. His stenographer had lost both legs, and Schmundt one eye; Korten had
been impaled by a fragment of oak table—all three were mortally injured.
A Berliner, the hut’s telephone operator, had first identified Stauffenberg as the
murderer. But he had got away—a hidden blessing in fact, as Goebbels reflected,
because if he had been stopped they would never have unmasked the traitors in Berlin.
Hitler fulminated with rage at ‘that masonic lodge,’ the general staff. Dr Dietrich
was opposing Goebbels’ idea of a political show trial, but not Hitler.8 No buddybuddy
courts martial for them, he grimly said: he would have the culprits stripped of
their uniforms and turned over to the People’s Court. Judge Roland Freisler would
know how to deal with them.
When Hitler revealed that the traitor-generals had planned to arrest all the Reich
Defence Commissioners like Goebbels, it was the minister’s turn for indignation.
‘What gives some jumped-up general,’ he exclaimed, ‘the right to treat as gangsters
the leading national socialists who put him in that uniform in the first place!’9
GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICH 855
Dictating his diary entry afterwards, Goebbels spoke with glutinous fervour of his
love for the Führer. ‘He is the greatest historic genius of our times. With him we shall
see victory, or go down heroically.’ Even Ribbentrop was nice to him during this
visit, although put out by recent Goebbels articles which he felt might create in
Tokyo the dangerous impression that Berlin was wooing London. The prospects of
doing a deal with Mr Churchill were more than dim, Ribbentrop advised Goebbels.10
THE plot and its aftermath marked the start of Speer’s decline. At dinner with Hitler
and Goebbels he was markedly subdued. He had talked with Himmler at midday, but
the Reichsführer S.S. was also backing Goebbels.11 They put their agreed total war
plan to Hitler the next day, July 23. He easily nodded it through. Ribbentrop tried
(but failed) to exclude his ministry from the plan’s ambit.12 Lammers authorised
Goebbels to call a Cabinet-level meeting on the thirty-first in the Chancellery in
Berlin to introduce his plans.
The total war decree was published on July 26. ‘At the suggestion’ of the
Reichsmarschall, it read—Göring’s vanity being a factor even now—Hitler had appointed
Dr Goebbels as Reich Plenipotentiary for Total Mobilization.13 Goebbels
sent a telegram thanking Lammers for the ‘loyal manner’ in which he had seen things
through.14
Thus he returned to Berlin as de facto the first man after Hitler. Naumann shouted
to Lieutenant von Oven, waiting on the platform, ‘The Doctor has just won his
greatest victory!’ Thanks to the traitors, he gloated over lunch, nobody at HQ would
ever dare to intrigue against him again. On July 26 he broadcast to the nation an
account of how he had crushed the putsch. He hinted at new secret weapons and in
his next article, entitled ‘Going One Better,’ he developed a new argument—that
the Reich was now regaining the technical superiority which it had lost for a while to
the Allies.
In victory he was becomingly magnanimous. Addressing the other ministers in the
chancellery on July 31 he invited them to submit ideas voluntarily to him.15 He proposed
to slash his own ministry by thirty or forty percent. His special ’total war’ staff
856 GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICH
would be limited to just twenty men. Naumann would chair a planning committee,
and Gauleiter Wegener an executive committee.16 Total mobilization could now begin.
His target was to find one million men. One million soldiers: equals one hundred
new divisions: equals victory. That was his calculus.17 At ten A.M. the next day Naumann
issued the first two ordinances, outlawing token employment (a dodge to evade the
labour-draft); and raising the female labour-draft age to fifty.18
To make time for his immense new task Goebbels halved his afternoon nap, ate
sandwiches at his desk, forfeited his regular evening movie previews, and refused all
invitations. Speer was an unwilling ally, but sat in on only the first Goebbels total war
sessions.19 He agreed to release all draft-exempted men aged between seventeen and
thirty-four from his arms factories.20 This alone would provide eighty thousand men
for the armed forces. ‘I myself,’ said Goebbels at this time, ‘have only one office with
eight people, a few shorthand typists and two colleagues.’21 He worked all month
scaling down his own ministry, shutting its Eastern, Theatre, Music, and Graphic
Arts departments and annexing the Party’s propaganda directorate (the RPL).22 He
closed the training colleges for interpreters, music, and the history of art. He turned
over the film industry’s entire rising generation to the Telefunken firm in Berlin for
precision labour. He halted his efforts to overtake Hollywood in cartoon production.
He scrapped the need for movie tickets, to release the forty-eight workers who
printed them. He closed every theatre, cabaret, and circus, dissolved some orchestras,
and posted a mandatory sixty-hour working week for everyone. He banned all congresses
and conventions.23
Briefing Hitler, he predicted that he would extract a hundred thousand men from
the postal service by cutting red tape and halting junk-mail deliveries; and two hundred
thousand more from ‘domestic employment.’24 Only Munich and Berlin would
be allowed more than one daily newspaper. To release banking personnel he urged
people to pay by cash. He abolished cake-making and closed all restaurants and stores
Doctor Goebbels: His Life & Death Page 140
