Doctor Goebbels: His Life & Death
Page 145
helped ‘the worldwide defamation of bolshevism’ (Taubert report, Yivo, G–PA–14).
26 Albrecht, private letter to his wife, Nov 12; see too Dittmar’s diary, Nov 12; NYT, Nov
13; and Donovan to FDR, Nov 15, 1944 (FDR Libr., PSF box 170).—For the day’s Volkssturm
ceremonies see BA file R.55/1287.
27 Willi Krämer, circular, Nov 1944 (NA film T84, roll 169, 6550f).
28 NYT, Nov 24, 1944.
29 JG, in Das Reich, Dec 2; cited in Donovan to FDR, Dec 4, 1944 (FDR Libr., PSF box
170).
30 Morell diary, Nov 30, 1944.
31 Diary, Dec 2, 1944.
32 Ibid., Dec 7, 1944.
33 Auguste Behrend, ‘Meine Tochter Magda Goebbels,’ in Schwäbische Illustrierte, Stuttgart,
No.22, May 31, 1952. On Dec 4, 1944 however JG noted in his diary that Naumann had
been ‘quite astonished at the physical and mental improvement displayed by the Führer.’
34 Diary, Dec 2, 1944.
35 Ibid., Dec 4, 1944.
36 Heinz Linge, Hitler’s appointments register, Dec 3, 1944 (NA film T84, roll 387).
37 Interrogation of Schaumburg-Lippe, Apr 1947, in R M W Kempner, Das Dritte Reich im
Kreuzverhör.
38 Stated by von Arnim confidentially to Hans Meier, the last office chief of the ministry’s
Room 24. She died in Russian captivity. Der Spiegel, Jan 24, 1951.
39 Ebermayer & Meissner, Revue, No.26, Jun 28, 1952; their source was Ello Quandt.
40 Diary, Dec 17; and see Wächter’s circular No.150, Dec 19, 1944 (NA film T84, roll
169, 6526ff.)
41 Diary, Dec 18, 1944.
42 Ibid., Dec 20, 1944.
43 JG circular to all Reichsleiters and gauleiters, Dec 21, 1944 (NA film T120, roll 2474,
E255458).
44 JG to Hitler, Dec 22; similar to Göring, Dec 22, and Göring’s reply, Dec 27, 1944 (all
in BA file BL.118/106.)
45 Behrend, op. cit., No.22, May 31, 1952.
882 GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICH
46 Interrogations of Maria Kimmich née Goebbels and Katharina Goebbels née Odenhausen,
Mar 25, 1948 (Hoover Libr., Korf papers).
47 Dittmar diary, Dec 31, 1944 (author’s film DI-60).
48 SD Leitabschnitt Stuttgart, morale report, Jan 12, 1945. DE.415/DIS.202 (Hoover
Libr., Lerner papers).
49 Bormann to his wife, Jan 2 (François Genoud papers; The Bormann Letters, 158); JG’s
unpublished Jan 1945 diary is BA file NL.118/124.
50 Speer, 427.—Those attending the main 3:30 P.M. conference were JG, Speer, Keitel,
Bormann, Ganzenmüller, Buhle, and Hitler. Heinz Linge, Hitler’s appointments register
(NA film T84, roll 387).
51 Of glucose and other substances. Morell’s diary, Jan 5, 1945, one P.M., specifically refers
to these ‘strenuous talks’ as the cause.
52 On Mar 30, 1945 the general army office (AHA) noted that by Mar 25 only 95,000 men
had been forthcoming (NA film T84, roll 174, 3363ff).
53 Diary, Mar 18, 1945.
54 JG to Hitler, Jan 26, 1945 (BA file NL.118/106).
55 Ditto, Mar 20, 1945 (BA file NL.118/106).
56 Hinkel to JG, Jan 4; Oberregierungsrat Bacmeister to JG, Feb 1, 1945 (BA file R.55/
664).
57 Albrecht to his wife, Jan 31, 1945 (IfZ, Irving collection).
58 Bacmeister to JG, Feb 25, 1945 (BA file R.55/664).
GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICH 883
Goebbels
57: Kill off the Prisoners
IF Goebbels now realized that the war could not be won he kept this realization to
himself. On January 12, 1945 Stalin’s great offensive from the Baranov bridgehead
on the Vistula began. With his eastern front crumpling Hitler abandoned his
offensive in the Ardennes and returned to Berlin. The Red Army did not halt until it
reached the river Oder, just east of Berlin.
From January 24 on Goebbels visited Hitler’s chancellery almost every evening
for half an hour or an hour alone with Hitler.1 After their talk on January 28, he
returned home sunk in thought: ‘It is true,’ he dictated to Richard Otte for the diary
afterwards, ‘that a great man has to await his great hour, and that there’s nothing one
can do by way of suggestions that will help him. It’s more a matter of instinct than of
any logical process. If the Führer should succeed in turning back the tide of events—
and I am firmly convinced that the chance will one day come for that—then he will
be not the man of the century, but the man of the millennium.’2
With large sections of the front now fighting on German soil propaganda’s greatest
hour had come, Goebbels instructed the gau propaganda officials on February 5;
ugly reports were coming in of collapsing troop morale. Their propaganda must be
firm, realistic, and unhysterical, and not deal in illusions. ‘This is not the time for
empty phrases,’ he said. They had to offer proof that Germany could still triumph.
‘Unfortunately it’s not possible to speak openly and authoritatively of the weightiest
political factor in our favour, namely the problems currently facing the enemy and
884 GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICH
the friction within the enemy coalition, as any such utterances would damage this
promising development.’3 Goebbels exploited the aftermath of the Ardennes battle
to spread rumours over Radio Arnhem and by breaking into the B.B.C.’s news broadcasts
that the British Field-Marshal Montgomery was claiming all the credit for halting
Hitler’s offensive. It was one of his more successful gambits. The Americans were
taken in and Goebbels’ English counterpart Brendan Bracken had to make a formal
apology to General Eisenhower.4
Sustaining Hitler’s morale became no less important than that of the home front.
As the Ardennes operations went into reverse, Goebbels scoured the books for historic
parallels. He sent him one such passage from a book on Alexander the Great.5
During February he began re-reading Thomas Carlyle’s eight-volume biography of
Frederick the Great which he had first dipped into fifteen years earlier.6 Visiting
Hitler at the end of the month, he related several chapters of the monarch’s life story
which, Goebbels recorded, greatly moved them both. ‘What an example to us all,’
he noted early in March. ‘And what a solace and comfort in these dark days!’7 He saw
an uncanny parallel between the foppish Hermann Göring and the king’s feckless
brother, and sent that chapter over to Hitler underlining the harsh treatment that the
king had meted out to his sibling.
THE air raids continued with unremitting violence. The Ufa company had compiled a
horrifying feature-length documentary on them, but as Ribbentrop had commissioned
it Goebbels forbade its release.8 A feud, after all, was a feud.
In mid January his ministry briefed every gauleiter on the latest British bombing
tactics: four to six hundred heavy bombers would attack small cities repeatedly, saturating
every square yard with incendiaries and with high explosive bombs fused to
delay detonation long enough for the weapon to penetrate to the crowded basements
of even the tallest buildings.9 The morale problems multiplied. The view became
widespread that an occupation of Germany by the Anglo-Americans would not
be ‘all that bad’ if it put an end to the bombing and the strafing attacks. Goebbels
circularized the gauleiters on the need to counter this dangerous defeatism by propa-
GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICH 885
gating a base hatred of the imperialist and ideologically bankrupt British and Americans.
The new line was to be: ‘There is no difference between the bolshevik atrocities
in East Prussia and the British and American atrocities on the Rhine.’ Their enemies’
aim, he suggested, was the same—death to all Germans. ‘Gangsters at work!’ must
be the new leitmotif of their propaganda.10
At midday on Saturday February 3 one thousand and three B–17s attacked the
centre of Berlin, dropping 2,265 tons of bombs with the intent of creating maximum
casualties and chaos among the refugees thronging into the capital. ‘Five thousandpounders,’
wrote one American bombardier, adding inexplicably: ‘Shacked [i.e., killed]
women and children!’ Although most of the flak had been withdrawn to the Oder
front, twenty-one B–17s were destroyed over the city, and ninety-three suffered
battle damage.11 The chancellery was hit again; fires raged, the streets were festooned
in trolley-bus wires, but by late afternoon virtual normality had returned.
Hitler began a troglodyte existence in the bunker beneath his chancellery garden.
It was not easy for Goebbels to hobble down the steps into the labyrinth of rooms,
since Hitler and his staff occupied the remotest rooms at the deepest level, fifty feet
beneath the grass and shrubbery. For a time he called on Hitler about every other
day.12 The Führer’s cramped study was tiled in olive green and white, and sparsely
furnished—Anton Graff’s famous portrait of Frederick the Great, a faded photograph
of Hitler’s mother, and a sofa upholstered in white and blue being the only
accoutrements.*
With the Russians now so close, on the last day of January 1945 Goebbels had sent
Schwägermann out to Lanke, his lakeside mansion on the Bogensee, to evacuate
Magda, their six children and two governesses into the air raid shelter at
Schwanenwerder. The next day he declared Berlin a ‘fortress city.’ Surrounded by
her brood, Magda was in a world of self-delusion. From Berthe the milliner’s she
purchased a green velvet hat, a black turban, and a brown hat trimmed with fur; she
* Of which a bloodstained shred survives in private hands in the United States.
886 GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICH
mentioned that ‘when things calmed down’ she’d like to have a brown hat remodelled.
13 ‘The news you’ll be hearing isn’t rosy,’ she wrote to Harald, now in British
captivity, on February 10. ‘We’re all sound in heart and health; but as the whole
family belongs together at times like these we’ve shut down Bogensee and we’ve all
moved back into Berlin. Despite all the air raids our house is still standing and everybody
here—including your grand-mother and the rest of the family—is well housed.
The children find it splendid that there’s no school and, thank God, they’ve noticed
nothing of the seriousness of the hour.’ ‘Papa and I,’ she concluded, ‘are full of
confidence and we’re doing our duty as best we can.’14
She often thought of Hanke, and once or twice they spoke until telephoning was
no longer possible as the Russian armies engulfed and encircled Breslau; Hanke, a
man of undeniable bravery, wrote to his wife that he intended to hold on until help
came from outside. ‘I can see at any rate,’ he said, ‘that the Reich will not succumb
and that is the main thing.’15 The gauleiters, Goebbels had often noted, were all cut
from a different cloth than the generals. ‘You can be sure,’ he wrote to Julius Streicher
on his sixtieth birthday, ‘that right now we are doing everything conceivable to bring
this great fight for the destiny of our people to a happy and victorious end.’16
ON the following night, February 13, the British bombers crowned their orgy of
destruction by obliterating the hitherto unscarred capital of Saxony, Dresden. Overcrowded
with a million fleeing human beings—refugees, prisoners, evacuees, and
children—a city innocent of air raid shelters, with all of its flak batteries removed to
the eastern front and its fighter squadrons grounded for lack of fuel, Dresden became
an inferno within minutes. Over a hundred thousand men, women, and children
were choked to death or burned alive in the ensuing firestorms as this and
another British raid three hours later engulfed and incinerated the city. For days after
this apocalypse soldiers cremated the bodies five hundred at a time on makeshift
pyres in the city centre. Tens of thousands more remained interred beneath the ruins.
On February 14 Goebbels saw Hitler at 7:15 P.M. for three-quarters of an hour. He
demanded that Göring be stood before the People’s Court for negligence; but again
GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICH 887
Hitler weakly refused. Several times afterwards he had fierce arguments with Hitler
about Göring and his way of life; both men agreed that Admiral Dönitz was a shining
example, as Raeder had been before him. Goebbels even suggested Dönitz should
take over the Luftwaffe. On February 17 he proposed that they formally repudiate
the Geneva Convention—why else should Allied pilots feel they could murder, slash,
and burn with impunity? They should start executing Allied prisoners: one for each
air raid victim.17
Hitler told him to draft a proposal.
Two days later, according to one source, the secret twelve-page document was
ready in Goebbels’ safe.18 Several people claimed the credit for preventing the plan
from being implemented. Ribbentrop’s opposition was probably the deciding factor
for Hitler.19 Hitler told Goebbels later, with noticeable regret, that he had allowed
Himmler, Keitel, and Bormann to talk him out of it.20 Fritzsche told interrogators
that he delayed the radio announcement until the order was rescinded.21
DRESDEN was unmistakably the beginning of the end. As Goebbels contemplated Hitler’s
stoical attitude to the growing certainty of defeat, comparisons with Frederick
the Great again crowded in on him. He put it to Hitler on February 27 that their only
aim now must be to set a heroic example to their children’s children, in case a similar
crisis should ever beset Germany. Hitler agreed: it was necessary to work for one’s
people, even if the achievements were only ephemeral. ‘At any moment,’ he pointed
out, ‘a comet might crash into the Earth and destroy this planet in one mighty fireball.
Even so, every man must do his duty to the bitter end.’22
On the last day of February Goebbels broadcast to the nation for the first time in
weeks. He spoke for seventy minutes. ‘Seen purely militarily,’ he admitted straight
away, ‘the launching of the successful Soviet offensive from the Baranov bridgehead
has sharply changed the general war situation, and not to our advantage.’ He was not,
he said, going to mince his language about this depressing but ‘by no means hopeless’