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Joseph Goebbels
Dr. Paul Joseph Goebbels ( October 29 , 1897 – May 1 , 1945 ) was Adolf Hitler 's Propaganda Minister (see Propagandaministerium ) in Nazi Germany . Goebbels was known for his zealous and energetic oratory and virulent anti-Semitism . Following Hitler's death, he served as Chancellor for one day. He then committed suicide .
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[ edit ] Early life
Goebbels was born to factory clerk Friedrich Goebbels [1] (1867–1929) and his wife Katharina Odenhausen in Rheydt (now a part of Mönchengladbach ), a Protestant area in the Rhineland , although his family was Roman Catholic . He had four siblings: Konrad (1895–1949), Hans (1893–1947), Elisabeth (1901–1915) and the youngest child Maria Katharina (b. 1910). His legal surname according to his birth certificate was Göbbels, but he seems always to have used the spelling Goebbels, as is not uncommon in Germany. At the age of seven he contracted osteomyelitis - an infection of the bone marrow - and an operation, in the days before antibiotics, was only partially successful. He was left with a left leg which was shorter and weaker than the right, which caused him to be rejected when he volunteered for military service at the beginning of World War I (he wore a metal brace on his leg for most of his life). Although he has been frequently described as having a club foot, this was not the case. As a student he often represented himself as a wounded veteran, but in fact the nearest that he came to wartime service was from June 1917 to October 1917; he was an "Office Soldier" with the "Patriotic Help Unit" in Rheydt . [2]
After earning a Ph.D. in Literature and Philosophy from the University of Heidelberg in 1921 he worked as a journalist and tried for several years to become a published author. His work included an autobiographical novel called Michael which no publisher would take at the time, and two plays written in verse - The Wanderer, about Jesus Christ, and The Lonesome Guest - which no producer would stage. Joining the Nazi Party in 1924 (although he later claimed to have joined in 1922), Goebbels was initially closely aligned with the left faction around the Strasser brothers . From 1926, when he became gauleiter of Berlin, he moved away from his early associations, and his diary shows many instances of great admiration for Hitler.
In December 1931, after a stormy courtship, he married divorcee Magda Quandt , whose son, Harald (from her previous marriage to wealthy industrialist Günther Quandt) accompanied them beneath the raised arms of an SS honour guard (Harald, who served as a officer in the Luftwaffe , was the only one of Magda's seven children to survive World War II ).
The diaries of Joseph Goebbels, which have survived almost in their entirety, contain large numbers of entries detailing his philanderings, which he clearly regarded as great love affairs, and of which it would appear he had several at a time. In the 1925 and 1926 books the names Else, Alma and Anke are the most common to appear. "Anke" was Anke Helhorn. She left Goebbels, got married and divorced, and in 1934 he got her a job on one of the magazines he controlled. (Wheeler-Bennett, Nemesis p.58).
A love affair with the actress Lída Baarová nearly took his life when he attempted suicide on October 15 , 1938 . Goebbels survived, and the affair was terminated at the behest of Adolf Hitler.
Together with Adolf Hitler at the Berghof
For more details on this topic, see Nazi propaganda .
Goebbels played a large role in helping the Nazis achieve and retain power by creating propaganda to present the Nazi ideology to the German people. Some suggest he was a committed anti-Semite, involved with Kristallnacht in 1938 and later connected with the Nazi Endlösung ( Final Solution ) as well as the Judenfrage ("Jewish Question"), especially the deportation of Jews from Berlin . Others historians, such as Ian Kershaw , present the idea that Goebbels was not anti-semetic, but simply sold the message of the Nazis to the German people. Originally from the socialist side of the NSDAP, Goebbels saw potential with Hitler's side and rooted his commitments there with the nationalist members.
Goebbels began to regulate all forms of artistic expression , banishing Jewish writers , journalists and artists from Germany's cultural life. He took control of the news media, making sure that it presented Germany's domestic and foreign policy aims in terms of Nazi ideology. He played probably the most important role in creating an atmosphere in Germany that made it possible for the Nazis to "clean" the Reich of Jews, homosexuals and other minorities. The Goebbels technique, also known as argumentum ad nauseam , is the name given to a policy of repeating a falsehood until it is taken to be the truth (see Big Lie ). Goebbels also pioneered the use of broadcasting in mass propaganda, promoting the distribution of inexpensive single frequency radio receivers (the so-called Volksempfänger (People's radio)) to the German public which ensured that millions of people heard the output of the Reich's propaganda ministry while being unable to receive news and other broadcasts from outside Germany. Meanwhile his ministry busily broadcast Nazi propaganda around the world by shortwave radio . Newsreels, movies and books were impossible to publish without prior approval and censorship by Goebbels' ministry. He is credited by historians with developing the techniques of modern communications and propaganda. He had a strong influence on German propaganda motion pictures throughout the Nazi era. He was the unaccredited Executive Producer and an uncredited writer of the film Kolberg (1945). [3]
Although Goebbels was disappointed when Germany went to war with Britain in 1939, he remained steadfastly loyal to Hitler throughout the war and derived immense power and prestige from his position. Goebbels' ministry of propaganda controlled essentially every aspect of culture in Germany. In October 1941 he organized the "Weimarer Dichtertreffen" (Weimar Convention of Poets) inviting collaborating writers from all of Europe. Under Goebbels auspices the participating members (e.g. Pierre Drieu La Rochelle and Robert Brasillach ) founded the "Europäische Schriftstellervereinigung" (European Writer's League). Goebbels is often remembered for his Sportpalast speech , given on February 18 , 1943 (sometimes called the Total War speech) in which he tried to motivate the German people to continue their struggle after the tides of World War II had turned against Germany. By this time many Germans privately believed Germany was irrevocably on its way to defeat.
There was strong animosity between Goebbels and the popular Hermann Göring , whose political influence waned following his disastrous management of the Luftwaffe early during the war and Goebbels became the third most powerful leader in Germany (after Martin Bormann , Hitler's private secretary, of whom most Germans were not aware). As Germany's military situation collapsed, the increasing shrillness of the government's propaganda brought discreet ridicule from the German people who nicknamed Goebbels The Malicious Dwarf and The Wotan Mickey Mouse.
[ edit ] Ruin and suicide
Joseph Goebbels and his family, pictured around October 1942, with Magda's son Harald Quandt in the back row
During the final stages of the war in the spring of 1945 Hitler split the offices of Reichskanzler (Chancellor of the Reich) and Reichspräsident (President of the Reich), both of which he had held as Führer since the death of Generalfeldmarschall Paul von Hindenburg in August 1934. He appointed Goebbels Chancellor of Germany in his will, with Grand-Admiral Karl Dönitz , the commander-in-chief of the Kriegsmarine, as President without the Führer title (the post-Hitler Flensburg government had hopes of being recognized by the Allied powers but was ultimately arrested towards the end of May 1945 when the Allies decided to formally replace it with their own military administration).
Shortly after Hitler committed suicide at about 3:30 in the afternoon (Berlin time) on April 30 , 1945 , an emotional and agitated Goebbels sought out Hitler's secretary Traudl Junge and dictated these lines as an addition to Hitler's political testament:
"The Führer has given orders for me, in case of a breakdown of defense of the Capital of the Reich, to leave Berlin and to participate as a leading member in a government appointed by him. For the first time in my life, I must categorically refuse to obey a command of the Führer. My wife and my children agree with this refusal. In any other case, I would feel myself (...) a dishonorable renegade and vile scoundrel for my entire further life, who would lose the esteem of himself along with the esteem of his people, both of which would have to form the requirement for further duty of my person in designing the future of the German Nation and the German Reich."
After several hours of anxiously waiting for news that German troops might be able to rescue the bunker's occupants, Goebbels and his wife resolved to carry out a previously arranged plan to kill their children and then themselves. Magda had all six of their children put to sleep with morphine , then poisoned them with cyanide . Joseph Goebbels did not take a direct part in this but acquiesced throughout, even refusing the offers of others to take the children out of Berlin before it was too late. Contrary to what he hastily added to Hitler's last political will, by all accounts the children were in good spirits and entirely unaware of their parents' plans to kill them, except perhaps in the case of Helga, whose body showed signs of physical abuse (i.e. bruising). They were:
Helga Susanne (born, September 1 , 1932 , aged 12) was the eldest of the six and her father's favorite. She had her father's chestnut brown hair and eyes.
Hildegard (Hilde) Traudel (born April 13 , 1934 aged 11) was also a brunette and the most diligent of the six.
Helmut Christian (born October 2 , 1935 , aged 9) was the only boy and a dreamer who fell behind in school. He aspired to join the Hitler Youth when he became of age.
Today there are surviving descendants in Ravenna, Michigan .
The Goebbels suicide as depicted in the film Der Untergang
While early reports suggested Joseph and Magda Goebbels were shot by SS bodyguards in the ruins of the Chancellory garden at their own request on May 1 , 1945 , they likely took cyanide first. Another account claims Goebbels shot Magda then himself afterwards (as shown in the 2004 film, Der Untergang (Downfall), where Goebbels was portrayed by actor Ulrich Matthes ). Their bodies were partially burned, left unburied and quickly found by Soviet troops. The children's pyjama-clad bodies were found still in the three sets of two-tiered bunk beds in which they were killed. A photograph of Goebbels' incinerated face was widely published. [4] The bodies of the Goebbels family, along with those of Hitler and Eva Braun , were secretly buried. Later they were reburied together by the Soviets, ultimately in the courtyard of KGB headquarters in Magdeburg , Germany. In April 1970, all the remains were reburned and scattered in the Elbe river.
[ edit ] Diaries
Goebbels kept a diary for much of his life. From 1923 to 1941, he wrote the entries himself. From 1941 to 1945, he dictated lengthy passages to aides. He sometimes telephoned them in the middle of the night when he wanted to add some text. The dictations usually opened with a description of the military situation, followed by his personal comments. The dictated diary is not as personal as the earlier one he wrote himself.
Much of the diaries were thought to have been lost during World War II . However in 1992, Dr. Elke Fröhlich found a large portion of them in Russian archives. (Many believe they were first found by David Irving. He cites so in his biography of Goebbels). A 29 volume edition edited by Elke Fröhlich and others is said to be 98% complete. The last two volumes were expected to be published in 2006. [5]
[ edit ] Goebbels in popular culture
Das Goebbels-Experiment , a narrated biographic film based on Goebbels' diaries. [6]
Goebbels is represented by the character Giuseppe Givola in the parody play The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui by Bertolt Brecht . The play is a parody of the rise of Hitler, written while Brecht was in exile at that time (1941), with various scenes added afterwards. The play has been translated into English by Ralph Manheim and published by Methuen Modern Plays.