Joseph goebbels

Paul Joseph Goebbels (Rheydt, October 29, 1897-Berlin, May 1, 1945) was a German politician who held the post of Minister for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda of the Third Reich between 1933 and 1945. One of Adolf Hitler's closest associates, Goebbels was known for his talents as an orator, his deep anti-Semitism, and his support for increasingly severe racial discrimination—which, among other things, would end giving rise to the genocide of the Jews in the so-called Holocaust.

He earned his doctorate in German Philology at the University of Heidelberg in 1921, but his dream was to be a writer, something he expressed many times in his personal diary. He joined the National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP) in 1924 and he worked for Gregor Strasser in the northern chapter. He was appointed Gauleiter (district chief) of Berlin in 1926, where he became interested in propaganda as a tool to promote the party and its program. In 1933, after the Nazis had consolidated their hold on power, his Ministry of Propaganda quickly took over oversight of the media, arts, and information in the country. He was drawn to the relatively new media, such as radio and movies, for propaganda purposes. Broadcast topics included anti-Semitism, clashes with Christian congregations, and, after the start of World War II, shaping German morality.

In 1943 he lobbied Hitler to introduce measures aimed at "total war," such as the closure of businesses "non-essential" to the war effort, the recruitment of women into the labor force and men in previously exempt occupations in the Wehrmacht. On July 23, 1944, Hitler appointed him "plenipotentiary for total war" (Generalbevollmächtigten für den totalen Kriegseinsatz), so Goebbels undertook measures, mostly unsuccessful, to increase the number of people available for the Wehrmacht and the production of armaments. He delivered an eloquent speech on total war at the Sports Palace in Berlin, just as the Third Reich's initial successes during World War II gave way to successive defeats that led to the fall of the regime.

As the war drew to a close and Germany faced defeat, he moved with his wife Magda and their children to Berlin. On April 22, 1945, they moved into the underground Vorbunker, part of the Führer's bomb shelter. Hitler committed suicide on April 30 and, in accordance with his will, Goebbels succeeded him as Reich Chancellor (Reichskanzler). The next day, faced with imminent German defeat, he and his wife committed suicide after poisoning their six children.

His political opponents considered him a feared demagogue and mass agitator. This reputation began after the re-founding of the NSDAP, when Goebbels organized riots and street clashes against the communists in Berlin. The use of vivid speech and Violent public demonstrations succeeded in increasing the number of supporters of the party. His impact on cultural life was considerable, as his ministry made or destroyed the artistic careers of many Germans. People who had personal contact with him claimed that he had an unsympathetic and irresolute character, although he was obsessed with receiving the respect of his colleagues. Historian Peter Longerich, author of Goebbels. Biographie (2010), questions his close friendship with Hitler and assures that he is an overrated figure, since his importance within the Nazi regime was less because they did not take him into account in some of the big decisions, and that he was not the "great propagandist" he appeared to be. According to Longerich, Goebbels suffered from "a narcissistic personality disorder that made him addictively seek recognition and praise", which would explain his "almost absolute devotion to Hitler, his obsession with his own image and the fact that he spent a considerable part of his time engaged in long battles against his competitors in Hitler's entourage." Goebbels was one of the main instigators of anti-Semitic acts and one of the few Nazi leaders to publicly mention the Jewish genocide.

Childhood and youth

Photographed in his first communion (1910).

He was born on October 29, 1897 into a Catholic family in Rheydt, an industrial city south of Mönchengladbach, Germany. He was the son of Friedrich Goebbels, who had worked at the Vereinigten Dochtfabriken GmbH wick factory and later as an accountant, and Katharina Maria Odenhausen, of Dutch origin who had worked on a farm before her marriage. Goebbels's ancestors were peasants and lived in the territory between Aachen, Cologne and Mönchengladbach; Maria Gervers) was a native of the Dutch province of Limburg. 1949); the latter married German filmmaker Max Wilhelm Kimmich in 1938. In 1932, Joseph Goebbels published a pamphlet of her family tree to refute rumors that her maternal grandmother had Jewish roots.

His childhood was marked by the tense financial situation of his family. In order to improve his income, members of the household worked at various domestic jobs.Goebbels suffered from poor health: he faced a long battle with lung inflammation and his right foot had a deformity from a bone infection at the age of four. The latter caused it to be curved inward and less thick and long than his left foot. He underwent surgery to correct it before starting elementary school, but it was botched. He wore a metal brace and special shoes because his shorter leg caused him to limp when he walked. Because of this, he was ridiculed by his political opponents years later. Goebbels wanted to participate as a soldier in World War I, but was turned away from the army due to his disability. Later, he presented himself as a veteran of that conflict and his disability as a war injury.

Together with his brothers, he studied at the Christian städtische Oberrealschule mit Reformgymnasium gymnasium (secondary school), where he passed his Abitur — university entrance examination — in March 1917. He learned to He played the piano and performed several concertos at his school. He was the valedictorian of his class and was given the honor of giving a speech at the graduation ceremony; his composition was charged with patriotism. Although Goebbels had been interested to study Catholic theology and was sponsored by a Catholic institution, he abandoned that idea after a brief Franciscan boarding school in Kerkrade, which disappointed his parents; instead, he studied German studies, history, and classical philology at the universities of Bonn, Wurzburg, Freiburg, Munich, Cologne, Frankfurt, Berlin and Heidelberg. He received a scholarship from the Albertus-Magnus-Verein ("Alberto Magno Association"), which promoted Catholic students; On the recommendation of his former teacher, Father Mollen, on May 22, 1917, Goebbels joined the Verband der Wissenschaftlichen Katholischen Studentenvereine Unitas (W.K.St.V.), a federation of Catholic students with a branch at the University of Bonn, where Goebbels he began his university studies.

Historians such as Richard J. Evans, Roger Manvell, and Gerhard Besier speculate that his obsession with women may have been his way of compensating for his physical handicap and unpleasant self-image. 1918 he followed his friend and roommate Karl-Heinz Kölsch to Freiburg, where he met Anka Stalherm, a law student three years his senior and member of a wealthy family; they fell in love and decided to move to Wurzburg to continue with his studies. Stalherm's parents were against the relationship, and in 1920, after moving to Munich, the couple separated. The breakup filled Goebbels with suicidal thoughts. Between 1919 and 1921 he wrote a semi-autobiographical novel, Michael: ein deutsches Schicksal in Tagebuchblättern (which he had originally titled Michael Voormanns Jugendjahre)., a work divided into three volumes. According to biographer Peter Longerich, Goebbels felt that with this novel he was writing his "own history" or, as Joachim Fest puts it, the "frustrated desire to enter the army". Possibly, the antisemitic comments and comments about a charismatic leader may have been added by the author himself shortly before the book's 1929 publication by Eher-Verlag, the publisher of the National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP).

Goebbels had been experiencing an identity crisis since the end of World War I. He began to distance himself from Catholicism and decided to renounce his membership in the W.K.St.V., in which he had been active in Bonn, Freiburg and Wurzburg. Around this time, a young anarchist named Richard Flisges, whom Goebbels had known since childhood, had a special influence on him, as it introduced him to the doctrines and authors of communism. Goebbels began to read many writers, especially Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Oswald Spengler, and Houston Stewart Chamberlain, a German author. of British origin whose work The Foundations of the Nineteenth Century (1899) was one of the canonical books of the German extreme right. At the suggestion of Flisges, he also began to study the "social question" and the works of Marx, Engels, Luxemburg, Bebel and Noske. He became interested in socialism when, in 1919, the student and anti-Communist and anti-Semitic activist Anton von Arco auf Valley assassinated the Minister President of the Free State of Bavaria, Kurt Eisner, a member of the leftist USPD. At this time he witnessed and admired the violent nationalist reaction against the attempted communist revolution in Bavaria and a possible "red revolution in the Ruhr area" during the Kapp putsch (Kapp-Putsch). As part of his thinking at this stage, he glorified workers and wanted to feel intimately connected to them; his rancor was against the "bourgeois," not only the capitalist, but also the petty bourgeois. He liked the communists for their revolutionary fervor and their hatred of the bourgeoisie and repudiated social democracy and liberalism. In time, he concluded that the international orientation of communism was divisive and, as an alternative, he intended to establish a "national socialism."

Portrait of his graduation in Heidelberg, 24 years old.

At the University of Heidelberg he wrote his doctoral thesis on Wilhelm von Schütz, a 19th-century Romantic dramatist. He planned to work on his thesis under the direction of literary historian Friedrich Gundolf. Gundolf was of Jewish origin, although to Goebbels this did not seem to bother him; Gundolf was not teaching at the time, so he recommended him to his assistant professor, Max von Waldberg, also a Jew. The latter recommended him to write the thesis on Schütz, which he titled Wilhelm von Schütz als Dramatiker: ein Beitrag zur Geschichte des Dramas der Romantischen Schule. After presenting his thesis and passing his oral examination, he obtained his doctorate (Dr. phil.) in 1921.

He returned to Rheydt with the hope of becoming a well-known writer. He began working as a private tutor and as a journalist for the local newspaper, Westdeutsche Landeszeitung. During this time, his writings reflected his growing anti-Semitism and distaste for modern culture. In the summer of 1922 he began a loving relationship with Else Janke, a school teacher and daughter of a Jewish mother and a Christian father. Although the parents supported Goebbels spiritually and materially, the relationship did not develop due to many disagreements. Goebbels wrote in his diary that he would have married her if she were not a "half-breed" (Halbblüter) and that "the charm [of the relationship] was ruined" when Janke told him of their origin. However, they continued to meet until 1927 when he was appointed Gauleiter in Berlin. In the following years he tried to become a prolific author. In his diary, which he began in 1923 and continued for the rest of Throughout his life, he always mentioned his desire to be a writer. The meager income from his literary works forced him to accept positions as a stockbroker or clerk at the Dresdner Bank in Cologne, a job he detested. He was fired from the bank in August Goebbels sent his resume to the newspapers Vossische Zeitung and Berliner Tageblatt , but both newspapers did not hire him. The editors-in-chief of those newspapers were Jewish and reject with approximately fifty sample articles that Goebbels sent; possibly this was one of the causes of his resentment towards the Jews, who, according to Goebbels, "dominated the culture", "did not appreciate" his work and did not allow him "to do what he liked".

According to Longerich, Goebbels' diary entries from late 1923 to early 1924 reflect a man isolated and preoccupied with "religious and philosophical" issues and lacking clear direction. Notes from mid-December 1923 onwards indicate that Goebbels was beginning to sympathize with the nationalist völkisch movement. Ulrich Höver states that Goebbels was faced with an "incredible variety of ideas", one of which was it seemed to offer a way out of the "chaos" of that time (Chaos der Zeit). He did not have a clear worldview, in which "peace and fulfillment" could be found, and he did not find the "powerful genius" (starke Genie) who would point out his "new goals". Historian Ralf Georg Reuth indicates that despair and anguish led Goebbels to a deep hatred of society, which allegedly submitted to "soulless materialism" (seelenlosen Materialismus) and Judaism.

Nazi activism

Autographed postcard issued by Nazi propaganda.

Goebbels became interested in Adolf Hitler and Nazism in 1924; his first contacts with the NSDAP occurred a year earlier during the campaign of resistance to the French occupation of the Ruhr (Ruhrbesetzung), in which he met members of the then-banned Nazi movement. In 1924, the trial against Hitler was held, accused of high treason in his failed attempt to seize power in Munich between November 8 and 9, 1923, an event that came to be known as the Beer Hall Putsch. He was in the media and gave Hitler a platform to spread his nationalist discourse. Although he was sentenced to five years in prison, he benefited from a general amnesty for political prisoners and the Bavarian Supreme Court ordered his release on December 20, 1924, eight months later.

In August of that year, Goebbels attended the founding congress of the Nationalsozialistischen Freiheitsbewegung Großdeutschlands (lit., "National Socialist Movement for the Liberation of Greater Germany") in Weimar, which brought together various NSDAP organizations that had since distanced themselves of the failure of the Putsch and the banning of the party. He was sympathetic to the political program, especially the charisma of the main speaker, Hitler. On February 25, 1925 Goebbels joined the NSDAP and, on March 22, he became member number 8,762, although this number was later changed to 22 by decision of the party leadership.

At the end of 1924, he offered his services to Karl Kaufmann, who was Gauleiter — an NSDAP district leader — for the Rhine-Ruhr District. Kaufmann put him in touch with Gregor Strasser, a party organizer in northern Germany, who hired him to work for his weekly Völkische Freiheit in Elberfeld and as secretary for the party's regional offices. he collaborated as a speaker and representative of the Nazi Party in Rhineland-Westphalia. In August 1925 he participated as editor of the Nationalsozialistischen Briefe, on the recommendation of Strasser and with a monthly salary of 150 marks. The members of the chapter The North under Strasser had a more socialist outlook than Hitler's group in Munich. Strasser did not endorse many aspects of the platform devised by Hitler and, in November 1926, began work on a revision. In August 1925, Goebbels published an open letter to his "friends on the left" urging unity between socialists and Nazis against capitalists: "We are fighting each other even though we are not really enemies," he wrote. changed. Goebbels was able to speak personally with Hitler at a meeting in Brunswick (6 November). In his diary he noted: «This man has everything to be king. He born of the people. The next dictator. Shortly thereafter, on November 22, 1925, Strasser founded the Arbeitsgemeinschaft der nord- und nordwestdeutschen Gaue der NSDAP (lit., "labor association of the Gau of the north and north-west of the NSDAP"; abbreviated Arbeitsgemeinschaft Nordwest) and Goebbels was instrumental in the writing of his political program, for which he departed considerably from Hitler's ideas.

Hitler considered Strasser's actions a threat to his authority and summoned sixty Gauleiter and party leaders, including Goebbels, to a special conference in Bamberg (February 14, 1926), at Strasser's Gau in Franconia, where he gave a two-hour speech repudiating Strasser's new political program. Hitler opposed the socialist leanings of the northern group, stating that this would mean the " political Bolshevization of Germany. He said that "there would be no princes, only Germans", that there would be a legal regime without an "exploitative Jewish system... [that] plunders our villages" and insisted that the future would be guaranteed by the acquisition of land, not by through the "expropriation of property of the former nobility", but rather through the colonization of territories in the east of the country. Goebbels was impressed by Hitler's explanations that socialism was a "Jewish creation" and that private property would not be expropriated by the future government of the Nazis. Although Goebbels glorified My fight , he maintained ideological differences: «I no longer fully believe in Hitler. That's the terrible thing: my inner support fades ", he wrote in his diary. At a party rally in Königsberg (February 19), Goebbels gave a speech entitled "Lenin or Hitler? " (published as Lenin oder Hitler?: eine Rede ) in which he asserted that communism or Marxism would not save the German people, but believed that a "true nationalist and socialist state" would arise in Russia.

In April 1926, hoping to win over the opposition, Hitler arranged meetings in Munich with three leaders of the Greater Ruhr Gau: Kaufmann, Franz Pfeffer von Salomon, and Goebbels. newspaper, Goebbels was astonished when Hitler sent for them in his car to meet them at the train station. That evening, both made speeches at an event in a beer hall. The next day, at a dinner at Bürgerbräukeller, Hitler offered the three men a reconciliation and encouraged them to put their differences aside; likewise, he affirmed Goebbels in his position as leader in the Greater Ruhr and praised him for his "new vision" on the "social question", but warned him that he should weigh his support for Strasser against his desire for any leadership in the party. Historian Ian Kershaw noted that Goebbels "completely surrendered" to those words and offered Hitler his absolute loyalty: "I adore him... He has thought of everything [I want]," he wrote in his diary. "A brilliant mind like that must be my leader. I bow to the greatest, the political genius. He later added: "Adolf Hitler, I love you because you are great and simple at the same time. What someone would call genius". Despite this "conversion", Goebbels continued to vacillate with his earlier principles and his ideological adaptation was influenced by subsequent events. As a result of the Bamberg and Munich meetings, the new project Strasser's political program lost supporters. Thus, the original National Socialist Program of 1920 remained unchanged and Hitler's position as party leader was strengthened.

Berlin Propagandist

Goebbels (in the foreground) and Hermann Göring in Berlin (1930).

At Hitler's invitation, Goebbels spoke at party meetings in Munich and at the 1926 NSDAP annual congress in Weimar. For the following year's event he was involved in the planning for the first time; together with Hitler he organized the rally for the filming.Praise for his good performance in these events made Goebbels adapt his political ideas to match those of Hitler and admire and idolize him even more.

Gauleiter of Berlin

In August 1926 he was nominated for the position of party Gauleiter for the Berlin-Brandenburg section. He traveled to the capital in mid-September and in October accepted the post. Hitler's plan was to split up and dissolve the northwestern Gauleiter group that Goebbels had served under Strasser. He gave great authority over the area, which allowed him to determine the direction of the organization and leadership of the Gau. Goebbels took control of the local section of the Sturmabteilung (SA) and Schutzstaffel (SS) and reported solely to Hitler. Party membership was approximately 1,000 when Goebbels arrived, but he whittled it down to 600 and retained to the most active and promising members. To raise funds, he instituted membership dues and began charging admission to party meetings. Mindful of the importance of both positive and negative publicity, he sparked fights in beer halls and street fights, as well as violent attacks against the Communist Party of Germany (KPD). Already in June he had written: "State power begins in the street. Anyone who can conquer the street can also conquer the State'; he wanted to use "terror and brutality" and thus "overthrow the state". Goebbels adapted new commercial advertising techniques to the political sphere, including the use of catchy slogans and subliminal messages. He had new ideas for poster design, such as the use of large type, red ink, and cryptic headings that encouraged the reader to examine the fine print for meaning.

Goebbels at a political rally held in 1932. With this posture, with his arms on his hips, he intended to show his authority to the audience.

Like Hitler, he practiced his public speaking skills in front of a mirror. The meetings were preceded by ceremonial marches and chants and were decorated with party flags. His entrance, almost always late, was timed to achieve the greatest emotional impact. His speeches were generally meticulously planned in advance and the use of gestures and voice inflection was choreographed and pre-planned, but he was also capable of improvising and adapting his presentation to gain a better rapport with the audience. Hitler's was raspy and passionate, Goebbels' was cool, sarcastic, and even humorous; he was also adept at spouting insults and innuendo or deploying a rhetorical outburst if the occasion warranted.In his writings he demanded of his followers a profound ideological shift and a willingness to sacrifice to "destroy the power of capitalism and Judaism." »; in this way, he added, “the class struggle would end” and “the Germans would be free.” “Berlin needs sensations, like fish need water. This city demands them and any political propaganda will not achieve its goal if it fails to understand it," he wrote in his diary. Goebbels understood that it required attracting attention at all costs. On November 16, 1926, he founded a school of oratory because, in his opinion, both Fascism and Bolshevism were formed mainly thanks to great orators. Goebbels later declared that "ideas" were a prerequisite for any propaganda and considered that only a short and accessible presentation was necessary. «You will never find millions of people who will give their lives for a book. You will never find millions of people who will give their lives for an economic program... but millions of people will one day be ready to perish for the gospel", he sentenced. The propaganda events organized by Goebbels focused on the emotions and instincts of listeners. By February 1926, his position as Gauleiter was consolidated.

Goebbels' tactic consisted of the use of provocation to attract attention to the NSDAP, rallies and violent public demonstrations. The head of the SA in Berlin, Kurt Daluege, encouraged him to expand that paramilitary structure, which in at the time it was disguised as a "sports department" of the party. Soon this armed group was trained for combat in auditoriums and on the streets, especially against the communists' Roter Frontkämpferbund. This led the Berlin police to ban the NSDAP from the city on May 5, 1927, but the violent incidents continued; for example, Nazi youths were reportedly attacking Jews at random in the streets. The authorities placed Goebbels under a public speaking ban until the end of October 1927. While serving his sentence, he founded the newspaper Der Angriff as an instrument of propaganda for the Berlin area and its surroundings; it was a newspaper with an aggressive tone, with a modern presentation and an anti-communist and anti-Semitic editorial line. The publication competed within the NSDAP with the Völkischer Beobachter in Munich and the Berliner Arbeiterzeitung, the weekly of the brothers Otto and Gregor Strasser. Circulation of Der Angriff began with 2,000 copies; by October of that year it had sold 4,500 copies. bean. Goebbels gave him the derogatory nickname "Isidor" and subjected him to a relentless campaign of harassment, along with the rest of the Jews, to provoke repressive measures by the security forces that he could later take advantage of. He hired several cartoonists, including Hans Schweitzer, to draw mockery of Weiß and other politicians of the Weimar Republic.

For the second time, Goebbels tried to break into the literary world with the publication of a revised version of his book Michael and the unsuccessful production of two of his plays (Der Wanderer and Die Saat); this was his final attempt to break into playwriting, as all newspapers except Der Angriff heavily criticized the plays. At this time in Berlin he had many relationships with women, including his former girlfriend. Anka Stalherm, who was already married with a small child. Goebbels tried to revive that relationship, but when he lost interest in her he looked for someone else. In those years he worried too much if a committed relationship would interfere with his career.

Federal elections of 1928

The ban on the NSDAP ended in early 1928, just in time for the Reichstag elections, held on May 20. The NSDAP lost almost 100,000 voters and only won 2.6% of the vote nationwide. The results in Berlin were worse, reaching only 1.4% of the vote. Goebbels was one of twelve NSDAP members to win a Reichstag seat, granting him immunity from a long list of pending charges, including a three-week prison sentence he received in April for insulting Deputy Chief Weiß. In Der Angriff he mocked that institution, which he found "ripe for destruction":

Wir haben nichts mit dem Parlament zu tun. Wir lehnen is innerlich ab und stehen auch nicht an, dem nach außen hin kräftig Ausdruck zu verleihen. [...] Ich bin kein Mitglied des Reichstages. Ich bin ein IdI. Ein IdF. Ein Inhaber der Immunität, ein Inhaber der Freifahrtkarte. (Ein IdI) beschimpft das,System‘ und empfängt dafür den Dank der Republik in Gestalt von siebenhundertfünfzig Mark Monatsgehalt.

We have nothing to do with Parliament. We reject him internally and are not in a state of rebellion. [...] I'm not a member of the Reichstag. I am an adg. [...] An immunity holder, a graceful free ticket. (An adg) insults the “system” and receives the gratitude of the Republic in the form of seven hundred and fifty monthly wage frameworks.

Goebbels appeared on July 10 with a tirade and received a reprimand from the Vice President of the Reichstag and much desired press coverage; otherwise he cared little for Parliament, for almost nine months later he took the floor again.From 1930 he was re-elected to the Berlin Reichstag constituency at every election during the Weimar and National Socialist regimes.

Gregor Strasser, from his newspaper Berliner Arbeiterzeitung, was a vocal critic of Goebbels's failure to attract the vote from the cities. However, the party as a whole was successful in rural areas, as he got 18% of the vote in some regions. This was partly because Hitler had publicly said before the election that Point 17 of his political program—on expropriation of land without compensation—would apply. only to "Jewish speculators" and not to private landowners. After the election, the party refocused its efforts on attracting more votes from the agricultural sector. In May 1928, Hitler considered making Goebbels director of propaganda for the party, but he was hesitant because he was concerned that Strasser's removal from that post might lead to a split in the party. Goebbels considered himself well suited for the position and began formulating ideas on how propaganda could be used in schools and the media.

Goebbels used Horst Wessel's death in his propaganda war against the "degenerates and subhuman communists." In the image, the Wessel membership card in the NSDAP, signed by Goebbels himself.

Since May 1929, clashes between communists and SA have been more and more frequent, fueled by propaganda from both sides. Goebbels called his opponents "loud, furious subhumans," "venom-spitting animals," who must be "eradicated" and "destroyed." In September he was nearly shot in a street fight, but the bullet hit the driver of his car. The following year, on 14 January 1930, SA section chief Horst Wessel was shot. by two members of the KPD, in the midst of violence between Nazis and communists. He died in hospital a month later. Goebbels made him a martyr to the Nazi movement and declared that a march composed by Wessel, Die Fahne Hoch, would be the anthem of the National Socialist German Workers Party and renamed it Horst-Wessel-Lied.

In December 1930, the American film All Quiet at the Front was released, an adaptation of Erich Maria Remarque's anti-war novel of the same name, which was fiercely opposed by the extreme right because it showed the futility and horror of war Goebbels sent his supporters to boycott the screening and attack the Jews who came to see it. In the days that followed, they began protest demonstrations that degenerated into street battles with the police. The film was ultimately banned for "endangering German prestige", which Goebbels perceived as a great success.

The Great Depression

The Great Depression hit the country and in 1930 there was a drastic increase in unemployment. Goebbels was concerned about the plans of the brothers Otto and Gregor Strasser to publish a newspaper in Berlin, which would compete with Der Angriff, and he needed Hitler's financial support to prevent it, but at this time he doubted his leadership qualities, for, in January 1930, he remarked: 'Hitler, as usual, does not make a decision again. It's like joking with him. [...] Hitler himself does not work enough. That is not the way to go. And he doesn't have the courage to make decisions. He doesn't drive anymore.” When Goebbels was in Munich at the end of that month, Hitler promised him the NSDAP Propaganda Directorate (Reichspropagandaleitung der NSDAP), so he comfortably returned to the capital. However, in March the Strasser's new newspaper, the Nationaler Sozialist, went into circulation, which, like its other newspapers, spread Nazism, nationalism, anti-capitalism, social reform and anti-Westernism professed by the brothers. Goebbels vehemently criticized that the success his newspapers had had in Berlin was being "pushed to the wall" and that the Strassers were rivaling Hitler's proposals in articles in the Nationaler Sozialist Filled with grudges, he published in an editorial: "Hitler has broken his word four times on this matter alone. I no longer believe him. [...] How will he be when he has to act as a dictator in Germany? ». The conflict remained on paper, as Goebbels remained active in his role as Gauleiter and speaker at mass events.

At the end of April 1930, Hitler firmly declared his opposition to Gregor Strasser and appointed Goebbels director of propaganda for the NSDAP. One of his first acts was to ban the evening edition of the Nationaler Sozialist and seize control of other Nazi newspapers with nationwide circulation, including the party's official bulletin, the Völkischer Beobachter. On July 3 it was announced that Otto Strasser and his supporters were leaving the NSDAP. According to Longerich, Goebbels was relieved when he received the news that the "crisis" with the Strassers was over and was glad that his former boss had lost his power. Der Angriff changed the frequency of casting twice a week, in October 1929, every day in the afternoon, from November 1. He also increased printing from 80,000 (March 1930) to 110,000 copies (July 1932), but in these years he ran into funding problems and circulation bans.

On March 27, 1930, the rapidly deteriorating economy caused the governing coalition elected in 1928 to dissolve. A new Cabinet was formed and Paul von Hindenburg used his presidential power to rule by decree, appointing Chancellor Heinrich Brüning. Goebbels took charge of the NSDAP's nationwide campaign for the Reichstag elections called on September 14, 1930. It was conducted on a large scale, with thousands of meetings and conferences throughout the nation. Hitler focused on blaming the country's economic problems on the Weimar Republic—particularly its adherence to the terms of the Treaty of Versailles—and insisted that war reparations had led to the disaster of the German economy. He proposed a new society based on "racial and national unity". The resulting success surprised Hitler and Goebbels: the party received more than six million votes and won 107 seats in the Reichstag, making it the second largest political force in the world. after the SPD.

Wedding of Goebbels and Magda Ritschel. In the background, Hitler as the godfather of the bridegroom (1931).

In the late 1930s, Goebbels met Magda Ritschel, a divorcee who had joined the NSDAP a few months earlier. Ritschel was married to the industrialist Günther Quandt, but they separated in 1929. She worked as a volunteer at the party offices in Berlin and helped Goebbels organize his private documents. Her apartment on the Reichskanzlerplatz—which in 1963 would be renamed as Theodor-Heuss-Platz—became a favorite meeting point for Hitler and other NSDAP officials. Goebbels and Ritschel were married on December 19, 1931, and Hitler was the groom's best man.

Serious riots broke out on the night of the Jewish New Year on September 12, 1931, when groups of non-uniformed youths on the Kurfürstendamm beat up Jewish-looking passersby. The revolt was orchestrated by the leader of the Berlin SA, Wolf-Heinrich von Helldorff. Twenty-two protesters were sentenced to prison terms and Helldorff was fined, although incitement to Goebbels, who had authority over the SA and was aware of their activities, could not be proven.

In December 1929, he accused President Hindenburg of betraying the German people, and in May 1930, he had to appear in court. He maintained his reproaches before the ovation from the auditorium. He was sentenced to a fine of 800 marks. Before the appeal on August 14, Hindenburg said that Goebbels had wanted to insult him personally and was no longer interested in a punishment. Two days earlier, Goebbels appeared at the Hanover court for allegedly saying that the Prussian Prime Minister Otto Braun was bribed by a "Jew from Galicia." He had arranged his appearance with a march of National Socialists who accompanied him to the courthouse. He stated that he was not referring to Braun, but to former chancellor Gustav Bauer, for which he was acquitted.On September 29, 1930 he was to stand trial for six defamation lawsuits. He repeatedly asked for a postponement, for different reasons. Finally, the court ordered the forced appearance. Goebbels did not appear and, on the day the Reichstag opened, he escaped arrest on the steps of the building because he was once again under the protection of parliamentary immunity. In February 1931, the Reichstag changed the rules of jurisdiction and Goebbels was forced to to pay fines for libel he had placed on Der Angriff in the course of the previous year. On April 14, he was fined 1,500 marks for insulting Weiß. Because he had failed to appear for the trial in Berlin, which the criminal policeman Otto Busdorf—notorious for the Magdeburg court scandal—had brought against him for defamation, he was arrested in Munich and forcibly brought to court in the capital on April 29. In eight different cases he was fined a total of 1,500 marks; on May 1, another 1,000 marks were added; in the middle of this month, another 500 marks and two months in prison. Goebbels took refuge in installment payments and finally benefited from an amnesty, so he did not have to go to prison either. Months later, he mocked justice in his newspaper: he described it as impotent, ridiculous and oppressive, while he was portrayed as a martyr.

Political map of the Republic of Weimar on the Reichstag elections between 1920 and 1933. The NSDAP is represented by the brown color.

In 1932, Goebbels was suspended from his seat in the Reichstag for insulting Hindenburg; Because of this, he concentrated on the Nazi platform for that year's election campaigns. In February, he was able to convince Hitler to run for the Reich Presidency and run against Hindenburg; in his diary he wrote that the Nazis had to win power and exterminate Marxism. Goebbels held multiple lectures during these election campaigns with disqualifications to Hindenburg and his government. However, the result of the elections on March 13 was a setback for Goebbels: in the second round, Hitler came in second with 30% of the vote, while Hindenburg won the Presidency with 53%. %. Following this, Goebbels organized massive campaigns for the parliamentary elections in July, which included rallies, parades, speeches, and plane rides across the country under the slogan "Hitler over Germany" (Hitler über Deutschland). On April 24, during the elections of the Prussian provincial parliament, he challenged Chancellor Brüning to a verbal duel in the Berlin Sports Palace, but Brüning refused to participate. At the event, Goebbels planned to ridicule him and win the standing ovation of his supporters. Nevertheless, he was elected by District 2 (Berlin) to the Prussian provincial parliament. On 24 August 1932, Goebbels resigned from that position after to win the July 1932 Reichstag elections and was replaced by Hermann Voß in the Reichstag parliament.

Goebbels kept some of his speeches recorded on vinyl record and printed in pamphlets. He was also involved in producing a small collection of silent films to be shown at party meetings, although they did not have the enough equipment to massively exploit this medium. Many of Goebbels' campaign posters contained violent images, such as a giant destroying political opponents or other enemies such as the "big international financiers". In his propaganda he treated the opposition as the " November Criminals", "Jewish Puppets" or the "Communist Threat". In the second election of 1932 he distributed 800,000 copies of the Volkischer Beobachter . Support for the party continued to grow, but in no these elections achieved majority rule. On January 30, 1933, Hindenburg appointed Hitler Reich Chancellor (Reichskanzler) in an effort to stabilize the country and improve economic conditions.

Minister of Propaganda

Goebbels speaking in Berlin (1934). With this hand gesture he warned or threatened the opponents.

To celebrate Hitler's appointment as chancellor, Goebbels organized a torchlight parade in Berlin on the evening of January 30 with some 60,000 men, many in SA and SS uniforms. The show was broadcast live on state radio with commentary by Hermann Göring, the future Minister of Aviation. Goebbels, however, was disappointed that he did not get a position in Hitler's new Cabinet: the Ministry of Culture—the department he intended to — was designated Bernhard Rust. Like other NSDAP officials, he had to deal with Hitler and his style of issuing contradictory orders to his subordinates, while placing them in positions where their duties and responsibilities overlapped. Hitler fostered mistrust, competition, and infighting among his collaborators to consolidate and maximize his own power. Walther Funk took over the Third Reich Press Office and planned with Hitler the establishment of a central commission for the control of the communications and media policy. Excluded from the closest circle of power, Goebbels felt offended and cornered, since he had been commissioned to prepare the electoral campaign for the Reichstag. It was not until 16 February that Hitler informed him how far the plans had progressed, that Goebbels learned of his new appointment and, moreover, as soon as the financing of the election campaign was secured, he regained his enthusiasm.

The NSDAP took advantage of the Reichstag fire of February 27, 1933 to convince Hindenburg to approve the Decree of the Reich President for the Protection of the People and the State (Verordnung des Reichspräsidenten zum Schutz von Volk und Staat ), one day after the event and under pressure from the chancellor. This was the first of several bills that dismantled democracy in Germany and established in its place a totalitarian dictatorship headed by Hitler. Another Reichstag election took place on March 5, the last one before the defeat of the Nazis. at the end of World War II. Although the NSDAP increased its number of seats and percentage of votes, it did not obtain the absolute majority that the top leadership aspired to. On March 7, Hitler devised the creation of a body in charge of the " education and propaganda on a large scale" and, on March 14, appointed Goebbels Minister for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda, who at 35 was the youngest in the Cabinet.

The function of the new ministry, which established its offices in the Palace of the Order of St. John (the Ordenspalais) opposite the Reich Chancellery, was to centralize control of all aspects of the cultural and intellectual life of Germans. On March 25, 1933, Goebbels said he hoped to increase the party's popular support to 100% from the 37% reached in the July 1932 elections. other countries that the NSDAP had the absolute and passionate support of all of Germany. Reich; Goebbels took pains to simulate Hitler "subservient" to President Hindenburg. On April 1, he drafted Hitler's decree authorizing the strategy against Jewish capitalism and countering "international harassment" of the American Jewish Congress, that had materialized with the anti-Nazi boycott on January 30. However, the decree did not produce the expected response in the population.That month, Goebbels returned to Rheydt, where he was given a triumphant reception with citizens lining the main street that had been renamed after him. The next day, he was declared a local hero.

Hitler, Göring, Goebbels and Hess in a military parade in 1933.

May 1, 1933, a date traditionally commemorated by communists and social democrats, was transformed into an NSDAP holiday. Instead of the usual events, Goebbels organized a large party meeting at the Tempelhof airstrip in Berlin. The following day, the SA and SS forcibly dissolved the trade union organizations and, in their place, the German Labor Front was created, which took over their functions. "We are the masters of Germany," he commented in his 3-year-old diary. on May 10. Less than two weeks later, on May 10, he delivered a speech titled "No to Moral Decadence and Corruption!" during a book burning in the capital, at which he said: "The era of extreme Jewish intellectualism has come to an end. [...] The future German man will not only be a man of books, but also a man of character."

Meanwhile, the NSDAP passed laws to discriminate against Jews and remove them from German society. The Law for the Restoration of the Civil Service (Gesetz zur Wiederherstellung des Berufsbeamtentums), passed on April 7, 1933, forced non-Aryan citizens to retire from jurisprudence and public administration. similar legislation deprived Jews of other professions. The first Nazi concentration camps, initially created to house political dissidents, were founded shortly after Hitler came to power. In a process called the Gleichschaltung ("coordination"), the Nazi Party established totalitarian control over the country's society and commerce: civic organizations, farm groups, volunteer organizations and sports clubs had to replace their leaders with Nazi sympathizers or party members. By June 1933, virtually the only organizations not under NSDAP control were the Reichswehr and the Churches. On June 2, 1933, Hitler appointed him Reichsleiter, the second-highest ranking post in the NSDAP.

On October 4, 1933, in an attempt to manipulate the middle class and change popular opinion, the government enacted the Schriftleitergesetz ("writers' law"), which became the the cornerstone of the control of the popular press. Based to some extent on the system created by Mussolini, the law defined a Schriftleiter (lit., "editor, editor") as anyone who writes, edits or compiles texts or illustrates material for serial publication. These people were chosen according to experiential, educational and racial criteria. The law forced journalists to "regulate their work with National Socialism as a philosophy of life and as a conception of government". The press was controlled indirectly, but effective. First of all, the entire non-National Socialist political press disappeared. Civil and religious newspapers ceased publication or were absorbed into the NSDAP. For nationwide news coverage, the Deutsches Nachrichtenbüro (lit., "German News Agency") was founded in 1933. The Frankfurter Zeitung had relative freedom from restrictions until 1943.

In late June 1934, several senior SA officials and opponents of the government, including Gregor Strasser, were arrested and killed in a purge known as the "Röhm putsch" (Röhm-Putsch) or, later, the “night of the long knives” (Nacht der langen Messer). Goebbels was present at the arrest of Ernst Röhm, the leader of the SA, in Munich. President Hindenburg died on August 2, 1934. In a radio program, Goebbels announced that the offices of president and chancellor had been combined and that Hitler was formally appointed Führer und Reichskanzler ("Guide and Chancellor of the Reich").

Control of the mass media

Hitler and Goebbels in the Ufa studies (4 January 1935).

Goebbels testing a Volksempfänger (DKE38 model of 65 MR, base price) at the Berlin International Radio Exhibition (5 August 1938).

In October 1933, the Ministry of Propaganda was organized into seven departments: administration and legal affairs; crowd rallies, public health, youth and race; radio; national and foreign press; movies and film censorship; art, music and theater; and, protection against domestic and foreign anti-Nazi propaganda. Most of the employees came from the Propaganda Department of the Berlin Gau and were trusted men of Goebbels. The Nazi government assigned the ministry an important budget with which high salaries and subsidies were offered; after struggling to survive the Great Depression, most artists, theaters, and orchestras found these incentives hard to refuse. Goebbels' leadership style was boisterous and unpredictable, he had a fickle temper, made contradictory decisions, and rarely supported to its main associates. According to Longerich, Goebbels was a difficult boss and liked to scold his staff in public. The magazine Life reported in 1938 that Goebbels "did not like people, nobody liked them, [but] he managed the Nazi department very efficiently".

The Reichsfilmkammer (Reich Film Chamber) was created in June 1933 and decreed that all members of the German film industry must unite. In 1937, Goebbels forced Alfred Hugenberg to sell him the Universum Film AG (Ufa) studio. and was turned into a state-owned company. Goebbels promoted the development of films with Nazi leanings and those containing subliminal messages or overt propaganda. Under the auspices of the Reichskulturkammer (Reich Chamber of Culture), created in September, Goebbels added additional sub-chambers for the fields of broadcasting, fine arts, literature, music, print, and theater. As in the motion picture industry, anyone wishing to pursue a career in these fields had to be a member of the corresponding camera. In this way, anyone whose views ran counter to the government could be barred from working in their chosen field and thus silenced. In addition, journalists, then considered state employees, had to prove Aryan ancestry dating back to the 1800s and, if they were married, the same requirement applied to the spouse. The members were not allowed to leave the country for work reasons without the prior permission of their respective chamber. A book censorship committee was established and works could not be republished or republished unless they were whitelisted. Similar regulations would apply to fine arts and entertainment; for example, cabaret performances were also censored. Many artists and intellectuals fled the country in the years before the war because they did not agree to work under these restrictions.

Leni Riefenstahl and his team recording Hitler's speech at the 1934 Nuremberg rally.

Goebbels was very interested in dominating radio, which by then was a new mass communication medium. He sometimes gained control of radio stations throughout the country through the Reichs-Rundfunk-Gesellschaft of Reich Broadcasting) from July 1934, even under protest from the governments of the federal entities—especially Prussia, led by Göring—Goebbels required manufacturers to produce cheaper domestic receivers, known as Volksempfänger or "receiver of the people"; by 1938, almost ten million of these devices had been sold. The loudspeakers were placed in public areas, factories and schools so that the most important NSDAP broadcasts could be heard live by almost the entire population. On January 1, 1938, Reichs-Rundfunk-Gesellschaft became a unified broadcasting system and changed its name to Großdeutscher Rundfunk (lit., "Greater Germany Radio"); it was in operation until August 1945 and was administered by the Ministry of Propaganda. One of its radio programs was Weihnachtsringsendung (lit., "Christmas Broadcast"), broadcast between 1940 and 1943 on Christmas Eve. as a joint program of the Ministry of Propaganda and the Wehrmacht High Command (Oberkommando der Wehrmacht) for soldiers and citizens collaborating on the "home front" (Heimatfront, "civil defense line") and included recordings with reports from the territories occupied by the Nazis. This production was one of Goebbels's most ambitious projects on radio, since, according to notes in his diary (25 December 1943), "combined the [war] front and the home [or civilian population] most effectively" and the broadcasts were "prodigious and moving".

On September 2, 1939, one day after the start of the war, Goebbels and the Council of Ministers prohibited tuning in to radio stations from enemy countries, although they could not prevent the population from continuing to listen to some foreign radio stations, such as the BBC. Broadcasting news for foreign stations could be punishable by death because it was categorized as high treason or Wehrkraftzersetzung ("destabilization of the war effort", "sedition and defeatism"). Albert Speer, Hitler's architect and Minister of Armaments and War, said years later that the Nazi government "used all possible technical means to dominate its own country. Through technical devices, such as the radio and loudspeaker, 80 million people were deprived of independent thought."

Goebbels was considered a "media mogul" and virtually dominated the entire media. According to him, he could control what the German people read, heard and saw.He saw himself as a "general" who led the people to embrace National Socialism:

Das ist das Geheimnis der Propaganda: den, den die Propaganda fassen will, ganz mit den Ideen der Propaganda zu durchtränken, ohne daß er überhaupt merkt, dass er durchtränkt wird. [...] Wenn die anderen Armeen organisieren und Heere aufstellen, dann wollen wir das Heer der öffentlichen Meinung mobilisieren, das Heer der geistigen Vereinheitlichung, dann sind wirklich die Weichensteller der Zeit.

This is the secret of the propaganda: to whom the propaganda wants to capture, it empties it from its ideas, without realizing that it is imbued with it [...] If the other armies organize and form more of their troops, then our desire is to mobilize the army of public opinion, the army of spiritual unification, because we will really be the turning point of history.

Leonard W. Doob, emeritus professor of psychology at Yale University, identified nineteen principles that Goebbels employed in his totalitarian and manipulative policies on the Germans. An important element of this propaganda was Hitler, who was glorified as a leader heroic and infallible, something that made it the center of a cult of personality. Many of these productions were improvised, but some featured sets managed by Goebbels' propaganda apparatus. Adulation of Hitler was at the center of the rally of Nuremberg in 1934, where their body movements were painstakingly choreographed. The rally was the subject of the film Triumph of the Will, part of a series of propaganda films directed by Leni Riefenstahl; it won the Gold Medal at the 1935 Venice Film Festival. That year, at the NSDAP congress in Nuremberg, Goebbels said that Bolshevism was a "declaration of war by Jewish-dominated foreign subhumans against cultural expressions".. A year later, the SS was transformed into an "anti-Bolshevik fighting organization".

Goebbels was involved in the stage planning for the 1936 Summer Olympics, which were held in the capital. Around this time he had a brief affair with the Czech actress Lída Baarová, whom he continued to see until 1938. Other An important project was the so-called «Exhibition of Degenerate Art» (Die Ausstellung „Entartete Kunst“), organized by Goebbels and held in Munich from July to November 1937. The exhibition was very popular and attracted to more than two million visitors. An exhibition of degenerate music took place the following year. However, Goebbels was disappointed by the poor quality of National Socialist art, film and literature. By then many journalists, writers, artists, musicians, filmmakers and playwrights had gone into exile in other countries, while some had problems adjusting or withdrew in an "internal emigration".

Submission of the Church

Goebbels, Hitler, the apostolic nuncio Cesare Orsenigo and the Italian ambassador Vittorio Cerruti at a meeting of the foreign press in Berlin (1933).

In 1933, Hitler signed the so-called Reichskonkordat, a treaty with the Holy See that forced the government to respect the independence of Catholic institutions and prohibited clergy from participating in politics. the government continued to intervene in Catholic congregations and to try to weaken their influence in society. Between 1935 and 1936, hundreds of priests, nuns, and lay leaders were arrested on charges of currency smuggling or sex crimes. Goebbels released alleged evidence in every statement to the press, describing each case in the worst possible light. Restrictions were imposed. public meetings, Catholic publications were censored, Catholic schools were forced to reduce religious training, and crucifixes were removed from state buildings. Hitler doubted whether the "fight of the Churches" (Kirchenkampf) was to be a priority, although his frequent incendiary comments on the subject were enough to convince Goebbels to intensify his work during the first half of 1937. In February of that year, after a conversation with Heinrich Himmler and Wilhelm Stuckart, Goebbels said that "Kerrl [Minister for Ecclesiastical Affairs] wants to keep the Church, [but] we want to liquidate it"; this was his reaction to the moderate and cooperative policies of Hanns Kerrl with the Protestant Churches.

Goebbels belonged to a faction led by Rosenberg and Bormann within the Nazi Party that promoted radical anti-clericalism. The group's fundamental plan was the persecution of the German clergy and, on the "Church question", Goebbels considered that between Christianity and Nazi ideology there was an "irresolvable opposition". Part of these arguments were shared by Adolf Hitler, who also did not attend mass or confess, but had not officially abandoned that religion. Power against the influence of the Churches, the Nazis attempted to establish a "third denomination", called Positive Christianity (positives Christentum), with the purpose of replacing those already established and reducing their authority. Some historians argue that this was an attempt to start a cult of Hitler's messianic worship. However, in a diary entry dated December 28, 1939, Goebbels noted: "The Führer rejects passionately any idea of founding a religion, [because] he has no intention of becoming a priest. The only role of him is that of politician ».

In response to the persecution, Pope Pius XI published the encyclical Mit brennender Sorge (With deep concern) on the situation of the Catholic Church in Germany and denounced the systematic hostility from the Nazi government. It was read on Passion Sunday 1937 in thousands of Catholic churches across the country. Goebbels increased repression and propaganda against Catholics in the weeks after its publication. On May 28, in a speech in front of 20,000 members of the party in Berlin and broadcast on the radio, lashed out at the Catholic Church, calling it a "morally corrupt institution". As a result of the smear campaign, enrollment in denominational schools fell sharply and, in 1939, these institutions were closed. dissolved or transformed into public facilities. Harassment, threats of imprisonment, and "immorality trials" made the clergy more cautious in their criticism of the government. However, Hitler ordered a phase-out of the fight against the Church in late July 1937.

Days after the outbreak of World War II, Goebbels applied intense pressure on congregations to express support for the war effort, and the Gestapo restricted freedom of worship and association for weeks. Although German ecclesiastical institutions complied with the impositions in the first two years, the attacks reappeared in 1941 due to the expansion of the war on the eastern front. Monasteries and convents were attacked and many ecclesiastical properties were expropriated. The Jesuits were one of the main affected. Some historians criticize that the Catholic Church never excommunicated high-ranking Nazi politicians for these hostile acts before and during the war; they also mention that the Goebbels case was more controversial because his wife was Protestant and divorced. However, the American nun Margherita Marchione, defender of the work of Pius XI, asserts that the Nazi leaders automatically incurred excommunication speciali modo, according to canons 2332 and 2343, for "preventing the exercise of ecclesiastical jurisdiction" and, therefore, the public condemnation of the Roman pontiff was not necessary.

Early years of World War II

Arthur Szyk's Caricature (1942) in which the leading leaders of the Axis Powers are satisfied (Goebbels is at the centre, in front of Hitler), interspersed with historical, symbolic and allegorical figures, such as Death and Satan.

In February 1933, Hitler announced his intentions to rearm the army, albeit clandestinely at first as this was considered a violation of the Treaty of Versailles. Barely a year later, in 1934, he told his military subordinates that 1942 was the deadline for starting a war in Eastern Europe.

Years later, Hitler turned his attention to Austria and told Goebbels that he would annex that country "by force" if necessary, not only for ideological, strategic and military reasons, but also for economic interests, since that country it had significant reserves of gold and foreign currency, labor and raw materials. On February 12, 1938, Chancellor Kurt Schuschnigg met Hitler at Berchtesgaden in an attempt to prevent a military invasion. Hitler presented Schuschnigg with a set of demands that included the appointment of Nazi sympathizers to important positions within the Austrian government, such as Arthur Seyß-Inquart at the head of the Ministry of Public Security and with unlimited control of the police and army. Instead, Hitler would publicly ratify the Austro-German agreement of July 11, 1936 (Juliabkommen) and would recognize the independence of Austria. Schuschnigg conceded to Hitler's conditions due to constant threats that the Austrian Nazis would provoke a new civil war, greater than that of 1934. On March 9, 1938, in an effort to preserve the country's sovereignty, Schuschnigg scheduled a referendum on political union with Germany (Anschluß) on March 13 and, in order to ensure a large turnout, legalized the previously banned Social Democratic Party of Austria (SDAPÖ) and trade unions.

Goebbels at a reception at the Hofburg Palace in Vienna (30 March 1938), accompanied by the actress Paula Wessely, the Nazi representative of the Austrian occupation Arthur Seyß-Inquart and his secretary Kajetan Mühlmann.

Goebbels used this opportunity to campaign massively for unification and legitimize the electoral process locally and internationally, despite the brutal methods the SS used against the opposition. In a press conference, he stated that many Austrians called for German troops to put down the riots in the cities, but this was denied by Schuschnigg. On March 11, the Austrian government fell to German pressure due to the riots and the failed attempt to void the referendum. President Wilhelm Miklas and Chancellor Schuschnigg resigned, but this did not prevent the Wehrmacht from crossing the border and militarily occupying Austria, although without meeting resistance among the population. The electoral process was carried out on schedule and its result (99.75% supported unification) was a victory celebrated by Hitler.

In the closing years of the interwar period, Goebbels aggressively pursued Hitler's expansionist policies. At the time of the reoccupation of the Rhineland in 1936, he summed up his position in his diary: "[Now] is the time to act. Fortune favors the brave! He who does not dare does not win." In the days leading up to the Sudetenland crisis (1938), Goebbels seized the initiative and again used propaganda to garner sympathy among Sudeten Germans while discrediting the Czechoslovak government. Even so, he was aware that there was a growing "war panic" in Germany and in July ordered the press to reduce propaganda in publications.

At the height of the crisis, on September 27, Hitler paraded a motorized division through Berlin, but the expected applause from the population did not materialize; Goebbels did not cover the event. At this point, he dared to argue in front of Hitler: «Then, at the decisive hour, I explained to the Führer how things really were. The march of the motorized division on the night of last Tuesday went beyond what, because it showed what ignited the enthusiasm of the people. And it wasn't because of the war." He also doubted whether it was wise to risk a protracted war against France and the United Kingdom by attacking Poland. In Hitler's presence, his reasoned fear of war faded and gave way to blind faith., but, even after the end of the crisis, he could not manage in any way to order his contradictory feelings. In retrospect, the danger he had overcome was clear to him: "We walked on a rope of thin wire through a dizzying abyss"; but he still wanted to prepare for a war: «We are once again a true world power. It is time to arm ourselves, arm ourselves and arm ourselves!" He imposed a press censorship on the Ministry of Foreign Affairs so that "it would not get on its knees" and had to face several border incidents: "The press attacks them in a big way ». Nevertheless, he delivered speeches that aroused uncertainty: to employees of his Ministry, to the editors-in-chief, to the 500 directors of the Gaus in Berlin and to a large audience in the Palace of the Berlin sports.

After the Western powers acceded to Hitler's demands for Czechoslovakia, Goebbels quickly redirected his propaganda apparatus against Poland. Beginning in May, he orchestrated a campaign against that country with stories about alleged atrocities against ethnic Germans in Danzig and other cities. However, he was unable to convince the majority of the German population to support the idea of a new war conflict. On August 24, 1939, Goebbels praised the non-aggression pact with the Soviet Union as a "brilliant move", because with that treaty Hitler achieved neutrality from a major threat. After beginning the invasion of Poland, he employed the Propaganda Ministry and Reich offices to control access to information at the national level. However, his rival Joachim von Ribbentrop, Minister of Foreign Affairs, constantly challenged his jurisdiction over the dissemination of propaganda internationally. The press officer of that ministry, Paul Karl Schmidt, was responsible for daily press conferences with foreign journalists; Goebbels he organized "nightly conferences" for the same people. Hitler decided not to take a position on the issue, so the discord between the two ministers continued until the end of the war. ra. Goebbels was not involved in military decision-making or aware of diplomatic negotiations until after the outbreak of fighting.

The Ministry of Propaganda seized the broadcasting corporations of the occupied countries immediately after the surrender. Nazi officials ordered the broadcasters of these corporations to broadcast prepared messages as a way of gaining the trust of the citizens. Most of the media, both nationally and in the conquered countries, was in the hands of Goebbels and his ministry. The German Interior Service, the German Armed Forces Program and the European Service were rigorously controlled: from the information they were allowed to disseminate to the music they used. Broadcasts of meetings continued on the radio, NSDAP speeches and rallies and speeches were aired before broadcasts, while short propaganda films were shown in cities using 1,500 mobile cinema vans. Foreign broadcasting had expanded considerably, with news broadcasts in fifty-three languages. The war on the Western Front was covered by secret transmitters, which were supposed to cause confusion among the population during the French campaign in the early summer of 1940. Goebbels gave special attention to the weekly newscast (Wochenschau), a obligatory segment of every film program, so much so that even Hitler personally examined it, at least in the early years of the war.

Hitler made fewer public appearances and radio broadcasts as the war progressed, so Goebbels gradually became the regime's voice to the German people. Beginning in May 1940, Goebbels wrote many editorials that were published in Das Reich and read on the radio. It was very successful and the newspaper's circulation increased to 1.4 million copies in 1944. Goebbels discovered that films were the most effective propaganda medium, after of the radio. At his insistence, half of the German wartime film productions were themed on propaganda—particularly on anti-Semitism—and warmongering—recounting historical exploits and recent events of the Wehrmacht. The official source of information on war events was the Wehrmacht's daily bulletin, created by Hitler, and working closely with the Ministry of Propaganda.

Goebbels was concerned about the spirit and efforts of the population internally. He believed that if the population became involved in the war effort, their morale would be higher. For example, he started a collection program for winter clothing and ski equipment for troops on the Eastern Front. He also implemented changes to get more "entertainment material" on radio and cinema produced for the public. In late 1942, Goebbels decreed that films must contain 20% propaganda and 80% light entertainment. As Gauleiter of Berlin, faced increasingly severe shortages of basic necessities such as food and clothing, as well as rationing of beer and tobacco, which were important to keeping spirits up. Hitler suggested diluting the beer and lowering the quality of the cigarettes so that they would be cheaper to produce, but Goebbels rejected the idea, replying that the cigarettes were already of low quality and it was impossible to make them worse.

Through his propaganda campaigns, he worked hard to maintain a proper level of public morale about the military situation—neither too optimistic nor too dire, according to him. During this period, a series of military defeats occurred, such as the attack of a thousand bombers on Cologne (May 1942), the Allied victory in the second battle of El Alamein (November 1942) and, above all, the heavy defeat in the Battle of Stalingrad (February 1943), which were difficult to present to the German public, growing war-weary and skeptical about whether they could win. Days later, Goebbels tried again to convince Hitler to change his plans for the Slavic peoples on the Eastern Front; with this he intended to improve the conditions of German soldiers in Soviet territory. In his diary he wrote: "[...] the slogan that in the East we are fighting only against Bolshevism—and not against the Russian people—will greatly facilitate our goal". He was working on a campaign to recruit Slavic volunteers, but the proposal was not accepted by Hitler, who, according to Goebbels, was "harassed" by Rosenberg with similar plans.

On January 15, 1943, Hitler appointed Goebbels head of the new Air Raid Damage Committee, that is, he was in charge of civil aviation defenses and shelters throughout the country, as well as assessment and repair of damaged buildings. The defense of areas other than Berlin was left to the local Gauleiter and their main tasks were limited to providing immediate aid to affected civilians and using propaganda to improve morale of the population.

Earlier that year the war produced a labor crisis throughout the country. Hitler created a committee with a representative from the state, the army and the NSDAP each in an attempt to centralize control of the war economy. The members of the committee were Hans Heinrich Lammers —head of the Reich Chancellery—, Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel —head of the Wehrmacht High Command—, and Martin Bormann —personal secretary of the Führer, who led the party de facto. The aforementioned body, formerly known as the Dreierausschuß (lit., "Committee of Three"), met eleven times between January and August 1943. However, they encountered resistance from Hitler's Cabinet ministers. Some ministers and other politicians wanted to join the committee, but were excluded. Considering them a threat, Goebbels, Göring and Speer allied to stop them. The Dreierausschuß would end up disappearing in September 1943.

Address by the Berlin Sports Palace (18 February 1943).

In response to his exclusion from the Dreierausschuß, Goebbels pressured Hitler to create policies aimed at "total war" (totalen Krieg), such as the closure of companies not essential to the war effort, recruiting women into the workforce and men into previously exempt occupations in the Wehrmacht. He considered this would increase military power by 10–15%, though not enough to offset the superiority of the Allies. On January 13, 1943, some of these measures were implemented in an edict, but, to Goebbels' chagrin, Göring demanded that his favorite restaurants in Berlin remain open, and Lammers forced Hitler to allow women with children to be exempted from the service. compulsory military service, even if they had someone to look after them. On 30 January, after receiving a favorable response to his speech on the subject, Goebbels thought he had the support of the German people in his call to l to total war. In his next speech, the Sportpalastrede of 18 February 1943, he demanded that the public commit to total war as the only way to "stop the Bolshevik attack and save the German people of destruction". The message had a strong anti-Semitic element and implied that the extermination of the Jews was already underway. The speech was filmed and broadcast live on the radio, but had little impact. at that time because although Hitler supported the idea of total war he was not willing to change the plans of the other ministers.

In 1941, anti-Soviet propaganda, provisionally suspended by the non-aggression pact, was reactivated in parallel with the planned German invasion of the Soviet Union. When the situation on the Eastern Front in late autumn 1941 came to a head a stalemate, the propaganda was once again suspended. Goebbels sensed a possible victory in May 1942, and to attract settlers he publicized a new Ostsiedlung (lit., "eastern settlement"). However, the 6th Army was surrounded and forced to retreat. surrender in November 1942 at Stalingrad and the German people did not learn of it until January 1943. In April 1943, the discovery of a mass grave of Polish officers killed in the so-called Katyn massacre by the Red Army was exploited in propaganda of Goebbels to drive a wedge between the Soviets and their Western allies. Another massacre, this time in Nemmersdorf, a village in East Prussia, in October 1944 gave propaganda once again a shocking theme.

Plenipotentiary for Total War

On April 1, 1943, Goebbels was appointed Stadtpräsident of Berlin, in charge of the administrative management of the capital. The progress of the invasion of Sicily (July 1943) and, especially, the Soviet victory in the Battle of Kursk (between July and August 1943), made him realize that Germany would not win the war. Subsequently, the Allied invasion of Italy and the fall of Mussolini in September led him to raise Hitler the possibility of negotiating the cessation of hostilities, either with the Soviets or with the United Kingdom. However, Hitler categorically rejected both proposals. As the country's military and economic situation became increasingly worse, on August 25, 1943 the Reichsführer-SS, Heinrich Himmler, took over as Minister of the Interior replacing Wilhelm Frick. Air raids on Berlin and other cities claimed the lives of thousands of people. The Luftwaffe under Göring attempted to retaliate with air raids on London in early 1944, but they no longer had aircraft enough to make much of an impact. V-1 missiles launched at British targets beginning in mid-June 1944 had little effect, only 20% hitting their intended targets. Goebbels propaganda at this time indicates that he was organizing a massive revenge against the British. To raise spirits, he insisted that further missile improvements would have a decisive impact on the outcome of the war. e Normandy (June 6, 1944) and the Allies gained a foothold in France, while on the Eastern Front the Soviets drove the Wehrmacht out of Byelorussia and penetrated the Baltics, Poland, and the Balkans. In July, Goebbels and Speer they continued to pressure Hitler to push the economy to the limit of all-out war.

Goebbels (to the centre) and Speer (to the right) observe missile tests at the Peenemünde military research centre (August 1943).

On July 20, 1944, Hitler survived an assassination attempt in which a group of Army officers detonated a bomb at East Prussia's main field headquarters, the "Wolf Guard" (Wolfsschanze ). After that event, the conspirator Paul von Hase ordered Otto Ernst Remer's battalion to secure the government headquarters and arrest the Minister of Propaganda, his secretary Wilfred von Oven and the Minister of Arms, Speer, who were present in that place. In the ministerial building, Goebbels had access to a telephone to call Hitler and arranged for the latter to speak with Remer. Immediately afterwards, Hitler asked the soldier if he recognized his voice, because Remer believed that Hitler had died, and ordered him to put an end to the plot in Berlin. Historians Aristotle Kallis and Peter Hoffmann indicate that Goebbels' role in the failure of the coup he was later overestimated, as his intervention with the phone call was not the main cause. First, the chance of success was reduced because Hitler was still alive. Second, the conspirators were unable to completely take over radio broadcasting and telecommunications, which allowed the Wehrmacht High Command to take countermeasures. Finally, the news that Hitler had survived broke at 5:42 p.m., but Remer's phone call with Hitler did not take place until 6:35–7:00 p.m. Six days later, Goebbels explained his version of the facts in a speech broadcast on the radio. In the end, the attack favored those who had been pushing for a change in strategy: Bormann, Goebbels, Himmler and Speer.

On 25 July, Goebbels was appointed "plenipotentiary for total war" (Generalbevollmächtigten für den totalen Kriegseinsatz), strongly opposed by Göring. He was now in charge of maximizing manpower in the Wehrmacht and the armaments industry, at the expense of economic sectors not crucial to the war effort. With this restructuring, he was able to free nearly half a million men for the military service, but, as many of these new recruits came from the arms industry, the transfer conflicted with Arms Minister Albert Speer. Untrained workers from other departments did not adapt easily to the arms industry. armaments and, likewise, the new recruits of the Wehrmacht waited their turn in the barracks to be trained. On October 18, 1944, at the request of Hitler, the Volkssturm (lit., "Civilian Assault Forces"), a militia of German men previously considered unfit for military service. Goebbels noted in his diary that some 100,000 members of the Volkssturm were sworn in at his Volkssturm i>Gau, pe But these men, mostly between the ages of 45 and 60, received only rudimentary training and many were not properly armed. According to historian Richard J. Evans, the idea that these soldiers could serve effectively on the front lines against Soviet tanks and artillery were "not very realistic", so the program did not have much support.

Hopes of submarine warfare were raised, but abandoned in 1943. In the same year, new "wonder weapons" (wunderwaffe) were announced, which many hoped would bring about a turning point in the war. However, when they were finally put to use in June 1944, they had little effect. In December 1944 Goebbels mentioned in his diary that the Battle of the Bulge would ultimately result in a German "smashing victory", a "Cannae of unimaginable proportions." ». However, fuel and ammunition were in short supply and air inferiority was hopeless. At the time, he considered these issues irrelevant and, after a meeting with Hitler, noted in his diary: "The batteries are recharging again." As the war progressed, Goebbels's skepticism grew and, with some delay, the The German population knew the disaster of the military operation. This failure was added shortly after the Vistula-Oder offensive launched by the Red Army, which dwarfed Nazi propaganda to defensive publications and with possible consequences of a victory for the enemies. Hitler was presented as the guarantor of victory, but this became implausible in view of the continuing poor results.

Defeat and suicide

In the final months of the war, Goebbels's speeches and publications took on an increasingly "apocalyptic" tone, and he called on citizens to "endure bravely the battle for greatness". In early 1945, with the Soviets on the Oder River and the other Allied powers preparing to cross the Rhine, could no longer hide the fact that defeat was inevitable. Berlin had few fortifications, artillery and Volkssturm units, for almost everything that was there was sent to the war front. On January 21, he noted in his diary that millions of Germans were fleeing to the west. With Hitler he discussed the proposal to negotiate peace with the Western powers, but the Nazi leader again rejected that idea. Privately, Goebbels was hesitant to press the matter, as he did not want to lose the confidence of the Führer. When other Nazi leaders recommended that Hitler abandon the capital and establish a new resistance center in the redoubt In Bavaria, Goebbels objected, saying they would make a "heroic last stand" in Berlin. His family moved to their Berlin residence to await the end. His stepson Harald Quandt, Magda's eldest son from his previous marriage, had served in the Luftwaffe and was taken prisoner by the Allied forces.

Goebbels possibly discussed suicide and the fate of their children with his wife during a long meeting they had on the evening of January 27. He had already mentioned his intentions to commit suicide in June 1943. For example, in a editorial in October 1944, wrote: "For a person, nothing would be easier than to say goodbye to this world." On February 28, 1945, he declared in a radio address that he would “die with his children defending the capital city.” Consequently, in March Hitler allowed her to stay in Berlin during the siege with his family. Goebbels understood that the Allies would punish the acts committed by the regime and had no intention of submitting to the “debacle” of a trial.He burned his private documents on the night of April 18.

In recent days, Goebbels tried to cheer Hitler up, telling him that they would have a "miracle of providence" after the death of US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt on April 12, as had happened in 1762. It is not known if Hitler seriously considered this event as a turning point when Goebbels told him about it. Around those days, he obtained the position he had long desired: to be at Hitler's side. Göring was disgraced for implying Hitler's incompetence in the bunker, although he was not stripped of his official posts until April 23. Himmler, whose appointment as commander of Army Group Vistula had led to defeat in the Oder, had also fallen out of favor with the Führer.

Most of Hitler's inner circle—Göring, Himmler, Ribbentrop and Speer, among others—were preparing to leave the capital immediately after the celebration of the Führer's birthday (20 April). Even Bormann, Hitler's personal secretary, was "not eager" to stick with him to the end. On 22 April, Hitler announced that he would remain in Berlin and shoot himself in the head. That same day, Goebbels moved with his family to the Vorbunker, connected to the Führer's bunker under the garden of the Reich Chancellery in the center of the capital; he told Vice Admiral Hans-Erich Voss that he would not entertain the idea of surrendering to the Allies or escaping. On April 23, Goebbels made a public announcement urging Berliners to defend themselves during attacks on the capital, as at that time the Soviets were a few days after arriving at the Reich Chancellery. After midnight on April 29, Hitler married Eva Braun in a small civil ceremony in the Führerbunker and hosted a modest wedding breakfast with his new wife. He called his secretary, Traudl Junge, to another room, dictated his last will and testament; Goebbels and Bormann were present as witnesses. In the will, Hitler decided not to choose a new Führer or NSDAP leader and instead, the office of Reich Chancellor was delegated to Goebbels, Karl Dönitz (who was in Plön) was appointed Reich President, and Bormann became the NSDAP Ministry. Goebbels wrote a postscript in his will stating that he "categorically refused" to obey Hitler's order to leave Berlin and it was "the first time in my life" that he would not comply with Hitler's orders. He felt compelled to remain with him "for reasons of humanity and personal loyalty" and that together with his wife and sons "would end their lives at the side of the Führer".

In the middle of the afternoon on April 30, Hitler shot himself in the head. Goebbels became depressed by her death and, according to Master Sergeant Rochus Misch, mentioned that he would be walking in the garden of the Reich Chancellery until Russian bombing killed him. Voss recounted that Goebbels said: "It is unfortunate that a man like this is no longer with us and that he cannot do more for us. Now all is lost and the only way out for us is the one that Hitler chose. I will follow their example." Following this, Goebbels, Bormann, and some officers present in the bunker decided to send General Hans Krebs, who could speak Russian, to negotiate an armistice with the Soviets. Around 03:00- 04:00 Krebs and Colonel Theodor von Dufving arrived at the Soviet headquarters under a white flag to meet with the commander of the 8th Guards Army, Vasily Chuikov, with instructions to deliver a letter signed by Bormann and Goebbels informing him of the Hitler's death and requesting a truce. However, Chuikov was unwilling to accept the terms of the letter or to negotiate with Krebs, as he was following Stalin's orders to demand the unconditional surrender of the Germans. With clearance to capitulate, Krebs returned to the bunker. Upon hearing the news, Goebbels determined that further efforts would be futile, as he would not allow unconditional surrender. During the morning of 1 d In May, Bormann and Goebbels sent radio messages to Dönitz informing him of Hitler's death: "Tell Dönitz that we are not only capable of living and fighting, but also of dying," Goebbels told Hans Baur, Hitler's personal pilot. In his testimony, Voss recounted what happened on his way out of the bunker: "[...] while I was saying goodbye, I asked Goebbels to join us. But he replied: “A captain never leaves his sinking ship. I have thought of everything and decided to stay here. I have nowhere to go, because with small children I will not be able to escape, especially with a leg like mine..."».

Goebbels added to his stepdaughter Harald Quandt, absent due to military service, in this manipulated photo of 1944.

In the evening, Goebbels called in an SS dentist, Helmut Kunz, to inject the six children with morphine so that, when they were unconscious, he could crush a vial of cyanide into each of their mouths. Kunz, he alone injected the children with morphine and it was Magda Goebbels and Ludwig Stumpfegger, Hitler's personal physician, who administered the vials. At around 8:30–8:40 p.m., Goebbels and his wife left the bunker and walked to the garden of the Chancellery, where they committed suicide. There are several different versions of this event: in one, the best known, Goebbels fired the gun at his wife and then killed himself; in another version, they first took some of the cyanide vials and immediately some soldiers gave them the coup de grâce. In 1948, Günther Schwägermann, Goebbels' assistant, testified that the couple walked in front of him up the stairs and out into the Chancellery garden. Schwägermann waited in the stairwell and heard the shots, then he went up and, outside, saw the lifeless bodies of the couple. Under previous orders, an SS soldier shot Goebbels' body several times to finish it off; they tried to incinerate the bodies with gasoline, but the remains were not burned or buried. There is also the testimony of one of the bunker's employees., the mechanic Johannes Hentschel, who later told Misch that Goebbels committed suicide in his room in the bunker, after a heated argument, and Magda in the Vorbunker, in the early hours of May 2.

Goebbels's death removed the last obstacle preventing General Helmuth Weidling, the last commander of the Berlin defensive area, from accepting the terms of his garrison's unconditional surrender, but he chose to delay the request until the following morning to allow his subordinates to They fled at night. The Battle of Berlin lasted until 2 May and inflicted heavy losses on both sides. The Red Army had casualties of over 350,000 soldiers, while German casualties have only been estimated at around 100,000. A few days later, Voss was taken back to the bunker by the Soviets to identify the partially charred corpses. of Joseph and Magda Goebbels and those of their children. Their remains and those of Hitler, Eva Braun, General Krebs, and Hitler's dogs were buried and exhumed on several occasions. The last burial occurred at the SMERSH facility in Magdeburg, on February 21, 1946. In 1970, KGB director Yuri Andropov authorized an operation to destroy the remains. On April 4, 1970, a KGB team used detailed burial maps to exhume five coffins of wood at the Magdeburg facility. The contents of the boxes were incinerated, crushed, and dumped into the Biederitz River, a nearby tributary of the Elbe.

Anti-Semitism, Complicity in the Holocaust, and Legacy

Goebbels' antisemitism

Photograph by some Nazi leaders gathered in the tourist village of Bad Elster. From left to right: Himmler, Mutschmann, Frick, Goebbels, Hitler, Schaub, Epp and Göring.

Like many Germans at the time, Goebbels had anti-Semitic tendencies from a young age, although this did not prevent him from being friendly with Else Janke, who was half-Jewish, nor did it cause problems with his doctoral advisor Max Freiherr von Waldberg, also of Jewish descent. After joining the NSDAP and meeting Hitler, his antisemitism grew and he became more radical. He viewed the Jews as a "destructive force" with negative effects on German society.However, Goebbels's anti-Semitism was not like Hitler's, predominantly racist; in his place, his bases were nationalist and anti-capitalist, developed in the years with Strasser.To explain this point, historian Helmut Heiber says: "Goebbels's anti-Semitism was not like his Führer's." of him. [...] his hostility towards Jews was acquired when he joined the party and used it as a political tool. [...] His fight was not metaphysical like Hitler's, but was more intellectual, [...] against the plastic demon of Jewish corruption." Another historian, Christian T. Barth, concludes that Goebbels's anti-Semitism was a "mixture of fanatical ideological and pragmatic political elements". According to Goebbels, the Jews—as "foreign elements"—were not nationalistically minded and believed they would hand over the country to their enemies. He also hated them for their monetary power: "Money is the force of evil and the Jew is its satellite", but he also indicated in his diary that he would meet with resistance from "bourgeois groups friendly to the Jews" and, therefore, "the class struggle would not end with the simple elimination [of the Jews]".

After the Nazis seized power, he persistently pressured Hitler to take action against the Jews; however, despite his extreme anti-Semitism, Goebbels considered biological racism "nonsense of racial materialism" and unnecessary for National Socialism, that Himmler's ideology was "in many ways insane" and considered Alfred Rosenberg's theories "ridiculous". defended. On a trip to Sweden, for example, Goebbels viewed the "blonde race" with contempt: "On the outside they are Germans, on the inside half Jews".

Persecution of the Jews

One of the goals of the NSDAP was to exclude Jews from German cultural and economic life and thereby eliminate them from the entire country. In addition to his activities in anti-Semitic propaganda, Goebbels actively promoted the persecution of Jews. Jews through pogroms, legislation, and other actions. In Berlin, he instituted discriminatory measures during the early years of the Nazi regime, including bans on using public transportation, requiring Jewish shops to display distinctive signs, refusing them entry to circuses, zoos, swimming pools, etc., and more severe measures such as the expropriation of "large houses".

On orders from the Ministry of Propaganda, the Reichskulturkammer (Reich Chamber of Culture) attempted to eliminate Jews from the cultural realm, but this turned out to be more complicated than Goebbels had initially thought. With the racial laws of 1935 (Nürnberger Rassengesetze) he was able to discriminate against Jewish descendants and Germans who married women of that ethnic group. In a conversation with the Gauleiter from Thuringia, Fritz Sauckel, Goebbels stated that he would "get rid of the hindrance" for "real" German artists. In May 1938 he delivered a memorandum to Berlin Police Chief Wolf-Heinrich von Helldorff to apply surprise checks and persecution of the Jews.

On November 7, 1938, German diplomat Ernst vom Rath was murdered in Paris by Herschel Grynszpan, a young Polish-Jewish man in revenge for the deportation of 12,000 Jews to Poland. On the night of November 8, the situation was exacerbated by a speech by Goebbels at an NSDAP meeting where he indirectly called on party members to encourage violence against Jews in a spontaneous and covert series of acts of vandalism. Approximately one hundred Jews were killed, others detained 80,000 were raided, several hundred synagogues were damaged or destroyed, and thousands of Jewish shops were vandalized in Germany and Austria in an event known as the "Night of Broken Glass" (Kristallnacht). The police were given precise instructions to arrest only Jews, to protect the businesses of "German citizens" and to ignore the destruction of Jewish businesses. Around 30,000 Jewish men were sent to camp. The agitation stopped after the conference held on November 12, where Göring said that the destruction of Jewish property was, in effect, the destruction of German property and that, instead, they would enact laws to expropriate and confiscate everything; he also estimated that Kristallnacht caused 220 million marks in property damage. Himmler, Speer and Rosenberg also strongly criticized Goebbels, because, among other things, he did not consult them first. Hitler and Goebbels proposed that the Jews should leave the country within ten years; they even considered banishing them to a distant island. like Madagascar.

Goebbels intensified his anti-Semitic propaganda campaign and, on January 30, 1939, helped write Hitler's speech to the Reichstag:

Wenn es dem internationalen Finanzjudentum in- und außerhalb Europas gelingen sollte, die Völker noch einmal in einen Weltkrieg zu stürzen, dann würde das Ergebnis nicht die Bolschewisierung der Erde und damit der Siegni

If the Jews who direct international finances within and outside Europe are able to launch nations once again to another world war, the consequence will not be the Bolshevism of the earth and, therefore, the Jewish victory, but the annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe.

Ruins of a synagogue in Munich after the night of the broken crystals (9-10 November 1938).

Although Goebbels had been trying to expel Jews from Berlin since 1935, by 1940 62,000 of them were still living in the city. Part of the delay was because they were needed as workers in the arms industry. The deportations of German Jews began in October 1941, when the first truckload of inmates left the city on October 18, and some were immediately shot. upon arrival at their destinations, such as Riga and Kaunas. In preparation for the deportations, Goebbels ordered that all German Jews be required by law to wear a yellow star (Judenstern) as identification from September 5, 1941; in addition, food rations in the ghettos were reduced and houses were marked with a distinctive mark. On March 6, 1942, he received a copy of the proceedings of the Wannsee Conference, which he left Nazi policy was clear: the European Jewish population was to be sent to extermination camps in the occupied areas of Poland and, subsequently, eradicated. His personal diary entries show that he was conscious of the future planned for the Jews. On March 27, 1942, he wrote: "Roughly speaking, it can probably be said that 60% [of the Jews] will be liquidated, while 40% will remain at forced labor... A decision has been made about the Jews, which is outrageous, but well deserved."

Goebbels had frequent discussions with Hitler on this subject, which he discussed almost constantly since they first met. Unlike other members of the regime, he was not significantly involved in the response to the "Jewish problem", but was on hand. both of the genocide in the concentration camps and fully supported it. In fact, he was one of the few senior NSDAP officials to mention it publicly.

Posterity

Goebbels's suicide made his prosecution impossible, as he had considered this solution the year before the defeat as the only way to avoid "international shame". However, the captured Nazis revealed data on Goebbels' direct involvement in the clandestine policies and procedures of the Third Reich. The Nuremberg trials also did not include Hitler, Himmler, and others who had committed suicide or disappeared before the trial began. One of Goebbels's secretaries, Hans Fritzsche, was arrested by the Soviets and prosecuted for war crimes and crimes against humanity. At the hearing he said that these charges were "absurd" and that he was being treated as a "substitute for Joseph Goebbels, whom they really wanted to convict". On 30 September 1946 he was acquitted for lack of evidence. During and after the World War II, the Allies released counter-propaganda denouncing "lies" and "slander" that Goebbels told against them. Due to this, the real facts were distorted and mixed with falsehoods and, as a result, the Goebbels surname is used as a stereotype. politician to discredit people who allegedly use misleading and exaggerated propaganda or persuasive speech and highly controversial methods.

Private life

Villa Bogensee, one of its residences on the outskirts of Berlin.

His salary as Minister of Propaganda enabled him to lead an opulent lifestyle. In June 1933, he bought an apartment on Hermann-Göring-Straße (now Ebertstraße) which his partner Albert Speer renovated. Three years later, he bought expensive property on the residential island of Schwanenwerder (Wannsee) and built a villa there. This was made possible by revenue from the party's publisher, Eher-Verlag, which acquired the rights to publish his diaries. In 1938 he forced his neighbor Samuel Goldschmidt, a Jewish banker, to sell his property to a very low price. In Berlin, Goebbels purchased a log cabin on a large plot facing Lake Bogensee and added a country house which he visited occasionally. In the summer of 1939 he purchased a new palatial residence at a cost of 3.2 million frames.

The Goebbels family included Harald Quandt —born in 1921, the son of Magda's first marriage and the only one to survive the war—, Helga Susanne (1932), Hildegard "Hilde" Traudel (1934), Helmut Christian (1935), Holdine "Holde" Kathrin (1937), Hedwig "Hedda" Johanna (1938) and Heidrun "Heide" Elisabeth (1940). Their names began with the letter H to commemorate the last name of the Führer. They were filmed, photographed and promoted during the regime as the Aryan ideal. Hitler was very fond of Magda and the children and enjoyed their stay in Goebbels' apartment in Berlin. Magda was close friends with Hitler and soon became the unofficial representative of the regime, receiving letters from women all over Germany with questions about national issues, such as child custody.

Image taken after the reconciliation of marriage, together with Hitler in 1938.

In 1936, Goebbels met the Czechoslovakian actress Lída Baarová and, during the winter of 1937, had a brief affair with her. He planned to change his position from minister to ambassador to Japan and marry her. On August 15, 1938, Hitler had a long conversation with Magda regarding this issue. Unwilling to put up with a scandal involving one of his top ministers, he demanded that Goebbels end their adulterous relationship. thereafter, Joseph and Magda appeared to be at a truce. However, the marriage had another crisis at the end of September and, once again, Hitler became involved and insisted that they should stay together. In October of that year he organized a photo session of the reconciled Goebbels couple with him. Goebbels thought that with the birth of their sixth daughter, Heide, their reconciliation would be final. Magda also had some love affairs, such as her relationship with Kurt Ludecke in 1933 or Karl Hanke in 1938, in whom she tried to seek comfort during the first crisis.

In November 1942, engineer Hansheinrich Kummerow was arrested for attempting to assassinate Goebbels. Kummerow worked for the electronics company Loewe-Radio-AG and belonged to the communist spy group Red Orchestra (Roten Kapelle). His plan was to plant a remote-controlled bomb on a bridge to the island of Schwanenwerder and detonate it when Goebbels' car drove across the lake, but Kummerow was discovered on the spot and arrested. On December 18, 1942, he was sentenced by the Reich Court-Martial to die by guillotine, and on February 4, 1944, he was executed in Halle. After this incident, Goebbels fortified his residence on the island, ordered a careful inspection visitors and their family received more protection. In addition, Hitler gave him an armored Mercedes as a Christmas present.

One of Joseph Goebbels' biographers, Peter Longerich, Professor of Contemporary History at the University of London, explains that Goebbels suffered from "a narcissistic personality disorder that made him addictively seek recognition and praise," which This would explain, according to the biographer, his "almost absolute devotion to Hitler, his obsession with his own image, and the fact that he spent a considerable part of his time engaged in long battles against his competitors in Hitler's entourage". protagonist for the NSDAP and, due to his loyalty to Hitler, he became one of his most faithful friends. However, Longerich states: 'I don't think Hitler had any personal friends. And in the case of Goebbels, he admired Hitler and was extremely dependent on him. I wouldn't call that a friendship.” Goebbels had disagreements with various Hitler advisers, such as the filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl, who in 1936 demanded substantial funding from the Ministry of Propaganda for her films.

Publishing your diary

Launch of an edition of Goebbels' diary at the Frankfurt Book Fair of 1977.

The diary for which he worked for most of his life, produced from October 1923 until his death, contained between 6,000 and 7,000 manuscript pages and 50,000 typescripts. Historian Toby Thacker — Professor of Modern European History at the Cardiff University—mentioned that "Goebbels was aware that his personal diary was an important historical document and was hopeful of reworking some passages for a future publication, so he spent hours on each entry." Most of these papers it was destroyed during the Allied bombing raids on the Reich Chancellery in Berlin. Building on the fragments, the Institut für Zeitgeschichte (lit., “Institute for Contemporary History”; IfZ abbreviated) and later the researcher Elke Fröhlich published several compilation volumes in Munich in 1948, 1960 and 1977. In 1987, the IfZ and Fröhlich presented a more complete version: Die Tagebücher von Joseph Goebbels. Sämtliche Fragmente (four volumes). In 1992, Fröhlich discovered in the Moscow archives some glass sheets that Goebbels used to store part of his texts on microfiche plates. new edition of 29 volumes between 1992 and 2005, with numerous amendments in 2007 and 2008.

According to a review by historian Hans Günter Hockerts in 1999, the source material is "a valuable source of the history of National Socialism", as the "first-person testimony and two continuous decades of this Nazi political leader" and that it has a "unique presentation". Longerich noted the importance of the diaries for their "insider's perspective on the Nazi power structure" and an "unobstructed view of the dictator". In fact, historian Angela Hermann mentioned that with this personal diary the new publications on the Nazi period have "information that was not previously available". However, for the researcher Bernd Sösemann these IfZ editions lack source criticism and, to a large extent, "do not meet the demands that characterize conceptually, methodologically and substantively to a scientific edition".

In 2010, Longerich emphasized the outstanding importance of the diaries for "insights into the National Socialist power structure" and the accuracy of the dates in the entries, meetings with various people involved, and also the basic content of their "recordings of the conversations". However, according to Longerich, the main problem with the diaries is that they "represent the conscious attempt of the propagandist Goebbels to create a main source for a later written history of National Socialism and, in particular, to massively influence, if not to control, the future interpretation of its own historical role". Anton Ritthaler had already expressed this opinion in 1949 in a review of the first edition of the newspaper, which he saw as "news and reflections [that] were already rejected for publication at the time of writing", since Goebbels's intention was "to appear the next day, after successfully overcoming the danger, as the superior machine, the tireless fighter, the constant admirer of the leader, in short: like the rock breaking the waves", so the contents were vigorously stylized in that direction. In his 2008 dissertation on Goebbels' 1938 diaries and 1939, Hermann concluded that these events essentially reproduce events that correspond to the level of information that Goebbels had.

In August 1955, the Swiss financier François Genoud obtained permission from Goebbels' relatives for the exclusive use of the diaries. In 2002, Sösemann criticized the IfZ for achieving rapid publication of the volumes "through suspicious arrangements with Goebbels admirer François Genoud." Shortly before committing suicide in 1996, Genoud transferred to his former legal adviser Cordula Schacht, daughter of Hitler's Finance Minister Hjalmar Schacht, "exclusive control of the copyright of works of Joseph Goebbels", encompassing his diaries, plays, and poems. Schacht shares half of the royalties with Goebbels's estate.

Works

Selected bibliography of Joseph Goebbels, ordered from the first edition. Includes some transcriptions of his speeches and the posthumous publication of his diary.

Published texts

• Das kleine abc des Nationalsozialisten. Freiheit und Brot! (in German). Elberfeld: Verlag der Arbeitsgemeinschaft Nordwest. 1925. OCLC 719003722.
• Die zweite Revolution. Briefe an Zeitgenossen (in German). Zwickau: Streiter-Verlag. 1926. OCLC 931986132.
• Wege ins Dritte Reich. Briefe und Aufsätze für Zeitgenossen (in German). Munich: Franz-Eher-Verlag. 1927. OCLC 931986286.
• “Der Nazi-Sozi” – Fragen und Antworten für den Nationalsozialisten (in German). Elberfeld: Verlag der Nationalsozialistischen Briefe. 1927.
• Das Buch Isidor. Ein Zeitbild voll Lachen Haß (in German). [Co-author: Hans Schweitzer]. Munich: Franz-Eher-Verlag. 1928.
• Michael. Ein deutsches Schicksal in Tagebuchblättern (in German) (9 editions up to 1936). Munich: Franz-Eher-Verlag. 1929. OCLC 902218893.
• Revolution der Deutschen – 14 Jahre Nationalsozialismus (Reden) (in German). [Deck photo: Hein Schlecht]. Oldenburg: Verlag Gerhard Stalling. 1933. OCLC 721132221.
• Reden aus Kampf und Sieg – “Goebbels spricht“. Schriften an die Nation (in German). 45/46. Oldenburg: Verlag Gerhard Stalling. 1933. OCLC 751185319.
• Vom Kaiserhof zur Reichskanzlei. Eine historische Darstellung in Tagebuchblättern (vom 1. Januar 1932 bis zum 1. Mai 1933) (in German) (41 editions up to 1943). Munich: Franz-Eher-Verlag. 1934. OCLC 67486634.
• Signale der neuen Zeit. 25 ausgewählte Reden (in German). Munich: Franz-Eher-Verlag. 1934. OCLC 836554927.
• Das erwachende Berlin (in German). [Photomontage: Hella Koch-Zeuthen]. Munich: Franz-Eher-Verlag. 1934. OCLC 837007692.
• Kommunismus ohne Maske. Dr. Goebbels auf dem Reichsparteitag 1935 (in German). Berlin: M. Müller & Sohn. 1935. OCLC 39273097.
• Der Angriff. Aufsätze aus der Kampfzeit (in German). [Compilation and introduction: Hans Schwarz van Berk]. Munich: Franz-Eher-Verlag. 1935. OCLC 80340825.
• Wetterleuchten. Aufsätze aus der Kampfzeit (in German). [Edition: Georg-Wilhelm Müller]. Munich: Franz-Eher-Verlag. 1939. OCLC 632271241.
• Die Zeit ohne Beispiel. Reden und Aufsätze aus den Jahren 1939/40/41 (in German). Munich: Franz-Eher-Verlag. 1941. OCLC 638198829.
• Der steile Aufstieg. Reden und Aufsätze aus den Jahren 1942/43 (in German). Munich: Franz-Eher-Verlag. 1943. OCLC 792809391.

Unpublished texts

• Der Lenz und ich und Du (Pope, dateless)
• Der Mutter Gebet. Ein Idyll aus dem Kriege (without date)
• Bin ein fahrender Schüler, ein wüster Gesell (novela, 1917)
• Judas Iscariot (drama, 1918)
• Heinrich Kämpfert (drama, 1919)
• Die Saat (drama, 1920)
• Wilhelm von Schütz als Dramatiker. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Romantischen Schule (thesis, 1921)
• Der Wanderer. Ein Spiel in einem Prolog, elf Bildern und einem Epilog von Joseph Goebbels. Dem anderen Deutschland geschrieben (fragment, started in 1923, last change in 1927)
• Michael Voormann: Ein Menschenschicksal in Tagebuchblättern (novela, 1924)

Compilation of your journals

• Fröhlich, Elke (ed.). Dieebücher von Joseph Goebbels (in German). Munich: K. G. Saur.
  • ——————— (1997-2005). Teil I: Aufzeichnungen 1923-1941 (in German). 14 vol. ISBN 3-598-23730-8.
  • ——————— (1993-1996). Teil II: Diktate 1941-1945 (in German). 15 vol. ISBN 3-598-21920-2.
  • ——————— (2007-2008). Teil III: Register 1923–1945 (in German). 3 vol. ISBN 3-598-21925-3.

Consulted bibliography

• Bärsch, Claus-Ekkehard (1987). Erlösung und Vernichtung: Dr. phil. Joseph Goebbels; zur Psyche und Ideologie eines jungen Nationalsozialisten 1923–1927 (in German). Munich: Boer. ISBN 978-3-924-96318-7. OCLC 15800213.
• Barth, Christian T. (2003). Goebbels und die Juden (in German). Paderborn: Schöningh. ISBN 3-506-70579-2. OCLC 237789925.
• Beevor, Antony (2002). The fall of Berlin, 1945 (in English). London: Viking-Penguin Books. ISBN 0-670-03041-4. OCLC 49704311.
• Boelcke, Willi A., ed. (1966). Kriegspropaganda 1939–1941: geheime Ministerkonferenzen im Reichspropagandaministerium (in German). Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt. OCLC 460105385.
• Bonacker, Max (2007). Goebbels’ Mann beim Radio. Der NS-Propagandist Hans Fritzsche (1900–1953). Schriftenreihe der Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte (in German) (94). Munich: Oldenbourg. ISBN 978-3-486-58193-5. OCLC 153902663.
• Dollinger, Hans (1997) [1965]. The decline and fall of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan (in English). New York: Bonanza. ISBN 978-0-517-01313-7. OCLC 8430191.
• Evans, Richard J. (2003). The coming of the Third Reich (in English). New York: Penguin Group. ISBN 978-0-14-303469-8. OCLC 53186626.
• Fest, Joachim (1970). The face of the Third Reich (in English). London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson. ISBN 0-297-17949-7. OCLC 73696.
• Fröhlich, Elke (October 1987). «Joseph Goebbels und sein Tagebuch. Zu den handschriftlichen Aufzeichnungen von 1924 bis 1941». Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte (in German) (Munich: Oldenbourg) 35 (4): 489-522. ISSN 0042-5702. JSTOR 30197369. OCLC 5544156126. The reference uses the obsolete parameter |mes= (help)
• Fröhlich, Elke, ed. (1998) [1939-1940]. Dieebücher von Joseph Goebbels (in German) 7. Munich: K. G. Saur. ISBN 978-3-598-23737-9. OCLC 614291111.
• Hale, Oron J. (1973). The captive press in the Third Reich (in English). Princeton: Princeton University Press. ISBN 0-691-00770-5. OCLC 334707.
• Heiber, Helmut (1965) [1962]. Joseph Goebbels (in German). Munich: Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag. OCLC 734305.
• Hermann, Angela (2011). Der Weg in den Krieg 1938/1939: Quellenkritische Studien zu den Tagebüchern von Joseph Goebbels. Studien zur Zeitgeschichte (in German) (83). Munich: Oldenbourg Wissenschaftsverlag. ISBN 978-3-486-70513-3. OCLC 723516800.
• Höver, Ulrich (1992). Joseph Goebbels. Ein nationaler Sozialist (in German). Bonn: Bouvier. ISBN 978-3-416-02375-7. OCLC 27385536.
• Kallis, Aristotle A. (2005). Nazi propaganda and the Second World War (in English). Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 1-4039-9251-7. OCLC 61478304.
• Kershaw, Ian (2008). Hitler: a biography (in English). New York: W. W. Norton and Co. ISBN 978-0-393-06757-6. OCLC 227016324.
• Lemmons, Russell (1994). Goebbels and Der Angriff (in English). Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky. ISBN 978-0-813-11848-2. OCLC 28887960.
• Longerich, Peter (2015). Goebbels: a biography (in English). New York: Random House. ISBN 978-140-006751-0. OCLC 869262446.
• Manvell, Roger; Fraenkel, Heinrich (2010) [1960]. Doctor Goebbels: his life and death (in English). New York: Skyhorse. ISBN 978-1-61608-029-7. OCLC 464580178.
• Miller, Michael D.; Schulz, Andreas (2012). Albrecht, Herbert; Hüttmann, H. Wilhelm, eds. Gauleiter: the regional leaders of the Nazi Party and their deputies, 1925 – 1945 (in English) I. San Jose: Bender. ISBN 978-1-932970-21-0. OCLC 890021135.
• Paul, Gerhard (1990). Aufstand der Bilder: die NS-Propaganda vor 1933 (in German). Bonn: Dietz. ISBN 3-8012-5015-6. OCLC 23136051.
• Reuth, Ralf Georg (1990). Goebbels (in German). Munich: Piper. ISBN 978-3-492-03183-7. OCLC 22843146.
• Shirer, William L. (1960). The rise and fall of the Third Reich (in English). New York: Simon and Schuster. ISBN 978-0-671-62420-0. OCLC 1286630.
• Steigmann-Gall, Richard (2007). The Holy Reich (Raquel Vázquez Ramil, trad.) [The sacred Reich]. Madrid: Akal. ISBN 978-8-446-02428-6. OCLC 434469684.
• Thacker, Toby (2010) [2009]. Joseph Goebbels: life and death (in English). New York: Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 978-0-230-27866-0. OCLC 461895813.
• Tooze, Adam (2006). The wages of destruction: the making and breaking of the Nazi economy (in English). London: Allen Lane. ISBN 0-7139-9566-1. OCLC 799486298.
• Vinogradv, V. K. (2005). Hitler's death: Russia's last great secret from the files of the KGB (in English). London: Chaucer Press. ISBN 978-1-904449-13-3. OCLC 62312352.
• Zelle, Karl-Günter (2010). Hitlers zweifelnde Elite: Goebbels – Göring – Himmler – Speer (in German). Paderborn: Schöningh. ISBN 978-3-506-76909-1. OCLC 614474919.

Additional bibliography

• Bramsted, Ernest K. (1965). Goebbels and National Socialist propaganda, 1925–1945 (in English). East Lansing: Michigan State University Press. OCLC 405602.
• Fetscher, Iring (1998). Joseph Goebbels im Berliner Sportpalast 1943: „Wollt ihr den totalen Krieg?“ (in German). Hamburg: Europäische Verlagsanstalt. ISBN 3-434-50431-1. OCLC 39078235.
• Gilbert, Martin (2006). Kristallnacht: prelude to destruction (in English). New York: HarperCollins. ISBN 978-0-06-057083-5. OCLC 62697217.
• Hachmeister, Lutz; Kloft, Michael, eds. (2005). Das Goebbels-Experiment – Propaganda und Politik (in German). Munich: DVA. ISBN 3-421-05879-2. OCLC 57730038.
• Herf, Jeffrey (March 2005). «The 'Jewish War': Goebbels and the antisemitic campaigns of the Nazi Propaganda Ministry». Holocaust and Genocide Studies (in English) (Oxford: Oxford University Press) 19 (1): 51-80. ISSN 8756-6583. OCLC 4640261361. doi:10.1093/hgs/dci003. The reference uses the obsolete parameter |mes= (help)
• Moeller, Felix (2000). The film minister: Goebbels and the cinema in the Third Reich (in English). Stuttgart: Axel Menges. ISBN 978-3-932565-10-6. OCLC 43717746.
• Mollo, Andrew (1988). «The Berlin Führerbunker: The Thirteenth Hole». In Ramsey, Winston, ed. After the Battle (in English) (61) (London: Battle of Britain International).
• Rentschler, Eric (1996). The Ministry of Illusion: Nazi cinema and its afterlife (in English). Cambridge: Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0-674-57640-7. OCLC 34355001.
• Wunderlich, Dieter (2002). Goebbels und Göring. Eine Doppelbiografie (in German). Regensburg: Pustet. ISBN 3-7917-1787-1. OCLC 50440904.