Doctor Goebbels: His Life & Death
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of virginal excitement.’51 Let no careless biographer maintain that he has advanced
far with the fairer sex even now: strolling in the Tiergarten after this movie, he steals
a chaste kiss from Hannah. ‘She blushed like a child when I kissed her neck,’ he
writes, rejoicing in his adventure.52 He delights in her innocent chatter and writes
more than once approvingly of her Jungfräulichkeit, her chastity.53 But he is aware of
her limitations. He needs a more mature woman, while Hannah is ‘a totally innocent
child.’
A little bombshell comes from Weimar. Anka writes that she is divorcing Mumme
and coming to work in Berlin.54 Goebbels reflects how much women have hurt him,
and how much they have hurt for him too. ‘Is this to be a new tragedy,’ he wonders,
‘in which I am to be cast in the leading role?’ He tells little Hannah none of this. He
writes cautiously back to Anka: perhaps they might meet on Tuesday October 2 in
Weimar? The next day, speaking at Hasenheide, he sights Hannah sitting reverently as
though in a church pew, smiling with childlike attentiveness. A telegram comes from
136 GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICH
Anka: yes, Tuesday. In Weimar, they sit up late together. She tells him that she is now
in two minds again. Meanwhile, should she come to Berlin for a month or two? ‘That
might well be ticklish,’ senses Goebbels in his diary.
Hannah falls silent. ‘Does she, or does she not, love me,’ argues Goebbels. ‘I’m
damned if I can tell.’55 Shortly a letter comes, spelling out the answer: she does not.
Goebbels limps around baffled, groping for an explanation. ‘Okay. So I shall have to
stay lonely. To be famous or to be loved? That is the question.’56 On October 12
Hannah reappears at gau HQ. ‘Suddenly the hour is filled with lustrous happiness,’
writes Goebbels, extracting much pathos from a scene which must have cruelly punctured
his male vanity. ‘I kiss her squarely on her full red lips. And then she confesses
to me that she loves another. She only came to me because I was so lonely. A terrible
discovery. From a thousand heavens I plummet to the depths of a thousand hells.’57
Innocently twisting her teenaged knife, Hannah writes asking if she can be a good
sister to him instead. ‘Always the same,’ fulminates Goebbels. ‘First these women
just want to be your sister. Then whoopee, it’s mistress instead.’
‘Unhappy love,’ he summarizes tersely on October 17, 1928: ‘There can be no
such thing for a Man with a Mission.’58
Arriving at Hanover the next day he finds ‘that cute little Mrs Heinz,’ the editor’s
wife, waiting for him on the platform.59
1 Angriff, Oct 29, 1928.
2 Police file (NA film T581, roll 52, BA file NS.26/1224).
3 Diary, Jun 20, 1928; case files in Landesarchiv Berlin, Rep.58, items 58, 302, and Berlin
police (Ia) report, Jun 20, 1928 (BDC file, JG); JG accused the police witnesses Bober and
Weicker of perjury, and was prosecuted for libel on Dec 15, 1929 (Landesarchiv Berlin,
Rep.58, item 3).
4 Diary, Jun 9, 1928.
5 Ibid., Jun 6, 1928.
6 Ibid., Jun 13, 1928.
7 Ibid., Jun 13, 1928.
GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICH 137
8 Berliner Arbeiterzeitung, May 27; inNS-Briefe, Jun 15, 1928, Otto Strasser said the proletariat
had voted overwhelmingly for the communists, and he blamed those who were ‘too
clever by half’).
9 Diary, Jun 15, 1928.
10 On the new HQ: Ibid., Jun 1, 5, 19, 28; Jul 28 1928.
11 See the references to his health in his diary, Apr 19, May 23, Jul 5, Sep 15, Nov 5, 13, 25,
1928.
12 ’Ein §175er.’ Ibid., Oct 26, 1928
13 Ibid., Sep 29, Oct 11, 12, 1928.
14 Ibid., Nov 25, 1928.
15 Ibid., Dec 19, 20, 1928; Jan 5, 1929.
16 Ibid., Jan 26, 29, 1929; on Feb 5 he noted that he was measured for a new steel orthopædic
caliper.
17 Wessel MS, 1929, and JG diary, Jul 13, 14, 1928. Horst Wessel, commander of SA Trupp
34, had spent Jan–Jul 1928 in Vienna studying the Nazi youth movement there which was
better organized than in Germany; he reported back to JG in detail on their methods. See
too Richard Fiedler’s reminiscences on Wessel in Angriff, Oct 30, 1936 (BA file NS.26/968).
18 Diary, Jul 15, 1928. From JG’s unpublished diary, Mar 30, 1928 it is plain he was
attracted to her: ‘Arrive Munich 5 A.M. ... Then I meet Geli Raubal. She wants to come to
Berlin. A darling thing! We’ve laid plans.’ And see diary, Oct 19, 1928.
19 Ibid., Jan 10, 1928 (microfiche in Moscow archives, JG papers, box 5).
20 JG postcard to Ilse Hess, Jul 9, 1928 (Hess papers, Hindelang); diary, Jul 10, 1928.
21 Ibid., Apr 16, 1928.
22 Ibid., Jan 19; and Jan 14, 17, 1928.
23 Ibid., Jan 23, Feb 23, 1928.
24 Ibid., Jan 22, 27, 1928.
25 Ibid., Feb 9, 10, 1928.
26 Ibid., Feb 23, 1928.
27 Ibid., Mar 7, 1928; author’s interview of Annette Castendyk.
28 Ibid., Mar 9, 13, 1928.
29 Ibid., Mar 21, 1928; Christian Mumme, born Sep 1927, was killed when an American
plane strafed his flak position on the Elbe front on Apr 16, 1945.
30 Diary, Mar 23, 24, 1928.
31 Ibid., Mar 30, 1928.
32 Ibid., Apr 10, 1928.
33 Ibid., Apr 12, 1928.
34 Ibid., Apr 22, 1928, published.
35 Ibid., Apr 17, 1928.
36 Ibid., Apr 25, 1928.
37 Ibid., Apr 27, 1928.
38 Ibid., May 9, 12, 14, Jul 23, 1928.
39 Ibid., May 28, 30, 1928.
40 Ibid., May 30, 1928.
41 Ibid., Jul 27, 1928.
138 GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICH
42 Ibid., Jul 29, Aug 2, 1928.
43 Gauorganisationsleiter. See Gerhard Starcke, NSBO und Deutsche Arbeitsfront (Berlin, 1934),
198f; diary, May 23, Jun 6, 1928.
44 Diary, Aug 7, 1928.
45 Ibid., Aug 10, 1928. On Jul 25, 1924, after watching ‘Tristan,’ JG noted that he had last
seen it in Oct 1919 in Frankfurt with Anka, ‘blessed memory.’
46 Ibid., Aug 24, 29, 1928.
47 Ibid., Aug 10, 25, 27, 1928.
48 Ibid., Sep 14, 1928.
49 Ibid., Sep 4, 1928.
50 Ibid., Sep 11, 12, 13, 19, 20, 21, 1928.
51 Ibid., Sep 23, 1928.
52 Ibid., Sep 23, 1928.
53 Ibid., Sep 24, 25, 1928.
54 Ibid., Sep 26, 1928.
55 Ibid., Oct 2, 1928.
56 Ibid., Oct 7, 1928
57 Ibid., Oct 14, 1928.
58 Ibid., Oct 17, 1928.
59 Ibid., Oct 19, 1928.
GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICH 139
Goebbels
9: Conjuring up Spirits
THERE was a side to Dr Goebbels which few suspected. He half believed in the
occult. At the very end of his life he would have horoscopes cast for himself,
for Hitler, and for the Third Reich; scattered through the earlier diaries are references
to seances at which dark forces were consulted. On leave in Bavaria in 1928 he
was to be found conjuring up the spirit of Leo Schlageter. The great martyr of the
Ruhr resistance ‘appeared’ and, when asked Who Shall Save Germany, replied with a
tact that was commendable under the circumstances, ‘Vest Your Hopes Only
in Hitler.’
1 In 1929 Goebbels and his friends again conjured up the spirits. ‘I don’t really
believe in such frauds,’ he noted airily, ‘but it’s usually quite amusing.’2 Visiting Princess
Wied in August 1930 he found an astrologer there who ‘lied forth from the stars
precisely what we would expect to happen anyway.’ Goebbels’s own apparent cynicism
was belied however by the diary passage that followed. ‘Auwi [Prince August
Wilhelm] is very sceptical, but I am flabbergasted.’3 He unquestioningly accepted the
mystic powers of graphology. He allowed the Party lawyer Ludwig Weissauer to read
his handwriting; Weissauer told him that it betrayed sensitivity and a determination
to fight on.
Weissauer found one flawed line. That, guessed Goebbels, must be Anka. Since
losing her he had had nothing but a sense of loneliness.4
AIDED by young Horst Wessel, he had spent the summer of 1928 organising a Hitler
Youth detachment and a Nazi student association in Berlin. But those months saw the
140 GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICH
first problems with the brownshirted S.A. battalions of Party stormtroopers. They
had believed his earlier talk of revolution; but with Hitler’s new-found belief in the
legal approach to power they saw the day when they might storm the Reichstag
receding. Friction with their commander Captain Stennes grew.5
Goebbels was in two minds. Unlike Hitler, he never wholly abandoned the idea of
a putsch. He spent much of the summer organizing an S.A. march on Berlin, to
culminate in a mass rally in Berlin’s largest hall. It would be a show of power. In mid
August Stennes threatened to quit, taking several of his commanders with him.6
Goebbels told him of the planned ‘rally.’ ‘We can do without a crisis at this moment,’
he notified his diary. ‘We must keep the peace. I convince [Stennes], against my own
convictions.’7 At the Party’s annual general meeting in Munich at the end of August
Hitler directed him to concentrate his efforts now on Berlin, while Brandenburg
would be detached to form a separate gau.8
Hitherto Goebbels had merely reacted to political events. Now he seized the political
initiative. He proclaimed the last week of September 1928 ‘Dawes Week’,
seven days of intense campaigning in Berlin against the pact obliging Germany to pay
her war reparations bill regardless of her economic plight. He printed a special issue
of Angriff which sold sixty thousand copies.9 Growing bolder, he risked hiring for the
first time the Sport Palace in Potsdamer Strasse for the third ‘Brandenburg Rally’
(Märkertag); to fill the cavernous building, which could seat fifteen thousand people,
he placarded the city with lurid posters announcing: ‘On Saturday September
30 Adolf Hitler’s Brownshirts will march into Berlin. For the first time since its
establishment in the Reich capital the National Socialist German Workers Party will
demonstrate before the German public in Close Discipline against the pauperization
of the German people by the Dawes Pact.’10 That Sunday he drove out to Teltow to
watch his brown army assemble. Four thousand S.A. men marched into the capital.
At Steglitz town hall the immense throng, which Goebbels put at ‘tens of thousands,’
paused, bared their heads and roared the national anthem before marching on through
the city’s frightened, wealthy west end to the Sport Palace building. With thousands
of communists massing threateningly outside a riot began and the police opened fire.
GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICH 141
Four Nazis were seriously injured. Goebbels left under a barrage of rocks, jeers, and
catcalls— ‘Hatred and love,’ he philosophized. The next day’s ‘non Jewish’ press was
largely sympathetic, the rest less so.11
‘A day of triumph,’ he concluded in his diary: he had Anka sending him telegrams
from Weimar; he had young Hannah; he had fifteen thousand Berliners hanging on
his every word.12 A letter of congratulations came from Hitler.13 A few days later
Hitler appeared unannounced at gau HQ in Berliner Strasse and repeated his congratulations
in person. He reiterated that Goebbels alone had his confidence in Berlin,
and he spoke harshly about Dr Otto Strasser. He could now afford to give his
staff, over twenty strong, a substantial pay rise.
DECIDING to move into larger lodgings, he finds just what he needs in Württembergische
Strasse in west Berlin, closer to gau HQ. His landlady is a Miss Grothe, an elderly
spinster, as he is careful to record.14 The apartment has a pleasant drawing room. He
feels entitled to some luxury—‘I have naught else, neither wife nor child, and only
seldom a lover.’ He uses the word Geliebte, although ‘girlfriend’ would seem more
justified. Most are passing fancies, like one Eva Otto—she donates a piano to the
new apartment.15 On October 31, 1928, the day before he moves in, his secretary
circulates the new address requesting it be kept secret ‘for obvious reasons.’ A copy
goes to Anka.16
He is still terrified of any hint of homosexuality, a criminal perversion which seems
particularly prevalent in the Nazi party. Unable to form lasting relationships with
women, he loiters in cafes or haunts movie theatres with his chauffeur Tonak or
cartoonist Schweitzer, his only friends.17 After major events he returns to his empty
apartment and mopes. He needs a woman, as ‘a starter-motor,’ but the malicious
gossip will not go away. ‘It’s too filthy even to think about without being ashamed,’ he
insists to his diary the day after moving into his new bachelor apartment. ‘Decay!
Decay! It must be expunged, radically and ruthlessly.’18 His reasoning is odd, however
— ‘Because if the enemy ever learns something like that, we shall be finished.’ Is
homosexuality for Goebbels, this ‘immoral vice,’ a crime in the detection rather than
142 GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICH
in the commission? ‘It’s got to be stamped out radically,’ he writes on November 4.
‘It’s all so dirty,’—again, an interesting choice of word,—‘It’s all so dirty that it
would preferable not to hear or see it at all.’ Several of his officials are unmasked as
homosexuals, and Goebbels does not know whom to trust.19 ‘It’s so averse to my
own nature,’ he writes, ‘that I can’t work up for them even the vestigial sympathy
that I do for any common murderer.’20
Over the next months Goebbels, now thirty-one, tries relationships with half a
dozen teenage girls. The first, Johanna Polzin, lasts three weeks: he trembles as he
shows her photographs of the big Sport Palace meeting. ‘And then I kiss her… She
just stares at me amazed with her grey-blue eyes. Bells ring within me. A woman! A
loving woman! I smother her with kisses. She is trusting as a child.’21 His eye soon
roves on. Talking with Josef Terboven his eye lights upon the Essen gauleiter’s attractive,