adjutant: she declared she was going to marry him, explaining: ‘He can take his eye
out!’ Hitler beamed special favours on Helmut too; two days earlier Goebbels had
read out to him his little boy’s school essay on ‘November 9, 1923’—one of the
party’s high holy days—and tears of unkind laughter rolled down their cheeks. ‘You
would never have guessed,’ his father had indulgently dictated into his diary, ‘that he
was the son of a writer.’34
Surrounded by their finest paintings which they had retrieved from the bunker for
the occasion Hitler reminisced about Junk Art as an adjutant handed him the flask of
tea and cookies he had brought. He talked of the devastation in Berlin and his sorrow
at the loss of life. But he had done what he could, he sanctimoniously reminded
Goebbels, to prevent this kind of barbarism in 1939.
Then he chuckled at the rash statements the British were uttering about the war.
Things were looking up, he said—a dark allusion to his new offensive, now only days
away. ‘I of course,’ Goebbels prided himself, ‘understand precisely what he’s getting
at.’35
At eight-thirty P.M. Hitler made his excuses and returned to the chancellery.36 Werner
Naumann, towering over them in his S.S. brigadier’s uniform, commented afterwards
in flattering terms on the astonishing mental and physical health of their Führer.
876 GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICH
Goebbels registered this without comment in his diary, but he told his former adjutant
Prince Schaumburg-Lippe, ‘Be glad you didn’t see him. The Hitler you once
believed in doesn’t exist any more.’37
MAGDA had fallen head over heels for Dr Naumann, a more dangerous rival to Goebbels
than Hanke ever was. In charge of the secret project to microfilm the Goebbels
Diaries, Naumann had begun dictating passages from them clandestinely to one of
his private secretaries, Dorothea von Arnim. He planned to use them to overthrow
the minister when the time came.38 Naumann’s own marriage had now completed its
seventh year, and was entering the predictable doldrums despite their four children.
Like Hanke before him, he regarded Magda as a tragic heroine. Guessing what was
going on, Goebbels shortly ordered Naumann to end the relationship. Magda found
some solace in her Buddhism and in writing poetry, some of which she sent to
Naumann. As the nights lengthened, she spent more time with her husband. Often
she found him standing quietly at the bedside of their six sleeping children.39 Already
they were nurturing dark plans for their brood.
A week after his visit Hitler left for the western front.
At five-thirty A.M. on Saturday December 16, 1944 his Ardennes offensive began,
a last gamble. Artillery barrages drenched the five American infantry divisions holding
the target sector. Three German armies backed by 170 bombers, ninety groundattack
planes, and fifteen hundred fighter planes punched at the American lines. Simultaneously
V–1s and V–2s rained down on Antwerp, the final goal of his armies.
One V–2 killed two thousand Allied servicemen in the ‘Rex’ cinema in Antwerp.
Goebbels, who had joined his family out at Lanke, ordered a total media blackout
about the operation, over-ruling even Hitler who had wanted a single-sentence, upbeat
communiqué. By evening it was plain that Goebbels was right—Eisenhower
was still in the dark about what had hit him.40 Not until Sunday evening did the
enemy announce the shocking news that Hitler had managed to launch this audacious
operation (although they gave the credit to field Marshal von Rundstedt).41 On
Monday the eighteenth Hitler’s High Command tersely confirmed it, provoking ex-
GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICH 877
ultation in Germany’s bomb-devastated cities. Goebbels drove out to Lanke again
with Magda: their six children were standing on the steps and sang a welcoming
chorus which they had rehearsed all day with their governess.
As Hitler’s tanks rolled on it was like the headiest days of 1940; the Allied airforces
were virtually grounded by bad weather. Thousands of prisoners were taken, hundreds
of tanks destroyed. For Magda too it was a kind of victory: this was their
thirteenth wedding anniversary and she had kept her family together despite everything.
At one A.M. Hitler phoned them from his forward HQ in western Germany, excitedly
predicting that the U.S.First Army was already beaten. Both men agreed that
the enemy had not grasped what was happening—Eisenhower was still talking about
a localized Nazi push by three or four divisions. Before hanging up Hitler reminisced
with Magda about the wedding. ‘The time since then has gone in a flash,’ dictated
Goebbels, the spectre momentarily forgotten.42
By December 21 the Germans had taken twenty-five thousand American prisoners
and destroyed 350 tanks. Eisenhower called off all other operations to cope with the
emergency. Stalin did nothing to assist his beleaguered Allies. Goebbels still warned
against making damaging predictions.43 This was as well, because on the twentythird,
with Hitler’s broad armoured blade thrust forty miles deep into the American
ribs, the skies cleared and the Allied airforces struck back. Although history shows
that the Nazi offensive was finally halted on the twenty-fourth Goebbels still hoped
for a miracle. Using a typewriter to spare his Führer the struggle with his spidery
scrawl, he sent him a Christmas message (‘even if there’s no real Christmas for us’)
marveling ‘that once again, as so oft before, you are leading us out of the dilemma;
that you are a lustrous example to us all; that you teach us how mind and will-power
overcome matter and corporeality; and that therefore you tower above everybody
and everything.’44
Even now Goebbels still would not permit any fanfares about Hitler’s big offensive.
Out at Lanke the children put on their long dresses for Christmas Eve. Snuffing
878 GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICH
out the candles on the tree that night, after everybody had been given their presents,
Magda said to her secretary, ‘Next year we’ll surely be at peace.’45
After Christmas Goebbels’ sister Maria and his mother left Lanke, and he never
saw them again.46
HIS New Year’s Eve broadcast to the Reich was an empty panegyric. One propaganda
official noted in his diary, ‘I can’t help it—overall it was a let-down.’47 Public reaction
to Goebbels’ next article ‘Der Führer,’ with its glowing references to Hitler’s modesty,
his love of peace, and his foresight, was downright hostile. ‘He has the Sixth
Sense,’ Goebbels had written, ‘the gift to see what is denied the eyes of other mortals.’
A Gestapo agent overheard one less-gifted female tartly commenting that this was
no doubt why Hitler had consistently picked as his closest friends people like the
Italians who had betrayed him the most. ‘There’s no pulling the wool over his eyes,’
Goebbels had written. In that case, grumbled the public, it was hard to understand
the Twentieth of July.48
A few days later he went to Hitler’s forward headquarters, near Frankfurt, for a
two-day Cabinet-level discussion on injecting even more
men into the armed forces.49
On the first day, January 3, 1945 a blazing row developed. Speer objected that it
sounded like a levée en masse, a people’s army, again. He refused to be a part of it.
Glaring at him, Goebbels called out: ‘Then on your shoulders be the blame before
History that we lose this war for the want of a few hundred thousand soldiers!’50
He remained alone with Hitler until supper at eight. Hitler was so exhausted by
the dispute that his left arm started trembling violently, and Morell had to give him
extra injections.51
Under the new Goebbels-Aktion 240,000 men were promised to the army during
the first quarter of 1945; the figure was not even approximately reached.52 He had
bitten off more than he could chew and he met obstructionism all the way. Ludicrously,
Rosenberg still refused to disband his ministry for occupied eastern territories.
53 The Nazi upper echelons were interested only in their own well-being. On
January 26 Goebbels drew Hitler’s attention to the corruption and blackmarketeering
GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICH 879
in Denmark—General von Hanneken had shipped ham, lard, and furniture to Paris,
then used the truck to pick up wines and spirits for his own use (instead of urgently
needed spare parts); Hanneken’s motor launch had consumed a thousand litres of
gasoline during July 1944—a month in painful memory.54 On March 20 Goebbels
pointed out to Hitler that the airforce which had had 172 active generals in 1941 still
had 327 despite its reduction in size.55 His campaign against Göring continued unabated,
and unavailing, almost to the end.
WHEN he had returned to Berlin from Hitler’s HQ on January 5 the first complete
print of the epic movie ‘Kolberg’ had just arrived from Ufa’s colour laboratories.
Goebbels viewed it privately that evening. Its gigantic battle scenes and the heroic
performances by its stars were among the finest ever filmed by the German movie
industry. The public premieres were held on January 30 at the Tauentzien Palace
theatre and at Ufa’s movie theatre on Alexander Platz, directly after the broadcast of
what was to prove Hitler’s last speech (it lasted only sixteen minutes). The movie
was a stunning success, particularly at the ‘Alex’—there were fifteen curtain calls
for the stars.56 It was also shown that day to the troops holding out in Hitler’s Atlantic
fortress La Rochelle, where a fighter plane had delivered it only hours before. ‘The
film is so well suited to our times,’ wrote one of Hitler’s personal staff, ‘that one
would almost ascribe clairvoyant powers to those whose brainchild it is—it was
begun as far back as 1942.’57 Goebbels had the film flown into the fortresses of Breslau
and Danzig, and as more copies became available they were sent to embattled Upper
Silesia and the bridgeheads of Frankfurt-on-Oder, Neisse, and Königsberg. Copies
were also provided for the personal use of Göring, Himmler, Dönitz, and Guderian,
who were evidently as much in need of moral sustenance as these fortresses.58
880 GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICH
1 Diary, Oct 7; Oven, ‘Oct 2, Nov 11, 1944.’
2 Diary, Oct 12, 1944.
3 NYT, Oct 5, 1944.
4 Oven, ‘Oct 4, 1944,’ 490f.—Ohlendorf confirmed to Milch after the war that Speer
approved the falsification of arms production figures. (Milch diary, Aug 28, 1945). United
States Strategic Bombing Survey report No.59, The Defeat of the German Air Force, 37ff came to
the same conclusion.
5 Letter intercepted by ABP (foreign letter intercept office) from Justizrat Victor Fränkl,
Locarno, to H R Morgenthau, Oct 4, 1944 (ZStA Potsdam, Rep.50.01, vol.796).
6 On which see VB, Sep 26, 1944.—See PID analysis of JG’s usage of the Morgenthau plan,
DE.2/DIS.202 (Hoover Libr., Lerner papers); Der politische Soldat, No.14, Oct 1944 quoted
the Swiss journal Vaterland as predicting a ‘field of death from Kiel to Konstanz.’ Willi Krämer,
circular No.66, Dec 8, 1944 (NA film T84, roll 169, 6532f).
7 W J Donovan to FDR, Oct 17 and 25, 1944 (FDR Libr., PSF box 169).—The controversy
was too juicy for even Goebbels’ opponents in Moscow to eschew and the next issue
of Freies Deutschland, No.9–10, Moscow, Oct/Nov 1944 also polemicized against Morgenthau
& Co, ‘the representatives of millions in Gold.’ (Yivo, Occ E–FD–2).
8 Oven, ‘Oct 11, 1944,’ 493.
9 Diary, Dec 2; Heinz Linge, Hitler’s appointments register, Oct 15–16, 1944 (NA film
T84, roll 387).
10 JG reported the ‘Bismarck’ remark to Speer. FIAT interrogation of Speer, Jun/Jul 1945,
pt.ii, No.19.
11 Oven, ‘Oct 15, 1944,’ 500ff.
12 On Oct 29, 1944 (diary) JG would write: ‘Of course, the Führer set out this operation
in detail to me on my last visit to Führer’s HQ. It’s been gone over quite adequately in these
pages too.’
13 Diary, Oct 24, 1944.
14 Führer decree on the formation of a German Volkssturm, Sep 25, 1944 (RGBl., 1944, I,
72f.)
15 JG broadcast, Oct 27: MNN, Oct 28; NYT, Oct 28. Donovan to FDR, Nov 1, 1944 (FDR
Libr., PSF box 170).
16 Albrecht to his wife, Oct 27 (IfZ, Irving collection); JG diary, Oct 29, 1944.
17 Corporal Felix to Mrs [Anneliese] von Ribbentrop, Nov 11, 1944. Ribbentrop initialed
its first page and sent it over to the Gestapo (NA film T120, roll 4673, 4788ff).
18 Diary, Oct 29, 1944.
19 Sündermann, ‘Aug 6, 1944,’ 93.
20 Hadamowsky to JG, Aug 7, 1944 (ZStA Potsdam, Rep.62 Re 3, vol.1); Sündermann,
‘Aug 7, 1944,’ 97.
21 The film was ‘Verräter vor dem Volksgericht.’ The first part, five acts, ran for 105 minutes;
the second, also five acts, for 105 minutes; a silent roll showing the hanging of Witzleben
et al. in four acts ran for 20–25 minutes. Their current location is unknown.—
Reichsfilmintendant (Hinkel) to Naumann, Aug 31, 1944 (BA file R.55/664); and Lindenborn
to JG, Jan 17, 1945 (ZStA Potsdam, Rep.50.01, vol.831).
GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICH 881
22 Note by Leiter F. (of Hinkel’s staff), Oct 21, 1944 (ZStA Potsdam, Rep.50.01, vol.831).—
The film shown at the Nuremberg trials, ‘Proceedings against the Criminals of Jul 20, 1944,’
was edited from unreleased Deutsche Wochenschau newsreel footage confiscated by OMGUS
at the offices of AFIFA in Tempelhof.
23 SS Sturmbannführer Ulenberg (RMVP) to Hinkel, Mar 5 (ZStA Potsdam, Rep.50.01,
vol.831). Die Nation, Feb 14, 1945 published an alleged photo of Witzleben and Hoepner
hanging.
24 JG to Hitler, draft, Oct 25 (BA film NL.118/106); diary, Oct 29. He named Dr Hermann
Kappner (envoy in Stockholm), Miss Schacht, a niece of Dr Hjalmar Schacht; envoy Dr
Zechlin, Consul Schwinner, Dr Wilhelm Klein and Bruno Fiebinger. He heard (diary, Oct
30, 1944) that Hitler had read the letter out approvingly at his next war conference.
25 Diary, Oct 30, 1944. Taubert however said the material hardened the will to resist and
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