It was not long before there were disagreements between business manager Goebbels and the Gauleiter he had hitherto valued so highly.44 Goebbels adopted the view that Ripke’s “witty remarks” were doing little to advance the cause. Ripke was simply “not an activist”45 but a “bourgeois in disguise” and not “socialist” enough.46 Kaufmann supported Goebbels in this dispute. As Goebbels had hoped, Kaufmann was increasingly turning out to be a replacement for his lost friend Flisges.47 Goebbels sought to bring things to a head by indicting the Gauleiter: In the völkisch paper Deutsche Wochenschau (Weekly Review) he published a “reckoning with the German bourgeoisie,” whom he accused of allowing themselves to be reduced to “slave masters and promoters of the stock market dictatorship.”48 The whole thing was set out as an “open letter” addressed to a “Director General.” The “open letter” became one of Goebbels’s favorite journalistic ploys in the mid-1920s, allowing him to instigate particularly effective polemical allusions and a good many slurs of varying severity on his political opponents, all under cover of a personal, often quite civil manner.
Meanwhile, the presidential election campaign was coming to an end. Goebbels appeared at several events, supporting Hindenburg’s candidacy. When Hindenburg won on April 26, however, Goebbels saw his success as no more than a “stage on the way to the ultimate goal.”49 All the same, he acquired a copy of Hindenburg’s 1920 autobiography, Aus meinem Leben (From My Life), and arrived at a relatively mild verdict on it: “a great, unassuming man.”50
After a temporary lull, the dispute with Ripke broke out again at the end of May.51 Goebbels anticipated clarification from the party leader on the future direction of the NSDAP: “Will he be a nationalist or a socialist? Who is right, Ripke or I? That is what I have pinned my hopes on. Hitler as the leader of German socialists! The world belongs to us!”52 But Hitler’s public pronouncements on this issue were couched in such general terms that they could not be interpreted as support for either side.53
A series of articles by Goebbels appeared in the Völkischer Beobachter in the following weeks. On May 24 the paper published part of his attack on Reventlow from January,54 and in June the first of his essays, “Idea and Sacrifice,” a declaration of war on the “bourgeois,” whom he hated, as he openly conceded, not least because they displayed what “we have not yet conquered in ourselves, a touch of small-mindedness placed by Mother Nature in every German cradle.”55 He harped on the same subject later that month with his contribution “Sclerotic Intelligentsia,”56 and again in July with “National Community and Class War.”57 This latter article took the form of an open letter to Albrecht von Graefe, leader of the Deutschvölkische Freiheitsbewegung, in which Goebbels described the class war as the repression of the great mass of the people by a very small exploiting class. They and their bourgeois accomplices, their “shameless henchmen” (Graefe and company, in other words), were preventing the formation of a true “national community.” He also produced two further open letters in the Völkischer Beobachter, to Hanns Hustert, the would-be assassin of the Reich’s foreign minister, Gustav Stresemann, who was serving a sentence in military detention—although Goebbels did not mention Hustert by name.58
The diary entries around this time are full of vicious remarks about Ripke: “Poor, miserable, cowardly old bellyacher! Arteriosclerosis personified.”59 The article “Sclerotic Intelligentsia,” in which Goebbels accused an imaginary “Geheimrat” (privy councilor) of representing a stuffy and “lame” version of socialism, was aimed at Ripke, who was well aware of this.60
As ever, the busy journalist was badly beset by money worries.61 His father wrote that he could no longer support him.62 When Goebbels told Kaufmann that, because of lack of money and the conflict with Ripke, he was tempted to pack up and leave Elberfeld,63 Kaufmann had “tears in his eyes”: “O God, give me Kaufmann as a friend. He is everything to me, and I to him. Richard was taken away from me, and Kaufmann was sent.”64 In April he made the final break with Elisabeth65 and then tried to get his relationship with Else back on a proper footing, which he gradually succeeded in doing by May. The couple spent Whitsun in the Westerwald uplands.66 But as he saw it, there was no future for them together: “I’d love to make her my wife, if only she weren’t a half-breed.”67
It was at the Gau leaders’ conference in Weimar on July 12, 1925, that he first saw Hitler in the flesh.68 After much delay, according to Goebbels, the Party leader finally showed up at the conference venue. Needless to say, Goebbels’s enthusiasm knew no bounds: “Weimar was a resurrection in the truest sense of the word. […] What a voice. What gestures, what passion. Just as I wished him to be.” He recorded the key words of the speech in his diary: “Organization! No ideal. But unfortunately necessary. In it worldview becomes belief. Struggle! All those with the same aims belong in the organization. Then the way will be found. Communism and bourgeoisie! The idea of the masses! […] Tough on bourgeoisie and capitalism. Freedom! Berserkers of freedom!” Hitler ended with an appeal for trust, while “bright tears ran down his cheeks.” The speech made an enduring impression on Goebbels. He was “shaken”: “I stand outside by the window and cry like a baby. Away from other people. […] Hitler goes. A handshake. Come again soon.” The next morning, back in Elberfeld, he summed it all up: “I’m a different person. Now I know that the man who leads was born to be a leader. I’m ready to sacrifice everything for him.”
For Goebbels, the high expectations of Hitler he had formulated six months earlier in the Völkische Freiheit as a “call for salvation” had been fulfilled. He saw the Weimar encounter as a “resurrection” and was obviously incapable of scrutinizing Hitler’s speech more closely to see where it diverged in terms of policy from his own views.
Invigorated by the Weimar experience, Goebbels, Elbrechter, and Kaufmann continued trying to unseat Ripke. At a series of meetings of leading Nazis in the Gau, he was gradually demolished. Ripke’s opponents knew that their move was supported by the Party leadership in Munich. For Ripke belonged to the group of northwest German Gauleiters who had spoken out against the practice, current until then, of issuing NSDAP membership cards from the Munich head office. Their preference was to keep membership lists at Gau headquarters; this would deprive Munich of effective control over access to members’ subscriptions. For Goebbels and his associates, these efforts clearly offered a platform for charging Ripke with irregularities.69 Eventually Ripke requested a disciplinary hearing against himself.70 He was suspended, and Goebbels was appointed acting Gauleiter.71 One of his first acts in office was to report the membership figures for the Gau to Munich.72
In July he spent a night with Alma Kuppe, Else’s best friend, who was on a visit to Elberfeld.73 Later, his great fear was that the two women would exchange notes.74 “Is it possible to love two women at the same time?”75 he asked himself. Full of self-pity, in all these complications he once again saw himself in the role of someone who simply loved everybody and was the victim to the end: “Little Else, when am I going to see you again? Alma, you lovely minx! Anka, I’ll never forget you! And yet now I’m utterly alone!”76
THE WESTERN BLOC
On August 20 Gregor Strasser came to Elberfeld and reached an agreement in principle with Kaufmann and Goebbels on the formation of a “western bloc” within the Party. The target of this strategy was clear: the “sclerotic big shots in Munich,” the “lousy, useless management at the head office” from which they wanted to liberate Hitler.77
With this new creation in mind, during the days that followed Goebbels set about reinforcing his relations with two personalities who were very important for the new setup: He befriended the head of the Sturmabteilung (stormtroopers, SA) in the Gau, Viktor Lutze, and finally established with Kaufmann that they should be on a first-name basis with each other.78 Apart from this, he was immersed in reading the first volume of Mein Kampf, which had just been published, and about which he was “extremely enthusiastic.”79 On September 10 the decisive meeting took place i
n Hagen: The NSDAP Gaus in North and West Germany formed a working association. Goebbels recorded the significant points: “Single leader (Strasser). Single headquarters (Elberfeld). Single business manager (moi). Fortnightly information publication Nationalsozialistische Briefe [National Socialist Correspondence] (publisher Strasser, editor moi).”80
From Goebbels’s diary notes in these days it clearly emerges where he saw the dividing line within the Party. In a separate internal session with Party comrades appended to the main meeting, he proposed the following rallying cry: “First salvation through socialism, followed like a whirlwind by national liberation.” But he ran into opposition. The Pomeranian Gauleiter, Professor Theodor Vahlen, for example, demanded: “First turn the workers into nationalists!” According to Goebbels, Hitler stood between the two camps, but he held that he was about “to come over to our side completely.”81
On September 27, at a conference of the leading officials of the North Rhineland Gau, Goebbels was once more elected business manager of the Gau; Kaufmann became the Gauleiter. Goebbels was visibly disappointed. The idea had in fact been to make him Gauleiter, but he had had to decline because of overcommitment. All the same, though: “A little niggle against Kaufmann in me. I do the work, and he ‘leads.’ But I’ll get over it!”82
A few days later Strasser was back in Elberfeld. The two men had long discussions, gradually building up to a confidential relationship. Goebbels learned that there was a notion of moving him to Munich, but he was not ready for such a step: “I must first complete my mission here in the Rhine and Ruhr.” The goal was a general assault on the “pigsty” in Munich.83 With Strasser he drafted a paper that was to serve as the constitution of the working association formed a few weeks earlier in Hanover: The eight Gaus involved agreed to a united organization and greater exchange of information.84
Meanwhile, his relationship with Else was drifting inexorably toward a final break. He received several “farewell letters” from her which did not, however, lead to any consequences for the time being.85
CONFLICT OVER PARTY POLICY
Not only was Goebbels writing for the Völkischer Beobachter and the Deutsche Wochenschau, but he now also had his own publication, the Nationalsozialistische Briefe (National Socialist Correspondence).86 He used the Briefe, above all, to propagate his views on Bolshevism and socialism. Russian Bolshevism, he asserted, should not be seen primarily as a “Jewish” system of government but as an attempt to open up a Russian national path to socialism. However, the battle between Jewish-international and Russian-nationalist forces within the Bolshevik movement was not yet over. Not until there was “a truly nationalist and socialist Russia” would it be possible to “recognize the beginnings of our own declaration for nationalism and socialism.”87
In November 1925 his article “National Socialism or Bolshevism,” which he had already published in mid-October in the Briefe, appeared in the Völkischer Beobachter. What was highly unusual was that this contribution was accompanied by a response from the chief ideologue of the Party, Alfred Rosenberg. Where Goebbels in his article had tried to bring out the positive aspects of the Bolshevist revolution, Rosenberg vehemently disagreed: Lenin’s agrarian reforms had not freed the Russian peasants, he maintained; it was precisely under the Soviet system that they had no freedom whatsoever. The Soviet Union was not “the germ cell of a nationalist restructuring of European states” but its greatest obstacle. Neither was it possible to separate out the role of the Jews in the Soviet Union, as Goebbels had proposed. It was wrong to think, said Rosenberg, that the Soviet communists were supporting the German proletariat in order to safeguard the national existence of Russia; the fact was that “Soviet Judah” was concerned to prevent the “nationalist awakening” of peoples (including the Russians). Rosenberg concluded his response with the words: “The wish has often been the father to belief. We think in this case it has played a little prank on our Party comrade.” The Party leadership could not have stated more clearly that Goebbels’s assessment of the Soviet Union ran completely counter to the Munich line.88
It was inevitable that Hitler observed the activities of the working association, especially of its business manager, with a degree of mistrust. Informed of this by Strasser and patently shocked, Goebbels wrote in his diary on October 12: “Hitler doesn’t trust me. He has complained about me. How that hurts.” He hoped to clear the air in a one-to-one discussion, but if this were to end in accusations, “then I’ll go.” He could not “take that as well. Sacrifice everything, only to be accused by Hitler himself.”89
In the meantime, he had finished reading the first volume of Mein Kampf. The book had made an extraordinary impression on him: “Who is this man? Half-plebeian, half-god! Is this really Christ or just John the Baptist?”90 Despite his veneration of Hitler, he cannot have helped noticing that on two essential points the Party leader’s position was completely at odds with his own. If Goebbels had hoped to find in Mein Kampf the long-awaited commitment to “socialism,” then he was disappointed. What is more, Hitler had put forward a view of future policy toward the east that was completely opposed to Goebbels’s image of Russia: Hitler saw Bolshevist rule in Russia as nothing but a tool “of the Jews.” He rejected any alliance with Russia; on the contrary, he wanted a colonial land grab of Russian territory.91
For Goebbels, the chance to clear the air with Hitler came in early November at a Gau meeting in Braunschweig. Hitler greeted him there like “an old friend. And these large, blue eyes. Like stars. He is pleased to see me. I’m very happy.” He was impressed by Hitler’s rhetorical talent: “This man has all it takes to become king. A born people’s tribune. The coming dictator.” Questions of content obviously played no part at all in this encounter. Goebbels was simply happy that Hitler had made no accusations against him and in fact had treated him favorably.92 He wrote to Gregor Strasser that they were “now completely straightened out with Munich.”93
Two weeks later, on November 20, Hitler and Goebbels met again, at an event in Plauen where both were speaking. The controversial questions of substance played as little part this time as before. He was once more utterly captivated by his Party boss: “He greets me like an old friend. And treats me with solicitude. How I love him! What a fellow!” He was overwhelmed by Hitler’s speech: “How small I am!”94
After their meeting Goebbels wrote Hitler one of his open letters, in which he publicly declared his unconditional submission to the Party leader: “You showed us once more in our deepest despair the way to faith. […] The last time I saw you, in Plauen, after days of tempestuous struggle, I felt deep in my soul the happiness of standing behind a man who embodies the will to freedom in his very person. Before that you were my leader. But then you became my friend.”95
Such personal declarations of loyalty from leading Party comrades were in fact nothing new since the re-founding of the NSDAP; after all, Hitler had conceived of the Party as a “Führer party,” and his entourage spared no effort to create a “Führer myth” around him. But what seemed to many Party comrades a dutiful exercise (since the vague policies of the Party necessitated a powerfully integrative leader figure) was for Goebbels a highly charged emotional need, beyond all tactical considerations.96
On the way back from Plauen, Goebbels stopped off in Hanover, where another meeting of the working association was taking place, with representatives from eleven Gaus. Here, Strasser put forward an outline program, but in the meeting it was decided that Kaufmann and Goebbels should develop an alternative proposal.97 Goebbels had in fact been working intensively on such a manifesto draft since mid-December 1925, after he had assessed as “unsatisfactory” a revised version of Gregor Strasser’s draft, which had proposed partial socialization.98 But the deadline originally announced, December 15, could not be met. On January 6 Goebbels recorded in his diary that he had pulled the program together under “24 basic demands”: Unfortunately, this document no longer exists. But the course taken later by internal Party debate w
ould go on to show that Goebbels’s position, especially his pro-Russian stance, was largely ignored.
At Christmas Hitler had given the Gau business manager enormous pleasure by sending him a leather-bound copy of Mein Kampf, complete with a personal dedication in which he praised Goebbels’s work as exemplary.99 Such gestures were to exert a long-term influence on Goebbels.
Meanwhile, negotiations had begun with the goal of combining the North Rhineland and Westphalian Gaus into a single “Greater Ruhr Gau.” “Then we’ll have a pressure group that counts for something,” wrote Goebbels in his diary.100 By January 9 an understanding had been reached on all essential points with Franz Pfeffer von Salomon, leader of the Westphalian Gau; on January 15, visiting Elberfeld, Strasser confirmed the agreements.101
Goebbels now set about further developing and modifying his pro-Russian position. On January 15 he published an article in the Nationalsozialistische Briefe on the topic of “Orientation: West or East.” His decision was unambiguous: “That is why we place ourselves alongside Russia as equal partners in the struggle for this freedom which means everything to us.”102
On February 19 he gave a speech in Königsberg on the subject of “Lenin or Hitler?,” a topic he had already addressed on November 17, 1925, in Chemnitz.103 He circulated the text of the carefully prepared Königsberg speech as a printed pamphlet;104 he spent weeks polishing the final version.105 As before, he assessed the Soviet agrarian reforms positively but came to the conclusion that Moscow’s industrial policy had failed because “the Jewish question” remained unresolved there. That was why—and this was his main concession to the Party line—“no rescue could come from that quarter for the German people […] because communism and Marxism as confederates of the Jewish stock exchange scoundrels never have the will to real freedom.” On the other hand, he prophesied a Russian “awakening” that would produce the “socialist nationalist state.”106
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