Goebbels: A Biography

by Peter Longerich

  On September 12 Goebbels was present in the chamber when the KPD brought in a surprise vote of no confidence against von Papen in the Reichstag. The NSDAP and the Center Party coordinated their response. In the ensuing vote, practically the whole house came out against von Papen.30 Voting had actually been possible only because the Reichstag president, Hermann Göring, had carefully ignored the folder handed to him by von Papen as the session proceeded. It contained Hindenburg’s order for the dissolution of Parliament.31 However, in constitutional terms the situation was clear: The Reichstag had been dissolved, and new elections were set for November 6.

  THE ELECTION CAMPAIGN AND THE BVG STRIKE

  On September 13 Hitler gave the Party’s Reichstag members the motto for the coming election: “Against Papen and the reactionaries.” On the same day, Goebbels went about ensuring that the Berlin Party organization and the Reich propaganda office were committed to campaigning on this watchword.32

  The rallying cry issued by Hitler indicated clearly that—in contrast to the campaign of June and July 1932—it was not the “system parties” but von Papen and his “reactionary henchmen,” above all the DNVP, that the NSDAP propaganda machine had in its sights this time.33 Thus the Party press actually went so far in the campaign as to call on its readers to boycott bourgeois-nationalist publications.34 More forcefully than in the July campaign, in which Strasser had been allowed to showcase his sociopolitical demands, the person of the Party leader was held up in opposition to the “reactionaries” as “the last hope,” as an election poster put it.35

  During a visit to Munich at the beginning of October, Goebbels reorganized the Reich propaganda office. In this, he benefited from the fact that a few weeks earlier Strasser had ceded to him responsibility for film and radio.36 This enabled Goebbels to create four main departments, with information service and propaganda alongside film and radio.37

  Early in November the Berlin NSDAP became embroiled in a labor dispute that had serious repercussions. In the Berlin transportation network (BVG, Transport for Berlin), a dispute with the companies involved had led to the formation of a strike committee dominated by the KPD but also containing representatives of the National Socialist industrial cell organization (NSBO), responsible for organizing workers at their place of work. On November 3 all buses, streetcars, and subway lines came to a standstill.

  The National Socialists had placed themselves in a difficult position by taking part in the strike. On the one hand, if they wanted to maintain their claim to be a workers’ party, they could not back out of the strike; at the same time, though, the Party leadership was aware that cooperating with the KPD would lose the Party votes among bourgeois voters. On November 3 the state arbitrator imposed a mandatory award, and the next day the unions called on their members to return to work. The KDP and the NSDAP jointly opposed this course of action; there were violent clashes, shootings, and several fatalities. “We are in a precarious position,” Goebbels recorded on the second day of the strike.38 The following day he perceived the upsurge of a “revolutionary mood,” consequently urging: “Keep going!”39 But by November 5 he had to admit that the strikers were in danger of being forced onto the defensive vis-à-vis the BVG, and on November 6, election day, he conceded that the strike was looking shaky, blaming this on the Social Democrats.

  Collaborating with the KPD in a labor dispute that rapidly became hopeless was undoubtedly part of the reason the NSDAP vote dropped substantially in the November 6 Reichstag results. Its share of the vote fell by more than four points, to 33.1 percent. In Berlin the losses were less marked but also started from a lower base: The NSDAP received 26.0 percent (against 28.7 percent in July), which put them 5 points behind the KPD and only 3 points ahead of the SPD. There could be no talk of making inroads into the working-class vote, let alone of “conquering” solidly “red” Berlin. Only in a few arch-Catholic areas of the country did the NSDAP perform less well than in the capital.40

  Goebbels acknowledged that this was a “bad setback.” He attributed the losses to “August 13 and [the] negotiations with the Center Party”: “The first was necessary, the second superfluous.” He agreed with Hitler that a “tough fight” lay ahead: “The Party must be sustained, the mood lifted, the organization consolidated.” He was not prepared to admit that his campaign plan of foregrounding Hitler personally had not been a conspicuous success. And in the subsequent analysis of the campaign, he was not willing to mention the BVG strike, which was abandoned by the KPD and the NSDAP on November 7.41

  For the Berlin NSDAP, the discontinued strike was a resounding failure. The Party had allowed itself to be pushed into the strike by its anticapitalist NSBO wing and at the height of the election campaign had become entangled in cooperation with the arch-enemy, the KPD, inflicting serious damage on its own credibility—and didn’t even achieve the aims of the strike. It is interesting to see how Goebbels dealt with the debacle after the fact. While the subject had not loomed very large in his diary in the days of the strike—it was only gradually that he became aroused on behalf of the strikers by late October—he wove into his book Vom Kaiserhof zur Reichskanzlei (published in 1933) long passages in which he expatiated on the strategy and strike tactics of the Berlin NSDAP, a post hoc vindication owing very little to the original diary entries. What he later presented as a cool calculation was in reality a chaotic situation in which he was completely out of his depth.42

  THE WAR OF SUCCESSION TO VON PAPEN

  Von Papen announced on November 17 that he was stepping down. Hitler hurried to Berlin, where two days later he had a conversation with Hindenburg. Goebbels advised Hitler the night before to “go to the old man as though to a father. Use quite uncomplicated language and try to gain his trust. Don’t take anyone with you, and above all leave Röhm behind.”43

  In his discussion with Hindenburg, Hitler once again claimed the office of chancellor, together with presidential support on the basis of Article 48—in other words, the power to issue presidential decrees. However, Hindenburg made it clear to him that initially the NSDAP would not be offered more than a few ministerial positions in what would amount to a “non-party” government. If Hitler wanted to be chancellor, he would first have to take soundings of the parties to prove to Hindenburg that he had a majority.44 Hindenburg reiterated this viewpoint in another conversation on November 21.45 Goebbels, informed by Hitler about the ongoing talks, sensed they were heading for a repetition of August 13. As far as taking soundings was concerned, this would be pointless, since Hugenberg, whose DNVP had emerged strengthened by the election, would once more block the way. Goebbels’s feeling was that the Center Party would tolerate Hitler as chancellor, but without DNVP backing he would not enjoy a parliamentary majority.46 Moreover, Goebbels suspected a trap: The plan was to make Hitler chancellor of a government fettered by presidential caveats, then allow him to fail and destroy him politically.47 Goebbels learned from Göring that Hindenburg had made it a condition of a government role for Hitler that he, Goebbels, and Röhm should not be appointed to any office. “Fine company I’m in,” wrote Goebbels mordantly.48 In the discussion that followed, Strasser argued in favor of negotiating with Hindenburg: “Hitler quite right: Implacably rules it out. […] Later maybe. Eyes on presidential solution for now.”49

  On November 30, 1932, Goebbels met Hitler in Weimar: “Schleicher can’t make up his mind. Wants acquiescence from us. Conditions for and against.” Göring, Strasser, and Frick, who had also arrived in Weimar, discussed the situation: “Strasser wants us to participate. Paints a very bleak picture otherwise. Hitler sharply opposed to him. Sticks to his guns. Bravo! Göring and I back him solidly. Str. gives way. Hitler has the right view of the situation.”50

  The next day Lieutenant Colonel Eugen Ott came to Weimar to negotiate with Hitler, or “parley for Schleicher,” as Goebbels put it. Goebbels held firmly to Hitler’s position: “Suspending of Reichstag until January. Amnesty and streets clear and right to self-defense. Otherwise fi
ght. Total chaos in Berlin. Our seed-corn is ripening.”51 The next day, December 1, Hitler delivered “a 3-hour lecture to Lt. Col. Ott”: Schleicher should not accept the position of chancellor, otherwise the Reichswehr (army) would be “consumed” by an internal political struggle. Ott, according to Goebbels “deeply impressed,” made a call “to Berlin” but learned from it that “there was no turning back” for Schleicher and that he was asking for toleration of his future government.52

  In the meantime Schleicher had taken the decisive steps toward being appointed the next day, December 2, as von Papen’s successor. On this day he allowed his colleague Ott, just back from Weimar, to give the cabinet a lecture asserting that if a state of emergency was declared, the Reichswehr would not be in a position to guarantee domestic security. In other words, the Reichswehr (Schleicher) was withdrawing its support from von Papen. Schleicher would now have to manage with only a feeble prospect of acquiescence from the National Socialists.53

  STRASSER, SCHLEICHER

  On December 5 the Party elite held a large consultation meeting to consider what attitude to take toward a Schleicher government: “Strasser and Frick do not have a firm grip. Hitler clashes sharply with them.”

  Goebbels learned here that Frick and Strasser “were with Schleicher. He wants to dissolve [Parliament] if we don’t acquiesce.” A real threat lurked behind these words, since the NSDAP had suffered some serious losses in local elections in Thuringia the day before.54 The Party leaders then formulated, as they had done a few days earlier in Weimar, their list of conditions for tolerating a Schleicher government: “Amnesty, social improvements, the right to self-defense and to demonstrate.” If Schleicher accepted them, they would vote for an adjournment of the Reichstag. Goebbels supported this course of action without reservation. In the meeting of NSDAP members of Parliament that followed, Hitler “spoke out sharply against compromising”: “Strasser’s features harden. Members unanimous about maintaining consistent course. If possible, no dissolution before Christmas.”

  Academic accounts of this period assume for the most part that by this point, to be precise from December 4 onward, Strasser was holding an offer from Schleicher to join his government as vice chancellor and minister of labor.55 The general view is that Schleicher’s move was an attempt to divide the NSDAP and—to avoid becoming bogged down in a party-political confrontation—to construct a “cross front” composed of “left-wing” National Socialists, trade union members, and representatives of professional associations.56 This supposed offer of Schleicher’s to Strasser is derived from a single source: the revised version of Goebbels’s diary, published in 1934 as Vom Kaiserhof zur Reichskanzlei. But a comparison with the original diary published in 2006 demonstrates that the passage about Schleicher’s alleged offer to Strasser and the latter’s intention of running for election with his own list of candidates, in other words of “betraying” the Party, was inserted into the text at a later date. It was an act of vengeance against Goebbels’s long-term Party opponent.57 But that was not all: Comparing the original diary with the Kaiserhof text reveals that Goebbels later doctored many references to Strasser’s attitude at this critical juncture in order to demonstrate how the “villain” Strasser consistently evolved his anti-Hitler policies over a long period.58 This also accounts for the considerable annoyance aroused by the “revelations” of Goebbels’s Kaiserhof book in Nazi Gauleiter circles when it was published in 1934.59

  The original version of the diaries shows a completely different picture of those days. It is true that, as is made clear by the diary entries concerning NSDAP leadership consultations in Weimar in late November and early December, the “Strasser crisis” was all about the modalities of acquiescing in a Schleicher government. While Strasser was willing to compromise, Hitler (with Goebbels’s eager support) on the other hand formulated tighter conditions for provisional acquiescence, which Schleicher, for his part, felt able to accept. The NSDAP leaders had painted themselves into a corner. For months, their demand to be given the office of chancellor with full presidential powers had consistently been turned down by the president. But they lacked the partners to form a coalition. What remained was the poorest option, the provisional arrangement with Schleicher. In December 1932 there were no moves to make Strasser vice chancellor, no serious efforts by Schleicher to split the NSDAP, and no attempt to form a cross-party front.60

  In any case, from Goebbels’s point of view the first few days of Schleicher’s government were relatively relaxed. The Reichstag met from December 6 to 9. Things were fairly calm, apart from a “bloody brawl in the galleries and the lobby between the KPD and us” on December 7.61 The Reichstag decided to reconvene in mid-January. There was certainly no talk of an immediate dissolution of Parliament. And it did in fact pass resolutions completely in accord with the National Socialists’ demands, including an amnesty, as well as sociopolitical measures.62 Later in December the government followed through with the expected relaxation of measures to curb internal-political terrorism (the third condition imposed by the NSDAP leaders), among other things winding up the special courts established in August.63 Schleicher therefore had every reason to instill confidence in his cabinet that the NSDAP would go along with his administration.64

  On December 5 Hitler, Göring, Epp, and Rosenberg came to an “artists’ evening” at Goebbels’s home; the next evening was again spent in a relaxed mood in his apartment, where Hitler, Hess, and Ernst Hanfstaengl, Hitler’s “head of foreign press relations,” were present; the evening after that, Leni Riefenstahl, of whom Goebbels had long been an ardent admirer, invited Goebbels, Hitler, and Hanfstaengl to her home.65 Since 1932 she had leaned toward the NSDAP;66 during these weeks she was to put in more frequent appearances at Nazi Party events, at the Goebbelses’ apartment, and at parties given by leading National Socialists. The descriptions of these relaxed evening affairs do not convey the impression that the Nazi elite were confronting an immediate crisis with the potential to tear the Party apart.

  On December 8, however, there was a sudden flurry of rumors that Strasser was planning a “palace revolution.”67 Eventually Hitler received a letter68 in which Strasser—forever torn between loyalty to the Party and his commitment to what he thought was right, his job-creation policies—said he was resigning from all his Party positions. The reason he gave (“lead the Party to the State”) hardly seemed valid to Goebbels: He thought Strasser’s only objective was to become a government minister.69 In the middle of the night Goebbels was summoned to an emergency meeting at the Kaiserhof, where Hitler, Röhm, and Himmler had already gathered. An article had just appeared in the newspaper Tägliche Rundschau, written by a close associate of Otto Strasser’s named Herbert Blank: Hitler was to be pushed aside.70 Strasser’s letter to Hitler was therefore “the height of Jesuitical chicanery.” That same night the organizational consequences were drawn from Strasser’s resignation: The structure created by Strasser was to be broken up. (Goebbels was one of the beneficiaries of the new order.) The atmosphere was tense: “Hitler says: If the Party falls apart, I’m going to end it all in 3 minutes. Terrible!”71

  In the course of the day Hitler addressed Gauleiters and inspectors and then the Reichstag members: “Devastating attack on Strasser. […] They were all howling with rage and pain. Really great success for Hitler. At the end, spontaneous declaration of loyalty. They all shake Hitler’s hand. Strasser is isolated. Dead man!” Satisfied, Goebbels summed it all up: “I fought 6 years for this.”72 Outwardly, however, although gaining so much from it, he tried to suppress his triumphalism over Strasser’s downfall. Thus, for example, he dismissed a sharp attack on Strasser in Der Angriff of December 9, a few days later, as “tactless remarks” that had been published without his consent.73

  Strasser’s departure necessitated a considerable reorganization at the top of the NSDAP, which Goebbels discussed with Hitler at lunch on December 13: “This is fun. I get Party training and popular education. They belong to my department any
way.”74 However, the difficult financial position of the NSDAP forced Goebbels to fire a third of the personnel in the Reich propaganda office. Franke, until now chief of staff, was replaced by Wilhelm Haegert.75

  With Magda being ill—she was hospitalized, and her life was in danger—in the critical weeks leading to the formation of a Hitler–von Papen coalition, Goebbels was practically excluded. His diary shows that he was grateful for any information he received about the process, but also that in this decisive phase his advice was never really sought. Because of Magda’s illness, on January 1 Goebbels broke off a trip to Bavaria—he had celebrated the New Year on the Obersalzberg with Hitler—to return to Berlin.76 Extremely worried about her condition, he visited Magda daily in the hospital during the following weeks whenever he was not prevented by external commitments and was often accompanied by Hitler, who also visited her alone.77

  In the meantime, the NSDAP was concentrating all of its energies on the election scheduled for January 15 in the tiny state of Lippe. Like other prominent Party members, Goebbels made various appearances at election campaign meetings there.78 On one of his trips to Lippe, on January 9, he met up with Hitler and perceived that the latter was gradually emerging from his political isolation. Former chancellor von Papen was “sharply opposed to Schleicher”: He wanted to “bring him down and get rid of him completely,” in which regard he had “the ear of the old man.”79 Von Papen’s offer consisted of either the chancellorship or the “ministries with power”—that is, the Defense and Interior ministries. Von Papen was indeed the man to persuade Hindenburg to depart from his previous demand and grant Hitler the position of chancellor even without a parliamentary majority initially, but “framed” by conservative politicians. It was only in small increments that Goebbels received information about the government that was shaping up. He met Hitler again on January 11 in Bad Oeynhausen: “Everything still in the balance.” Schleicher’s side, he now learned, was offering Strasser the position of vice chancellor: “Just how I imagine a traitor.”80