Goebbels: A Biography

by Peter Longerich

  On August 25 Goebbels left Berchtesgaden for Munich: “Magda is staying on.”13 In the evening Hitler followed him to Munich, and they traveled to Berlin together. Around August 28 Hitler returned to Berchtesgaden, and Hitler and Goebbels met up again on August 31 in Nuremberg. Magda stayed on the Obersalzberg during this time.

  PARTY RALLY

  Goebbels took part in the Party rally as a visitor—although a very important one—and not as one of the organizers. The arrangements for the rally, the gigantic annual get-together of the NSDAP, were not in his hands but were the direct responsibility of Party headquarters. In the hubbub of the rally, this year completely dominated by the Führer cult, he spotted an unexpected visitor: “Dr. Mumme is sitting down below in the hotel. Intolerable.” A confidant told him that Anka was “going completely to pieces.” “Lost! What a decline! I’m very sorry to hear it.”14 But Goebbels was determined to surrender totally to the atmosphere of the event, this mixture of vast milling crowds, marching, roll calls, “solemn moments,” and rousing speeches.

  The rally was formally opened on September 1. Goebbels heard speeches by Hess, Streicher, Gross, and Göring as well as Hitler’s proclamation, read out by Gauleiter Adolf Wagner. He particularly liked the “tough message to the states, especially Prussia,” and noted that Hitler’s speech worked in the phrase the Führer had used to himself a few days before: “Not to conserve but to liquidate.”15

  In the afternoon he took part in the cultural session. “Boss talks about cultural questions. Completely new perceptions. Hot on Dadaists and the like”—for Goebbels an early warning not to make his openness to “modern” tendencies in art too public. The next day Goebbels gave his set-piece address to the rally. In his speech he concentrated above all on the regime’s anti-Jewish measures and announced that he was going to launch a big propaganda campaign to counter international criticism of the government. He also stressed that the “settlement of the Jewish question along legal lines [had been] the most decent way to solve the problem,” hypocritically adding the rhetorical question: “Or should the government have followed the democratic principle, complied with the sovereignty of the majority, and left it all to the people?” It was impossible to miss the veiled threat of violence to German Jews from the spontaneous forces of “popular anger.”16

  “The parade ground is a magnificent sight. 100,000 men marching up. The organization goes like clockwork. Hitler comes at 8 o’c. A stirring moment,” reads Goebbels’s diary entry the next day. The ceremony in honor of the dead and the solemn “dedication” of SA standards using the “blood flag” of 1923 seemed to him like a “religious service”: “we don’t need the dog collars any more.” In the afternoon, another high point was a four-hour military review by Party formations. Finally came the closing ceremony, at which Hitler gave the concluding speech: “Grand and fundamental. No compromises. Fantastic ovations at the end.” That evening, back in Berlin, the shouts of “ ‘Heil,’ the marching steps, and the fanfares were still ringing in [his] ears.”

  Goebbels’s report above all makes one thing clear: The chief organizer of the ballyhoo of National Socialist propaganda was all too ready to be captivated by the “fine show” with which the regime celebrated itself.

  MOBILIZING NATIONAL COMRADES: CELEBRATIONS AND LARGE-SCALE EVENTS

  Only a week after the rally ended, on September 13, Hitler and Goebbels jointly opened the Winter Relief drive Goebbels had been preparing for since July.17 The concept of Winter Relief rested on the notion of supplementing the limited state assistance available by holding large-scale street collections, lotteries, and voluntary pay cuts as well as by offering voluntary work and services—all, of course, accompanied by more or less forceful pressure from the Party organs. While Propaganda Minister Goebbels was to remain nominally in charge of this plan in the years to come, its practical application was in the hands of the National Socialist People’s Welfare organization (Nationalsozialistische Volkswohlfahrt, NSV). During the winter of 1933 more than 358 million Reichsmarks were raised, however, a sum that increased every year and was presented by the regime as an important indicator of the population’s support for its policies.18 The campaign against “hunger and cold” announced by Goebbels, meant to bring the German people together as “one great community,”19 additionally gave him the chance to strike a different note from that of a certain prevalent “pompous style.”20 In this way he could put himself forward as a man of the people, as the champion of an egalitarian national community. In other words, he was trying—since “revolutionary” demands had been rejected by Hitler—to align the radical, “socialist” image he had cultivated in previous years with the conditions of the Third Reich as it was gradually being consolidated.

  The Party rally and the opening of the Winter Relief drive in September were the overture to a further series of large events and propaganda actions that held the attention of the German population during the autumn and winter.

  On September 13, at a Sportpalast event for Party functionaries, he explained his tactics for mobilizing public opinion:21 “Of course, we know how to celebrate festivals. But we don’t just celebrate festivals without a reason, and every celebration has a meaning, and after every celebration comes some kind of action which has only been made possible by the celebration.” By way of example, Goebbels brought up Potsdam Day and the state opening of the Reichstag that followed it; the May 1 celebrations and the occupation of trade union headquarters that came immediately afterward; and the Party rally and the campaign against “hunger and cold.” For years a “grand-scale plan” had been followed, and this was now being put into effect “bit by bit and move by move, and every great national day is only a milestone on the way to realizing this one grand plan.”

  Naturally, no such “grand plan” actually existed, but Goebbels was determined to use every opportunity to present to the German population and the international public a pyrotechnic display of festivities. While the first months after the “seizure of power” had been entirely about “revolutionary” changes, now in the second half of the year celebrations were meant to mark the internal consolidation of the regime and the solidarity of the “national community.”

  One of these grand events took place for the first time on October 1, just two weeks after the launching of the Winter Relief campaign: the harvest festival. Goebbels opened the proceedings that morning with a radio speech that was broadcast by all stations. Then, together with Agriculture Minister Richard Walther Darré, he welcomed a delegation of farmers at Tempelhof Airport; they were subsequently received by Hitler. There followed a “hot-pot” meal, intended to set in motion a new campaign: In future during the winter months all “national comrades” should go without their Sunday roast on the first Sunday in every month in favor of a stew and donate the money saved to the cause of Winter Relief. The leadership elite were setting a good example.

  And then the whole government flew together to Hanover, where, as Goebbels recorded, they drove in a single “triumphal procession” the thirty miles to Bückeberg near Hamelin, where the main harvest festival event was being held. So many people had flocked to it that the specially constructed festival ground, built into a hillside, looked to Goebbels like a “living mountain.” Once more he entered wholeheartedly into the great occasion: “Half a million. Fantastic teeming mass. After dusk the searchlights and beacons flare up. Then Darré speaks. Good. And Hitler very good. The moon above it all. The crowd sings: Now thank we all our God! Emotional moment.”22

  Further events followed in October. Overnight, from October 14 to 15, he traveled with Hitler to Munich, where the “Festival of German Art” was celebrated and the foundation stone for the House of German Art was laid.23 From Munich he flew to Bonn. In the Siebengebirge mountains, on Mount Himmerich, a monument was to be erected celebrating the defeat of Rhineland separatism. He gave a speech there on the theme “We don’t want war—we want peace with honor.”24

  With his new duties as propa
ganda minister and the increasing number and variety of festivities and mass meetings with which National Socialism celebrated its rule, Goebbels’s repertoire as a speaker also expanded. Whereas before 1933 it was the inflammatory language of the agitator that had filled his rhetoric entirely, now he was moving on to other forms. Alongside his radio speeches—ever more frequent but mostly somewhat monotonous—he had hit on a form of expression much more congenial to him in his lively “commentaries” framing Hitler’s appearances. His range also included the minister’s rather affable, half-confidential chats to various people in his own line of work; the solemn and measured style of address whenever he appeared in a representative role; and finally, the high-flown speeches of allegiance to the Führer whom he so revered. All in all, as a rhetorician Goebbels developed an amazing virtuosity.25

  REICH CULTURE CHAMBER AND PRESS LAW

  When he visited the Obersalzberg on August 24, 1933, Goebbels had gained approval for two bills that were to be indispensable in buttressing his position of power as propaganda minister: the Press Law and the Cultural Chamber Law.

  As early as July 1933 Goebbels had begun an initiative to introduce a Reich culture chamber, which was to include all those working in the cultural sphere. Goebbels was provoked into acting quickly to form this unitary organization because of Ley’s plans to incorporate the whole of the working population into a system of “employment-related” organizations—which would also contain all cultural activity. In a letter to the head of the Reich Chancellery, Goebbels had expressed his opposition to this attempt at “representation by material interests” which would not do justice to the “individual organizational life enjoyed by the cultural professions.” He also announced his intention of creating a Reich culture chamber.26 Coming back later to his critique of Ley, he accused him of “reviving trade-union thinking”27 and charged him with wanting to compel the integration of cultural interest groups into the German Labor Front by the use of force and the illegal requisitioning of the property of others.28 By the middle of July he had succeeded in gaining Hitler’s agreement in principle to the founding of an independent Culture Chamber.29

  By August his ministry had drafted a Culture Chamber Bill, which got past the cabinet with some difficulty despite Hitler’s approval.30 The law, consisting of just a few sentences, entitled him to enroll in “public bodies” members of professions that fell within the purview of his ministry. The groups created, in addition to a Reich chamber of literature, were chambers for press, radio, theater, music, and fine art, all to be organized along the lines of the Reich Film Chamber established in July. This section of the law contained Goebbels’s decisive lever on power, since his first decree establishing the Reich Film Chamber had stipulated that membership of the chamber was a precondition for working in the film industry and that, by means of directives, the chamber could regulate the economic conditions of the entire industry.

  The same powers were now to apply to the new Culture Chamber as a whole.31 By the end of the year he would have cultural workers in sixty-three professional associations organized into seven chambers.32 What was truly crucial for Goebbels, however, was that “I’ve got the whole organization in my hands. Great intellectual authority.”33

  In parallel with constructing the Reich Culture Chamber, Goebbels set about perfecting his control of the German press. In the first few months of the regime the main ways to silence opposing and critical voices had been the prohibiting of newspapers and the use of all kinds of intimidation in order to force the press to toe the government line. Now, in the second half of 1933, a system of press direction came about by stages.

  One important step was taking control of the Reich press conference, a gathering organized during the Weimar Republic by journalists based in Berlin. By March 24 it had been moved from the Palais Leopold, the location of the government press office, to the former Prussian Upper House of Parliament. The political composition of the select committee of journalists convening the conference was now purely Nazi or nationalist.

  However, on July 1, 1933, the head of the press department in the Propaganda Ministry, Kurt Jahncke, abolished the old conference and convened a new one, to be presided over by him. This fundamentally altered the nature of the conference. From now on it was no longer an event organized by journalists to inform themselves but a conduit for Propaganda Ministry directives to the press, effectively a press briefing rather than a conference.34

  After a few difficulties—overcoming the objections of publishers, reservations on the part of the vice chancellor—Goebbels succeeded in getting his press law passed by the cabinet.35 The Press Law of October 4, 1933, imposed certain conditions on journalists: They had to be, among other things, of “Aryan extraction” and must not be married to “a person of non-Aryan extraction.” Admission to the profession entailed registration in a professional directory, by which the journalist became a member of the Reich Press Association.36

  The basic idea of the law was, in the words of the Propaganda Ministry’s official explanation, the “transformation of the press into a public organ and its legal and intellectual incorporation into the State.” As a result, from now on journalists were deemed to hold “public office”;37 it accorded with their new status that, for example, where a journalist was fired by his publisher because of a difference of opinion, such a dismissal could now be contested before an employment tribunal.

  Having taken over responsibility in this way for the journalists, the Propaganda Ministry could then go on to extend the system of press directives. The “language regulations” issued at the daily press conference were formulated in written orders to the whole of the press. With the “coordination” of the news agencies, moreover, the Propaganda Ministry was in a position to channel the flow of information reaching editorial offices.38 It was made abundantly clear to the accredited journalists at the press conference in October that they were “officeholders entrusted with serving the minister.” It was announced that, in the case of any “transgressions,” journalists, and particularly editors-in-chief, would “be held personally accountable.”39

  This warning related directly to a tirade against the press that Hitler had delivered on October 17 to Reich leaders and Gauleiters, which obviously prompted Goebbels to introduce certain measures for press restructuring. In his speech to the Gauleiters Hitler had been very critical of the Party press, deploring its uniformity and comparing the Party journalists unfavorably with, of all things, the bourgeois press. It was very evident that the measures Goebbels brought in to direct the press had gone too far even for the dictator himself.40 As he nearly always did when his own work was the target of criticism, Goebbels sought to downplay the problem: “We’ve got a few small worries about the press,” he noted in his diary.41

  In connection with his diatribe about the press, Hitler a few days later, through Hess, forbade leading Party comrades to be newspaper publishers. This was aimed above all at Goebbels, who had himself been wondering whether he ought to pull out of Der Angriff; he did so at the end of October, having published the paper for six years.42

  GOEBBELS’S APPEARANCE IN GENEVA

  Meanwhile, in September Goebbels had undertaken another important step aimed at using an official appearance to give himself prominence in the field of foreign relations.

  Goebbels could not help noticing at the beginning of the month that the Reich Party rally had played very badly abroad. The meeting of the League of Nations in October seemed a good opportunity to break out of the regime’s still-prevalent isolation and especially to confront the international criticism provoked by the persecution of the Jews. It was also a chance to create a favorable climate for the imminent disarmament conference. When Foreign Minister Neurath suggested that Goebbels should accompany him to Geneva, he was all for it.43

  So it was that on September 24 Goebbels arrived in Geneva to participate as a member of the German delegation in the annual assembly of the League of Nations. Joseph Goebbels, the Party agita
tor, the rabid anti-Semite, the choreographer of gigantic mass rallies, now took the floor as a diplomat. It is not surprising that the international press were very interested to see how he would perform in this unaccustomed role.44

  Goebbels made a very self-confident entrance in Geneva, proving more than capable of dealing with diplomatic interchanges. He relied entirely on his ability instinctively to weigh the strengths and weaknesses of his interlocutors and convince them of his argument in direct exchanges. What counted was the “personal impression.”

  He found the League of Nations meeting, opened on September 25, “depressing. An assembly of the dead. Parliamentarianism of the nations.” He penned little caricature sketches of the delegates of other nations: “Sir John Simon: Engl. Foreign [Minister]. Tall and imposing. But an old hand. Paul Boncour: vain poseur. Frenchman and writer. Not much of a man.45 Dollfuss: a dwarf, a dandy, a rogue. Otherwise nothing out of the ordinary. Formalities this morning. I’m being looked over and appraised. How vastly superior we Germans are, though.”