Goebbels: A Biography

by Peter Longerich

  Early in July he returned to Heiligendamm. Magda came a good two weeks later, but only for a three-day visit, after which she went back to Berlin.48 Before Magda arrived he was twice visited by the actress Luise Ullrich; he had long been a fan of hers,49 and he now discussed “film questions” with her. On her second visit she stayed for four days by the Baltic,50 and toward the end of his vacation she visited Goebbels once more in Heiligendamm.51

  When he finally returned to Berlin at the beginning of August, there was an awkward confrontation with his wife: “Magda gives me a grilling.” But after a few days came the obligatory reconciliation.52

  Hitler, too, made a surprise appearance in Heiligendamm. They talked over various issues of cultural and domestic politics, and otherwise Goebbels tried to make the visit as pleasant as possible for his leader: “Eating together. Then walks and a boat trip by moonlight. Wonderful atmosphere. I steer. Back and forth across the Baltic. Führer very happy.”53 But the moonlit idyll did not last. Back in Berlin, Jews were being subjected to violent attacks, actions for which Goebbels had prepared the ground and for which he had given the order—but not before securing Hitler’s backing.

  The so-called Kurfürstendamm riots had a long prehistory. Since the Christmas shopping season of 1934, Nazi activists had organized further boycotts of Jewish businesses and carried out excesses against Jews. Along with the SA, as in previous years the NS-Hago, the Nationalsozialistische Handelsorganisation (National Socialist Trade Organization) played a leading role. This new anti-Semitic wave continued after the turn of the year 1934–35 and gathered momentum from February 1935 onward—following the successful Saarland plebiscite—with the Nazi press and regional Party leaders playing a central part. Aside from the exclusion of Jews from business, Party activists were demanding above all an end to “racial disgrace”—that is, intimate relations between Jews and non-Jews.

  However, since the end of April the Party leaders had started trying to curb anti-Semitic excesses. A decisive factor in this was the precarious international situation of the Reich, which led to a fear of sanctions, while there was some hope that negotiating a naval treaty with Britain represented the seed of Germany’s eventual emergence from international isolation. With some difficulty, the Berlin Party leadership had largely succeeded, by June, in putting a stop to anti-Semitic disturbances.54

  But Goebbels foresaw that this could only be a temporary halt to the “actions.” He took every opportunity in conversation with Hitler to secure his agreement to “proceed more radically on the Jewish question,” and he was determined to “sort things out” in Berlin before too long.55 It seemed to him that intensifying attacks on Jews was the best way of diverting attention from the critical political situation at home and of sending a signal to Party activists that the regime was serious about fulfilling the core ideological demands of the National Socialist program. Not least, he wanted to be seen as taking the lead on this; in fact, his plan was to set an example in Berlin of what a thoroughgoing anti-Semitic policy ought to look like. The radicalism on which he prided himself was now concentrated entirely on “the Jews.” He had given up his “revolutionary” rhetoric in the middle of 1933; the “reactionaries” had been much weakened since June 30, 1934, and were no longer a particularly worthwhile target, and the regime had become relatively cautious about confronting the churches. With his ruthless move against the Jews in Berlin, so Goebbels thought, he had instinctively grasped the main trend to which the Party’s policy would be reverting in the next few months.

  After the signing of the Anglo-German Naval Agreement on June 18, disturbances did in fact flare up again in many places across the Reich. Once again, Berlin was one of the main sites for these activities: Since the beginning of June, members of the Hitler Youth had been loitering outside Jewish shops and obstructing their trade. As Gauleiter of Berlin, Goebbels fueled this pogrom atmosphere in his speech to the Gau Party rally on June 30, objecting that “Jewry is once more trying to assert itself today on every street.”

  On July 13 news reached Goebbels, vacationing in Heiligendamm, of a Jewish “demonstration” in Berlin: A Swedish film with anti-Semitic tendencies had allegedly been hissed at and jeered at by Jews in the audience, and this had been interpreted by the Party press as a deliberate provocation. Goebbels used the opportunity to enlist his guest, Hitler, against his adversary, Magnus von Levetzow. The Führer immediately assured him that the Berlin chief of police would be removed from his position (an idea Goebbels had been pursuing since the year before):56 “We’re getting there at last.”57

  In Berlin the Party organized a “counterdemonstration,” in which Der Angriff of July 15 openly invited readers to participate. The desired reaction soon followed: By the same evening “outraged national comrades” were terrorizing Jewish fellow-citizens on the Kurfürstendamm, which led to sharp clashes between Party comrades and the police, who were uncertain how to deal with this outburst of “popular anger.” These events were reported in the international press as “the Kurfürstendamm riots.”

  Goebbels noted two days later: “Riot on Kurfürstendamm. Jews beaten up. Foreign press screaming ‘pogrom.’ ” Just as he had hoped, the Berlin police chief, Levetzow, was blamed for the affair and replaced by Goebbels’s friend Wolf-Heinrich von Helldorf, who had visited him in Heiligendamm just a week before the riots.58 On July 19 Lippert, Görlitzer, and the head of the Berlin SA, Ludwig Uhland, arrived for discussions in Heiligendamm.59 Their conclusions were reported in Der Angriff the same day: “Berlin to be cleansed of communists, reactionaries and Jews. Dr. Goebbels tidies up in his Gau.” Goebbels was reaping praise for redeeming a precarious situation which his own behavior had, in fact, deplorably done so much to escalate.

  In mid-August he went to Nuremberg to join Hitler in putting the finishing touches on preparations for the Party rally. The event was to be used this year above all to make clear who the main enemies of the regime were. To this end, the 1935 Party rally was held under an “Anti-Comintern” slogan. By contrast, Hitler wanted to “make his peace” with the churches (in July he had appointed Hanns Kerrl as minister for churches in an attempt to place the regime’s relationship to the churches on a new footing); the Stahlhelm movement was to be disbanded, but he seems to have said nothing further about his next steps regarding the “Jewish question.” Subsequently he and Goebbels went on to Munich, where they inspected the Party premises that were being built on the Königsplatz.60

  During Goebbels’s stay in Upper Bavaria—visiting NSDAP Reich leader Franz Schwarz by the Tegernsee—there was a dramatic news flash. Everything indicated that an attack by Italy on the Abyssinian Empire was imminent. This development suited Hitler perfectly, as the forthcoming war fit well into his foreign policy plans. The dictator immediately gave his listeners an account of what these plans were: “Permanent alliance [with] England. Good relations Poland. Limited number of colonies. But expansion to east. Baltic area belongs to us. Dominate Baltic Sea. Conflicts Italy-Abyssinia-England, then Japan-Russia around the corner. That’s to say maybe in a few years’ time. Then our great historic hour will come.”61

  The Party rally in Nuremberg was opened on September 10. The thrust of the mass event was made apparent by Hitler’s “proclamation,” which was read out by Hess and enthusiastically followed by Goebbels: “Three enemies of the state, Marxists, clericalists, and reactionaries. Implacable war without compromise. Anti-Bolshevist and anti-Jewish. My course justified a thousand times over.”62 But during the rally one particular enemy of National Socialism was to emerge as a clear priority.

  Goebbels gave his speech on the third day, and naturally, as he noted, it was a “tremendous success.” As instructed by Hitler, his leitmotif was anti-Bolshevism. Germany, he explained, was fulfilling a “global mission” by leading “all like-minded groups” in the “struggle against the international Bolshevizing of the world.” On the successful accomplishment of this mission depended “the fate of all civilized nations.”63 />
  Late on the evening of the next day, Hitler called him in: Together with Frick and Hess they considered several proposed legislative bills. The first concerned making the swastika the sole national flag. This innovation was prompted by an incident in New York in which demonstrators protesting Nazi policies had torn down the swastika flag on a German ship. This led Hitler to summon, on short notice, a special session of the Reichstag in Nuremberg to pass an act elevating the status of the Nazi symbol. At the same time, the new law was clearly aimed at the “reactionaries,” as it now outlawed the displaying—hitherto favored by nationalists—of the old black, white, and red imperial flag as the national flag alongside the swastika.64

  That evening, September 14, they also gave intensive consideration to two anti-Jewish laws, which ministry officials had prepared months before, but which now, on a spontaneous decision of Hitler’s, were to be passed by the Reichstag, and change the direction of the whole event. First, a new citizenship law was to deprive the Jews of their status as German citizens on equal terms with others. And second, what was later called the Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honor (Gesetz zum Schutze des deutschen Blutes und der deutschen Ehre) proscribed marriage or sexual relations between Jews and non-Jews. Hitler’s political calculation was evident: Since radical action on the confrontation with the “reactionaries” and on the church question was ruled out for the time being, the “Jewish question” would have to satisfy the radical mood that had been whipped up among the Party comrades over the previous few months.65

  The Reichstag session began on Sunday evening at nine o’clock. In a short statement Hitler explained the new laws, which were then read out by Göring, who also supplied the reasoning behind them.66 Goebbels found his speech almost “unbearable,” however—the diary does not reveal why—and so he had the radio broadcast interrupted at this point.67

  When Hitler addressed the Gauleiters again at the end of the rally, specifically forbidding any further excesses in connection with the “Jewish question,” Goebbels doubted whether the appeal would work.68 But it was genuinely the case that, in view of the coming Olympic year, the regime had no desire for its international reputation to suffer further damage from anti-Jewish brutality. For the same reason, after the Nuremberg rally Goebbels’s propaganda became more restrained where the “Jewish question” was concerned: For the time being, it was no longer a topic for discussion.

  REARMING—AND CELEBRATING

  On October 2, 1935, Magda gave birth to the son they had longed for. They intended to call him Helmut. When Goebbels visited Magda in the hospital, he was overjoyed: a “Goebbels face. I’m happy beyond words. I could smash the place up for joy. A boy! A boy!”69

  The next day Goebbels heard the news that Italy had begun its long-anticipated assault on Abyssinia.70 When the League of Nations then imposed sanctions on Italy, Goebbels ordered the press to take a more strongly pro-Italian line, a direction for which he had obtained Hitler’s approval.71 Some days later he attended a talk given by Hitler in the Reich Chancellery to the assembled cabinet and top military men: “All this is coming three years too soon for us. […] We can only rearm and prepare. Europe is on the move again. If we’re clever, we can be the winners.”72

  The international sanctions73 against Italy, which were to go into effect on November 18, had only a marginal impact on Italy’s ability to make war on Abyssinia, and by May 1936 the country was taken. As far as the foreign policy of the Reich was concerned, however, the war was an opportunity to exploit the rupture between Italy and the Western powers to avoid attracting too much attention as it continued to rearm.

  The forced pace of rearmament and the regime’s measures to make Germany economically more self-sufficient resulted in, among other things, reduced food imports, leading to supply bottlenecks and forcing Goebbels, starting in autumn 1935, to deal with growing complaints from the public about the deteriorating food situation.74 Incorrigible complainers, said Goebbels, were using the temporary butter shortage to sow discontent among the “national community.”75 When his appeals failed to achieve results, his tone became shriller: He contended that such shortages had to be accepted for the sake of Germany’s striving for economic self-sufficiency. The “eternal gripers” were therefore sabotaging the policy of building “fortress Germany.”76 The propaganda arm was now increasingly forced to explain to the population the background to the critical shortage of foodstuffs and to try to steer consumption in the right direction.77

  Useful in this respect, as well as supplying a distraction from everyday adversity, were the numerous celebrations and mass events that began with the Party rally in September and were continued by the Party throughout the autumn and winter. Much of public life had already taken on a ritualized complexion.

  While the harvest festival on the Bückeberg at the beginning of October78 offered the opportunity to spread a reassuring message about the food supply, the opening of the Winter Relief campaign in the Kroll Opera on October 10, where in the presence of Hitler Goebbels delivered the usual report, was about communicating “national solidarity.”79 At this point a new cycle of meetings began, which—with a break at Christmas—lasted until March 1936. The meetings, numbering probably more than a hundred thousand, not only served to extol Winter Relief as “socialism in action” but also ensured the continuous briefing of the public on the food situation while in general underlining the Party’s closeness to the people.80

  However, the newsletter of the Party propagandists clearly indicates that the willingness of the public to take up “invitations” to such events was on the wane.81 The suggested remedy was to reinforce the appeal of advertising “by increasing the personal impact” on the individual citizen,82 although at the same time there was a warning against open threats on campaign leaflets (“those who fail to attend the meeting will be putting themselves outside the national community”)83 and “overemphatic” propaganda.84

  Soon after the launch of the collecting season, Goebbels took part in other large-scale central events such as the commemoration of the Munich putsch in November85 and, a few days later, the anniversary of the Reich Culture Chamber. Goebbels enhanced the anniversary by publicly presenting the Reich Cultural Senate he had recently formed. This presentation had been preceded by another dispute with Rosenberg: To Goebbels’s surprise, at the previous Party rally Rosenberg had announced that there was to be an NSDAP prize for “art and science” and that he was going to create a Reich Cultural Senate.86 Since Goebbels had long been nursing the idea of setting up a committee with the same name, he appealed to Hitler and at the end of November got him to ban Rosenberg’s Cultural Senate.87 Thus Goebbels, in his speech on November 15 at the anniversary celebrations of the Reich Culture Chamber—attended by Hitler along with many other prominent figures—was able to ceremoniously proclaim the founding of “his” Reich Cultural Senate. He used the speech to come out in opposition to “mysticisms which seem designed only to confuse public opinion”—a sideswipe at Rosenberg, to whose “cultic nonsense” Hitler had clearly expressed his animus some months earlier in the presence of Goebbels.88 “Leadership of culture definitely with me,” wrote Goebbels as this day ended.89

  The year went out on the note of the “Volk Christmas,” an action carried out by the Party across the whole Reich, whereby over five million children received presents at thirty thousand ceremonies. Goebbels attended one such event, in the Berlin Friedrichshain hall. In his speech, broadcast to the nation, he described Christmas as a Christian festival but at the same time claimed it for National Socialism, which in the form of the “national community” had given the command to love your neighbor a “new and unexpected content” in the form of the national community.90 He himself celebrated Christmas with his family.91 Obviously, although he had just advocated an anti-Christian position, Goebbels did not have much time for the idea of turning Christmas into a Germanic “yuletide festival,” as advocated by the anticlerical wing of the Party. For him i
n 1935, a traditional Christmas, “the most German of all festivals,” was still indispensable.

  CHAPTER 15

  “The Tougher the Better!”

  The Olympic Year, 1936

  Credit 15.1

  During a trip to Greece, in September 1936, the Goebbels and Hoffmann families admire the Zeus of Artemision statue in the National Museum in Athens. By 1936, the Nazi regime seemed to be solidly established, both at home and abroad. For Goebbels, there were many opportunities to enjoy the fruits of success.

  On February 4, 1936, the eve of the opening of the Winter Olympics in Garmisch, Goebbels was at an evening reception with Hitler when some “sad news” reached them. Wilhelm Gustloff, leader of the Swiss NSDAP, had been assassinated in his hometown of Davos. The perpetrator was a Jewish student named David Frankfurter. “The Jews are going to pay a high price for this,” wrote Goebbels.1 Yet large-scale vengeance was ruled out because of the coming Olympic Games: For weeks the Propaganda Ministry had been commanding the mass media to exercise restraint over the “Jewish question” for the duration of the Games.2 Thus the press reaction was—as per instructions—relatively muted.3

  On the evening of February 5 Goebbels, Magda, and Hitler left by special train for Garmisch. Goebbels spent the next two days there, attending the opening ceremony (which he regarded as a “rather old-fashioned ritual”) and was pleased to see that nearly all the participating nations “marched past the Führer giving the Hitler salute.” He watched a few events and generally enjoyed the “glorious snow landscape.”4 On February 8 the Goebbels couple moved on to Munich, where there were a few social occasions to attend in the days that followed: the Press Ball, the Artists’ Festival, and an Olympic reception given by the Reich government at which Goebbels made a speech about international understanding.5