Goebbels: A Biography

by Peter Longerich

  On February 11, with other high-ranking Nazi officials, they boarded the special train bound for Schwerin, where Gustloff’s funeral was taking place. Goebbels noted with enthusiasm that at the burial ceremony Hitler gave a “radical, trenchant speech against the Jews.”6

  The concurrence of prescribed state mourning, ongoing state business, and the Olympic Games imposed a complicated itinerary over the next few days that Goebbels was forced to undergo, to the point of physical exhaustion. They went via Berlin, where they stopped off briefly, back to Garmisch, where they arrived on the morning of February 13 and watched several sporting events together. But by the following night Goebbels was off again to Berlin by sleeping car. Magda stayed on in Munich for a while.7

  On Saturday morning, February 15, together with Hitler Goebbels opened the International Automobile Exhibition in Berlin.8 They both returned by sleeper car that evening to Garmisch, where they attended the closing of the Winter Olympic Games: “Fine victory ceremony. […] Everybody is praising our organization. And it certainly was brilliant.” There followed another overnight trip to Berlin, this time accompanied by Magda. Goebbels now became unwell: “I dose myself with alcohol because of the flu. Slept like a log.”9

  REMILITARIZATION OF THE RHINELAND, AND ELECTION

  Some days after the end of the Winter Games, Hitler prepared to take the next step in his revision of the Versailles Treaty: the reoccupation of the Rhineland, demilitarized since 1919. This would be a breach not only of Versailles but also of the Locarno Pact. A first hint of Hitler’s intention is found in Goebbels’s diary as early as January 20, 1936, reporting that Hitler had announced over lunch that at some point he was going “suddenly to resolve the problem of the Rhineland zone.”10

  A month later, in conversation with Goebbels, Hitler came back to the subject: “He is pondering it. Should he remilitarize the Rhineland? Difficult question.” Evidently Hitler no longer feared that the Western powers would seize on a German military incursion into the Rhineland as a welcome opportunity to switch their focus away from the Abyssinian conflict and onto the situation in Central Europe. And there would be a pretext for the occupation of the Rhineland: The Franco-Russian Pact concluded in May 1935 was about to be ratified. Goebbels commented after this conversation: “The situation is ripe just now. France won’t do anything, much less England. But we’ll wait and see, and keep calm.”11

  On the evening of February 28, when Goebbels and Magda were about to leave for home after an event in the Deutschlandhalle, “there’s a call from the Führer, I’ve got to go with him to Munich. He wants me at his side while coming to his difficult decision about the Rhineland.” Naturally, Goebbels complied instantly: “So, it’s all change. Get packed, and off we go. Magda’s coming with us.”12

  During the rail journey through the night and later in Munich the debate continued, until on Sunday, March 1, Hitler struggled through to a solitary decision—as usual in such critical situations. As he told Goebbels (and contrary to the latter’s advice),13 he was going to act in the next week without waiting for the decision of the French Senate, expected on March 12.14

  In the afternoon Goebbels flew to Leipzig, where he gave a talk to the foreign and domestic press (not on the subject of the coming conflict, of course), while Magda took the overnight train to Berlin with Hitler.15 On March 2 Hitler summoned to the Reich Chancellery Goebbels; Göring; the minister of war, General Werner von Blomberg; the head of the army, General Werner von Fritsch; the head of the navy, Admiral Erich Raeder; and Ribbentrop to inform them that on the coming Saturday in the Reichstag he would announce the remilitarization of the Rhineland. At the same time, the Reichstag would be dissolved and new elections would take place under the watchword “foreign relations.” To maintain the element of surprise, members of the house would be invited on the Friday evening to a “beer evening.”16 Only on that day, March 6, did Hitler officially tell his cabinet, who—apart from a few who were in the know—were “immensely astonished” by this latest decision of the “Führer.”17

  In the course of this week, which was highly charged with tension, Goebbels had already begun to prepare his Propaganda Ministry for the election campaign to come. Early in the morning he directed two planeloads of journalists to the Rhineland, their destination a secret until the last minute.18

  On Saturday, March 7, in his speech to the Reichstag, Hitler announced—wrapped up in orotund assertions of his will to peace—the annulment of the Locarno Treaties, which he justified by reference to the Franco-Soviet military pact. The high point of the speech was his statement that the German government “has today resumed full and unrestricted sovereignty over the demilitarized zone of the Rhineland.” At that same moment, German troops—numerically relatively weak—began their march into the territory on the left bank of the Rhine.19

  Goebbels recorded a “frenzy of enthusiasm” after the speech, not only among Reichstag members but also in the “newly liberated” Rhineland. His mother, who called him from Rheydt, “went wild,” and his old teacher Voss, who happened to be in Berlin, was “in raptures”; later in the evening, Goebbels took him along to meet Hitler. Goebbels learned from Hitler that there would be no serious international repercussions; France merely planned to raise the matter at the League of Nations.20

  A few days later the election propaganda campaign began with a vengeance. Goebbels himself spoke in the weeks to come at mass events in, among other places, Potsdam, Berlin, Leipzig, Breslau, Nuremberg, Frankfurt, Düsseldorf, Koblenz, and Cologne.21 Mobilizing the masses in centrally organized meetings throughout the Reich, partly characterized by peace declarations but also by a renewed sense of national self-confidence, was meant to strengthen the hand of the regime in the international negotiations that now followed.22

  A hastily convened London meeting of the Council of the League of Nations on March 19 passed a resolution23 condemning the German action as a clear breach of the Locarno Treaties. A compromise proposal by the Locarno powers based on this resolution—met by Goebbels with the response “They’ve gone mad”24—was rejected by the German side, which put forward its own “peace plan” instead, the draft of which Hitler had discussed on March 31 with Göring, Goebbels, and Hess.25

  It was no accident that the confident rejection of the Locarno powers’ offer of negotiation came on March 31: Two days earlier, the regime had staged the “election” as a huge spectacle expressing the solidarity of the “national community.”26

  The campaign had begun its final phase on the afternoon of March 27, a Friday. All newspapers had been instructed to foreground the mass meetings arranged over the next two days.27 Hitler began the program with a visit to the Krupp Works in Essen, broadcast by all German stations and relayed in “community reception” over loudspeakers. The meeting in Essen was introduced by one of Goebbels’s commentaries, and at 3:45 P.M. precisely he also gave the command over the loudspeakers to “hoist flags,” whereupon, according to the Völkischer Beobachter, in an instant “the whole of Germany […] was like a hurricane of swastika flags.”28 Hitler’s speech, in which he among other things declaimed his desire for peace and called for solidarity in the nation, was followed by other events featuring the Party elite. There was a mass meeting in the Berlin Sportpalast at which Göring spoke, while Goebbels addressed an audience of several hundred thousand in Düsseldorf.29

  Goebbels had named the day before the election “the People’s Day of Honor, Peace, and Freedom.” The high point was another evening speech by Hitler in Cologne, which was again broadcast in public places and was meant to end with a “gigantic chorus of 67 million Germans.” The press had called on the public to gather in the large city squares and join in with the singing of the “Dutch Thanksgiving Prayer.”30

  The country went to the polls on the Sunday. “A Nation Privileged to Serve by Voting for the Führer,” ran the headline in the Völkischer Beobachter.31 Once again, the results of the vote were massively manipulated: “Terror, pressure on voter
s, falsifying of ballot papers reached unheard-of proportions this time,” reported informants for the SPD in exile.32

  The published result—a “yes” vote of 99 percent—did not record the numbers of “no” votes separately but merged them with the figure for spoiled ballot papers: Blank ballot papers were interpreted as approval, and observers working for SOPADE* reported that even those voting slips not explicitly marked with the word “No” were counted as a “Yes.” Despite great pressure, more than four hundred thousand people had chosen not to vote at all.33 However, the regime felt that the outcome of the vote had strengthened its position vis-à-vis the Locarno powers. Goebbels commented: “The Führer has united the nation. It’s more than we could have hoped for in our wildest dreams.”34

  In the end, it transpired that Hitler’s bluff had worked: No sanctions were imposed by the European powers, and there was no practical outcome from the talks between the British and French general staffs.35 Tolerating the German march into the Rhineland underscored the decay of the security system established at Locarno.

  PRIVATE AMENITIES

  In March Magda and Joseph Goebbels planned to buy the summer residence they had been renting in Kladow. Goebbels turned to Hitler, who promised to speak to Amann about the funds they needed (and also to raise Goebbels’s salary). Goebbels said of his private situation: “We have so many other worries that we can’t sustain such money worries as well.”36

  In the end an alternative presented itself: Their eye fell upon a “summer house” in one of the most exclusive Berlin locales, on the island of Schwanenwerder in the Wannsee.37 Some days later, in connection with a private invitation, Hitler gave Goebbels the agreeable news that he was going to raise his expenses allowance to 4,000 Reichsmarks. “It’s a weight off all our minds. We’re very happy. The Führer is so noble and generous.”38 He proceeded to buy the house the very next day, in the full expectation that Hitler would cover the funding gap by “arranging for an advance from Amann,” and indeed Hitler called from Munich a few days later: “Money for Schwanenwerder secured. Amann was generous again. I’m so grateful to the Führer.”39

  In the next few days Magda and Joseph wondered how they might recompense Hitler for his support: “If we could just create a little home for him here!”40 As always in his diary when Goebbels was describing intimate moments with his idol, he lapsed into a fervent and quite maudlin tone. For Hitler’s birthday, April 20, Magda did in fact prepare for him a little guesthouse on the grounds of the property. When the Führer paid a visit to Schwanenwerder on the eve of his birthday, he was “absolutely thrilled” with the place and promised to “come and visit often.”41 Later in the evening there was a chance for Goebbels to have a long private conversation with Hitler: “He is very happy that we are happy.”42 Magda, Hitler assured him some months later, was “charming, the best wife I could have found,”43 and he loved their daughter Helga “like his own child.”44

  The moment the water sports season began, Goebbels acquired a new boat—the third since taking office—which he proudly showed off to Hitler at the beginning of May. They went on boat trips together again, and the opportunity of spending the early summer days in the company of his Führer helped Goebbels to forget his “money worries about the boat.”45 In July, he generously bought another, smaller motorboat for his wife and children, but it appealed to him so much that he commandeered it for outings himself.46 In the summer he also indulged in a new car, a “5.4 l Mercedes sportscar,”47 and a few weeks later he ordered in addition a “limusine [sic] for the winter,” a vehicle that he liked for one particular reason above all: “One like the Führer’s got.”48

  All of this of course consumed a large amount of money, but in autumn 1936 Goebbels was for the time being able to put his financial affairs on an even keel. He managed to sell his diaries on quite sensational terms to Max Amann, head of the Party’s publishing house, the Eher Verlag: “To be published 20 years after my death. 250,000 marks now and 100,000 per year. That’s very generous.”49 It is hardly conceivable that this extraordinary transaction could have taken place without Hitler’s consent.

  It might be thought that Goebbels would have been more than satisfied with his extremely comfortable home life, but the opposite was the case. His relationship with Magda was constantly marred by intense arguments, as for example in May 1936, when after a daylong argument Goebbels was contemplating moving out of the villa on Schwanenwerder, which Magda had just finished lavishly decorating.50 Goebbels often noted long discussions with Magda in his diary but rarely conveyed anything about their content—in striking contrast to other entries, which largely consisted of records of conversations. While he often testified to her exemplary conduct of household affairs and social obligations, the unavoidable evening chats with her seem to have bored him.

  A few weeks later, on June 2, 1936, Goebbels had a fateful encounter. During an evening walk on Schwanenwerder he met Lida Baarová, the Czech actress. She was the girlfriend of the actor Gustav Fröhlich, who had recently moved into a house very near to Goebbels. Since the previous year, Baarová, then just twenty-one, had been cast by the Berlin film company Ufa to play seductive “vamp” parts, roles that the prim and proper German film industry under the Nazis preferred to fill with foreign actresses. On that July evening, Goebbels fell into a conversation with the actress, and at his request she showed him the house she and Fröhlich were living in.51

  A few weeks later, as Baarová reports in her memoirs, Goebbels invited her, along with Fröhlich and some other guests, for a trip in his boat. When Fröhlich had to go back to the studio for some evening filming, Goebbels insisted that she should stay on board with his other guests; it then turned into quite a late night.52

  Around this time, in August 1936, it was from Rosenberg of all people that Goebbels learned of an “unpleasant business with Lüdecke.” Quite evidently this was one of Magda’s affairs, which she initially denied and then confessed to him.53 Admittedly, this faux pas on Magda’s part lay some time back in the past. Kurt Lüdecke had been an active Hitler supporter before 1933 but had then fled Germany in 1934 as an opponent of Nazism. It was in these circumstances that Goebbels arranged a further meeting with Baarová, to take place during the Nuremberg rally in September. He had taken care that her latest film, Traitor, a movie that glorified the work of military counterespionage and that the propaganda minister was sponsoring, should be premiered at the Nuremberg rally—in the presence, moreover, of Himmler, Justice Minister Franz Gürtner, and counterintelligence chief Admiral Wilhelm Canaris.54 Goebbels was able to persuade Baarová to stay on and have a look around at the rally, and the next day, sharing a meal with Ufa personnel, the two became rather closer to each other: “A miracle has occurred,” wrote Goebbels in his diary.55

  Back in Berlin, at the end of September he invited Fröhlich and his girlfriend to his box at the opera, and a few days later he asked them over to his house on Schwanenwerder for a screening of Fröhlich’s latest film.56 After that he met the Czech film star not only in company57 but more often alone, preferably at his house in Lanke. And at some point in the following winter, as she recalls, their relationship became intimate.

  There was a major confrontation when, on a winter’s day on Schwanenwerder, Fröhlich thought he had caught his girlfriend and the minister in a compromising situation.58 The rumor—which was unfounded—that he slapped Goebbels’s face during this showdown seems to have spread like wildfire. It is not surprising that after this Goebbels’s attitude to the actor became less than positive.59 During the war Fröhlich was one of the few top German actors to be called up for military service—if only temporarily.

  FOREIGN POLICY IN SPRING AND SUMMER 1936

  For all the attraction Goebbels felt to fascist Italy and however much he admired Mussolini’s risky war-making in Africa,60 he agreed with Hitler that Mussolini’s Abyssinian adventure and the resulting Italian-British conflict ought first and foremost to improve the chances of an Anglo-German r
approchement. “Eventually there will be an alliance of the two Germanic peoples,” was Goebbels’s summary of Hitler’s views in May 1936.61 This hope seemed to be reinforced when Mussolini annexed Abyssinia in May and proclaimed the Italian king emperor of Ethiopia: “The Führer’s alliance with England will now be almost automatic.”62 For Goebbels’s benefit, at the end of May Hitler put a name to the prospect he visualized coming out of an alliance of this kind: the “United States of Europe under German leadership. That would be the solution.”63

  For his part, during the Abyssianian conflict Mussolini found it politic to try to improve his relations with Germany. A decisive factor was the need to remove the tensions that had arisen between the two states after the 1934 Nazi putsch attempt in Austria. Correspondingly, Mussolini let Hitler know in January 1936 that he would have no objection if Austria, while remaining formally an independent state, in fact became a satellite of the German Reich. At the end of May, via Ambassador Bernardo Attolico, Mussolini asked Goebbels whether “the German press could play down the English-Italian rift somewhat. I’m doing the same, because we’ve got to keep some irons in the fire.”64

  In June the Italian foreign minister, Suvich, who favored an understanding with France and Britain, was replaced by Mussolini’s son-in-law, Count Galeazzo Ciano. Ciano’s successor as propaganda minister was Dino Alfieri; this was a changeover that Goebbels accurately assessed as favorable to Germany. It was a fortunate turn of events that Countess Ciano, Mussolini’s daughter Edda, happened to be in Berlin while this reshuffle was taking place, and that the Goebbelses were able to give her a good deal of attention.65