Goebbels: A Biography

by Peter Longerich

  At the end of 1936, the regime signaled clearly that it would exert an even more decisive influence on cultural policy in the future. On November 23, 1936, the Norwegian Nobel Committee announced that the Peace Prize for the previous year would be awarded retrospectively to the German pacifist Carl von Ossietzky, who had been in prison and a concentration camp since 1933. Hitler reacted to this “impudent provocation,” as Goebbels called it,52 by decreeing that in future no German citizen would be allowed to accept a Nobel Prize. At the same time, he created the valuable German National Prize, to be awarded annually to three outstanding figures from the worlds of science and culture. This decision was announced at the beginning of 1937, in connection with the celebration of the January 30th anniversary.53

  In the same week, at the third annual meeting of the Reich Culture Chamber, Goebbels made a speech heavily publicized by the propaganda machine that was intended to underline his claim to leadership of the whole cultural domain. Among other things, he highlighted the “creation of our great national-socialist celebrations” as one of “the most important factors of our modern cultural life.” This was developing into “a very clear, modern, and simple rite, forming a fixed tradition.” But Goebbels also issued an unmistakable warning against “devaluing the powerful feelings engendered [by this tradition] by trivializing it”: “not every club social celebrates a cult.” The warning makes it clear that, after only a few years, the newly created festive rituals were in danger of wearing thin in everyday life through too much imitation and repetition, while behind the fervor of national-socialist festivals and solemn celebrations, the banality and kitsch threatened to show through all too visibly.

  Goebbels also stressed his decisive influence on cultural policy by announcing the abolition of arts criticism,54 a form of journalism he had often publicly attacked in the past.55 By May 1936 Goebbels had already prohibited “evening criticism”—that is, short reviews of plays, concerts, and films appearing in the evening newspapers of the same day.56 His reason was that this was a practice introduced by “the Jewish-owned press,” which lacked “all respect for artistic achievement.”57 But all his attempts to regulate and limit arts criticism could not alter the basic dilemma, which was that the state-subsidized and controlled culture industry could not endure free criticism. The ban on arts criticism pronounced by Goebbels in November 1936 and then issued as an edict was only logical: It meant primarily no questioning of the fruits of the Propaganda Ministry and Goebbels’s cultural policy.58

  Goebbels’s ability to impose himself more and more decisively on cultural life was due in no small measure to his success in 1936–37 in sidelining Rosenberg’s cultural-policy ambitions. In the spring of 1936 Rosenberg had declined Goebbels’s invitation to join the Cultural Senate. The offer from Goebbels had in any case been somewhat provocative, since in the previous year his intervention with Hitler had stopped Rosenberg from forming a cultural senate of his own.59 When, in the course of his altercations with Goebbels, Rosenberg complained that the propaganda minister’s stalling tactics had once more prevented one of his speeches from being broadcast, the Party’s ideologue was simply confirming how much ground he had lost to the head of the propaganda machine.60

  In the summer of 1936 it had appeared as if Goebbels and Rosenberg were close to settling their dispute over another bone of contention, the incorporation of the National Socialist Cultural Community into the Reich Culture Chamber, where it was to form an eighth chamber. Rosenberg had shelved earlier plans to place the association under the Kraft durch Freude (Strength Through Joy) organization and was now looking to link up once more with Goebbels.61 But the negotiations on this score ran into the sands in November, not least because Goebbels had concluded in the meantime that Rosenberg’s position at Hitler’s “court” was not particularly strong, so that he could safely put a distance between himself and his cultural-policy rival, who had in recent years created one or two difficulties for him.62 He found this assessment confirmed when he sat at Hitler’s lunch table on November 14 while the leader held forth against exaggerated admiration for the ancient Teutons and the defaming of Charlemagne as “the butcher of the Saxons.” “Rosenberg, at whom this is aimed, sits there silent and resentful.”63

  Rosenberg was also trying to negotiate with Ley, but now from a considerably weaker position: Eventually, in June 1937, the National Socialist Cultural Community was indeed absorbed into Kraft durch Freude, as envisaged in 1934, but now it was downgraded to a mere association for organizing cultural visits. This spelled the end of Rosenberg’s attempt to set up an equally powerful organization in opposition to the Reich Culture Chamber.64 Without his own power base, and in view of Hitler’s lack of support for his “völkisch-Germanic” ambitions, Rosenberg’s mission to “spiritually educate” the whole Nazi movement carried little weight. The central role in cultural life was played by Goebbels’s ministry and the system of chambers he had created. In 1937 this became evident in individual areas of Nazi cultural policy and in the management of the mass media. However, it would transpire that the power of the key player in Nazi cultural policy was by no means unlimited in all departments.

  FURTHER “COORDINATION” OF RADIO

  In 1937 Goebbels achieved considerable progress with the further “bringing into line” of broadcasting. Since 1936 he had increasingly advocated more entertainment on the radio. Space for spoken-word programs was to be restricted, and airtime for light music further expanded.65 In March 1936 he instructed directors to reserve the best evening broadcasting slot for entertainment programs.66 He admonished the Reich director of radio programming, Eugen Hadamovsky, for the “pedagogical” content of broadcasting: “General tendency everywhere: Loosen up!”67

  In order to put this directive into operation, the Reich Broadcasting Corporation was reorganized in 1937 in line with his concept, and new staff were appointed. The new office of Reich director was created, to be filled by Heinrich Glasmeier, who concurrently became director general of the Reich Broadcasting Corporation and thus Hadamovsky’s superior. With this reorganization Goebbels ensured that the “executive control of broadcasting” could be exerted efficiently by his ministry, while the administrative work was in the hands of Eugen Hadamovsky and the various radio directors. Hans Kriegler replaced Horst Dressler-Andress as head of the radio department in the Propaganda Ministry.68

  In his talk at the opening of the Radio Exhibition at the end of July, Goebbels confirmed that his call for more entertainment had already been heeded. In future he wanted no more broadcasting experiments. There was no need to “fill the ears of the broad masses with juvenile stammerings,” particularly radio plays, which, “with their frenzies of shouting, had an irritating and off-putting effect on the listener.”69

  All the same, by 1938 he had come to the conclusion that more “serious music, opera, and symphonies” should be broadcast; there was “too much droning” on the radio. Entertainment was “good, but it must not become too primitive.”70 However, there was no echo of this change of direction when he opened that year’s Radio Exhibition in August: Entertainment clearly still had priority.71

  Apart from the aim of offering the public more relaxation and diversion, Goebbels had a solid motive for making programs as popular as possible. In 1933 the Postal Ministry had agreed to pass on a percentage of the radio license fee to the Propaganda Ministry. This income largely covered the Propaganda Ministry’s budget; during the war, in fact, income considerably exceeded expenditure. The agreement with the Postal Ministry was modified a few times: In February 1935 it was established that the Propaganda Ministry should receive 55 percent of the radio fees; if listener numbers (4.5 million in 1933, 5.4 million in 1934) rose above seven million, the extra fees would be shared between Propaganda and Post at a ratio of 3 to 1. This figure was surpassed as early as 1936; in 1937 there was a radio audience of 8.5 million, and the addition of the annexed territories made the number even higher.72 The Propaganda Ministry made every effort t
o increase listener numbers by promoting the spread of the People’s Receiver, a cheap and robust radio set.

  EFFORTS TO RESTRUCTURE THE PRESS

  From 1936 to 1938, Goebbels once again put in a great deal of effort to build up his central role in the Nazi press policy. When the president of the Reich Press Chamber, Max Amann, proposed a new press law in October 1936, Goebbels signed on to the changes, subject to certain amendments; Hitler, too, was in agreement.73 Goebbels’s willingness to accept Amann’s proposals may have had something to do with the fact that at this time, as we have seen, Goebbels was in the process of selling Amann the publication rights to his diary, on the most extraordinarily favorable conditions.74

  But once that contract had been signed, the proposed legislation underwent drastic revision by the Propaganda Ministry.75 Serious objections to the revised draft were raised not only by Amann, who now scarcely recognized his own bill, but also by Frick and Blomberg. They objected that Goebbels had written a key sentence into the bill giving the Propaganda Ministry the sole right to issue directives to the press. Both the Ministry of the Interior and the Defense Ministry saw this as encroaching on their authority, and the Reich press chief, Otto Dietrich, recalled an edict of Hitler’s from February 28, 1934, by which he alone was entitled to give orders to the National Socialist papers.76

  When there was no sign of agreement between ministries, Goebbels indicated that he was prepared to shelve the bill;77 Hitler had it removed from the cabinet agenda, and it was filed away.78 But what had clearly emerged was that Goebbels’s claim to control of the press was by no means absolute.

  At this time Goebbels was also trying to reshape the press landscape, although with doubtful success. In October 1936 he was determined to close down the Frankfurter Zeitung and the Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung. A little later, however, Hitler told him that he wanted these two “bourgeois” papers to continue, provided there were changes to their management.79 Goebbels did not succeed in imposing on the Frankfurter Zeitung his chosen appointees, Martin Schwaebe (editor-in-chief of the Nazi Gau newspaper Westdeutscher Beobachter), as head of publishing and the Nazi journalist Walter Trautmann (editor-in-chief of the Mitteldeutsche Nationalzeitung) as the new managing editor.80 And when he called in Editor-in-Chief Silex of the Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung to charge him with “too much opposition,” the eloquent Silex was able to impress Goebbels with an exhaustive account of his “difficulties.”81 Silex retained his position.

  Goebbels went on vacillating in his approach to the Frankfurter Zeitung, the leading bourgeois paper; sometimes he wanted to close it, at other times to let it carry on.82 But he did manage early in 1937 to replace Paul Scheffer, editor-in-chief of the Berliner Tageblatt—formerly the most important liberal paper in the capital—with Erich Schwarzer, who himself was relieved after fifteen months by Eugen Mündler.83 The Tageblatt ceased publication in January 1939.

  In June and July 1938, Goebbels was still rejecting Amann’s attempt to take all the big newspapers into state ownership,84 but he soon agreed with Amann on the principle that the latter would be allowed “gradually to take over all newspapers” as long as the “political leadership” remained in Goebbels’s hands and he was consulted about all personnel changes on the main papers.85

  Although Amann accepted these terms, in practice the agreement did not actually work in the way the Propaganda Ministry intended. So, for example, when the Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung was sold at the end of 1938 to Amann’s Deutscher Verlag (German Publishing House, the former House of Ullstein) and Secretary of State Otto Dietrich attempted to appoint Mündler in place of Silex as editor-in-chief, he was blocked by Amann’s chief of staff, Rienhardt.86 In April 1939, the Frankfurter Zeitung, too, was acquired—as a birthday present from Amann to Hitler—by the Eher Verlag, but for the time being there were no decisive changes of personnel on the paper, as Goebbels had in mind.87 In 1938, when Dietrich tried to expand the conservative Berliner Börsen-Zeitung (Berlin Stock Exchange News) and turn it into an outlet for the Propaganda Ministry—a move supported not only by Goebbels88 but also by the minister for economic affairs, Walther Funk—Amann was having none of it; this paper too was absorbed into his empire.89

  Thus there is a mixed picture as far as Goebbels’s position vis-à-vis Nazi press policy is concerned: While it is true that by 1933–34 he had built up a refined system of press control, when it came to the structure of the press landscape and to personnel matters, Amann’s grip on publishing turned out to be stronger than Goebbels’s claim to “political leadership.”

  He was, however, able to assert himself without reservation against another competitor in the press sector: Ernst “Putzi” Hanfstaengl, head of the Foreign Press Bureau in Berlin. To the propaganda minister, Hanfstaengel was an irritating survival from the “Time of Struggle,” when the well-connected and cosmopolitan son of a well-known Munich art publisher had become a confidant of Hitler’s. Goebbels’s aim was to undermine and destroy Hanfstaengl’s position.

  By November 1934 Goebbels had already begun to intrigue against Hanfstaengl; in 1932 the latter had allegedly written a leaflet hostile to Hitler.90 In August 1936 Goebbels called a halt to a film project of Hanfstaengl’s before it could be completed and blackened his name with Hitler on account of supposedly excessive fee payments.91

  At the beginning of 1937 the idea was thought up at Hitler’s lunch table—according to Goebbels—of playing a practical joke on Hanfstaengl. The day before his fiftieth birthday he was sent on a fictional “special mission” to Spain. During the flight he was told that the plan was to drop him behind enemy lines. However, the pilot actually put the plane down on an emergency landing strip in Saxony.92 Goebbels initially found this story “side-splittingly funny.” But he had not anticipated that Hanfstaengl regarded this kind of humor as life-threatening, and he elected to leave Germany immediately.93 Subsequently Goebbels made him some lucrative offers to lure him back to Germany, but to no effect.94 In April Hanfstaengl moved to London. Goebbels feared “revelations,” and after further efforts to bring him back had failed,95 in July he and Hitler were agreed: “Hanfstängl [sic] must go, too.”96

  NATIONALIZATION OF THE FILM INDUSTRY

  In the last months of 1936, criticism of German film’s insufficient propaganda content runs like a thread through Goebbels’s diaries.97 What was most alarming for him was the dissatisfaction with German films that Hitler expressed to him; they were not “national socialist” enough.98 Consequently Goebbels demanded that his producers and directors should make “more use of contemporary subject matter.”99 What he wanted, he wrote, was “the new political film,” but the film industry brought forward no usable suggestions of appropriate topics.100 He subjected the colleagues closest to him in the film sector to rebukes of varying severity.101 Since all the instruments he had devised—film dramaturgy, the Film Chamber, a system of awards, and so on—had failed to produce the desired results, he decided to take the film industry directly under his control.

  The idea of a “great new film company with the state as majority stake-holder” first appears in the diaries in June 1936.102 In autumn 1936 the plan took concrete shape, and Goebbels initiated takeover negotiations with Ufa. Even during the negotiations he tried to impose an “artistic committee” on Ufa in order to have a body that could bypass the management and exert its influence on the content of productions.103 At Tobis* he had already instituted just such a committee.104

  In early March he received a “long letter” from Alfred Hugenberg, whose group of companies owned Ufa. Hugenberg wrote that “at least for the time being” (as Goebbels noted) he rejected “artistic boards.” Goebbels was now determined to apply ruthless pressure. This letter, he asserted, would cost the “Hugenbergers” “at least 3 million marks.” More effective was a “general attack” by the media on the insubordinate film company. The first target was the Ufa film Menschen ohne Vaterland (People Without a Fatherland), which was now savagely criticized throughout the pre
ss.105 Just a few days after having “worn Ufa down,” he exulted in the fact that the “biggest film, media, theater and radio concern in the world” was about to be born.106 On March 20 it was all over: The Ufa company had “finally been bought out,” and Goebbels wanted to get rid of the old supervisory board (“German Nationalist uncles”) as quickly as possible.107 It goes without saying that the press campaign against Menschen ohne Vaterland was now instantly dropped.108

  Shortly after nationalizing the most important film companies, Goebbels gave another big speech in the Kroll Opera to the “film creators.”109 Hypocritically, Goebbels put himself forward as a “warm-hearted but ultimately neutral observer” of German film, and he asserted with regret that in contemporary German film “the purely commercial tendencies” had displaced “the artistic element,” so that it was “more accurate today to speak of the film industry than of cinematic art.” As a counterweight he praised the model already introduced at Tobis: placing artists on the supervisory boards of the film industry.

  As Goebbels went on with his speech, his message was clear: When he talked of orientating the film along “artistic” lines, he meant “I want […] an art which expresses an attitude through its national-socialist character and by taking up national-socialist problems.” But this orientation should not “appear deliberate”; propaganda only worked when it “remains in the background as a tendency, as character, as attitude, and only becomes apparent in action, unfolding events, processes, in the contrast between individuals.”

  Ewald von Demandowsky, who took over the office of film dramaturge in May 1937, became Goebbels’s most important collaborator in his bid to radically reorganize German film.110 Ernst von Liechtenstein, from the Reich propaganda office, took over management of the film department from the beginning of 1938 and was followed by Fritz Hippler in August 1939.111