Goebbels: A Biography

by Peter Longerich

  In March he suffered from renal colic, which confined him to bed for several days, suffering such “savage pain” and being so incapable of working that he even put off writing his diary entries.130 After hours of agony he eventually passed the kidney stone. On the same day, Magda left for a six-week recuperative vacation in Italy, a departure he registered with evident relief: “And now a bit of peace again at last.”131

  While Goebbels was recovering, he learned that Hitler had come to a decision: Czechoslovakia was in his sights. The pretext for his move against the country was the conflict in March 1939 between Prague and the government of Slovakia, which, immediately after the Munich Agreement, had succeeded in asserting its autonomy within Czechoslovakia. On March 9 the Prague government dismissed the cabinet in Bratislava as a preventive measure to stop Slovakia from giving way to German pressure and quitting the union completely.132 Goebbels noted: “Now the question we only half resolved in October can be completely resolved.”133

  Around noon on March 10 he was summoned by Hitler: “Immediately afterward Ribbentrop and Keitel arrived. Decision: We go in on Wednesday March 15 and smash the whole misbegotten Czechoslovakian construct.” Goebbels immediately put his “Ministry on the alert.” The press was ordered to add fuel to the fire.134 By late afternoon he was back with Hitler. They composed a report according to which “before being arrested the Tiso government had appealed in a note to the German Reich government.” The precise content of the fictional Slovakian cry for help could be “handed in later as required.” But during the night, sitting up until the small hours, the dictator and his minister learned that Tiso was not willing to sign.135

  From March 13, the Czechoslovakian crisis dominated the German press. At first Goebbels’s instruction was to “squeeze the tube a bit harder, but don’t let the cat out of the bag yet,”136—in other words, not to deploy as yet the threat of an invasion that had already been decided upon.137 On March 13, Goebbels and Hitler collaborated on drafting leaflets for the invasion.138 On the same day, Hitler received Slovakian Prime Minister Jozef Tiso to offer him help in forming an independent Slovakia. Should he decline, Hitler’s threat—conveyed to Goebbels that same evening—was that “they’ll be swallowed up by Hungary.” Tiso, declining to be pinned down, returned to Bratislava. “Not a revolutionary,” was Goebbels’s verdict.139

  Tiso was supplied with a telegram drafted in the German Foreign Office immediately after his discussion with Hitler: It contained an appeal to the Reich for help. At the same time Ribbentrop presented Tiso with an ultimatum: He must declare his country’s autonomy by the very next day.140 Accordingly, the next day the assembly in Bratislava proclaimed an independent Slovakian state, and under German pressure141 the appeal for help was handed over on March 15. The new state was also forced to agree to a “protective treaty” formally acknowledging its dependence on the German Reich.142

  Late on the evening of March 14 the Czech president, Dr. Emil Hácha, and his foreign minister, František Chvalkovský arrived in Berlin. During a nighttime session, which according to Goebbels was conducted with “brutal bitterness,” they were forced to surrender completely.143 At six the next morning, German troops began their entry into Czech territory.144 On the evening of March 15 Hitler arrived in Prague, took possession of Hradschin Castle, ancient residence of the Bohemian kings, and proclaimed from here the next day that he had formed a protectorate of the “Bohemian and Moravian lands.”145

  While the Party was organizing “spontaneous rallies” throughout the Reich for March 19,146 Goebbels laid on another “triumphal reception” for Hitler in Berlin on the same day; a welcome, wrote the Völkischer Beobachter, such as “no head of state in world history has ever enjoyed.” The paper reported the next day that searchlights formed a “canopy of light” above the broad, flag-bedecked avenue Unter den Linden, and fireworks completed the effect of a street clad in “a magic, fairyland mantle of swastika banners, pylons, and Bengal lights.”147

  Hitler’s decision to occupy the Czech territories, thereby breaking the Munich Agreement, marked a turning point in the attitude of the western powers to the Third Reich. It was all too obvious not only that Hitler had reneged on a treaty but also that what supposedly legitimated his previous policy—bringing “home into the Reich” those Germans cut off from it by the Versailles Treaty—had now been unmasked as a duplicitous ploy. At a stroke, London and Paris realized that Hitler would not be satisfied with further concessions and that the only answer was deterrence. But as Hitler told Goebbels on his return to Berlin, he was not taking the protests from Britain and France seriously.148 Goebbels talked about “stage thunder.”149

  The self-confidence of the regime is apparent from the fact that, totally unimpressed by western protests, it immediately set about its next foreign affairs “coup.” Directly after his return from Prague, Hitler began preparing to enforce a solution to the “Memel question.” The Memelland, predominantly inhabited by Germans, had been separated from the Reich by the Versailles Treaty, placed at first under French administration, then occupied in 1923 by Lithuania and subsequently administered by the Baltic State. In a directive dating from October 1938 Hitler was already calling for the early annexation of the territory by the Reich.150

  On March 20, Foreign Minister Ribbentrop forced his Lithuanian counterpart, Juozas Urbšys, on a visit to Berlin, into agreeing to surrender the strip of land.151 Goebbels was triumphant: “Either-or. These little Versailles thieves have now got to disgorge their stolen goods—or else!” By March 22, Goebbels was announcing the successful completion of the latest coup while prescribing the usual celebrations.152

  Following the occupation of Prague and Memelland, the question of German-Polish relations moved to the center ground of German foreign policy. Via the Polish ambassador in Berlin, Ribbentrop had called upon his opposite number in Poland, Józef Beck, to come to Berlin for talks about the prospects for a joint policy. A precondition for this, however, would be the fulfillment of the well-known German demands concerning Danzig and the Polish Corridor.

  Beck did not appear; the German proposals were unequivocally rejected. The Polish government, having temporarily mobilized its military forces, instead turned to Britain for help. The appeal was received positively by Chamberlain with a statement in the House of Commons, while the Polish foreign minister firmly informed the German ambassador at the end of the month that any attempt by Germany to impose a solution of the Danzig question by force would mean war. At the beginning of April, a visit to London by Beck, arranged on short notice, resulted in the announcement of a pact of mutual support.153

  At this point, therefore, Goebbels’s attention switched to Great Britain. He started an anti-British campaign, in keeping with the old adage “attack is the best form of defense,” as he recorded on March 21. His opening salvo in the Völkischer Beobachter was an editorial entitled “Away with Moral Hypocrisy” in which he made short shrift of “humanity, civilization, international law, and international trust,” asserting, “Our morality lies in our rights. Anyone suppressing these rights is dealing immorally with us, even if he envelops his action in a cloud of incense and murmurs a pious prayer. We are no longer impressed by that.”154 On the same day the newspapers were instructed to attack British global policy by casting historical aspersions.155

  In another editorial in the Völkischer Beobachter Goebbels provided a “final reckoning with British arrogance.” German actions in the past few weeks had not been taken out of overweening pride, only “because we want to live.”156 The “anti-England campaign” was short-lived; within a few days Goebbels declared it over for the time being.157

  One result of the tense international situation was that Goebbels had to contend with increasing competition from ambitious rivals in the area of propaganda directed at foreign powers and, later, wartime propaganda. The outcome was that he was forced to pull in his horns, with his reputation within the Nazi leadership somewhat dented.

  The previou
s autumn, a conflict had broken out with the Foreign Ministry. In 1933, it had relinquished to the Propaganda Ministry the press office responsible for analyzing the foreign press: Now the Foreign Office wanted to reclaim and develop it for itself. In the course of this dispute the fundamental question had arisen as to which party was responsible for dealing with the foreign press, a role claimed by both sides, each citing decisions by the Führer to back its claim.158

  Goebbels and Hitler relied on a decree issued by Hitler on February 16, 1939, and orally confirmed by the Führer on February 28.159 Ribbentrop, on the other hand, likewise referring to Hitler’s intentions, gave orders in June 1939 for a foreign-language broadcasting service to be set up within the Foreign Office but could not push it through against the propaganda minister’s opposition.160 He had equally little success in June in retrieving the press attaché bureaus assigned to German overseas representations, which had likewise been reallocated to the Propaganda Ministry in 1933.161

  Rivalry and mistrust also characterized relations between Goebbels and the propaganda arm of the Wehrmacht. Since about 1935 Goebbels’s officials had been discussing with offices from the War Ministry questions of military and home-front propaganda in the case of a war;162 jointly they had begun to devise a mobilization plan to cover the full portfolio of the Ministry of Popular Enlightenment and Propaganda.163 During the maneuvers of autumn 1936 the Propaganda Ministry had deployed on a trial basis a “propaganda task force” consisting of civilian reporters.164 Goebbels arranged with the War Ministry in 1937 that, should war break out, units from his ministry would be put in uniform and “embedded” with the Wehrmacht. The new organizational structure was tried out in the autumn maneuvers,165 and Goebbels had the opportunity to hold a “maneuver discussion” in his ministry.166

  And yet since the end of 1937 Goebbels had been pursuing the aim of disbanding the propaganda department within the Wehrmacht.167 In December he thought he had reached an understanding with Wilhelm Keitel guaranteeing his ministry command of war propaganda.168 However, in the years that followed, the military actually succeeded in strengthening the position of military propaganda. According to principles negotiated at the end of September 1938 between the Propaganda Ministry and the Wehrmacht High Command governing the control of propaganda in wartime,169 the Wehrmacht set up its own propaganda companies and by means of “general instructions” to the Propaganda Ministry was supposed to enable the ministry to coordinate the “propaganda war” with the “war of weapons.” Admittedly, the Propaganda Ministry had some influence over the appointment of specialists, and it was able to exert control of the use of propaganda material outside the military sphere. But when Goebbels in his diaries presented the propaganda companies as an extension of his ministry’s operations in the case of war, he did so in order to conceal a defeat.170

  On April 1, 1939, a department of Wehrmacht propaganda was created in the Wehrmacht High Command, concentrating military authority in this field.171 Goebbels observed these activities with deep mistrust: “The Wehrmacht is meddling too much in my affairs. But I won’t put up with it. The Wehrmacht can do the fighting, and I’ll do the propaganda.”172

  VISIT TO THE BALKANS AND EGYPT

  In view of the tense international situation it seemed questionable to Goebbels in spring 1939 whether he should really embark on his long-planned173 trip to Greece and Egypt, but Hitler advised him to do so: He did not think Goebbels indispensable in Berlin.174 Moreover, the fact that his propaganda minister, so prominent as a firebrand in recent weeks, was setting off on a fairly long journey would show the world how relaxed the regime was about the international protests. Goebbels on the other hand took Hitler’s approval of his trip to be a clear confirmation that the signals were set for détente on the international scene. He could not imagine that hugely significant decisions would be maturing in Berlin during his absence, and he did not grasp that his trip was a political diversionary tactic.

  So it was that on the evening of March 27 Goebbels set off on a journey of almost three weeks, predominantly private in nature.175 At his first stop, Budapest, he stayed for a few days and used the opportunity to pay his respects to Regent Horthy and Prime Minister Pál Teleki.176 From there he flew—with a brief stop in Belgrade—to Athens, where he was greeted by his old acquaintance, Minister Konstantinos Kotzias. In the Greek capital, as on his last stay there in 1936, he visited Prime Minister Ioannis Metaxas—now ruling with dictatorial powers—and the Greek king177 as well as taking in the Acropolis and other famous ancient sites. Reverently he marveled at “the antique cultural soil across which so much history has swept.”178

  On April 1 he flew on to the island of Rhodes, occupied since 1912 by the Italians.179 There he relaxed for two weeks, enjoying the “glorious sun.”180 What he did not hear on his vacation was that on April 3, in reaction to Chamberlain’s speech, Hitler had drawn up instructions for “Case White.” The Wehrmacht should gear itself for war against Poland from September 1, 1939; he was prepared to launch this war if the Poles maintained their intransigent attitude to German demands.181

  On April 5 Goebbels interrupted his vacation on Rhodes to fly to Egypt for two days. He had been planning a lengthy stay in Egypt since the end of 1938 but postponed it for reasons of personal security. On this short trip he explored, among other sites, Cairo and its National Museum, the pyramids at Saqqara, the pyramid of Cheops, and the Sphinx.182 Far from his homeland, Goebbels could enthuse about the exotic: “Late in the evening a camel-ride into the desert. Under a heavy full moon. […] Out in the desert colorful tents have been put up. There the Arabs perform a fantasia for us. Terrific, wild folk-plays that we find very fascinating.” On the way home he became “quite melancholy: what a country and what a wide world! For a long time I can’t sleep for excitement.”183

  On Rhodes, to which he had now returned, on April 9 he caught up with further international developments: On April 7 Mussolini had occupied Albania, and on April 6 Great Britain and Poland had concluded a mutual assistance pact. Goebbels commented: “So, Beck has fallen into the Lords’ trap after all. Poland may have to pay a high price for this one day. That’s how the Czechs started, too.”184 It obviously never occurred to him that the British pledge of support for Poland might be deadly serious—or else he suppressed the thought.

  HITLER’S FIFTIETH BIRTHDAY

  On returning from his vacation Goebbels was heavily involved in preparations for Hitler’s fiftieth birthday. He was aware that in London war was being talked about “like you might mention supper,” but he took these threats no more seriously than he ever had; for him they were primarily meant to be “panic inducers.”185 Occasionally, though, he did have doubts: Was the “agitation” in the press not bound “to lead to war in the long run”?186

  Hitler’s fiftieth birthday marked the ceremonial high point of 1939, a year in which the capital saw plenty of great occasions:187 This self-confident display of the dictator’s power was to set the scene for further aggression abroad.

  On the day before the celebrations, in the Kroll Opera House, Goebbels gave his “Führer’s birthday address,” which, he proudly reported, was “broadcast practically throughout the world.” The Party leadership formally congratulated their leader, and Hitler then proceeded to open Speer’s east-west axis road, the first great artery to be built under the plan for reshaping Berlin. Some two million people had turned out to line the brightly lit route, the Berlin population having been notified in no uncertain terms: “On the eve of the Führer’s birthday the whole of Berlin lines the east-west axis. […] Flags out, decorate houses and streets!”188 There followed a military tattoo and a “torchlight procession of the old guard from all over the Reich.” Goebbels was among the small group of confidants who were allowed to congratulate Hitler on his birthday at midnight.

  The next day, declared a holiday on short notice,189 the celebrations proper began: In the morning, a parade of the Leibstandarte in front of the Reich Chancellery, followed by
formal congratulations from the Reich government, and then—on the east-west axis road again—an almost five-hour parade by the Wehrmacht. The solemn induction of newly appointed political leaders of the Party rounded off the day’s events.

  Goebbels learned from Hitler a few days later that the Führer, too, regarded the British and French threats as a bluff and was counting on Poland to give way. “Will there be war?” Goebbels asked himself: “I don’t think so. In any case, nobody really wants it at the moment. That’s our best ally.”190

  Over the following few days he resumed his fierce anti-British polemic in the Völkischer Beobachter, which prepared the way for further aggressive moves by Hitler.191 On April 28 the Führer gave a speech to the Reichstag which he used to conduct a foreign affairs tour d’horizon. First in the line of fire was President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Two weeks earlier, Roosevelt had called on Hitler to swear that he would not commit any aggressive act against thirty specifically named states. Hitler’s answer, ridiculing Roosevelt, had his audience of parliamentary delegates—which included a completely spellbound Goebbels—roaring with laughter. Furthermore, Hitler canceled the naval agreement with Britain and the non-aggression pact with Poland.192