Goebbels: A Biography
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The German government was disappointed by the visit: Molotov responded to the German invitation to join the anti-British pact and to participate in the destruction of the British Empire by taking over territory in Asia by asking pointed questions and making requests concerning the future demarcation of German and Soviet interests in Europe. Hitler concluded from all of this that the German-Soviet alliance would inevitably collapse sooner or later as a result of the insuperable clash of interests and reverted to his plan for a war against the Soviet Union.58
Goebbels knew nothing about any of this. After a conversation with Hitler at the beginning of December he established that the Führer agreed with him that Russia would “never undertake anything against us”—“out of fear,” he added.59 Goebbels was, however, not aware of the consequences that Hitler was drawing from the purported Soviet weakness: Two days after this conversation with Goebbels Hitler was discussing the plans for the eastern campaign with his military leaders.60
PLANS FOR THE DEPORTATION OF THE GERMAN JEWS
After the victory over France, German “Jewish policy” acquired a new momentum, not least owing to Goebbels’s initiative. For Goebbels saw the opportunity at last to begin the forcible expulsion of the Jews from Berlin, a goal that he had been pursuing since 1935. Now that the Third Reich controlled most of the European continent, the time seemed ripe for the final “de-jewification” (Entjudung) of Berlin. Such a radical step would have a marked effect on Jewish policy throughout the Reich. In any case Goebbels was determined to play a pioneering role in the radicalization of Jewish policy during the war as well.
On July 19, 1940, he discussed with Hitler among other things the fact that the Jews were numbered among the “habitual criminals” and that they should “make short work” of them. A few hours earlier Leopold Gutterer, a department head in the Propaganda Ministry, had reported at a ministerial meeting that on the previous day, during the ceremonial entry of the Berlin division returning from France, “the same riff raff could be seen as always strolling” along the Kurfürstendamm. Goebbels seized on this remark and announced, “Immediately after the end of the war all the 62,000 Jews still living in Berlin [are] to be deported to Poland within a time span of a maximum of eight weeks”; as long as they were still living in Berlin, they would have a negative impact on morale in the capital. Berlin, according to Goebbels, should be the first German city to be made “free of Jews” (judenfrei). Hans Hinkel, the person in the ministry who was most involved with the “de-jewification” of German cultural life, was able to report that they had already worked out a “removal plan” with the police.61
Five days later Goebbels brought up the topic with Hitler, who approved his comments.62 On the following day Goebbels was already noting that he had “approved a large-scale plan for the evacuation of the Jews from Berlin. Moreover, after the war all the Jews are going to be deported to Madagascar. It will then become a German protectorate under a German police governor.”63
At the beginning of September 1940 Hinkel once again reported to the ministerial meeting on the deportation plans for the Berlin and Viennese Jews. The plan now was to send “ca. 500 Jews to the southeast” each month, immediately after the end of the war a further sixty thousand within four weeks.64 It is clear that these deportation plans were based on the Madagascar project,65 which in the meantime had begun to take on a clearer shape as a result of further planning in the Foreign Ministry and the Reich Security Main Office.
In October Gauleiters Baldur von Schirach (Vienna) and Erich Koch (East Prussia) demanded further deportations to the General Government.*, 66 At the beginning of November Hitler decided to deport 150,000 to 160,000 Jews and Poles from the annexed territories to the General Government in order to make room for the settlement of ethnic Germans, called Volksdeutsche.67 On the same day the functionaries who were affected—Gauleiters Koch and Wilhelm Forster (West Prussia) and the Governor General, Hans Frank—argued about the deportation quotas at a meeting with Hitler. “The Führer, laughing, makes peace” between them, Goebbels noted in his diary. “They all want to get rid of their rubbish into the General Government. Jews, the sick, the idle, etc. And Frank objects to this.” Poland, according to Goebbels’s report of Hitler’s statements, was to “become a big reservoir of labor: Frank doesn’t like it, but he’ll have to put up with it. And one day we’ll shove the Jews out of this area too.”
During the end of 1940 and the beginning of 1941, Hitler gave Heydrich the task of drawing up an overall plan for the deportation of all the Jews in the territories controlled by the Germans after the war, and a few weeks later Heydrich produced a plan (it has not survived), which, according to a few important pieces of evidence, envisaged ultimately deporting the Jews living in the German sphere of influence to the Soviet Union.68 In the middle of March 1941 Goebbels, who presumably had not been informed about the details of these plans, received the impression during one of his lunchtime visits to Hitler that the deportations from Berlin were about to begin.69 Adolf Eichmann, the “Jewish expert” of the Reich Security Main Office, was invited to speak at the ministerial conference about the practical problems created by the deportations and then requested to work out further details.70 Soon afterward, however, Goebbels discovered that the deportations could not be carried out quickly because the Berlin armaments industry was in urgent need of labor.71 He had to get used to the idea that a significant number of Jews would continue to live in Berlin for quite some time.
On the other hand, on the basis of reports from occupied Poland, Goebbels had acquired a very good idea of what “Jewish policy” really involved at this juncture. He knew that thousands of Polish Jews had been the victims of German murder squads. In March 1941 he felt compelled to do something to prevent the morale of his propaganda experts from being damaged: “I am forbidding our people to view Jewish executions. The person who makes the laws and supervises their implementation should not witness them being actually carried out. That will weaken their mental powers of resistance.”72
THE PROPAGANDA MACHINE DURING THE WAR
The start of the war had brought about several personnel changes in the radio and film branches of the mass media. Shortly before the beginning of the war Goebbels had appointed a new head of the radio department within the Propaganda Ministry in the shape of Alfred-Ingemar Berndt, the previous head of the press department. However, in February 1940 he had to resign after a major dispute with the head of Reich radio and of the Reich Broadcasting Corporation (RRG), Heinrich Glasmeier. His successor was one of the directors of the RRG, Reich Chief of Broadcasting Eugen Hadamovsky, who continued to hold his previous position.73 At the same time, Goebbels reduced Glasmeier’s responsibilities against the latter’s strong opposition, calling him “stubborn as a mule.”74
The new distribution of responsibilities was designed above all to increase the direct influence of the ministry on the radio programs: A new sub-department created by Berndt within the ministry at the start of the war was given the revealing title of Radio Command Center.75 Above all Goebbels was concerned to reduce the number of talk programs, which had increased since the beginning of the war. He demanded a more “relaxed approach and entertainment.”76 In July 1940 the Propaganda Ministry’s ability to control the programming was increased through the introduction of a single program for all German radio stations,77 and now Goebbels pressed even more strongly for more entertainment and dance music.78
The propaganda minister was relieved that the start of the war had brought about an increase in cinema receipts: The number of cinemagoers had increased, and the proportion of foreign films had declined.79 The program alterations necessitated by the war—for example the withdrawal of anticommunist films—had resulted in heavy losses for the film industry, which, however, could be made up for in the production year 1939–40.80 Goebbels streamlined production: In November 1939 he reduced the number of films to be shot each year to around a hundred; in fact, during the production year 1940–41 considera
bly fewer were produced.81 Also in November 1939 he introduced pre-censorship for all films for which he was responsible.82
Goebbels’s main problem, however, was the lack of subject matter for films relevant to the war. On December 11, 1939, while lunching with Hitler, he was obliged to sit through a twenty-minute tirade from the Führer “sharply criticizing the cinema, above all the weekly newsreels.” Rosenberg, who was also present, recorded the details of the occasion. According to Hitler, the cinema was paying no attention to the “national mobilization” that was in progress, the National Socialist revolution had not occurred in cinema. Responding to Goebbels’s objection that there were some “good nationalist films,” Hitler replied, “Our cinema has not dared to touch the Jewish Bolsheviks,” which was rather unjust since they had just withdrawn the anti-Bolshevik films from circulation. Goebbels had been simply reduced to silence in the face of this criticism, made in front of a large number of lunch guests.83
Goebbels himself noted the humiliation in his diary: He considered the criticism to have been “not fully justified.” Naturally he was aware that Hitler had criticized him so publicly “in front of all the officers and adjutants,” but added, in order to swallow his irritation, “he has the right to do so; he’s a genius.”84
In any case, shortly afterward Goebbels began vigorously to demand more propaganda films from the film industry. During the first months of 1940 a large number of such films were conceived, but Goebbels was only partially content with the results.85 He shelved “problem films,” which dealt with marriage crises and the world of work, as well as pure entertainment films, which completely disappeared from cinemas during the campaign in the west.86 He demanded that 50 percent of the total number of films in production should be propaganda films even if it risked incurring financial losses.87
The propaganda films included, in particular, a series of shoddy anti-Semitic films:88 the feature films The Rothschilds89 and Jud Süss90 as well as the compilation film The Eternal Jew. All three films were conceived in autumn 1939 and were shown in cinemas between July and November 1940. Goebbels devoted most of his attention to The Eternal Jew. From October 1939 onward he reviewed the raw film several times—among other things he had had film shot in the Warsaw ghetto—commenting, “These Jews must be annihilated.”91
The film was re-edited several times with Hitler’s views being taken into account in the process.92 As far as the general public was concerned, however, despite the large-scale propaganda for it,93 the film proved a flop. The SD reported that the film, which among other things compared Polish ghettos to rats’ nests, was only seen by the “more politically active sections of the population,” while “typical film audiences” to some extent avoided it; in some places “there was word-of-mouth propaganda against the film and its starkly realistic portrayal of the Jews.”94 By contrast, what was probably the best known of these films, the feature film Jud Süss, was a hit, while The Rothschilds achieved only moderate success with the public.95
The anti-Semitic films initiated a wave of propaganda films arriving in cinemas from the end of 1940 onward.96 Among them were “grand films,” involving historical topics such as Bismarck,97 Ohm Krüger (on which Goebbels himself worked),98 and Carl Peters,99 for example, but also “contemporary” films dealing with people’s individual fates in the context of the war, such as Above Everything in the World100 (about the fate of Germans abroad at the start of the war) or the films Goodbye, Franziska101 and Request Concert,102 in which partings and separation were dealt with. Goebbels was only partially satisfied with the results. In February 1941 he (once again) demanded: “We must film stuff that is true to life, portraying real people.”103
From February 1941 onward he worked on material for a film that was probably prompted by the Führer’s Chancellery in which “euthanasia” was advocated; Goebbels considered it a “real discussion film.”104 After the halt to “euthanasia” in autumn 1941, however, the film I Accuse, directed by Wolfgang Liebeneiner, was shown in cinemas only in a toned-down version.105
Numerous films that celebrated German military successes, such as Stukas, U-Boat Going Westwards, or The Lützow Squadron also came under the category of propaganda film. They arrived in cinemas at a time when preparations for war against the Soviet Union were moving ahead at full steam. They were often initiated and partially produced by the Wehrmacht, and some of them were very much disparaged by Goebbels.106
Apart from having to gear the mass media film and radio for war, during its first months Goebbels made a considerable effort to underline his responsibility for war propaganda. In the meantime, in order to emphasize his central role in this sphere he had developed an important mouthpiece of his own. From the end of May 1940 he regularly published editorials in the prestigious weekly journal Das Reich, published by Deutsche Verlag, which was controlled by Max Amann. Clearly aimed at the German intelligentsia, Das Reich was also intended to make an impact abroad. The fact that Goebbels wrote editorials for it almost every week not only provided him with a useful source of income and satisfied his journalistic ambitions,107 it also provided him with an organ that underlined his claim to dominate the public sphere. From autumn 1941 onward his editorials were read on the radio on a regular basis.108 Goebbels ensured that the Propaganda Ministry gave the journal exclusives, which emphasized its privileged position within the German press.109 By the beginning of July the new journal’s circulation had climbed to almost five hundred thousand copies110 and by December 1940 to almost nine hundred thousand.111
In autumn 1940 German domestic propaganda was showing signs of fatigue. Despite the triumphal successes of the Wehrmacht and various German diplomatic maneuvers, there was no end to the war in sight and the air raids were getting on people’s nerves.112 Goebbels tried to get on top of the rather flat mood and prepare the population for another winter of war with the usual winter propaganda campaign covering the whole of the Reich with a wave of rallies and meetings, which this year was fought under the motto “Our Banners Lead Us on to Victory.”113 As far as press guidance was concerned, however, it was not Goebbels but Dietrich who took the initiative. By introducing the so-called daily official line at the beginning of November, Dietrich tried to concentrate the propaganda lines, which during the previous weeks had been somewhat indecisive, and, over the longer term, to secure for himself more influence over the direction of the press. From now on, at the start of the press conference a list of numbered instructions was read out, which contained all the official lines for the press. If other agencies wished to issue instructions to the press, they had to submit them beforehand to the head of the German Press department. Then, at the “official line conference” (Tagesparolenkonferenz), which took place at 11:30, Dietrich, or his Berlin representative, would decide what would be contained in the daily official lines. This new regulation affected Goebbels in particular, who from now on was obliged to coordinate his press instructions more closely with Dietrich. In his diary, however, he portrayed this new regulation as a move against the Foreign Ministry, which, starting immediately, could only “deliver the material” for the daily guidance of the press.114
The relationship with the Foreign Ministry was, as in the past, extremely cool. Goebbels continued to resist the agreement of September 1939 that his ministry should receive liaison officers from the Foreign Ministry. He had also been unable to prevent the Foreign Ministry from sending in February 1940 its own press officers to German foreign missions, although for years the press work there had been carried out by desk officers provided by the Propaganda Ministry.115 When in November 1940 the Foreign Ministry once again established a liaison office in the Charlottenburg radio station, its furniture was forcibly removed by the head of the studio; the Foreign Ministry then tried to reoccupy the rooms with the help of the SS. Goebbels engaged in the negotiations over the question of the responsibility for foreign propaganda, which began again in November 1940, without much enthusiasm.116 He aimed rather gradually to defeat the Forei
gn Ministry by building up his own propaganda agencies.117 He carefully collected negative comments by Hitler about Ribbentrop and his ministry.118
Even if Goebbels sometimes worked together with Dietrich in his conflicts with the Foreign Ministry, he could not prevent the latter from emphasizing his relatively independent position in the press field in a way that was clearly embarrassing for the propaganda minister. In February 1941, for example, Goebbels gave the press a massive scolding. He told the head of the press department, Hans Fritzsche to take steps against the Berliner Börsenzeitung and the Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung since they “contravene my instructions.”119 “At the press conference,” he wrote in his diary, “the journalists are not encouraged to show initiative. There it’s simply a matter of: banned, blocked, undesirable. If this goes on then during the war the nation will fall asleep.”120 It was clear to all those involved who was the target of his criticism.
After Goebbels had expressed strong criticism of the German press at the ministerial conference of February 10 and afterward, among a smaller group, had gone on to upbraid Fritzsche and Karl Bömer,121 at the press conference on the following day the Reich press chief issued a “special commendation” to the German press for its work,122 to which Goebbels objected as an “underhand edict to the press”: “a soft, puffed-up individual, a born mediocrity.”123 These conflicts with Dietrich and Ribbentrop had, however, shown that Goebbels could by no means call himself the unchallenged ruler of the German press.
Thus Goebbels had good grounds to do what he could to consolidate the organization of his propaganda machine and secure it against the influence of competitors. He had still not named a successor to his state secretary, Karl Hanke, who was on leave and in the meantime serving in the Wehrmacht. The most promising candidate was the head of the propaganda department, Leopold Gutterer, to whom, in August 1940, Goebbels subordinated all the ministerial departments involved in specialized functions with the exception of the two departments responsible for press matters, in other words Dietrich’s area of responsibility.124