Goebbels: A Biography

by Peter Longerich

  As far as the Reich’s cultural propaganda was concerned, from 1941 onward Goebbels carried on a vigorous feud with the Gauleiter of Vienna, Baldur von Schirach. Having at first welcomed his appointment in 1940,81 Goebbels now accused him of pursuing an active cultural policy in Vienna and so of trying to usurp Berlin’s leading role. Thus, during the years 1941–42 Goebbels increasingly determined to place Berlin more at the forefront of the cultural life of the nation and to systematically marginalize Vienna.82

  Goebbels began his demonstrative punishment of Vienna at the end of 1942. Although he traveled to the Austrian capital in December to attend the celebrations of the 150th anniversary of Mozart’s death and gave a speech there,83 the following day at the official state ceremony “the whole affair” seemed to him “so stupid that I considered it better to have my wreath placed by an adjutant.”84 Schirach’s cultural policy was “pubescent, Hitler Youth culture completely unsuitable for the Reich.”85 Shortly afterward he was annoyed that in a speech in December 1941 Schirach had adopted “to some extent the Viennese population’s objections to the old [i.e., pre-1938] Reich and above all to the north Germans.”86 In January 1942 he noted that after “a long struggle” he had at last succeeded in securing the production of propaganda films of Berlin so that “a true and effective propaganda for Berlin can counterbalance the excessive glorification of Vienna, which happens in the production of feature films as well.”87

  During his next trip to Vienna in March 1942, while impressed by the cultural life of the city,88 he was strengthened in his view that, as the capital of the Reich, Berlin must continue “to fulfill its cultural mission.”89 In May 1942 he ordered the press “to play down Vienna’s cultural ambitions somewhat.”90

  He was encouraged in his efforts by the fact that Hitler kept emphasizing to him the need to marginalize Vienna culturally.91 That Hitler had his own axe to grind emerged very clearly during these conversations when he justified his antipathy to Vienna by saying that the city had neglected its great artists so much that they had been forced to live in poverty.92 During these conversations Hitler kept returning to his far-reaching plans for Linz,93 which was to replace Budapest as the most beautiful city on the Danube94 and so “be a major competitor” to Vienna.95 Goebbels’s plan to establish a center near Linz to foster the works of Hitler’s favorite composer, Bruckner, including the formation of a first-class orchestra, held particular appeal for the dictator.96

  During his conversations about Hitler’s favorite topic of Linz versus Vienna, Goebbels attempted to systematically undermine Schirach’s reputation with the Führer.97 “His attitude toward Vienna,” he noted in November 1941, “is particularly useful to me in my current dispute with von Schirach about cultural policy.”98 And in August 1942 he was content to note that Hitler now “recognizes the problems that have developed because of Schirach’s intellectual failure in dealing with Viennese artistic and cultural affairs and is going to give me substantial support in coping with these problems.”99 Thus Goebbels understood how to exploit for his own purposes these nighttime chats with the dictator in which, exhausted by his efforts in running the war, Hitler fantasized about his cultural plans for the postwar era.

  CHAPTER 25

  “Do You Want Total War?”

  The Second Winter Crisis

  Credit 25.1

  Following Goebbels’s instructions, the Sportpalast, the Nazi movement’s “battleground” as he called it, is filled with “true old Party comrades” during a “plebiscite” for total war there, February 18, 1943.

  During Goebbels’s visit to Führer headquarters on August 19, 1942, Hitler appeared extremely optimistic: He not only wanted to advance as far as Krasny and Baku during the summer and autumn in order to secure German oil supplies, but in addition he intended “to push forward to the Near East, occupy Asia Minor, take Iraq, Iran, Palestine by surprise and thereby, given the loss of its East Asian sources, cut off Britain’s remaining oil supply.” Meanwhile, he already envisaged Rommel “advancing to Cairo.” On this occasion he also opposed taking any propaganda initiatives “to counter the increasing optimism of the German people,” which had been disturbing Goebbels for some weeks.1 Contrary to Goebbels, Hitler took the view that “it will balance itself out on its own.” During the coming weeks this differing assessment of the situation was to cause considerable irritation for those in charge of propaganda.

  The Battle of Stalingrad began at the end of August 1942. German forces reached the outskirts of Stalingrad and during the following weeks fought their way street by street and house by house toward the Volga, where by the end the Red Army held only a small strip of land.2 Goebbels was clear about the fact that “to a large extent the fate of this year’s summer and autumn offensive” depended on the city.3 In this critical situation Goebbels was concerned above all to pursue a course whereby excessive expectations of victory were avoided and the population was gradually geared to accepting another winter at war.

  In the middle of September it looked as though the fall of Stalingrad was imminent. At the ministerial briefing on September 15, as a precaution, Goebbels was already issuing instructions on how the special announcements about the capture of the city were to be delivered.4

  At the same time, Dietrich went one step further: Evidently caught up in the very optimistic mood at Führer headquarters, he issued an announcement that the “struggle for Stalingrad” was nearing “its successful conclusion.” “Important announcements by OKW” on this were to be expected on the same day or the day after. The press was advised to prepare special editions, a recommendation that some papers did indeed follow.5

  On the same day, however, Goebbels advised Führer’s headquarters not to make such a premature announcement,6 and on the following day the press was informed that several “limited operations” had to be carried out before the final announcement of victory could be made.7 During the following days Goebbels kept warning those attending the ministerial briefing to be cautious in their comments on the topic of Stalingrad.8 Thus, on September 26 he referred once again to Dietrich’s premature announcement, which he called “incredible and stupid.”9 On the same day he took Dietrich to task, criticizing his “incompetent news policy” while at the same time complaining to the Wehrmacht High Command about the, in his view, inappropriate way they were releasing information.10 Evidently he used the incident to put Dietrich, whose self-confidence had considerably increased as a result of their agreement, in his place.11 For this reason, a few days later he brought the dispute to the attention of Hitler, who agreed with him, albeit in general terms, that “it was inconceivable to have a Propaganda Ministry without uniform control of the press.”12

  DISILLUSIONMENT

  On September 30 Hitler spoke for the first time in more than five months, once again at a large public rally broadcast over the radio. Celebrating the opening of the Winter Aid program at the Sportpalast he praised the regime’s successes and appeared confident of victory without, however, referring in detail to the situation in Stalingrad, which was being watched with general concern. Goebbels noted with relief that Hitler had been prepared to take on the speech on short notice. During the summer rumors about his state of health had begun to spread because of his absence from the media.13 On the following day Goebbels took part in a meeting of Reich leaders and Gauleiters at which Hitler made a three-hour speech in order to convince this small group of elite functionaries of his own confidence in victory; the alternative to “total victory” was “total destruction.”14 The aims of this war, Hitler concluded, were very wide-ranging and would require many more sacrifices; however, these would be justified since the war “would make possible the lives of millions of German children.”15

  In the middle of October Goebbels published an article in Das Reich in which, along the same lines as Hitler’s remarks, rather than focusing on ideological differences he commented in a relatively pragmatic way on the “war aims” for which this continuing conflict was being fough
t: “This time it’s not about throne and altar but about grain and oil, about space for our growing numbers, who cannot live and cannot be fed in the restricted territory in which they have had to stay up until now.”16 The relatively cautious tone of this article indicated that Goebbels was intending to introduce a reorientation affecting not only propaganda but the whole of domestic policy. Winter was coming, and Goebbels saw the opportunity to press once again for a tougher line to be taken in the civilian war effort, and he met with a very positive response in his conversations with leading members of the Party and the Wehrmacht.17

  In October he determined to use the coming winter with its anticipated difficulties to move more and more toward “a total and radical way of conducting the war both domestically and abroad.”18 That the October reports on the public mood were now once again showing an awareness of the seriousness of the war situation—after a series of speeches by prominent figures earlier reports had temporarily revealed what he regarded as dangerous illusions19—was considered by Goebbels to be “a remarkable success for the new form of propaganda that I introduced a year ago with my article ‘When or How?’ ”20 To set the scene for the campaign he was planning at the beginning of November, he published an editorial in Das Reich with the title “War as Social Revolution,” in which he emphasized how different the Germans were from “their plutocratic enemy,” which was fighting the war in the first instance “against our revolution and particularly against its socialist aspect.”21

  He was concerned that Hitler was becoming largely isolated in his headquarters as a result of his tense relations with his generals and so was becoming increasingly lonely.22 But the dictator’s physical condition was also giving cause for concern. When, on October 29, Goebbels received a personal letter from Hitler on the occasion of his birthday—the “first handwritten letter by the Führer for three years,” as Bormann assured him—he read that Hitler hoped that he could decipher his handwriting because his hands were “gradually beginning to shake.”23 Hitler’s increasing physical frailty was a growing problem in terms of the deployment of the Führer for propaganda purposes. Thus Goebbels was obliged to note that Hitler “is very unwilling to appear in the weekly newsreels” and kept removing clips in which he was shown, but the people did not understand this.24 In October 1942 there was a danger that the most important weapon in the propaganda minister’s arsenal was no longer going to be usable—this at a time when the regime was confronting its greatest military crisis yet.

  VISIBLE SIGNS OF A TURN IN THE WAR

  In October 1942 the 6th Army continued to fight its way through the city of Stalingrad toward the banks of the Volga. Toward the end of the month, however, the German offensive began to lose momentum.25 More serious were the negative reports arriving simultaneously from North Africa. At the end of October the British army launched a counteroffensive against Rommel near El Alamein26 and on November 2 achieved a breakthrough. Some of Rommel’s forces were surrounded and destroyed; the majority had to retreat to the west.27

  It was high time that Goebbels prepared the German population for another winter crisis. At the beginning of November he published an editorial in Das Reich in which he developed two central ideas. On the one hand, he came back to a notion that had already preoccupied him during 1941 and that he had used in an editorial written for January 30, 1942, and on other occasions.28 Once again he drew a parallel between the Party’s position in the months before the “seizure of power” on January 30, 1933, and the current situation. At that time, as now, they had also been involved in a struggle with the alliance between “plutocrats and communists.” Although the situation had sometimes seemed hopeless, they had kept their nerve and finally won.29 Goebbels kept returning to this line of thought during the future crises that the war had in store. He did so both in public statements30 and above all in conversations with Hitler,31 whom he tried to encourage in this way, while at the same time reminding him that in those days he, Joseph Goebbels, had been loyal to his Führer.

  The article contained a second idea that Goebbels, no doubt intentionally, preceded with a ceterum censeo: “Apart from that, we believe that in future our enemies should spend less time talking about our mood [Stimmung] and more about our bearing [Haltung]. Mood is usually a temporary phenomenon, whereas bearing is something that lasts.”

  This distinction between “mood” and “bearing” introduced by Goebbels undoubtedly made sense semantically. In view of the harsh conditions of the war, “mood” had frivolous connotations; “bearing” seemed somehow more appropriate to the situation. By distinguishing between them, Goebbels was marking a change of course, which he had been introducing in stages since the beginning of the war. Up until 1940, the year in which the regime achieved its greatest successes, he had pursued a policy that had helped to ensure that the population’s approval of the policies of Party and state had been expressed in numerous collective gestures that were publicly documented. However, the days in which the regime could mobilize millions of people in order to carry out pompous parades or to cheer triumphant entries by the Führer or the reception of friendly heads of state had been over for at least two years. Mass events now tended to be held indoors in halls; on the occasion of major Nazi public holidays there were no elaborate street decorations or calls for everyone to put out flags. The more the war penetrated everyday life, the more the regime avoided documenting the population’s support for the regime through grandiose gestures and behavior. Now it sufficed if the population went about its daily activities and performed its duties without grumbling or becoming apathetic. That showed a good bearing (Haltung).

  By distinguishing between mood and bearing Goebbels also possessed an instrument with which to counter increasingly annoying references to negative tendencies within the population. If bearing and not mood was the decisive criterion, then it could be considered defeatist to refer to mere fluctuations in mood in order to justify particular political measures. Phases in which, as was now frequently the case, the mood was described as “calm,” “composed,” “serious,” could be maintained over a lengthy period, whereas an excessively optimistic mood was not at all appropriate for the seriousness of the situation.

  On November 8, as every year, the Nazi leadership met in Munich to commemorate the anniversary of the failed 1923 putsch. Their conversations were dominated by the dramatic developments on the Egyptian front, when suddenly an entirely new situation emerged: British and American forces had landed at various points on the Moroccan and Algerian coasts.32 Goebbels met Hitler, who three days earlier had been convinced after Montgomery’s breakthrough that Egypt would be regarded as the real “second front” and was now rather baffled.33 Would the Vichy government be in a position, or be willing, to get the French troops in their North African colonies to resist? Hitler was waiting for a reply from the Vichy government, to which he had offered a military alliance against the Allies.34 Goebbels was already contemplating the prospects for an effective European propaganda initiative offered by such a step. He was dreaming of a “Charter for the Reordering of Europe,” although he conceded that such prospects were “too attractive” to be achieved in reality. Finally, Hitler stated that he was willing to dispense with a formal declaration of war by Vichy, provided the French troops offered military resistance. If they did not do this, then he would occupy the unoccupied part of France “in the shortest time.” In his speech that evening in the Löwenbräukeller, which was broadcast on the radio, he gave the “old fighters” from the Party the impression that he was confident of victory but made only a brief mention of the situation in North Africa.35

  During the night of November 9–10—the usual celebrations of the 1923 putsch had taken place during the day—the French prime minister, Pierre Laval, arrived in Munich to discuss the new situation with the Nazi leadership; it was becoming clear that the French resistance in North Africa was at most symbolic.36 Hitler retaliated in the way that he had already announced. The German invasion of the hitherto
unoccupied part of France began on November 11 and after three days was essentially concluded.37

  While the German forces in the west of the African theater tried to build a new bridgehead38 and, as Goebbels dramatically put it, were in a race with the American army to Tunis,39 at the same time in the east Rommel was marching rapidly toward the Tunisian border; they had been forced to give up Tobruk on November 13.40 Goebbels learned from the SD report that the events in North Africa had “deeply shocked the German public.”41 In fact they were to initiate the turn in the war.

  In the middle of November Goebbels once again made a trip to western areas affected by bombing. He inspected the damage in Duisburg, where he was informed about the situation by the local authorities and spoke to representatives of the Gau agencies and the state authorities. He then visited Elberfeld where, during his visit to the town hall, the “streets [were] packed with masses of people. […] A triumphal journey like in peacetime.” In his speech he thanked the people of Elberfeld, describing their damaged city as a “West wall of German fighting spirit.”42

  Goebbels’s private arrangements for this trip were in marked contrast to this heroic spirit. He stayed in the Rheydt Schloss, which “has been made exceptionally comfortable for our stay.” He had invited “a few old schoolfriends” for the evening, among them Beines and Grünewald, but also a senior teacher, Voss. “We sat together until late in the evening, telling stories and exchanging memories.” On the afternoon of the following day he gave theater fans in his hometown a special treat: “On my instructions,” as he noted, there was a guest performance in the city theater by the Berlin Schiller Theater with Heinrich George and other famous actors. In the evening he again invited some of the theater people and “various acquaintances and friends from my school days” to the Rheydt Schloss.43 Even after ten years as propaganda minister his need to show off on his home turf was still unsatisfied.