Goebbels used this opportunity to put forward his own agenda. “From the depths of our nation we are hearing the cry for total commitment to the war effort in the broadest sense of the word,” he proclaimed to the Sportpalast audience.92 Goebbels considered that his speech had had an “enormous” effect. He regarded the “waves of applause” and the “enthusiastic interruptions” as a plebiscite for his demands for “total war.” “So I’m not only not too radical in my views on total war, in the people’s eyes I’m not radical enough. Now there’s no limit to what we can do to move things along.” He was particularly impressed that “within five minutes” a few of the top Nazi functionaries in the hall, including Hierl, Ley, and Himmler, were “at one with the rest of the audience.” The final part of the rally reminded him of the best days of the “time of struggle”—that is, pre-1933. That night, Hitler, who had heard the speech on the radio, called to applaud his propaganda minister’s success.93
Goebbels learned from the reports on the public mood that his speech had relieved the negative mood to a considerable extent. “Above all, the huge applause that followed my announcement of radical and total measures has caused quite a stir.”94 According to these reports the people wanted “total war […] as quickly as possible,” for it was the case that “they considered the measures taken hitherto as too weak, that trust in the leadership, even in the Führer himself, had been shaken because the conclusions that should have been drawn from the setbacks that have happened have not in fact been drawn.”95
In Goebbels’s view Hitler’s silence in the face of the crisis—his last radio broadcast was in November—was having far-reaching consequences. The political system of the “Führer state” depended on producing continuing public support for the dictator’s policies. If he stayed out of sight for several months, then the system lost its cornerstone and must inevitably be coasting. There was a dearth of opportunities to organize the usual public demonstrations of mass support for Hitler’s policies, and the lack of publicly documented support was inevitably going to be perceived by those reporting on the public mood in terms of a leadership crisis. For the Führer state to be maintained in the absence of the Führer was going to require extraordinary efforts.
THE DEFEAT AT STALINGRAD: GOEBBELS’S CHANCE
After Goebbels’s conversation with Hitler on January 22, propaganda had begun to prepare the population to receive the news of the catastrophe engulfing the 6th Army. During the last week in January, for example, the Völkischer Beobachter daily carried headlines about the “heroic” resistance in Stalingrad, which would be to the “immortal honor” of the 6th Army.96 The southern sector of the pocket that had now been cut in half surrendered on January 31, and two days later resistance ceased in the northern sector.97 Goebbels regarded the fact that the commander of the 6th Army, General Friedrich Paulus, who had been promoted to field marshal on January 31, was taken prisoner, together with some other generals, as “deeply regrettable”; he had assumed, as indeed had Hitler, that, in view of the defeat, Paulus had “no alternative but an honorable soldier’s death.”98
From the beginning of February Goebbels had been preoccupied with the special announcement of the fall of Stalingrad. He decided on a tone that should be “kept very realistic, very matter-of-fact, and entirely unemotional.” He managed to persuade Hitler to have only three days of remembrance instead of the seven originally planned.99 On February 3, at four o’clock in the afternoon, the radio announced the fall of the city. The announcement had “a kind of shock effect on the German people,” according to Goebbels.100
An editorial written by him on the same day established the line that was to be taken in the propaganda campaign that followed. The aim was to relieve the nation’s depression through the measures for “total war” that he had been preparing during the preceding weeks. The people know “the hard reality and are now enthusiastically demanding that equally tough conclusions should be drawn from it. […] In one word: Total war in all areas is the order of the day.”101
On February 5 and 6, directly after the fall of the city, he took part in a meeting of Gauleiters in Posen, where his talk on “the issues involved in the conduct of total war was received with unreserved approval and unanimous applause.”102 Whereas Goebbels approved of the speeches of Speer, Funk, and the head of agriculture, Herbert Backe, he objected to Sauckel’s talk, not only for being boring but also for failing to provide any advice for the Gauleiters. In fact Sauckel had made clear that the priority for labor mobilization continued to lie with the recruitment of foreign labor, whereas the reserves of female labor had been largely exhausted and they would have to show maximum consideration when it came to recruiting further women.103 In fact the majority of Gauleiters supported this line of not expecting too much from the home front rather than Goebbels’s radicalism. Thus when Sauckel had finished Goebbels felt obliged to return to the podium “to make up for what had been left out.”
On the afternoon of February 7 the Gau and Reich leaders gathered in the Führer’s headquarters to listen to a speech by Hitler about the current situation that was almost two hours long.104 Hitler pointed out to his old comrades that they must now use “the means and the methods with which we used to master Party crises in the old days.” He blamed their allies, the Romanians, the Italians, and the Hungarians, for the catastrophe in the east. He admitted, however, they had not had “a clear idea of the numbers of people involved in the east.” “The problem,” Goebbels noted later, was that “the Bolsheviks had mobilized their people’s energies far more than we did.” This comparison was of course grist to his mill.
Hitler did not forget to emphasize an important “enemy advantage”: “The Jews operate in all the enemy states as a driving force, and we have nothing comparable with which to counter it. This means that we must eliminate the Jews not only from Reich territory but from the whole of Europe.” And Goebbels noted: “Here too the Führer adopts my point of view that Berlin must come first and that in the foreseeable future not a single Jew shall be permitted to remain in Berlin.”
THE SPORTPALAST SPEECH
In the middle of February Goebbels complained to Bormann105 and to the Reich Chancellery that the “so-called Committee of Three” was making decisions in which he had not been involved. Since, however, the relevant Führer decree did not envisage his participation in measures taken by the Committee of Three, his complaint fell on deaf ears, and in the end he decided against making a direct appeal to Hitler.106
This made him all the more determined to mobilize “public opinion” for the implementation of his demand for “total war.” On February 9 he had already noted that the “inadequate legal bases” for “total war […] can be replaced only by the Party adopting a sort of terrorist approach, which will enable us to deal with those who have hitherto tried in some way to avoid taking part in the war.” He was strengthened in this view by his interpretation of the reports he was receiving on the public mood.107 The worse the reports from the Eastern Front, the more “vigorously the broad masses are asking for the adoption of total war”;108 indeed, they were now demanding “urgently from the government the introduction not of total but of the most total war. I have been increasingly recognized as the spiritus rector of this movement.”109
The entry for February 13 in Goebbels’s diary contains the first reference to his plan for a speech, which he had scheduled for the 18th. According to Goebbels, in view of the “measures necessary for total war,” it was vital to continue to agitate and press on with it and “for this purpose I am organizing […] a new mass rally in the Sportpalast, which once again I’m going to fill with real old Party comrades.” As many prominent people as possible were to be invited so that they would experience a rally, which “in its radicalism will surpass anything that has gone before.”
“This meeting [will] once again be broadcast on all radio stations in order to put pressure on public opinion in the individual Gaus, so that if any Gauleiter has hitherto resisted im
plementing a tough measure, he will perhaps now feel obliged to make up for it.” Two days later, describing his own role in relation to this speech, he stated that he was “still the driving force, and I shall go on making use of the whip until I’ve woken up the lazy sleepers.”110 Hitler’s public silence had created a vacuum, which the propaganda minister was now entering with a vengeance.
On the day of the rally the press was instructed to publish “impressions of the mood” of the meeting that “express the fighting spirit of the whole German nation.” Particular emphasis should be given to “the two central points of the speech […], first, the theme of anti-Bolshevism and secondly the theme of the commitment to total war.” The “greatest emphasis, however, should be given to the ten questions that Dr. Goebbels will ask the German people.”111 They could use “the language of the time of struggle.”112
On February 18 Goebbels finally made his speech on “total war,” which is generally regarded as his most important and at the same time his most repulsive rhetorical performance. He had intentionally chosen the Sportpalast, the Nazi Party’s preferred venue for its mass rallies since the end of the 1920s. This sports arena was considered to be the traditional “battleground” of the Berlin Nazis, who had used the particular aura of this popular venue, where usually it was six-day races and ice hockey and boxing matches that aroused the emotions of the masses, for their political rallies. This time too the hall was decorated with large swastika flags; at the front of the hall hung a huge banner with the motto of the evening: “Total War—Shortest War.”
The central message of Goebbels’s speech of February 18 was that only the Wehrmacht and the German people were in a position to stop the Bolshevik onslaught, but that they must act “quickly and thoroughly.”113 Once again the speech contained a tough anti-Semitic passage, which was intended to make it clear against whom the “total war” was in essence directed: “We see in Jewry an immediate danger for every nation. […] Germany, in any case, does not intend to submit to this threat but instead to oppose it in a timely manner and if necessary with the most radical countermeasures.” Total war, Goebbels continued, “is the order of the day. We must put an end to the bourgeois scruples of people, who even in this fight for our existence want to operate on the principle of: ‘make me an omelette, but don’t break any eggs.’ ”
Goebbels referred to his speech of January 30 and to the “gales of applause” that had greeted his announcement of total war: “So I can say that the leadership’s actions have the complete support of the whole of the German nation, both at home and at the front. […] So it’s now time to get those who are not pulling their weight to buck up.” To document this consensus Goebbels simply declared his audience to be a representative “sample of the whole German nation,” which now collectively—“as part of the people”—had assembled to carry out a plebiscite for total war.
The high point of his speech consisted of the ten questions, to which the audience responded with waves of applause and which had everything: ecstatic professions of faith, a demonstration of determination and loyalty, as well as enthusiastic personal commitment. This inclusion of the audience, which replied to the speaker each time like a chorus, is certainly reminiscent of liturgical forms. The number of questions and the phrase with which Goebbels introduced each question, “I ask you,” must have aroused biblical associations.114 The following provides a sample: “Are you determined to follow the Führer through thick and thin in the struggle for victory and to put up with even the heaviest burdens? […] Do you want total war? If necessary, do you want it to be more total and more radical than we can imagine it today? […] Do you swear a solemn oath to the fighting front that the country is behind it with its morale high and that it will give everything necessary to achieve victory?” While in previous years he had carefully avoided such religious associations, now, with the regime in it up to its neck, it seemed to him once again appropriate to use religious imagery, albeit in judicious doses.115
When Goebbels posed the question as to whether they trusted the Führer, he received the longest applause of all. The Völkischer Beobachter’s reporter had already used so many superlatives in describing the audience’s enthusiasm that evening that he had difficulty in finding a way of doing justice to the applause that followed it: “The crowd rises as one. They erupt in an unprecedented storm of applause. The hall echoes to the sound of tens of thousands of people chanting: ‘Führer command us; we’ll follow!,’ a never-ending wave of shouts of Heil to the Führer.”
Goebbels described his impressions of the meeting as follows: “The audience is composed of all sections of the nation, from the government at the top to the unknown munitions worker.” He seems to have forgotten that he himself had ordered a mass rally with old Party comrades. “My speech makes a very deep impression. From the start it was continually interrupted with terrific applause. […] The Sportpalast has never seen such turbulent scenes as when at the end I put my ten questions to the audience. The response was massive approval.”116
Magda, who to his delight had just decided to begin war work in the Telefunken plant (in fact this plan came to nothing because she had a hospital stay lasting several weeks),117 was in the audience, as were his daughters Helge and Hilde, who were attending such a mass rally for the first time: “It made a strong impression on Helga, in particular, even though she didn’t understand everything I said in my speech. I’m pleased that our children are already being introduced to politics at such a young age.”
In the evening he entertained some prominent figures, including Luftwaffe field marshal Erhard Milch; Speer; Stuckart; the future Reich minister of justice, Otto Thierack; and many others: “During the evening many people were saying that this meeting represented a sort of quiet coup. […] Total war is now no longer a matter for a few perceptive men; it’s now supported by the whole nation.”
His response to the reactions to his speech at home and abroad was typically over the top:118 “During the whole war there surely hasn’t been a speech made in Germany that has been quoted and commented on so much throughout the world as this Sportpalast speech of February 18.”119 And finally, there was news from the Führer: “He describes this speech as a psychological and propaganda masterpiece of the first order.”120
The only thing he was annoyed about was the SD report, which, in his view, was simply interested in taking note of “all those who were grumbling” and which did not fit in with the “get up and go” mood that he had wanted to create.121 In fact, during this period, as in December,122 Goebbels was thoroughly discontented with the SD reporting: “Grumbling by groups that are permanently discontented” was falsely being portrayed as “the opinion of the German people.”123 A few days later, however, he was revising his opinion: “The new SD report is entirely focused on my Sportpalast speech, stating that it has made a very deep impression on the German public.”124 However, a perusal of the reports of February 24, 1943, which formed the basis for his self-praise, presents a more mixed picture of the speech’s impact. In particular, large numbers of people were all too aware of “the propaganda motive” of the ten questions he had posed.125
The discontent within the Propaganda Ministry, however, was directed not only at the SD reports. A few days later the ministry sent a circular to the Party’s Reich propaganda offices complaining about the fact that recently reports had been submitted “in which for no good reason or on the basis of insignificant incidents conclusions have been drawn about the poor morale of certain groups. It would be better to deal with these matters yourselves using the methods of the time of struggle rather than reporting them to us.”126
The proclamation issued by Hitler in Munich on February 24 on the occasion of the anniversary of the Party’s foundation—Goebbels, pleading the excuse of flu, remained in Berlin127—was “very much along the lines of my Sportpalast speech,” Goebbels noted with satisfaction. “So there’s no danger that I might in some way be repudiated.” It was always best to crea
te a “fait accompli.” “If the nation comes to terms with these facts, then that means we’ve achieved our goal.”128 A few days later, however, he learned from Ley that “there have been complaints about my Sportpalast speech from various people in Munich”; Goebbels concluded that the critics had been “consumed with envy.”129
THE COMMITTEE OF THREE: TOTAL WAR ON THE CHEAP
In the meantime Goebbels had been becoming more involved in the work of the Committee of Three. In February and March it dealt, among other things, with the standardization of wage reductions and the simplification of taxes, with cuts to universities and various administrative reforms, including restrictions on the appointment and promotion of civil servants.130
During the committee’s sessions Goebbels took on the role of activist and hard-liner. On February 27 he demanded from the representatives of the Wehrmacht “more energetic measures” in order to achieve the recruitment figures that had been envisaged and told Keitel, when he tried to respond, how much his agencies were “in need of reform.” During the discussion of cuts to the universities on March 16, he pointed out that “the daughters of wealthy families are studying in order to avoid labor service.” At the same session, during the discussion of a decree against the sabotaging of total war measures, he demanded that the death penalty be introduced for the most serious offenders.131
In several instances, however, it can be shown that Goebbels played up his role in the sessions in his diary entries and exaggerated the “successes” that he claimed. Although he acted as the vigorous proponent of a radical course in the committee, many of the changes that he sought or believed to have pushed through were simply not implemented, or only to a very limited extent.
Goebbels: A Biography Page 68