On May 7, two days before the appearance of this article, Goebbels joined the Reich leaders and Gauleiters whom Hitler had assembled in the Reich Chancellery in order to address them. Hitler argued that, as far as the “intellectual basis of our fight against the Soviet Union” is concerned, “anti-Semitism, as previously cultivated in and propagated by the Party, must once again be at the core of our intellectual confrontation.” Using the example of the Hungarian dictator, Miklós Horthy, who “with his family [has] very strong Jewish connections” and was refusing to support Germany’s persecution of the Jews, Hitler made it clear that in the future he would regard an uncompromising attitude on the “Jewish question” as an essential criterion in assessing the reliability of his allies. Horthy’s soft attitude had strengthened Hitler in his view that “the junk of small states which still exists in Europe must be liquidated as quickly as possible.” Hitler endeavored to drum into the Party leadership the central importance of his Jewish policy: “Given that eastern Bolshevism is nowadays largely led by Jews and the Jews are also prominent in western plutocracies, this must form the starting point for our anti-Semitic propaganda. The Jews must get out of Europe.”37
During these days Goebbels commented with some annoyance on news from the Warsaw Ghetto uprising. On May 1 he noted: “The Jews have actually managed to mount a defense of the ghetto”; during the following days he was equally astonished by the fact that the uprising had “still” not been crushed.38
DEFEAT IN TUNIS
On May 13 the German and Italian forces in North Africa, which had been pushed back to Tunis, capitulated; over a quarter of a million men were captured by the British and the Americans. After the catastrophe of Stalingrad it was the second major defeat of the Wehrmacht within the space of only a few months. This was the turning point of the war.39 Newspaper reports of the “heroic struggle” in Tunisia, of the “struggle to the bitter end” that had been fought there, had prepared German readers for the impending defeat.40
Goebbels tried to console himself with the thought that the German soldiers in Africa had taken part in “an epic struggle that will go down in the annals of German history.” Nevertheless, he had to admit that they were experiencing a “kind of second Stalingrad” in Africa.41 Goebbels prescribed the line to be taken by German propaganda by noting in an article in Das Reich that the losses in Tunis would not impair Germany’s chances of victory.42 His diaries, however, contain passages that cast doubt on such optimism: “Sometimes one has the feeling that we lack the necessary initiative in our conduct of the war. […] It is high time that we—as indeed can be expected—achieved a tangible result in the east.”43
What was above all embarrassing for German propaganda was the fact that, instead of the war hero Rommel going down with flying colors in Tunisia, for the previous few months he had been back in Germany. Goebbels and Hitler decided to inform the German public of this. The press published a two-month-old photograph of Rommel and Hitler, commenting that the field marshal had been recalled in March for health reasons and had been awarded the Knight’s Cross, with its oak leaves, swords, and diamonds, by the Führer. Now he was well again and awaiting new tasks.44
In the middle of May, on top of the military defeats, Germany was faced with a serious domestic political problem. The regime was compelled to announce a reduction in the meat ration. It had long been clear that this step would be necessary, but Hitler had resisted it, a stance that Goebbels had considered a “short-sighted policy,” indeed a “catastrophic policy.”45 On May 9 Goebbels spoke to Hitler about the now unavoidable cut. It was to be “somewhat sweetened” by an increase in the rations for fats, sugar, and bread.46 However, Goebbels was by no means happy with the way in which the press announced the cuts in the middle of the month. They had been “minimized” and as a result had appeared “provocative.”47
At the end of the month Goebbels noted that the Party’s Reich propaganda offices were reporting that the whole nation was “generally in a severe depression.” What was particularly alarming was his discovery that “not only a deterioration in mood but also a collapse in people’s firmness of purpose” was detectable. This was “mainly attributable to the fact that at the moment the nation cannot see a way out of the dilemma. The war has become a great enigma.”48 At the beginning of June the bad mood continued.49 The system of carefully leading and controlling public opinion established by Goebbels was evidently coming up against its limits. The reports indicate that people were expressing their discontent and despair about the war situation in a way that contravened what was officially considered the appropriate “bearing” in public.
In Goebbels’s view the lack of domestic political leadership was one of the main factors contributing to the current crisis and mood of resignation in the Reich.50 At a small evening get-together with Speer, Ley, and Funk he discussed the urgent domestic political problems under the motto of the “Göring crisis.” “Göring is showing a certain lethargy in letting the whole situation pass by him, without trying to resist the decline in his prestige.”51 It was time, he continued, that “the Führer created order and stability here by making a decision of far-reaching importance affecting personnel. But such a decision is probably a long way off.” Joseph Goebbels, in any case, was ready to accept such a decision.
Goebbels tried to calm the serious concerns about the war situation that were emerging on a large scale through an article in Das Reich. He explained that the military conquests of recent years were entirely sufficient to “ensure us an absolutely secure position from which we can move with virtual certainty toward victory.” Without mentioning Stalingrad or Tunis directly he commented that it was in the “nature of such a wide-ranging conduct of the war that it is bound to be vulnerable at the margins, leading to signs of crisis from time to time, which cannot affect the core of our political and military position but produce certain problems, particularly of a psychological nature.”52
THE CONTINUATION OF ANTI-SEMITIC PROPAGANDA
However, as far as propaganda was concerned another avenue seemed to him more promising: to continue and expand the anti-Semitic propaganda campaign initiated in connection with the Katyn incident. On May 12 he carefully studied the propaganda work The Protocols of the Elders of Zion and was pleased to discover that he could make excellent use of it. “If the Zionist protocols aren’t genuine, then they have been invented by a brilliant contemporary critic.” During his midday visit to the Reich Chancellery he spoke to Hitler about the topic. The latter, he noted, did not share his cautious view about their authenticity at all. Hitler considered that the protocols could “claim absolute authenticity. […] No one could describe so brilliantly the pursuit of world domination by the Jews as they have done themselves.”
In any case Goebbels was convinced that he had a trump in his hands with this topic: “As after Stalingrad anti-Bolshevik propaganda, now after Tunis anti-Jewish propaganda forms the core of all our journalism.”53 In the middle of May Berndt presented him with a memorandum with the title “For Boosting Anti-Jewish Propaganda.” Goebbels approved it and gave instructions to republish the “standard anti-Semitic literature” that had become somewhat forgotten.54 He wanted “a few anti-Semitic novels to be written and by respected writers. […] I’m thinking here of [Hans] Fallada, Norbert Jacques, and others.”55 He was aiming to make “anti-Semitism once again the standard topic of our whole propaganda.”
And that is what happened. The German press faithfully implemented the instructions of the Propaganda Ministry, which continually fed it with relevant material.56 From the beginning of May until the beginning of June, in some papers there was at least one anti-Semitic article in almost every issue, in others about half that number.57
At the end of May Goebbels regarded the dissolution of the Comintern as an important victory and as the opportunity for a “new stage in the anti-Bolshevik and anti-Jewish campaign.”58 He carefully noted any signs of an increase in anti-Semitism among the enemy.59 The topic of K
atyn was now used less and less in propaganda,60 being replaced by other anti-Semitic diatribes.
Thus the Propaganda Ministry announced that the bombing of the Möhne and Eder dams on the night of May 16–17 had been prompted by a Jewish scientist;61 the North African territories conquered by the Allies were now being subjected to a Jewish “regime of terror”; the American intention of establishing a World Food Bank was portrayed as a “plan for the Jewish exploitation of the world.”62 Moreover, the German press seized on reports of Allied postwar plans and attacked them as proof of the—Jewish-inspired—intention to “destroy” Germany; in view of this threat the annihilation of the Jews was nothing more than an act of self-defense.63
However, the effect of the anti-Semitic campaign on the population was highly ambivalent, as is clear from the surviving reports on the public mood. Apart from positive reactions it also produced irritation and opposition. On the one hand, there was astonishment and unease about the fact that, in view of the widely known atrocities that it had itself committed, the Nazi regime should now attack the enemy’s conduct of the war as inhumane; on the other, there was concern for the prisoners of war in the Soviet Union, while the idea that in the event of defeat they would themselves become victims of the methods of the Soviet secret police that were being given so much publicity induced a sense of horror.64
Also, the propaganda assertion that the Allied air attacks were the work of Jewish instigators proved at least partly counterproductive, because among some sections of the population it led to undesirable discussions about Jewish persecution and its consequences for people’s own fates. Moreover, in many cases the population rejected the propaganda assertion that “the Jews” were entirely responsible for the war. Goebbels’s anti-Jewish propaganda campaign, in which he threatened that in the event of defeat they would be faced with “Jewish reprisals,” did not, therefore, produce the expected mobilization of the last reserves but rather encouraged skepticism about official policy and a sense of fatalism, as people believed that in view of enemy superiority they would be defenseless in the face of the threatened annihilation. The deep depression among the population that Goebbels detected at the end of May had to a significant extent been caused by the excessive use of anti-Semitism.
On May 18, while he was fully occupied with dealing with the crisis and with anti-Semitic propaganda, Goebbels met his favorite poet, Knut Hamsun, who had arrived in Germany on a visit. The Norwegian poet visited him together with his wife at home in the Göringstrasse.65 Goebbels was “deeply moved,” indeed “shaken” by this meeting with the eighty-four-year-old. Conversation with Hamsun proved extremely difficult because of his deafness; Frau Hamsun “has to translate what I said into Norwegian and then shout it into the ears” of the elderly poet. According to Goebbels, however, Hamsun’s brief comments “radiated the experience of old age and of a rich, varied, and combative life.” Above all Goebbels liked the fact that his “faith in a German victory [was] completely unshaken.”
Five weeks later he received a letter from Hamsun honoring him with his Nobel Prize medal and certificate. Goebbels, “deeply moved by this extraordinarily fine gesture,” wrote Hamsun a thank-you letter in which he described the gift “as an expression of your support for our struggle for a new Europe and a happier humanity.” In this situation he was happy to ignore the fact that ever since it had been awarded to Carl von Ossietzky the Nobel Prize was frowned upon in Germany.66 However, the elderly poet’s visit to the Führer a few weeks later became something of a fiasco, as Goebbels learned from a handful of informants. For “egged on by Norwegian journalists,” as Goebbels assumed, Hamsun dared to pose serious questions about the political future of Norway and to criticize the policies of Reich Commissioner Josef Terboven. It was reported to Goebbels that Hitler had responded impatiently and broken off the conversation. “In future it will be more difficult to introduce ‘lyric and epic poets,’ as he puts it, to the Führer.”67
ANOTHER SPORTPALAST SPEECH
On June 5 Goebbels gave a “major political speech” in the Sportpalast in order to improve what was generally considered to be a bad mood in the country. Originally it had been envisaged that Göring would carry out this task, but the Reich marshal balked at the last minute. Since Hitler’s public speeches were becoming increasingly infrequent—at that point he had only spoken once in 1943, namely for the Heroes Memorial Day on March 2168—Goebbels increasingly had to assume the role of chief orator for the regime.69 Hitler, however, censored the speech himself; to Goebbels’s great regret, a section dealing with Tunis fell victim to this revision as well as a passage in which Goebbels had wanted to make a few points about a future Europe under German leadership.70
Speer spoke first at the mass rally about German success in armaments production. In his speech Goebbels, on the other hand, declaring himself the “son of my West German homeland,” concentrated on the situation in the areas affected by the air war and on the fact that the winter crisis had been overcome.71 Unlike his Sportpalast speech in February, this time he focused not on winning massive applause but on being “realistic,”72 above all as far as the regions affected by the air war were concerned, where people “certainly have no sympathy for the fact that people in Berlin are applauding while in the West the population has to bear the brunt of the bombing.”
The speech concluded with a section on the “Jewish question,” which in terms of “realism” could hardly have been surpassed: “The total exclusion of Jewry from Europe is not a question of morality but a question of the security of states. […] Just as the potato beetle destroys potato fields, indeed has to destroy them, so the Jews destroy states and nations. For that there is only one remedy: radical removal of the threat.”
Goebbels considered his speech to have once again had a marvelous effect; the “psychological crisis of recent weeks” had been completely overcome.73 Abroad too the effect had been “incredibly great,” even in London, where they were “deeply impressed.”74 He paid no attention to the fact that, according to SD reports, at home the speech had also provoked negative responses, for example criticism as to why he had not mentioned “retaliation.”75 Goebbels’s tactics were transparent. After his speech German propaganda began a wave of praise designed to obscure the negative aspects of the popular mood. Thus Goebbels believed that if his speech were to have any negative repercussions they would be very different, namely he feared that the population’s optimism might go too far. But after only a week the mood deteriorated once again, which Goebbels attributed to the declining impact of his speech.76
The entries in Goebbels’s diary show once again how selective he was in his interpretation of the reports on the effects of his propaganda. This applies particularly to his anti-Semitic campaign, which reached its zenith with his diatribe of June 5; he had indeed gone too far. In view of the increasing skepticism that was spreading among the population because of the excessive exploitation of anti-Semitism, the campaign had been gradually toned down from the end of May onward. The negative repercussions were so serious that Goebbels even felt obliged to counter criticism of the campaign from within the Party. In a circular of June 12, 1943, sent to the Gauleiters77 he wrote that after the conclusion of the “Katyn campaign […] various Gaus had referred to the lack of understanding shown by non-Party circles for the breadth and frequency of the coverage given it in the press and on the radio.” Goebbels defended himself by claiming that the frequent repetition of a topic had been “a method proved and tested in the time of struggle”; this was “the only way of drumming it in to large numbers of people.” And he emphasized: “The struggle against Bolshevism and Jewry is at the forefront of our propaganda. It must be carried out on the broadest possible basis.”78 He did not, however, refer to this evident failure of his propaganda in his diaries.
THE CONTINUATION OF THE AIR WAR AGAINST WESTERN GERMANY
The raid on the dams in the middle of May was followed at the end of the month by the next major attack by the RAF.
The raid on Wuppertal on the night of May 29–30, carried out by over seven hundred bombers, resulted, as Goebbels noted, in “a real catastrophe”; around three thousand people died, up until that point the highest number of casualties of any British air raid.79 Barely two weeks later, on the night of June 11–12, the RAF attacked Düsseldorf, once more with more than seven hundred bombers, and over 1,200 people died; on the following night it was Bochum’s turn.80
Responding to the raids on the Rhine-Ruhr district, Goebbels had increasingly begun to focus on the question of evacuating the areas affected by the air war. He drafted an evacuation program, which he got Hitler to approve in the middle of June. He informed the Gauleiters of the details in a circular while inviting them to Berlin on short notice. In this way he initiated a significant increase in his responsibilities in the sphere of civil defense, as had already been suggested to him by Field Marshal Milch in April.81
The Gauleiter meeting in Berlin was entirely devoted to the problems arising from the air war. Speer’s lecture, in which he pointed out that in practice Ruhr production could not be transferred elsewhere, had a sobering effect. They might possibly have to resort to a partial compulsory evacuation, which Goebbels, however, doubted, since he did “not believe that people would leave the area without being forced to do so.”82 The audience was disappointed to learn from Milch that they would have to wait a bit longer for the expected retaliation raids to be launched.
In the evening Goebbels invited the Gauleiters and ministers to his home. He concluded his diary entry by noting that “if I had the authority to play at least a coordinating role in other spheres of domestic policy as I do in the issues arising from the air war, then the general situation of the Reich would be better than is unfortunately the case at the moment. We are suffering from a chronic lack of demarcation of responsibilities. If only the Führer would make some decisions over this! But they affect questions of personnel to such an extent that he finds it difficult to make up his mind to act. But I fear that in the long run he won’t be able to avoid doing so.” But Goebbels knew only too well that to achieve the desired domestic political reforms and to secure the central role that he was seeking would require a further and more far-reaching overall crisis of the regime, which (as was clear from the continuing setbacks) would not be long in coming.
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