On August 9, on a visit to Führer’s headquarters Goebbels learned further details about the situation in Italy. During the course of the conversation Hitler announced that he had no intention of “surrendering [Italy] as a battle zone.” He even wanted to defend Sicily for as long as possible against the superior Allied forces. Goebbels learned that Hitler regarded Badoglio as “nothing but a traitor.” The official explanation for Mussolini’s resignation was completely implausible. Hitler then informed Goebbels “in absolute confidence” that he wanted to arrest the king, “take Badoglio and all his gang into custody, liberate Il Duce, and then give him and Fascism the opportunity of once more climbing into the saddle and establishing a solid regime.”165
During the further course of the conversation Goebbels made several suggestions for far-reaching changes of personnel. Wilhelm Frick, who was “too old and worn out,” should be replaced by Wilhelm Stuckart as interior minister and Himmler as police minister. Furthermore, the education minister, Bernhard Rust, should be dismissed and the labor minister, Franz Seldte (“the old slacker”) be replaced by Robert Ley, the head of the German Labor Front. Hitler was “somewhat taken aback” by these “categorical suggestions,” but in general accepted them in a good spirit. On this occasion Goebbels asked Hitler “whom the Führer would replace me with if I was no longer there.” According to Goebbels, the Führer replied that “I was a unique phenomenon of National Socialism, who would be completely irreplaceable”; he did not know “anyone who could take over a fraction of the responsibility that I am now having to carry.” Goebbels was “naturally very proud of this assessment,” although he would have wanted “the organization in which I am working to remain after my own work has finished.” Hitler agreed in principle. Although Goebbels was glad that the offices which he had accumulated over the course of time would remain together over the longer term, he was also concerned, as is clear from his diaries, that a weaker successor would not in fact be able to hold these offices together. In his view his “uniqueness,” which Hitler had once again confirmed to him, made the question of a suitable successor a problem that was virtually insoluble.166
In the middle of August the Wehrmacht’s situation in Sicily had become so precarious that the troops had to be evacuated over the Strait of Messina. It was successful in transporting over one hundred thousand German and Italian troops with much of their heavy equipment onto the Italian mainland within a week.167
In the east the Soviet offensive was continuing. A Red Army spearhead deployed against Army Group Center in the Smolensk area succeeded in conquering Spas-Demensk; on August 23 Kharkov was lost to the Red Army’s southern offensive. In his assessments of the military situation on the Eastern Front, Goebbels’s comments during these weeks alternated between being quite pessimistic and cautiously optimistic. As far as his propaganda instructions went, he recommended “muted optimism.”168
Thus it is clear that in the meantime Goebbels had acquired serious doubts about whether the war could still be won by military means. In recent months there had been an uninterrupted series of defeats and setbacks. He had given up the attempt at “total” mobilization, and his efforts to mobilize the last reserves of the German population through the propaganda motif of an allegedly lethal Jewish threat had failed. He lacked any other promising propaganda themes. The “political solution” to the war was indeed the only way out, and during the coming months he was to pursue this more vigorously.
CHAPTER 27
“I Have No Idea What the Führer’s Going to Do in the End”
The Search for a Way Out
Credit 27.1
A public display of confidence in victory: The propaganda minister receives a group of soldiers from the Cherkasy pocket on March 1, 1944, among them soldiers of the Waffen-SS and the army. From the summer of 1943 onward, Goebbels recognized that Germany could no longer win the war militarily and began to raise with Hitler the possibility of making a separate peace.
On September 3, 1943, British troops landed in Calabria.1 At first Hitler believed the operation was a diversion and that the real invasion was still to come and would be in western Europe.2 On September 9 Goebbels noted a “sensational development” that he had learned about the previous day: Badolgio’s signing of the armistice, which had happened on September 3 and initially had been kept secret. On the same evening Goebbels was summoned by Hitler to his east Prussian headquarters.
When he arrived in the Wolf’s Lair the following morning, he learned that the measures that had been prepared since July for the eventuality of an Italian defection had already been set in motion the previous evening. German troops had moved into north and central Italy as well as into the Italian-occupied territories in Croatia, Greece, and southern France, disarming their former allies. On September 10 a German paratroop division managed to occupy Rome.3 On the other hand, on the early morning of September 9 American and British forces had begun to land at Salerno with the aim of taking Naples.4
In view of the situation in the Mediterranean but also on the Eastern Front, Goebbels now decided—as far as can be seen it was his first initiative in this direction—to speak to Hitler about the possibility of ending the war through a political solution. He asked bluntly “whether in the short or the long term something could be arranged with Stalin.” Hitler’s response was negative, in view of the current military situation: “Hitler thinks it’s more likely something could be done with the English than with the Soviets.” Hitler believed that with the permanent seizure of Sicily, Calabria, Sardinia, and Corsica, Britain had already achieved important war aims and would then “possibly be more open to an arrangement.” Goebbels had a different view: “I tend rather to think that Stalin is more approachable, for Stalin is more of an adherent of Realpolitik than Churchill.”
Once again Goebbels “strongly” advocated that Hitler should speak to the German people and Hitler finally agreed, although he would have preferred to wait until the situation in Italy had been sorted out. On the following day both of them read through the speech that had been drafted in the meantime, essentially dealing with the situation after Italy’s defection, and it was then broadcast that evening,5 the first radio address by the dictator in almost six months.
However, as Goebbels well knew, a speech by the dictator was hardly sufficient to repair the damage that had already been done to the Führer’s image. And, what was worse from Goebbels’s point of view, he was not in a position to offer any propaganda alternatives. The military situation and the air raids were depressing; the campaigns with whose help he had tried, in view of the threat of defeat, to mobilize the last reserves of energy, namely “total war” and Katyn, had failed and the preconditions were lacking for a massive propaganda campaign promising retaliation.
On the evening of September 12 Goebbels learned that in a spectacular operation German commandos had succeeded in freeing Mussolini from the mountain hotel on the Gran Sasso where he had been interned by the Badoglio government. He regarded the new situation with a certain amount of skepticism, however. “So long as Il Duce was not there we had the opportunity of creating a tabula rasa in Italy. […] I had thought that, quite apart from South Tyrol, we might possibly have extended our frontier to the Veneto. If Il Duce once again takes on a political function that will hardly be possible [any longer].”6
Two days later Mussolini met Hitler in his headquarters. “It is a scene that represents a moving example of loyalty among men and between comrades,” commented Goebbels.7 But secretly he continued to fear that this male friendship, so impressively demonstrated, could give rise to new difficulties.
In the meantime, the situation around the bridgehead at Salerno had changed completely in favor of the Allies. A German counterattack, from which Goebbels and German propaganda had been expecting great things,8 had collapsed after only a few days.9 Goebbels blamed the military’s information policy for the fact that propaganda had been too optimistic about Germany’s chances of success in the Salerno are
a.10 “Now the enemy propaganda mob are attacking me and blaming me for this failure in our news policy.”11 He made comparisons with the similarly overoptimistic news policy pursued in the autumn of 1941 during the initial battles at Stalingrad, as well as over the Battle of El Alamein.12 According to Goebbels, the incident provoked “a very serious confrontation” with Dietrich and Jodl, whose staff blamed each other.13 After all, Dietrich had assured him that “such reports would no longer be issued without my express confirmation and approval.”14
On the following day Goebbels had the opportunity of speaking to Hitler about Dietrich and was convinced that he would immediately be able “to neutralize Dietrich as Reich press chief if I had a position for which I could recommend him. But unfortunately the Führer doesn’t think him capable of taking on any significant role.”15
On September 22 Goebbels visited Hitler once more in his headquarters. The conversation gave Goebbels completely new insights into the background of the Italian crisis. “I hear from the Führer for the first time that Edda Mussolini isn’t the daughter of his wife Rachele but an illegitimate child of Il Duce whom he adopted during his marriage.” Hitler did not know who the mother of Edda, the wife of Foreign Minister Galeazzo Ciano, was but believed that “she is the result of a liaison between Il Duce and a Russian Jewess.” The idea had an electrifying effect on Goebbels. “That would explain everything,” he wrote, for Edda had succeeded in achieving a reconciliation between Mussolini and Ciano. “That means that once again the poisonous mushroom is sitting in the middle of the revived Fascist Republican Party.”16
During dinner, which he ate alone with Hitler, Goebbels returned to the topic he had broached barely a fortnight before: the question of a separate peace. This time he did not mention Stalin as a possible interlocutor but made another suggestion. “I asked the Führer whether he would possibly be prepared to negotiate with Churchill or whether he rejected that idea out of hand.” Hitler replied that as a matter of principle politics should never be determined by “personal issues,” but he did not believe that “negotiations with Churchill could ever lead to a result, because his views are too fixed and opposed to ours and, moreover, he is governed by hatred rather than reason.” He was more inclined to negotiations with Stalin, Goebbels learned, but “he didn’t believe that that would lead to a result because Stalin couldn’t cede what he is demanding in the east.” Goebbels did not give up, arguing that “we must deal with one side or the other. The Reich has never won a two-front war.”
Thus Goebbels was clear about the fact that, with the defection of Italy, the continuing setbacks on the Eastern Front, the anticipated landing in the west and the continual air raids, the gradual dissolution of the Nazi empire was imminent. During the year and a half that were still to go before the end of the Third Reich, the search for a political means of avoiding defeat was one of the questions with which he was most preoccupied.
THE BEGINNING OF AUTUMN: ATTEMPTS TO CONSOLIDATE THE HOME FRONT
The situation on the Eastern Front, which in view of the dramatic events in Italy had taken something of a back seat, now at the start of the autumn once more became the focus of Goebbels’s concern. On August 16 the Red Army had begun its operation to re-conquer the Donets Basin in the far south of the front and, on August 26, 1943, it had also begun a big offensive farther north, level with Kursk. In addition, from the beginning of September, there were further attacks in the whole of the Ukraine. As a result Army Group South was forced to retreat to the Dnieper, but the advancing Red Army was able to establish bridgeheads on the west bank.17 In the middle of September the Red Army began a further offensive against Army Group Center and captured Smolensk on September 25.18
To prevent a mood of depression from developing during the autumn, in the middle of September the Party carried out a major propaganda campaign organized by Goebbels and Bormann that was to last for two months. It comprised a “wave of meetings,” the establishment of “discussion squads” and “air raid shelter-discussion squads,” whose job it was to oppose negative rumors and assert the public presence of the Party with demonstrations and marches and similar activities.19 Goebbels, however, regarded with a degree of unease the fact that in the autumn of 1943 in many German cities there would be processions of well-nourished Party functionaries apparently in the best of health and in the prime of life. He spoke of “noncombatant marches” but then suppressed his concerns. In the end he considered the campaign had been a complete success. He was particularly pleased by the “report that everywhere there was a shortage of Party badges. Once again Party comrades are wanting to wear their Party badges in public.” But there was one problem: “Unfortunately at the moment we’re not in a position to produce more of them.”20
On October 6 Goebbels went to another meeting of Reich leaders and Gauleiters in Posen.21 The main item on the agenda was problems connected with the armaments industry. Goebbels was particularly impressed by a speech by Speer, who announced in grand style that he wanted to transfer civilian plants with a total of a million employees to armaments production. This would enable him to withdraw sufficient young men to form twenty new divisions. “Actually the Speer program will implement the ‘total war’ that I was calling for in my Sportpalast speech in February [!]. Unfortunately at the time this Sportpalast speech did not produce any action.” Goebbels blamed the economics minister, Walther Funk, in particular for this lack of action. Shortly afterward the latter’s position was considerably weakened when SS functionaries took over responsible positions in his ministry.22
After further speeches Himmler spoke at the end about his new tasks. On August 25, as Goebbels had advocated, he had been made Reich interior minister. Goebbels approved of Himmler’s attacks on the Soviet general Andrey Andreyevich Vlasov and on “the attempts by various German agencies to cultivate the Slav race.” Goebbels agreed with Himmler that the Wehrmacht’s efforts to establish volunteer units under Vlasov composed of Soviet POWs was a disastrous idea.23
Finally, Himmler discussed the “Jewish question,” of which, according to Goebbels, he provided “a completely unvarnished and frank picture.” Goebbels’s diary entry covering the Reichsführer’s comments was marked by the same frankness with which Himmler had spoken about the “final solution”: “He is convinced that by the end of the year we can solve the Jewish question for the whole of Europe. He advocates the most radical and toughest solution, namely to exterminate the Jews, the whole lot of them. That is certainly a consistent, albeit brutal solution. For we must take on the responsibility for ensuring that this issue is resolved in our time. Later generations will certainly not have the courage and obsession to tackle this problem in the way we can now.”24
Late in the evening they went to the headquarters, where on the following day as usual Hitler spoke to his senior functionaries. Goebbels ensured that the text of his address was given to the press in the form of a long communiqué. It stated that the dictator had spoken “frankly” and in “unvarnished” terms: The whole German nation knew that it was a matter of life and death. They had burned their bridges behind them. Their only alternative was to go forward. Ever since Himmler’s speech of the previous day, that was clear to every leading functionary.25
A SEPARATE PEACE?
On October 27 Goebbels once again visited Hitler at his headquarters. After Hitler had explained the military situation to him, as always in a very optimistic way, he broached the “key question,” namely: “How do we get out of the two-front war, and is it better to reach a deal with England or with the Soviets?”
In general Hitler believed that it would be possible “to do a deal” with the Soviets “roughly on the basis of 1939 after the Polish campaign. Then we would have the opportunity to sort out the west thoroughly and destroy England, using the Atlantic coast as our base.” Goebbels, on the other hand, argued that it would be more feasible to do a deal with Great Britain and “create space in the east, which is vital for our survival.” Goebbels recognized that
they had to “get used to the idea that the big gains that we anticipated from this war can’t be achieved for the time being.” But now was “not the time to begin negotiations,” because they must wait and see “how things develop politically and militarily. […] I have no idea what the Führer’s going to do in the end.”
He told Hitler that he thought that “really we must speak to anybody who wants to talk to us. In fact the Führer is not totally averse to this idea.” In any event “soon” they would be “at a crossroads” and would then be forced to decide to go “one way or the other.” Although, Goebbels concluded, Hitler was “still very skeptical about all these options,” as far as he was concerned what was vital was that the dictator had talked through the problems “openly and frankly” and had brought him into his “confidence as a trusted adviser.”
During his stay at headquarters and over the following days and weeks Goebbels followed up the issue of peace that he had raised with Hitler. On October 27 he learned from Walther Hewel, Hitler’s liaison with the Foreign Ministry, that “in reality Ribbentrop could be won over for either option.” Two days later he discovered from Werner Naumann, who had been talking to Gustav Adolf Steengracht, the state secretary at the Foreign Ministry, that Ribbentrop wanted to contact the Pope, who had himself indicated an urgent willingness to talk because he feared that “Bolshevism was going to spread throughout Europe.”26 A few days later Goebbels also concurred with Himmler that “in this war we must use not only military but also political means.” Himmler complained about the “complete lack of flexibility in foreign policy and strongly criticized Ribbentrop.” Goebbels was aiming to win a new ally.27 At the end of November he also learned that Bormann was very concerned about German foreign policy but evidently did not believe that Hitler “could be persuaded to part with his foreign minister.” In any case “if that happens” Ribbentrop would “not be in a position to negotiate with either London or Moscow.”28 However, after all these soundings Goebbels was no further forward. It appears that it was not until June 1944 that Goebbels had the opportunity of raising the issue of a separate peace with Hitler. The dictator was well aware of the fact that, in view of the military situation, neither the western Allies nor the Soviet Union would be in the least bit interested in negotiating an end to the war with him.
Goebbels: A Biography Page 74