Former differences between Goring and Goebbels were waved aside. Goring’s considerable ego had been much deflated through losing favour with Hitler on account of the Luftwaffe’s failure to prevent the bombing of German cities. Goebbels flattered him, and at the same time reproached him for allowing the Ministerial Council for the Defence of the Reich to fall into disuse. The Propaganda Minister’s plan — actually it had initally been suggested by Speer48 — was to revive the Ministerial Council, under Goring’s chairmanship, and to give it the membership to turn it into an effective body to rule the Reich, leaving Hitler free to concentrate on the direction of military affairs. Goebbels spoke of ‘the total lack of a clear leadership in domestic and foreign policy’.49 Goring said that the Fuhrer seemed to him to have aged fifteen years since the start of the war. He had shut himself off too much, and had a mentally and physically unhealthy lifestyle. But there was probably nothing to be done about that.50
Goebbels couched his arguments in terms of loyalty to Hitler, and the need to relieve him of oppressive burdens to free him for military leadership. Hitler’s depressed mood — he had indicated from time to time that death held no fears for him — was, said Goebbels, understandable; all the more reason, then, for his ‘closest friends’ to form ‘a solid phalanx around his person’. He reminded Goring of what threatened if the war were lost: ‘Above all as regards the Jewish Question, we are in it so deeply that there is no getting out any longer. And that’s good. A Movement and a people that have burnt their boats fight, from experience, with fewer constraints than those that still have a chance of retreat.’51 The Party needed revitalizing.52 And if Goring could now reactivate the Ministerial Council and put it in the hands of Hitler’s most loyal followers, argued Goebbels, the Fuhrer would surely be in agreement.53
Goebbels suggested that he and Goring approach the appropriate persons. But none of these should be initiated into the actual intention of sidelining the ‘Committee of Three’ and transferring authority to the Ministerial Council. They would choose their moment to put the proposition to Hitler himself. This would, they knew, not be easy, despite Goebbels’s repeated protestations that the Fuhrer would be happy about the idea. Goebbels and Speer undertook to work on Hitler in the interim. Goring and Goebbels would meet again in a fortnight. They did not doubt that they would swiftly master the problem of ‘the three kings’.54
The problem, however, especially as Goebbels saw it, went beyond the ‘Committee of Three’: it was a problem of Hitler himself. Naturally, Goebbels’s own ambitions to take over the direction of the home front — to instil a revolutionary drive into the ‘total war’ effort — played an important part in his scheming. But there was more to it than that. The war had to be won. The prospect of losing it did not bear thinking about. To rescue the war effort, stronger leadership at home was needed. Goebbels remained utterly loyal to the person he had for years regarded as an almost deified father-figure. But he saw in Hitler’s leadership style — his absence from Berlin, his detachment from the people, his almost total preoccupation with military matters, and, above all, his increasing reliance on Bormann for everything concerning domestic matters — a fundamental weakness in the governance of the Reich. A consummate politician himself, Goebbels could scarcely understand how Hitler could neglect politics for the subordinate matter of military command.55
In his diary, Goebbels complained of a ‘leadership crisis’. He thought the problems among the subordinate leaders were so grave that the Fuhrer ought to sweep through them with an iron broom.56 ‘Look at the Minister of the Interior,’ he fumed. ‘At
When he had spoken privately in his residence to Speer, Funk, and Ley just over a week after his ‘total war’ speech, he had gone further. According to Speer’s later account, Goebbels had said on that occasion: ‘We have not only a “leadership crisis”, but strictly speaking a “Leader crisis”!’ The others agreed with him. ‘We are sitting here in Berlin. Hitler does not hear what we have to say about the situation. I can’t influence him politically,’ Goebbels bemoaned. ‘I can’t even report to him about the most urgent measures in my area. Everything goes through Bormann. Hitler must be persuaded to come more often to Berlin.’ Goebbels added that Hitler had lost his grip on domestic politics, which Bormann controlled by conveying the impression to the Fuhrer that he still held the reins tightly in his grasp.59 With Bormann given the title, on 12 April, of ‘Secretary of the Fuhrer’, the sense, acutely felt by Goebbels, that the Party Chancellery chief was ‘managing’ Hitler was even further enhanced.60
Goebbels and Speer might lament that Hitler’s hold on domestic affairs had weakened. But when they saw him in early March, intending to put their proposition to him that Goring should head a revamped Ministerial Council for the Defence of the Reich to direct the home front, it was they who proved weak. Speer had flown to Hitler’s headquarters, temporarily moved back to Vinnitsa in the Ukraine, on 5 March to pave the way for a visit by Goebbels. The Propaganda Minister arrived in Vinnitsa three days later. Straight away, Speer urged caution. The continued, almost unhindered, bombing raids on German towns had left Hitler in a foul mood towards Goring and the inadequacies of the Luftwaffe. It was hardly a propitious moment to broach the subject of reinstating the Reich Marshal to the central role in the direction of domestic affairs. Goebbels thought nonetheless that they had to make the attempt.61
At their first meeting, over lunch, Hitler, looking tired but otherwise well, and more lively than of late, launched as usual into a bitter onslaught on the generals who, he claimed, were cheating him wherever they could do so.62 He carried on in the same vein during a private four-hour discussion alone with Goebbels that afternoon. He was furious at Goring, and at the entire Luftwaffe leadership with the exception of the Chief of the General Staff Hans Jeschonnek. Characteristically, Hitler thought the best way of preventing German cities being reduced to heaps of rubble was by responding with ‘terror from our side’.63 Despite his insistence to Speer that they had to go ahead with their proposal, Goebbels evidently concluded during his discussion with Hitler that it would be fruitless to do so. ‘In view of the general mood,’ he noted, ‘I regard it as inopportune to put to the Fuhrer the question of Goring’s political leadership; it’s at present an unsuitable moment. We must defer the business until somewhat later.’64 Any hope of raising the matter, even obliquely, when Goebbels and Speer sat with Hitler by the fireside until late in the night was dashed when news came in of a heavy air-raid on Nuremberg. Hitler fell into a towering rage about Goring and the Luftwaffe leadership. Speer and Goebbels, calming Hitler only with difficulty, postponed their plans. They were never resurrected.65
Goebbels and Speer had failed at the first hurdle. Face to face with Hitler, they felt unable to confront him. Hitler’s fury over Goring was enough to veto even the prospect of any rational discussion about restructuring Reich government. But the problem went further. Goebbels and Speer, blaming distraction through the command of military strategy and Bormann’s deviousness, thought that Hitler was unable or unprepared to sweep through the jungle of conflicting authorities and radicalize the home front as they wanted him to. In this, they were holding to the illusion that the regime was reformable, but that Hitler was unwilling to reform it. What they did not fully grasp was that the shapeless ‘system’ of governance that had emerged was both the inexorable product of Hitler’s personalized rule and the guarantee of his power.
In a modern state, necessarily resting on bureaucracy and dependent upon system and regulated procedure, centring all spheres of power in the hands of one man — whose leadership style was utterly unbureaucratic and whose approach to rule was completely unsystematic, resting as it did on a combination of force and propaganda — could only produce administrative chaos amid a morass of competing authorities. But this same organizational incoherence was the very safeguard of Hitler’s power, since every strand of authority was dependent on him. Changing the ‘system’ without changing its focal point was impossible. Hitler was incapable of reforming his Reich; nor, in any case, could he have any interest in doing so. He continued, as ever, to intervene wilfully and arbitrarily in a wide array of matters, often of a trivial nature, undermining as he did so any semblance of governmental order or rationality.
Goebbels and Speer did not immediately give up their efforts. Together with Ley and Funk, they met Goring for three hours on 17 March, going over much of the same ground that they had covered when they had met the Reich Marshal earlier in the month in Berchtesgaden. The upshot was no more than an agreement that Goring would propose to the Fuhrer in the near future that he ‘activate somewhat the German leadership at home’ by
