Doctor Goebbels: His Life & Death

that the Nazis had staged the fire. Even the authoritative ManchesterGuardian published a dispatch from an anonymous special correspondent allegingthat Hitler, Göring, and Goebbels had foregathered in Berlin that evening‘awaiting their fire.’20 The world’s press readily copied this Big Lie, and historians intime adopted it from them.Neither Hitler nor Goebbels wanted to believe that the mad Dutch communistMarinus van der Lubbe had acted alone in torching the Reichstag building. Eightyears later Hitler still suspected that the hand of Ernst Torgler, the communist leader,had been behind it.21THE last four days of the election battle were the scheming, marching, speaking, singing,bell-ringing, tintinnabulating, flagwaving crescendo of Goebbels’ career so far.On election day itself, March 5, 1933 he and Magda escorted Hitler to a Wagneropera, then sat up late waiting for the returns. Goebbels found them disappointing.True, the Nazis had won 43·9 percent, but Hitler was still well short of the absolutemajority he craved; in his own Berlin constituency the Nazis had achieved with 31·3percent the second lowest vote after Cologne–Aaachen. Goebbels however was nowfree to come into the government. Hitler announced at his next Cabinet that thenew Reichstag would be solemnly inaugurated at a session in the famous GarrisonChurch at Potsdam, with President Hindenburg in attendance. ‘Now,’ he added, ‘theremust come about a bold operation of propaganda and enlightenment, designed toforestall any political lethargy. This Public Enlightenment must emanate from a newlycreated central authority.’22Thus Goebbels got his job as Reich minister of propaganda and public enlightenment—a cumbersome title pressed on him by Hitler.23 He hated that word ‘propaganda’and went to elaborate lengths over coming years to cleanse it of its negativehubris.24 As for the ministry, he already had the necessary structure in mind—initiallyseven divisions, controlling the radio, press, films, propaganda, and the theatreas well as legal department and a Defence department (to defend, that is, againstlies). Nobody would ever deny that Goebbels proved a capable minister, and in thisGOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICH 297he was aided by his Staatssekretär Walther Funk. They made an odd couple—the onea homosexual and bon viveur, the other now notoriously hetero and seemingly ascetic.Funk later called his minister brilliant but devoid of any scruple and cruelly,coldly calculating. His conceit led to angry complaints over the years from composerRichard Strauss, conductor Wilhelm Furtwängler, film star Emil Jannings and scoresof others. ‘Goebbels’ treatment of female artistes,’ reminisced Funk irritably, ‘was agreat deal friendlier.’25Berlin’s Jewish community was stricken by forebodings. Hans Schäffer, Staatssekretärin the finance ministry and a board-member of the powerful Ullstein newspapergroup, wrote in his well-informed diary: ‘It’s apparently not definite whether Goebbelswill also get the press under him. Hitler and Funk are opposed, as he’d become toopowerful.’26 Bella Fromm, forty-three year old society columnist on an Ullstein newspaper,noted the club-foot and recalled her grandmother’s advice: ‘Beware of thosewho are marked.’27 At a diplomatic reception later that month Goebbels found her athis table and expatiated rudely against all Jews and communists. The Romanian envoysoothed him that Jewish though the lovely Bella might be, she was right-wing.‘Even worse,’ snapped the new minister.28Initially Schäffer’s minister, the conservative Count Schwerin von Krosigk, refusedeven to provide any funds for what he called ‘this [propaganda ministry] nonsense.’29On the eleventh the Cabinet debated the new ministry and Hitler justified it as beingnecessary to prepare public opinion for important government actions—he cited aharmless sounding agricultural example involving foodstuff policies, then added:‘The importance of all this in time of war must also be stressed. The governmentwould act only after the public enlightenment phase had run for some time andtaken hold.’ He would however reserve ultimate control of the press to himself.Only Hugenberg, a major newspaper owner, expressed qualms.30 Two days later PresidentHindenburg signed the decree establishing the propaganda ministry.31Goebbels, Germany’s youngest-ever minister, addressed his first ministerial pressconference on March 15. ‘The Reich government,’ he told the world’s newspapermen,‘needs more than fifty-two percent of the whole electorate’ (he had included298 GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICHthe voters of the D.N.V.P., which was in coalition with Hitler) ‘it needs the wholenation.’32 Nobody ignored him now. The American ambassador warned his new president,Franklin D Roosevelt, that Goebbels was a master orator—far superior toHitler and far cleverer.33FOR his new ministry Goebbels had been allocated the rambling old Prince-LeopoldPalace on Wilhelms Platz, right across from Hitler’s Chancellery. It was the kind oflisted architecture before which civil servants instinctively genuflected. Its great salonshad been kept permanently locked, the priceless furniture shrouded in dustsheets.The panelling was dark and musty, the windows narrow and obscured byheavy drapes. A refit was out of the question. The building’s custodian, Hofrat Schwebel,nervously lectured the young newcomer that not even the minister’s own office couldbe changed. Goebbels ignored him. Had there not been a revolution? He recruitedbuilders and decorators from the ranks of his S.A. and they stripped out the offendingplaster and stucco overnight. ‘You might go to prison for that,’ gasped Schwebel.34Goebbels moved in on Wednesday March 22, 1933.The international Big Lie campaign (as the Nazis saw it) against Hitler’s Germanyhad redoubled in intensity since the election. Disgruntled opponents committedoutrages in stolen Nazi uniforms. The Cabinet approved harsh penalties for suchimpersonations—Goebbels even urged the death penalty.35 Emigré journalists publishedlurid reports from Berlin. One said that Hitler had ordered Torgler’s ears cutoff; another, that the body of Hirsch, the editor of Red Flag, had been found floating ina canal; a third, that Ernst Thälmann had been tortured to death. Enraged by thenewspaper dispatches, the international Jewish community started a boycott of Germangoods.36 In London, Jewish restaurants refused to serve Germans. Goebbelsretaliated by inviting Sefton Delmer, a British newspaperman who had covered theReichstag blaze, to visit Torgler, Hirsch, and Thälmann in custody. Offered the frontpage of the London Sunday Express, he challenged the émigrés to name even one Jewwho had yet died. ‘The Jews living in Germany,’ he wrote in his article, ‘have heldsuch an enormously large number of powerful posts in the life of the nation that theGOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICH 299German element seemed almost completely excluded from the leading positions.’He blamed the Jews for spreading