Doctor Goebbels: His Life & Death

Diaries, not always a monument to truthfulness, made no referenceto any such undignified episodes. They did however report continued interviews anddiscussions with ‘L. Riefenstahl’ of a frequency now difficult to reconcile with thebodice-ripping tenor of her memoirs. She told him on May 16 of her productionplans; he suggested a film on Hitler himself; Leni, ‘inspired,’ accompanied theGoebbels’ to Madame Butterfly that evening. A few days later she picnicked with himand Hitler at Heiligendamm.59 Magda told her privately that she had only marriedDr Goebbels so as to be near to Hitler.60 What of Leni’s politics? ‘She is the only oneof all the stars,’ wrote Goebbels that summer, ‘who understands us.’61 Her nameoften cropped up in the diary, and in mid August she spent the night at Heiligendammwith the Goebbels’ again.62 Given all of this it is hard to visualize the further scenewhich her memoirs now describe—Goebbels invited her over that summer, suggesteda film on the power of the press: he lunged at her breast she dragged herselffree, ran to the door, found a bell: by which she was saved.63 That September shemade her first great film of the Nuremberg rally, a masterpiece which would besurpassed only by her second, ‘Triumph of the Will.’ALL of this is not to say that Dr Goebbels does not stray from the path of maritalfidelity at all. He certainly dallied with Ello Quandt, Magda’s uhappily married sisterin law.64 Signing autographs at the Berlin S.A.’s sports festival that summer, Goebbelspoints his pencil at a particular blonde. ‘Find out her name,’ he whispers to his adjutant.Police HQ provide the data he needs, and a few days later she is glimpsed314 GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICHtraipsing down the red-carpeted marble staircase from the minister’s private quarters.65Relations with Magda are strained. She has accepted the post of honorary patron tothe Reich Fashion Bureau. It brings her into contact with the Jews of Germany’s ragtrade. When he orders Magda to resign, she sulks, and refuses to go down to theannual Bayreuth festival with him. ‘If Magda doesn’t mend her ways,’ he grimlyrecords, ‘I’ll have to draw some consequences.’ Hitler sends his private plane to fetchher. She makes her grand appearance after Act One, and the Führer negotiates atruce between them. A true pal, reflects Goebbels: ‘He agrees with me,’ he adds,‘women have no place in public life.’ But then the whole row flares up again, andthere is another scene in their hotel. Things hang on a silken thread—‘Then reconciliation.Magda is sweet and good. She can be so nice. But in matters of principle Iam unrelenting.’66 Elegant World, the rag trade’s magazine, hits back: on its next frontcover it features a Storm Trooper next to a lady of fashion clad in the latest autumnstyles.67At Bayreuth Goebbels whiles away many hours with Hitler. After Wagner’s ‘Valkyries’on July 25 the minister is summoned by phone to visit a Baltic baroness waiting atthe festival restaurant. ‘A fabulous woman,’ sighs Hitler, and explains: ‘The bolsheviksnailed her husband to the door of his house.’ She has donated her fortune to theparty. Now she wants to introduce Dr Goebbels to a friendly princess, alas a corpulentand elderly dowager. Since he makes no secret of his lack of interest, the princessdeclaims to Hitler loud enough for all the room to hear, ‘Excuse me, meinFührer, but tell me: What do you think about adultery?’Cringing, Goebbels comments in his diary on how unpleasant Bayreuth has become.68 ‘An evening with princely personages. In a word, a gang of scoundrels.’ ‘Thelikes of these,’ he writes a few days later after meeting another prince, ‘once ruledEurope. The whole bunch ain’t worth tuppence.’69On August 1 he exchanges his well-tailored party uniform for a white summer suitand they begin a seaside vacation at Heiligendamm. He likes to nurse his Latin tan—even in winter he uses a sun lamp—but frowns on women who use such artificialGOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICH 315aids. Once, sitting in his beach basket, he lectures the scantily clad beauties whoswarm around him: ‘The German woman does not bleach her hair.’ The girls suppressastonished chuckles. He has not detected that his own wife is not a naturalblonde. ‘Since when have you worn lipstick, my sweetest,’ he once asks her. ‘Always,’she replies. (He does not believe her.)70So it goes on. On August 18 he opens the radio exhibition. A stately blonde penetratesthe S.A. cordon. Nervous, Goebbels signals to his adjutant. He learns hername—she is a broadcasting employee. A few days later the aide sees his ministerreceive her in his study. She may of course just have been interested in a position.71Leni Riefenstahl describes one scene which rings very true. At the Chancelleryone day Hitler commands her to report on progress with her 1933 rally film. Strappedfor cash, she has filmed a few thousand metres of wooden, unconvincing footage ofthe event, but protests to Hitler that Goebbels and the party have placed every obstaclein her way. Humiliated, Goebbels bawls: ‘If you were a man, I would throwyou down the stairs.’72 Working now at the party’s command she completes the editingof this film, ‘Victory of Faith,’ and is paid a director’s fee of twenty thousandmarks from ministry funds. The hour long movie has its premiere at the Ufa Palaceon the first day of December 1933, then vanishes for the next sixty years.THAT summer Dr Goebbels organised an outing of thousands of automobiles alongthe land corridor through Poland to East Prussia. It was a clever propaganda exercise;the summer drive through Poland to this amputated German province with itsrolling farmland where the famous Trakehnen thoroughbred horses were raised andits gaily decorated German towns like Rastenburg and Gumbinnen—names that stillhad to find their shivering niche in history—was not without effect on the foreignjournalists.73Tightening his grip on the press that September he brought all advertising underthe control of one advertising council, the Werberat. ‘All advertising must be true,’ hisguidelines laid down. More importantly in a country swamped with six thousanddifferent newspaper titles, he enforced the first elements of standardisation to en-316 GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICHable even the