Doctor Goebbels: His Life & Death

Berlinger’s coffee house. In one lecturetheatre he pointed out a limerick he had carved into a bench fifteen years before:‘The maiden and the inkpot /Get their rims wet quite a lot. /What’s the source ofall that damp? /All that dunking—scamp!’Smirking naughtily he went off to record his New Year’s Eve broadcast. Years later,Detig would ponder upon the minister’s tortured psyche: for the two hours thatthey had trailed this little cripple around with them he had taken such pains to convincethem that while at university here he had been a real ‘Inkpot Hero’ too. Howmuch was true, and how much propaganda? As for the Furtwängler incident, Goebbelshad Dr Detig arrested by the Gestapo for sedition and he spent several months intheir Munich prison cells.811 Thus infantry general Röhricht hypothesized that JG had joined Hitler’s ‘punitive expedition’to Munich primarily to escape the clutches of Himmler and Göring in Berlin. (KurtDittmar diary, Sep 3, 1945; author’s collection, film DJ–60).2 Lutze diary.3 The nature of the FA’s reports can only be conjectured. Ministerialrat Walther Seifert,former chief of the FA, wrote to Fritz Tobias on Mar 17, 1977 that both Schleicher andBredow were wiretapped, though without much success. Milch recalled in a memoir writtenat Kaufbeuren on Sep 1, 1945 that Göring told him he had sent Körner by plane toHitler with ‘the final bits of evidence against Röhm & Co, probably mostly wiretaps.’ (Author’scollection). Writing to me on Jun 8, 1989, Klaus von Klitzing of the FA confirmedthat they had exposed Röhm’s plot, as does a BAOR (British Army of the Rhine) report onGOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICH 357the FA, Jan 2, 1946 (NA file RG.226, XE-4986). The FA’s Dr Gerhard Neuenhoff told methat their section head Rudolf Popp had himself run the Röhm surveillance.4 Hitler summarized their purported content to the Cabinet on Jul 3, 1934, 10 A.M. (BAfile R43I/1469); on the specific Forschungsamt intercept(s) concerned, see David Irving,Das Reich hört mit (Kiel, 1989).5 Lutze diary.6 Rosenberg diary, Jul 7, 1934; his observation of JG’s psyche was astute. On Jan 4, 1935JG would approvingly note (unpubl. diary) a visit to the State Opera: ‘Entire German leadership.Men only.’7 He made a virtue of this in his broadcast on Jul 1: ‘Once again the Führer acted on his oldprinciple of only telling those who needed to know, and only what and when they needed.’(VB, Jul 1–2, 1934.)8 Diary, Jun 29, 1934. He repeated the phrase, ‘So, it’s on’ (Also geht es los) in his unpubl.diary, Jul 1, 1934, recounting Friday’s events. Probably he was quoting Hitler.9 Unpubl. diary, Jul 1, 1934; this author corresponded with the late André François-Poncet,who denied any intrigue with Röhm; nor have French archives revealed any such plot.—Hanfstaengl recalls one outburst by JG in autumn 1934 over dinner with Hitler in the chancellery,about the monarchists, Potsdam, and the army: ‘These people will never change.One should get them together one fine day and mow them down. Reihenweise sollte man sieniederschiessen mit dem Maschinengewehr.’ Report on JG for Pres. Roosevelt, Jul 16, 1943 (FDRLibr. PSF box 126)10 Bella Fromm diary, Jul 3, citing a hotel employee (Boston Univ. libr.: Fromm papers,box 2).— Lutze diary, and JG broadcast Jul 1, 1934.11 Lutze diary.12 The final death roll was probably eighty-three: NA film, T81, roll 90 (this source saysthat Kausener ‘committed suicide on arrest’); on Strasser’s murder see Frau Strasser toFrick, Oct 22, 1934 in Lothar Gruchmann’s article in Viertelsjahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte (VfZ),1971, 409f.— One [unnamed] source, who had been present at Otto Strasser’s May 6, 1930meeting with Hitler, found himself in the next cell to Gregor Strasser as the shot was fired,and personally recognized the murderer: ‘Strasser was taken into temporary protective custodyon Jun 30, 1934 in the house jail of the Berlin Gestapo, Prinz Albrecht Strasse 8, in cell15. A few hours after his arrival the cell door opened and Gregor was shot down by a personalfriend and emissary of Dr Joseph Goebbels, a man named Weiss… Hitler completelylost control when he heard but was forced to cover up for Goebbels.’ Hitler ordered thewidow paid 500 marks per month from police compensation funds. (Memo by CIV Corpsregion III, Frankfurt, Mar 25, 1948: NA RG.319, IRR, file G8172121, Otto Strasser). Thedeath was listed as ‘suicide’ on the Nazi death roll (NA film T81, roll 90). However, theReich student-Führer Gustav Scheel told Karl-Heinrich Hederich once when drunk thatFranz A Six (a student friend since Heidelberg who had however married Scheel’s fiancée)had murdered Strasser. Hederich repeated this claim to Dr Werner Hagert (Interrog ofHagert, Sep 5, 1947: NA film M.1019, roll 23); unfortunately Hederich, interrogated Oct23 and Dec.16, 1947 (ibid., roll 25) was not asked about this.13 Unpubl. diary, Jul 1, 1934. See the documentation on Schleicher’s murder (with proofthat his phone was bugged), in VfZ, 1953, 71ff.358 GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICH14 Author’s interview of Christa Schroeder, Jun 6, 1976.15 Unpubl. diary, Jul 1, and 4: ‘The public is right with us. A huge wave of enthusiasm goesthrough the land. The rebels got public opinion quite wrong.’16 Broadcast, Jul 1; Phipps to Simon, Jul 2, 1934 (PRO file FO.371/17707).17 Unpubl. diary, Jul 4, 1934.18 Ibid., Jul 6: ‘S.A. question with Lutze. S.A.’s reputation needs a lift. I send a telegramalong these lines to Lutze. The S.A. is to be retained. It’s very downcast today;‘ and see Jul 7,1934.19 Schaumburg-Lippe, War Hitler ein Diktator? 46f; JG, unpubl. diary, Jul 4, 1934.20 BA file R43I/1469. ‘One can now see clearly again,’ wrote JG (unpubl. diary, Jul 4).‘Events came dramatically to a head. The Reich was on the edge of an abyss. The Führersaved it.’21 Ibid., Jul 4, 1934.22 Ibid. Jul 6, 1934.23 Ibid., Jul 14, 1934.24 Bella Fromm diary, Jul 15, 1934 (loc. cit.); she identified her source as a ministry employee,‘Max K.,’ who described JG as being shrewd, unscrupulous, perverse, cynical, moody,and lascivious, driven by hatred of Schacht and the American journalist Dorothy Thompson(the feeling was mutual); and as being involved in desultory love affairs with Maria Stahl andEdith von Coler, subsequently the mistress of