Doctor Goebbels: His Life & Death

still unwell, and decided to find a doctor for him. ‘I think he needs menow,’ he told his unpublished diary.362 GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICHWith Magda staying down in the Black Forest, he stayed up until two A.M. after theHitler speech entertaining Ello Quandt; on the following day, January 4, he tookHitler out to Babelsberg to tour the Ufa studios. For a while he, Hitler, and Streicherstrayed around the lavish set built for ‘Barcarole’, a romantic film set in Venice at theturn of the century, the story of the frenzied love of a young man for the wife of acruel older man. The top Nazis were all eyes—not for Germany’s leading heartthrobGustav Fröhlich, but for the actress playing opposite him, a Czech girl of twenty,Lida Baarova.5Hitler takes an immediate shine to her; he persuades himself that she looks likeGeli Raubal and invites her to tea at the chancellery.6 She arrives with tear-streakedcheeks. Gustav Fröhlich, her lover in real life as well as on the screen, a jealous andpossessive thirty-two year-old, has instructed her to phone him every fifteen minutesfrom the Führer’s chancellery, and that puts paid to that. Hitler asks Lida whyshe does not take up German citizenship. Her reply is simply, ‘Why should I?’7 Up inhis private quarters a few days later, Hitler mopes until three A.M. about how lonelyand joyless his life now is—‘Without women,’ observes Goebbels, ‘without love,still filled with memories of Geli.’8DISCUSSING foreign policy after that visit to the film studio on January 4, 1935, Hitlerpredicted to Goebbels that France would start turning the screw on Germany if andwhen she lost the Saar. They had a tough year ahead.9 Goebbels adopted honeyedlanguage. ‘In rapprochement lies order,’ he lectured, opening the Saar exhibition inBerlin on the sixth. ‘In war lies only ruin and destruction. For Europe there can beno third way.’10The historic plebiscite on the future of the Saar would be held one week later. Hisopponents, a clamouring ragbag of communists, Jews, freemasons, and disgruntledemigrés, were no match for him. His propaganda line was clear—the Saar was tiedby blood to the German fatherland. To abide by the international rules, a local ad hoc‘German front’ had to fight the campaign. Goebbels provided a weekly illustratedmagazine, telling the catholic Saar electorate that the bolsheviks were the swornGOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICH 363enemy of God. In neutral Geneva his ministry’s anti-Comintern unit set up a religiousfront, Pro Deo, which formally received the anti-bolshevik exhibition that hehad prepared in Berlin and sent it on to the Saar camouflaged with Swiss certificatesof origin.11 In the Saar, the catholic clergy publicized the exhibition from their pulpits.‘The Saarbrücken clerics never guessed whose errands they were running,’ wroteEberhard Taubert.His opponents warned the Saar, ‘A vote for Germany is a vote for Hitler!’ Thisslogan backfired badly, because over 90·5 percent did just that. Hitler telephonedGoebbels from Berchtesgaden, saying he sincerely hoped this meant peace with France.Goebbels had all Germany decked out with flags in an instant. That evening, January15, he took Generals Blomberg and Fritsch back to his villa, and they all phonedHitler again. Afterwards, they all discussed Germany’s long-range foreign policy.12Word reached London a few days later that Goebbels had said on this occasion thatthe overwhelming Saar vote virtually obligated Hitler to bring back all the scatteredGerman peoples into the Reich. Goebbels had particularly indicated Memel andAustria. ‘We’ve got everything ready in the propaganda ministry,’ he was quoted assaying.13The Saar plebiscite was proof of what could be achieved bloodlessly, by propagandaalone. On Sunday January 20 Hitler again had lengthy confidential discussionswith Goebbels, mapping out his next moves: ‘First project concerns Britain,’ recordedthe diarist Goebbels. ‘Guard their Empire, in return for thirty years alliance.’14At the time such a deal was not impossible. There was a mutual fascination betweenBritain’s old, and Germany’s new, rulers. In December 1934 Goebbels andHitler met Lord Rothermere at the Ribbentrop’s. The British newspaper baron wasalready a convinced admirer of Hitler. “A real Englishman,” Goebbels described him.“John Bull. Really wonderful opinions. If only all the English thought the same way.”Rothermere criticised Versailles, he applauded Hitler’s rearmament and demand forcolonies, and he criticised Versailles and diplomats. Britain’s ambassador in Berlin,the hard-drinking Sir Eric Phipps, almost swooned with rage. After Goebbels got to364 GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICHwork on him, Rothermere pronounced him “the greatest propagandist in the world.”“If you get tired of Germany,” Rothermere boomed, “I’ll engage you at ten times thesalary.” “I’m not for hire,” responded Goebbels, and reported the remarks to Hitlerafterwards.15 Hitler threw a glittering party for his lordship on the nineteenth. Magdawas the star attraction. From Rothermere’s remarks, it was plain he was totally wonover to the Nazi cause.16 Travelling down to Munich on January 25 Hitler repeated tohim that the cornerstone of his foreign policy was an alliance with Britain. ‘We shallbe supreme on the ground, and they at sea, and we’ll be equals in the air.’ What then?The fact that Hitler talked of wooing Poland—that would now be Göring’s task—indicated expansion to the east.17Speaking to eighty-seven thousand Nazi officials on February 24, Goebbels boasted:‘If the great powers … now treat Germany as a sovereign nation again, don’t thinkfor an instant, my comrades, that this means the world has come to its senses! No,it’s thanks to our tenacity, our resolution, and—I shall be blunt—our newfoundMacht, our power, alone.’18Rosenberg choked on that word Macht. He, Rosenberg, was head of the party’soffice of foreign policy, he complained that this ‘sabre rattling’ by Goebbels contradictedHitler’s own theme, the desire for peaceful coexistence.19 Hitler howevertrusted Goebbels. When Sir John Simon, the British foreign secretary, announced avisit to Berlin Hitler asked Goebbels as well as Ribbentrop to supply a characterstudy on him.20 Increasingly sure of himself, the propaganda minister saw no need tocurry favour. He sideswiped at Dr Schacht, he dominated Hitler’s lunch table withcruel, bantering witticisms and mimickry—imitating Robert Ley or Otto Meissner,then saying with a disarming chuckle: ‘But we’ve got to be kind to poor old Meissner—he did so much to help us into power.’21 Some found Goebbels infuriating.