Doctor Goebbels: His Life & Death

‘His smirkingsuperficiality gets physically on my nerves,’ wrote Darré after one such chancelleryluncheon.22 At times Goebbels even gunned for Göring—nagging about the newgeneral’s indiscreet fling with the actress Emmy Sonnemann until Hitler coercedthem into marrying that May, and then revealing the staggering cost of the nuptialsGOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICH 365to Hitler, then whispering around the diplomatic community that Emmy’s Aryanpedigree was debatable.23THE armed forces, Germany’s muscles, were now beginning to show. Goebbels’ unpublisheddiaries, recently discovered in the Moscow archives, narrate Hitler’s nextcrucial decision:March 16, 1935 (Saturday). On Friday the Führer suddenly returned. Says hewants to proclaim general conscription today… Flandin has spoken against Germanyin the chamber; two year national service accepted in France. Disarmament?We too have to create faits accomplis. Hitler is right. I shall fortify him inhis intent.Supper at Göring’s. Great pomp! Not to my taste. But to each his own weakness.I escort Japanese ambassador’s wife to table; she couldn’t speak a word ofGerman. Frightful!He’s very shrewd. I talk over the Russian problem with him.March 18, 1935 (Monday). Discussions all Saturday morning. Führer fightsBlomberg over the number of divisions. Has his own way: thirty-six. Grand proclamationto the people: law on rebuilding the armed forces; conscription. To putan end to the haggling. You’ve got to create faits accomplis. The other side aren’tgoing to declare war. As for their oaths: stuff cotton wool in our ears.Cabinet 1:30 P.M. Führer sets out situation. Very grim. Then reads out the proclamationand law. Powerful emotions sieze us all. Blomberg rises to his feet andthanks the Führer. Heil Hitler, for the first time in these rooms. With one law,Versailles is expunged. Historic hour. Frisson of eternity! Gratitude that we areable to witness and take part in this.The foreign press displayed consternation and panic. ‘So once more we are a greatpower,’ concluded Goebbels. At four P.M.that afternoon he broadcast the proclamationover the radio.24 Rome and Paris bleated protests. ‘Let them curse,’ wrote366 GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICHGoebbels smugly; ‘we rearm … and put on a brave face meanwhile.’25 Speaking inDanzig, he bragged openly that they had smashed the Treaty of Versailles.Sir John Simon hurried to Berlin with Anthony Eden, Minister for the League ofNations, to ascertain the Nazis’ intentions. Goebbels attended the banquet, and foundSimon congenial but Eden cold and arrogant, as he had already warned Hitler fromhis own sources (contradicting Ribbentrop).26 ‘Immediately afterwards with the Führerat the Reich Chancellery,’ narrated Goebbels in his unpublished diary. ‘Göring andBlomberg too. Führer reports; he has told the British some numbers: we want anarmy of half a million, and we’ve already achieved parity with the British in the air.’(This was bluff.) ‘Huge astonishment at that. Führer spoke out against Russia. Haslaid a cuckoo’s egg which is intended to hatch into Anglo-German entente.’March 26, 1935 (Tuesday) Sunday … went over to the Führer. He outlines hisforeign policy plans to us. Short and long term… He’ll certainly win over theBritish…Monday: Noon to see the Führer. He had negotiated four hours and told me thesituation. Eastern pact: consultative and non-aggression pact, but not an alliance.‘We are less frightened of the French attacking than of the Russians helping.’Treaty violation: ‘Prussia also broke treaties. At Waterloo Wellington didn’t complainabout it but cried out, “Everybody wishes night would come, or the Prussiantreaty-breakers!” League of Nations: ‘Only if our right to colonies is restored.’…Friendly spirit of the talks. Führer is able to say what he wants. British ‘notconcerned with judging faits accomplis, but with seeing what can be done aboutthem.’My characterisation of Simon is correct; Führer very grateful for my tip…Simon is very approachable, Eden stubborner. Just as I predicted.27Eden had silkily suggested that the ‘bolshevik world revolution’ was a Goebbelsfiction, and promptly flew on alone to Moscow, which rather devalued his talks withGOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICH 367Hitler.28 Unabashed, Goebbels printed a special horror-magazine, The Red Army, andhad it smuggled onto the desks of every delegate in Geneva.29For a few days Hitler feared that Eden might pull together his own eastern pact,signing up Moscow and Warsaw against Germany.30 He told Goebbels that he foundforeign affairs pure torture. Strolling with him in the garden on April 3 Hitler toldhim he did not believe there would be war. ‘If it came it would be frightful. We haveno raw materials. We’re doing everything to pull through this crisis… We’ve got nochoice but to keep our nerves. Poland has stood fast. No question of [Eden’s] easternpact… Führer says, let’s just hope nobody jumps us.’31 Goebbels was alarmed thatirresponsible quarters were speaking of war as though it was a bagatelle. Aided byHitler’s adjutants Fritz Wiedemann and Julius Schaub he saw to it that Hitler was leftin no doubt; Major Fritz Hossbach, General von Fritsch’s adjutant, told him he hadbeen instructed by Fritsch to brief Hitler in the rawest possible detail about theirarmy’s true weakness.32The foreign press association put Goebbels through its wringer at its next function.He sailed through their questions with an affability that impressed the Americans.More refined English ears, however, found him sadly wanting from an intellectualpoint of view. ‘He gloated over the fact that Germany had rearmed secretly,cunningly, and unknown to the world outside,’ wrote the British consul in Frankfurtafter hearing him speak there on April 11. Goebbels left him with the unedifyingimpression that ‘a homicidal lunatic, with winks and whispers and sudden shouts,was propounding his dark schemes to a somewhat bovine but gleeful audience.’33 TheBritish ambassador was equally contemptuous of Goebbels.34 A notorious drinker, hepreferred Goebbels’ official binges with loud brass bands ‘and copious glasses of beerand plates of cold meat which seemed to melt into ravenous faces,’ as he wrote toLondon.35Goebbels was beginning to take on the great names in German culture. He forcedWilhelm Furtwängler to eat humble pie and admit publicly that the state controlledart.36 After Rosenberg had bombarded him with letters for a year complaining thatcomposer Richard Strauss had used the libretto of Stefan Zweig, a Jew, for his latest368 GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICHopera, Goebbels had to dismiss Strauss as president of the chamber of music.37 Heabsented himself