Doctor Goebbels: His Life & Death

His diary sparkles with occasionalflattery of Magda, but it has a dutiful quality.27 Visiting the gracious spa resortof Baden-Baden (without Magda) in October he is evidently not alone, as witness theunexplained phrases that slip into its pages like those on the twelfth, when the nightends with ‘a big disappointment’, followed by the disembodied remark: ‘Did notcome down from room any more.’ Followed by: ‘I am so sad.’28 At Berlin upon hisreturn he finds Magda livid: ‘About nothing—nothing at all.’ Undaunted he goes outmotoring again that afternoon, and stops in at their (deserted) Schwanenwerdervilla on the way back. It would be charitable to assume that he was alone, were it notself-evident that his diary has now become the vehicle for half-truths.On the day before the new house at Lanke is formally handed over to him Magdatakes the dour but handsome Hanke out to see it. Goebbels seizes the opportunity tovisit Schwanenwerder again, where Lida Baarova is house-sitting the dust-sheetedFröhlich villa three lots from his own.29 He phones to invite himself round for tea.Lida points out how improper that would seem; covered with embarrassment, theminister suggests they motor out one day to see Lanke instead.30 ‘You know I have alittle house out there now,’ he says. ‘We can have tea there. It’s very pretty.’ Shehelplessly falls in with his suggestion that one day she should motor out along thenew autobahn in her little black and white BMW to the Lanke exit where his chauffeurAlfred Rach will be waiting to meet her with his new open Horch tourer.31 ‘AllBerlin used to speak about his love affairs,’ Rach will later reminisce, adding a revealingremark: ‘He found that very flattering.’32400 GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICHOn his birthday at the end of October he drives out to Lanke. It is an idyll, romanticand tranquil. After that he takes Magda out there on the first day of November.Alone together in the middle of this autumn forest of yellowing leaves, fog, and rain,they spend a quiet day hanging pictures, playing the piano and singing Schubert’slieder.33 The next day his heavy Horch limousine returns, splashing through the freshpuddles— ‘all alone,’ he writes, an untruth which his own diary exposes a few lineslater. (He writes, ‘We cook ourselves something.’) This is the occasion that Lida willlater describe, when his manservant Kaiser burns their only provisions, fried potatoes.Of such tiny episodes romantic memories are made. On November 5 the diaryfinds him out at Lanke once more, ‘taking refuge’ from ‘unpleasantness’ at home.‘She is so fickle,’ he sighs on Magda’s birthday. ‘Sometimes good and sometimeshorrid. But that’s probably just how women are.’34He has less than nine years left of his allotted span, but he has assembled all thebaggage that go with middle life: a beauteous young mistress; a dissatisfied, naggingwife; and three angelic infants who thump around the bare floor above him far intothe night. ‘It is music to my ears,’ writes Dr Goebbels, still aged only thirty-nine.35ONE evening in September 1936 Magda brought Diana Mitford to dinner at Schwanenwerder.Hearing that Sir Oswald Mosley, leader of the British Union of Fascists, wasplanning to marry Diana in secret, Magda suggested they do it Berlin. Goebbelsdidn’t like the idea and harrumphed about it in his diary: Magda was getting tooinvolved, he felt. He asked to see the three British Union movies that Diana hadbrought with her, but they did not impress a minister with the entire German filmindustry now at his fingertips; he reflected however that his own beginnings wereequally small.36 Discussing Mosley again, Hitler and Goebbels agreed that he was nota great man; but Hitler coughed up funds for Diana, according to the diary, when shevisited Berlin at the time of the Edward VIII crisis.37The secret wedding went ahead in Magda’s drawing room at No.20 Hermann-Göring Strasse; Magda invited the guests, who included Hitler, out to Schwanenwerderfor lunch. The new Lady Mosley gave Goebbels a blow-by-blow inside account of theGOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICH 401royal scandal. The new king wanted to marry an American woman, already twicedivorced, she said. Goebbels professed dismay at the depths a proud empire couldsink to; but this was the king who, as Prince of Wales, had openly praised Hitler’ssocial programme and they all—Hitler, Goebbels, and Ribbentrop—agreed to dothe decent thing now. As the American and Continental press broke into a raucoushue-and-cry Dr Goebbels, with Hitler’s approval, forbade the German media to printone whisper on the scandal. In fact he issued a terse notice saying that Germanyregarded it as a private affair. The Berlin wiretappers heard one British embassy officialcommenting that Edward, who had now abdicated and become Duke of Windsor,would not easily forget Hitler’s restraint.38Their discretion was poorly rewarded. During 1937 and 1938 the anti-Nazi jibesfrom some elements of the British press multiplied. Ribbentrop told Goebbels thatmuch of it was controlled by the Jews, as were Britain’s cinema chains.39 He suggestedthey purchase cinemas in London. Goebbels listened sympathetically. Hisministry was awash with money, and he did use some secret funds to buy up foreignnewspapers as well.40 Like Hitler he regarded Britain as holding the key to Germany’sfuture. But how to proceed? Mosley was ‘spending a fortune and getting nowhere,’he concluded; he had won no seats at all in the municipal elections. ’I thinkhe’s a busted flush,’ wrote Goebbels after a further panhandling visitation by LadyMosley in August 1937.41HIS admiration of Hitler was now unconditional.42 The Führer confided in Goebbelsregularly. In mid-July 1936 he and Magda had spent three days at the Berghof, Hitler’slavish new mountainside domain high above Berchtesgaden. ‘We had a longparlaver,’ writes Goebbels. ‘The three of us—the Führer, Göring, and I. That’s alwaysbest.’43 They had all shared the annual Wagner experience at Bayreuth that summer.In October 1936 Hitler had assigned to Goebbels an upstairs room at his ownBerghof, a certain sign of his esteem for him.44Knowing Hitler’s intentions, Goebbels took a closer interest in their growing armedforces. In early 1937 he spoke for two hours to selected Wehrmacht commanders402 GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICHabout propaganda. He found the generals elderly and tedious, but