Doctor Goebbels: His Life & Death

with Moscowhe warned, ‘Let the world take note that Germany is a great power.’ Londonbridled. ‘We are now gradually coming out with our colonial demands,’ he recordedthe next day, ‘and the people who pilfered our colonies don’t like this at all.’90 He goton well with the new British ambassador, Sir Nevile Henderson, and both men hopedthat if Britain’s new prime minister Neville Chamberlain could only rein in the Jewishpress clamour there was a real chance of rapprochement despite all the gaucheriesthat the Nazi ambassador von Ribbentrop was committing in London.91Hitler had no firm plan of action mapped out as yet. Like Goebbels he believed inthe Goddess of Good Fortune—in seizing opportunities as they arose.92 Goebbelshad however begun preparing his ministry for war: at Hitler’s instigation he hadbegun installing a cable radio system (Drahtfunk) which would free transmitter capacityfor a propaganda war while rendering the German listening public imperviousto enemy radio propaganda.93 He issued contracts for five powerful one-megawatttransmitters.94 He also began installing networks of loudspeakers in city streets.95By this time, though without perceptible immediate cause, he had become concernedabout his own safety. He underwent pistol training96, and in December 1937he called off at the last minute a private trip to Egypt which he had been planning forthree months—one phone call from Rudolf Hess, warning of possible risks, sufficed.‘On occasions,’ reported the British embassy, ‘he has shown a certain nervousnessabout his own skin.’97Political events in Central Europe were slowly building up their own head of steam.At the end of July 1937 he staged a spectacular choral festival at Breslau. Among thethirty thousand Germans from overseas was a large contingent from Austria. TheAustrians chanted Goebbels’ latest slogan, ‘Ein Reich—ein Volk!’ There were emotionalscenes in the main square as the massed choirs marched past. Newsreel cam-420 GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICHeras whirred. The scenes remained engraved on the memory of event member ofHitler’s staff. ‘For a quarter of an hour the procession halts,’ described Goebbels,‘the people just standing still, singing, laughing, weeping.’ Everybody knew whatHitler was thinking at that moment, he said later. When—it was now no longer aquestion of if—they went marching in to Austria, hardly a shot would be fired. Heshowed Hitler the newsreels two days later, but Hitler ordered him not to releasethem to avoid reprisals against those seen cheering.98On the day after Breslau, Hitler visited Schwanenwerder—Goebbels’ sister wascelebrating her engagement—and again took him into his confidence. He planned tomake a ‘clean sweep’ in Austria. ‘Let’s hope we all live to see that day,’ wrote Goebbels.He day-dreamed about the Führer’s triumphal entry into Vienna. After that, he mused,it would be Czechoslovakia’s turn.99 At the Nuremberg rally in September the Austriancontingent again staged an emotional scene. Here, Hitler assured Goebbels:‘Austria will be dealt with one day by force.’ After further scenes of fraternization(‘Maidens hug and kiss me. Oh, thou wunderbares Volk!’) Goebbels promised grimlyin his diary: ‘We ’re on our way!’100‘DR GOEBBELS does these things well,‘ remarked one British official drily, after readinghis fifty-page speech at Nuremberg, yet another attack on bolshevism and the Jews.101In Russia, said Goebbels, Stalin had murdered 42,000 priests; in Spain, his agentshad already killed seventeen thousand priests and monks by February yet the worldresounded with horror if one Jew in Germany had his ears deservedly boxed. TheJew, he said, was a parasite, ‘the destroyer of culture … the ferment of decomposition.’Hitler’s line again marginally varied from Goebbels’. As joint winner of thenew National Prize, Hitler had nominated Professor Ernst Sauerbach, despite objectionsfrom Goebbels that the surgeon was a ‘vassal of the Jews.’ Goebbels now askedthe surgeon to join the party. Sauerbach politely declined.102Opinion was divided about Goebbels’ real influence on Hitler. Which was the evilgenius, and which the spellbound princeling? George Ward Price, the perceptiveDaily Mail journalist, was emphatic that Goebbels was more dangerous even thanGOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICH 421Himmler, because he committed Hitler to courses of action by presenting him withfaits accomplis.103 (The presidential election; the trials of the priests; the later pogromsagainst the Jews, and total war are all supporting examples.) Only rarely didHitler actually apply the brake: In November for instance he phoned Goebbels toback off on their colonial demands.104 When Goebbels initiated a raucous campaignagainst the Czech government, alleging maltreatment of their German ethnic minority,first the Sudeten German leader Konrad Henlein, and then Hitler asked himto slow down.105 Over lunch at the chancellery Hitler reminded him that Germanycould not do anything about it yet. ’The Czechs,’ sulked Goebbels, ‘are crazy. Theyare surrounded by a hundred million enemies whose land and people they haveusurped. Na, prost!’ he exclaimed, ironically toasting them. Before lunch ended Hitlerhad again told him to downplay both the colonial and the church problems too.‘We must keep our propaganda powder dry,’ agreed Goebbels.106THAT afternoon however, in Goebbels’ absence, Hitler called a secret Cabinet levelmeeting at which he revealed to his foreign ministers and his commanders-in-chiefhis intention to launch a way of territorial conquest, beginning with a ‘lightningattack’ on Czechoslovakia during 1938.107Winning over Britain in the meanwhile, without offending Mussolini, would be achallenge.108 Here Goebbels was a greater hindrance than Ribbentrop. While AmbassadorHenderson respected Goebbels, his principal officials believed that he wastrying to whip up anti-British sentiment.109 This was not true. While mocking thehypocrisy of the English, he echoed Hitler’s regrets that they were losing their Empire.He blamed this on the foolish statesmanship of Eden, and compared him unfavourablywith Lord Halifax, the Lord Privy Seal, who was visiting Germany forGöring’s international hunting exhibition.110Goebbels took tea with this aristocratic English statesman, this ‘very calm, collected,and clever’ Cabinet minister, and pleaded with him to rein in Britain’s unruly,sensation-hungry editors.111 He drew attention to his own newspapers’ restraint duringthe British abdication crisis. ‘I had expected to dislike him [Goebbels] intensely,’422 GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICHconfessed Lord Halifax in his own private diary, ‘—but didn’t. I suppose it must besome moral defect in me, but the fact remains.’1121 Diary, Jan 29, Mar 3, 1937; passim, 1938.2 Ibid., May 5, 15, 1937.3 Table talk, dinner, May 24-5, 1942. Heinrich Heim, Monologe im