Is Lida out there? We don’tknow. Occasionally he drives into Berlin to see his family, to play some music anddeliberately lose a few hands of Black Peter to Helga before driving back to spendthe night at Lanke or his ministry.27 In his ministry too he is installing a little boudoir,so that he can devote more time to his work there; it is a tastefully furnished bachelorapartment with a bedroom, a bathroom, and an array of bell-pushes to informhis staff when he does not wish to be disturbed.28Simultaneously work will begin on the reconstruction of his official residence. OnJanuary 16 Hitler gives the go-ahead. The Goebbels’ spend hours more or less happilyporing over Professor Baumgarten’s plaster model and blueprints; the funds arerequisitioned, and on April 27 the wreckers and bricklayers move in. ‘I say my farewellsto these rooms I have loved so much,’ writes Goebbels with false pathos: ‘Itreally hurts. I clear things out and pack, and find manuscripts from my childhoodthat seem pretty ridiculous today… So adieu dear home! Now let the pick-axesswing.’29There is one snag. Lida Baarova wants to be no part of his planned ménage. Fearingthat she is trapped, she momentarily goes to England to talk with the talent scoutsthat Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer have sent from Hollywood. Gustav Fröhlich persuadesher to show them his photos too. Robert Taylor and Maureen O’Sullivan plead withher to leave Berlin. Nothing comes it, but at the next gala gathering of the film worldin the Kroll opera house in Berlin Goebbels will warn darkly that the German filmindustry is not a haven for Hollywood’s cast-offs. ‘If anybody else leaves for Holly-432 GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICHwood,’ he declares, ‘they’ll find they can’t get back into Germany when they fail.’30Miss Baarova interprets this threat as directed against her. But Goebbels has others inhis sights too, like Luise Ullrich, another popular star who has designs on Hollywood.31Bulky with her new unborn child, Magda is stuck out at Schwanenwerder. She ishoping for another boy, to call Hartmann or Harder.32 She seldom has enough fundsfor the household running costs and property taxes.33 The purchase of the secondproperty has strained their resources; early in 1938 Goebbels moves his mother inwith Magda and there are always shoals of other house-guests. His visits toSchwanenwerder are punctuated by acrimonious scenes The more he promotes hisfamily-man image in the media however, the less time he actually seems to spendwith them.34HIS real close family was one man now, Adolf Hitler. More than once in January 1938Hitler had prolonged private consultations with him, on affairs well outside his fief—asking for example whom he should now appoint to the German embassies in Rome,Paris, and Bucharest (Goebbels portentously started a card index for key future appointments.)35 When Hitler decided to replace his foreign minister he informedGoebbels two weeks before breaking it to the victim, von Neurath.36 Goebbels franklywarned him that Ribbentrop, the suggested successor, was a ‘zero.’37 When it came tonaming their latest new battleship (the Bismarck) Hitler again consulted Goebbels.38During the major scandal now almost upon them, the Blomberg–Fritsch scandal,Hitler and Goebbels would be closeted together for hours on end. Surprisingly,Goebbels would recommend the ultra-conservative chief of general staff, GeneralLudwick Beck, against the radical Nazi Walther von Reichenau to succeed Fritsch asthe army’s commander-in-chief.39THE broad outlines of the Field-Marshal Blomberg scandal are now well known. OnDecember 14 the war minister, nearly sixty, had unblushingly revealed to Goebbelshis intention of marrying a young girl of common stock. Seemingly not appreciatingGOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICH 433quite how common this twenty-four year old’s stock had been, Goebbels wishedhim luck.40 Both Hitler and Göring officiated as witnesses at Blomberg’s hasty weddingon January 12 (the girl had told him she was pregnant).The crisis burst upon them soon after. At Hitler’s lunch table on the twenty-fifthGoebbels detected a certain tension in the air. Aided by an unusually jovial Göring hetried to cheer Hitler up, but it was already too late.41 Helldorff, now police chief ofBerlin, told his friend Goebbels that Blomberg’s bride had a criminal record forpeddling pornographic photographs featuring herself. He showed Goebbels the policedossier—it was ‘hair raising.’ Obviously Blomberg had landed Hitler and Göringin a hideous position. Goebbels was speechless with rage at the injury the field marshalhad done to his idol. Twice he hinted that any honourable officer should shoothimself.42 But Blomberg merely resigned as war minister on the pretext of ill health,and left on a world tour with his bride instead (who turned out not to be pregnantafter all.)This was just the start of Hitler’s problems. Who should succeed Blomberg? Göring?General von Fritsch? Himmler now charged that the latter, though the obvious candidate,had once been blackmailed as a closet homosexual. This scandalized Hitler.Since the Röhm affair, his eyes glazed at the slightest mention of homsosexuality.Goebbels suggested that Hitler himself take over Blomberg’s position, thus becomingsupreme commander in one step.43 Fritsch did not however stand aside without afight. He denied the allegation of homosexuality, on his word as an officer, and he didnot even crack under the Gestapo’s grilling.44 ‘It’s one man’s word against another,’perceived Goebbels, fascinated by Hitler’s dilemma: ‘That of a homosexual blackmaileragainst that of the army’s commander-in-chief.’ But Hitler no longer trustedFritsch, and there was the rub. Innocent or guilty, the general was doomed eventhough he refused, to Himmler’s dismay, to confess.45 ‘Heydrich has conducted severalall-night interrogations,’ recorded Goebbels equally perplexed. ‘Fritsch is takingit all on the chin, but standing up to him.’46Goebbels’ problems as propaganda minister were also beginning as juicy rumourswashed around Berlin. He spent sleepless nights, he even saw Hitler in tears with434 GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICHworry.47 He promised to keep the lid firmly on things. He suggested that it wouldhelp if Hitler chose now to carry out a reshuffle of both his cabinet and armed forces.‘The damage that one woman can do!’ gasped Goebbels, as the hit lists were drawnup. ‘And that kindÊ of woman too!’48Hitler announced his reshuffle to his ministers at eight P.M. on February 5, 1938.Goebbels’ diary provides the only detailed record of this, the last
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