Doctor Goebbels: His Life & Death

formal Cabinetmeeting ever held.49 Struggling to do justice to both Blomberg and Fritsch and chokingwith emotion, Hitler spoke of the personal tragedies that had obliged them toresign. He announced that he himself would take over as supreme commander (asGoebbels had suggested).For a few days the world’s press seethed with fierce but ill-informed speculation—what Goebbels called ‘horror stories.’50 He directed his rough-and-ready lieutenantBerndt to scatter dust in the eyes of the press corps in Berlin.51 ‘He had the nerve totell us,’ recorded an American journalist, ‘that Blomberg’s resignation was due solelyto reasons of health (yet he was healthy enough to marry!)’52 To an equally scepticalDutch pressman Berndt tactlessly flared, ‘What would you say if our newspaperswere to state that the baby just born to your Royal family isn’t really [Crown Princess]Juliana’s baby!’53 Unimpressed, the foreign journalists still churned out ‘horrorstories’. So Goebbels told Berndt to go the whole hog and plant rumours that Hitlerintended invading France. The newshounds went yelping off after that scent instead.It all provided an interesting example of news-management. ‘Anything is better thanthe truth,’ reflected the propaganda minister, in a departure from his norm.54LAYING a second smokescreen Hitler briefly55—as he imagined— and unexpectedlyturned to Austria. He summoned Austria’s pettifogging chancellor Dr KurtSchuschnigg to the Berghof on February 12. No formal record was taken of Hitler’sblustering, ranting threats but he boasted with some relish to Goebbels afterwardsofhow he had talked ’pretty tough’ with Schuschnigg on a list of demands, and hadthreatened to get satisfaction by force (‘guns speak louder than words’56). ‘It was notjust an ultimatum,’ summarized Goebbels. ‘It was a threat of war. Schuschnigg wasGOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICH 435shattered.’57 Under a secret protocol agreed between them Austria guaranteed tomodel her foreign and military policy on Germany’s, and to call a truce in their presswar; Schuschnigg was also to appoint the Austrian lawyer Arthur Seyss-Inquart (describedby Goebbels as ‘our man’) as minister of the interior. In return Hitler agreedto refrain from interfering in Austria’s domestic affairs.58Four days after the Berghof meeting, Schuschnigg’s Cabinet agreed to Hitler’s dictates.‘The world’s press rages,’ observed Goebbels, ‘and speaks—not entirely unjustly—of rape.’59 Hitler formally thanked Schuschnigg in the Reichstag on the twentieth.In private he added that he envisaged cutting a similar deal with Prague whenthe time came, although he warned Goebbels that the Czech president EdouardBeneoar(s,ˇ) was a far more deadly opponent, ‘a crafty, squinny-eyed little rat.’60For all his other sins, Hitler did adhere to the Berghof agreement. When two AustrianNazi leaders visiting Munich on February 25 still talked of staging a coup, heforbade them to return.61 Schuschnigg was less scrupulous. After the newly re-emancipatedNazis staged big demonstrations in Graz and Vienna he called out the armyagainst them, in violation of the agreement. Goebbels directed the German press tohold its tongue.62He had other things on his mind—principally the trial of Pastor Niemöller, arrestedseven months earlier on sedition charges.63 As the still overly conservativeministry of justice set aside a full two weeks for a public trial, all Goebbels’ hatredsboiled over. ‘Lawyers are all mentally defective,’ he had written the year before.64 Hepleaded for a two- or three-day trial in camera, followed by Niemöller’s swift andpermanent removal from public view. Hitler himself had ruled that Niemöller wasnever to be turned loose again.65 Was that not an edict simple enough for even themost pettifogging lawyer to understand? When the trial began on February 7, however,the court refused to impose reporting restrictions and allowed the pastor anentire day to reminisce about his career.66 Goebbels persuaded the court to go intoclosed session. At this Niemöller’s lawyers walked out.67These were the kind of tactics that Goebbels himself had used against the catspawcourts of the Weimar regime, and now, used against him, they stung. When a brave436 GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICHcivil servant, Ernst Brandenburg, testified for the pastor, Goebbels had him dismissedfrom the party.68 On March 2 the judges handed down a derisory sentence onNiemöller, allowing his immediate discharge. Exploding with wrath, Goebbels releasedonly the briefest press notice.69 Hitler directed Himmler to have the pastorremoved by a back door from the courthouse and taken straight to Oranienburgconcentration camp. ‘He won’t be set free again,’ triumphed Goebbels.70HIMMLER’S organs did have their uses. Mostly however Goebbels gave a wide berth tothe Reichsführer now. ‘His entire being breathes sterility,’ he decided. ‘He is a littleman without an ounce of style. Ignore.’71 When Reinhard Heydrich, Himmler’s executivechief, started sniping at Taubert, the minister fired off a terse rebuke. Thepolice, he noted, might poke their nose in elsewhere, ‘but not here!’72 Once, Helldorffwarned him against his personal assistant Fritz Ehrhardt, pointing out that he alsoheld the rank of Hauptsturmführer (captain) in Himmler’s security service, the S.D.‘When I became police chief of Berlin,’ explained Helldorff, ‘I removed from mystaff every S.S. officer who was working for the S.D. I advise you to do the same.’73If Goebbels had any doubt as to Himmler’s code of ethics it soon became apparent.After Helldorff revealed something of the Gestapo’s spying techniques, Goebbelsexclaimed in his diary, ‘We’re heading toward a world of informers and sneaks.’74Helldorff, Hanke, and Lutze told Goebbels that everybody was now surrounded by avast network of Gestapo informers. All this informing—which seemed his particularworry—was not only stupid but despicable. ‘It just begets cowardice, terror, andhypocrisy,’ he felt. ‘I just can’t believe it all,’ he wrote on March 1. ‘The [Gestapo]methods in the fight against Fritsch are not very honourable.’ The case exposedHimmler in all his treachery. The general had demanded a court-martial to clear hisname. The pre-trial investigation threw a most unsavoury light on Gestapo methods.‘They can prove hardly anything against him,’ wrote Goebbels. ‘They should neverhave dragged in the Führer.’75 Hitler expressed to him serious concern about theinvestigation. Goebbels learned that it was not going at all smoothly.76 Von der Goltz,GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICH 437now acting for the general, had established beyond doubt that the Gestapo had cynicallyframed him using the dossier of an army captain von Frisch.This really was a horror story, and it all came out when the court martial,