Doctor Goebbels: His Life & Death

whichhad been convened on March 10 and immediately adjourned (as we shall see), wasresumed on the seventeenth. Goebbels wrote: ‘The entire thing seems to be basedon mistaken identity. Very nasty,’ he wrote, adding with unconcealed satisfaction,‘above all for Himmler… The Führer’s quite annoyed.’77 Fritsch was acquitted. Hitlersent him a handwritten apology and handsomely exonerated him in a speech tohis generals.78 Goebbel was delighted, both for Fritsch’s sake and because it was ‘aterrible put-down for Himmler.’79THE Fritsch trial had been held over from March 10, 1938 by dramatic new developments.In the last few days Hitler and Goebbels had paid remarkably little attention toAustria; their private conversations had gyrated around Czechoslovakia instead. ‘TheFührer is pleased to see Prague being so intransigent,’ Goebbels had recorded. ‘Allthe more surely will she be torn to pieces one day.’80 When Schuschnigg on March 9broadcast his plan to hold a referendum on the Berghof agreement, Goebbels, divertedby a farewell party at the ministry for Funk, rated it merely a ‘rotten trick.’81Hitler however had seen his golden opportunity. He called Goebbels out of a meetingwith editors later that evening: over at the chancellery the minister found Göringcalled in too. By staging his ‘stupid and crass plebiscite,’ Hitler snorted, Schuschniggwas trying to outsmart them. Goebbels was fired by Hitler’s enthusiasm for action.He suggested they send a thousand planes over Austria to drop leaflets, then ‘activelyintervene’.82His newly found 1938 diary makes clear how closely he consulted with Hitler overthe next hours and days. In deliberations that would last until five A.M. on Thursdaythe tenth Hitler mapped out his ‘very drastic’ plans to Goebbels and the Austriangeneral Edmund von Glaise-Horstenau. The latter, a Nazi, had been foisted onSchuschnigg’s Cabinet by the Berghof agreement. He paled at the possible conse-438 GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICHquences of a German invasion, but not Hitler. ‘He believes the hour has come,’ wroteGoebbels. ‘Just wants to sleep on it. Says that Italy and Britain won’t do anything…That the risk isn’t as great as it was when we occupied the Rhineland.’ Only France’sreaction was unpredictable. After dozing for two hours, however, Goebbels awoke tothe news that France’s prime minister had resigned over unrelated domestic issues.That clinched it. ‘Tally-ho,’ he whooped. ‘The imponderables are melting away.’ Calledover to the chancellery again that Thursday (the tenth) he found a hunched Führer,now brooding over maps.They had two days before Schuschnigg’s proposed referendum. Goebbels suggestedthis scenario: they two tame Austrian Nazis, Seyss-Inquart and Glaise-Horstenau,should stipulate that the referendum be based on the 1935 Saar referendum statute.Schuschnigg would of course refuse. The two Nazis would resign on Friday. On Saturdaythe Luftwaffe would send six to eight hundred planes to drop leaflets callingon the Austrian people to arise. ‘The people do so. And on Sunday we march in.’ S.A.Obergruppenführer Hermann Reschny, who had four thousand embittered Austrian‘legionnaires’ (exiled Nazis) standing by, predicted that Schuschnigg’s troops wouldopen fire. But now there was no stopping Hitler. ‘There has always been somethingabout March,’ mused Goebbels, setting his printing presses rolling. ‘It has been theFührer’s lucky month so far.’At midnight Hitler sent for him again. He was speeding things up. The Wehrmachtwould invade Austria on Saturday, not Sunday, and push straight through to Vienna.He himself would follow. ‘In eight days,’—this was Goebbels’ sober estimate, withall that it implied—‘Austria will be ours.’The few remaining hours saw him at his best. At his desk until four A.M., he dictatedleaflets, placards, and circulars and arranged with Heydrich for a police guardon the printing works—nobody was to be allowed out until the tanks began to move.83Once, Magda came briefly with the children to see their absentee father. At eightA.M. on Friday Hitler reviewed the leaflets. As the hours ticked away, Hitler, Göring,and Goebbels put their heads together, hatching plans on how to effect the actualAnschluss, political union with Austria. ‘The Führer must be popularly elected asGOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICH 439[Austria’s] federal president as well,’ was Goebbels’ idea, ‘and thereafter bring aboutthe Anschluss little by little.’ To legalize the invasion Seyss-Inquart would have tosend a telegram from Vienna appealing for Wehrmacht troops. Hitler, Goebbels, andGöring dictated a suitable text. ‘It arrives here soon after,’ wrote Goebbels, somewhatprematurely, ‘and thus we have the legitimation we need.’84The German troops rolled into Austria on Saturday March 12. Leaving Göring andGoebbels in Berlin, Hitler left to follow them. Not a shot was fired.The Austrians’ overwhelming reception of the ‘invaders’ stunned even Goebbels.Tears streaming down his cheeks he sat up until three A.M. listening to the radiobroadcasts of the emotional scenes. Again and again Horst Wessel’s hymn blared forth.Hitler and the rump Austrian cabinet decided on Anschluss forthwith, which settledthat problem. After that things moved at breakneck speed. The Jewish-controllednewspapers in Vienna were banned—the Jews themselves were already in full rout,stampeding toward those few frontiers that still opened for them (‘Where to?’ commentedGoebbels maliciously. ‘As Wandering Jews into Nothingness.’)85 Together withLida Baarova and her bosom friend Hilde Körber, Goebbels sat glued to the radio inVeit Harlan’s house on the afternoon of March 14 listening to the excited commentaryas Hitler entered Vienna.86 The forlorn British and French protests tailed away,swamped in the totally unexpected sounds of jubilation from Austria.To consolidate his master-stroke, Hitler called a joint Austrian-German referendumfor April 10. Goebbels established a Reich Propaganda Amt (agency) in Vienna,shipped fifty thousand Volks radios there to facilitate the referendum campaign, andprepared an epic reception for Hitler’s return to Berlin. This was not easy as, atBerndt’s request—who had deputized for Goebbels in Austria—he had just sacrificedBerlin’s entire stock of flags and banners for Hitler’s entry to Vienna.87 But whenHitler landed back in Berlin at five P.M. on the sixteenth Goebbels outdid himself. Heand Göring sat proudly in the Führer’s open car as it slowly drove through the cheeringmillions to the chancellery.88The speed of events was now almost frightening. Unrolling maps, Hitler discussedwith Goebbels and chief engineer Fritz Todt the new autobahns for Austria, and the440 GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICHrebuilding of his native Linz.89 ‘Astounding, the fresh plans he is already hatching,’wrote Goebbels—and it is clear