diary, Mar 3, 1938. Niemöller survived the war after a relatively privilegedcaptivity at Dachau and other camps.71 Diary, Nov 14, 1937.72 Ibid., Nov 16, 1937.73 Ibid., Dec 11, 1937; statement by Ehrhardt to Kurzbein on Apr 22 quoted by Grau toHimmler, Apr 23, 1938 (Fritz Tobias archives.)74 Unpubl. diary, Feb 23, 1938.75 Ibid., Mar 2, 1938.76 Ibid., Mar 6, 1938.77 Ibid., Mar 18, 1938.78 Diary, Jun 15, 1938.79 Ibid., Aug 12, 13, 1938.80 Unpubl. diary, Mar 7, 1938.81 Ibid., Mar 10; JG’s glare was on the Czech parliament, where an anti-German debatewas raging—‘until one day [our] divisions are on the march.’ Party: Milch diary, Mar 9; theNYT on Mar 10, 1938 quoted JG as stating at this reception that ‘certain journalists of foreigncountries … stand in the service of secret powers and must fulfil their orders, be theseJewish or Masonic or international-Marxist or capitalistic.’82 Ibid., Mar 10. To JG’s fury, Daluege’s official police magazine Die deutsche Polizei revealed‘just about all’ their secrets of Mar 10–13 in an article; he had the journal seized and theauthor arrested (Ibid., Apr 3, 4, 1938).83 Ibid., Mar 11, 1938.84 Ibid. In fact the telegraphed ‘invitation’ arrived only two days later after the party wasover. Ibid., Mar 14, 1938.—See Seyss-Inquart’s MS on the telegram controversy, in hispapers (copy in IfZ, Irving collection).85 Unpubl. diary, Mar 13, 1938.446 GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICH86 Körber was Harlan’s second wife. Veit Harlan, Im Schatten meiner Filme. Selbstbiographie(Gütersloh, 1966), 83; and interview of Thomas Harlan, 1994.87 Ibid., Mar 16, 193888 Ibid., Mar 17, 1938: ‘This is a chanting, cheering city.’89 Ibid., Mar 18, 1938.90 Ibid., Mar 19, 1938.91 Ibid., and an unpubl. diary of Colonel Alfred Jodl, Apr 1938, transcribed by this author.92 See JG’s unpubl. diary, Mar 10; and Mar 21, 1938: ‘They [the Czechs] are too late.’93 Ibid., Feb 25, 1938.94 At the Berlin diplomatic reception on Feb 15, 1938, MastnO(y,´) had spoken with himabout a newspaper truce between their two countries. Subsequently MastnO(y,´) did urgePrague to curb the anti-German press. See the note on his phone conversation with Krofta,Feb 16, 1938, in Vaclav Král, Das Abkommen von München 1938 (Prague, 1968), 67f, No.16.95 Unpubl. diary, Mar 20, 1938.96 ‘Unzeitgemäß’. Ibid., Mar 22, 1938.97 Ibid., Mar 25, 1938.98 Ibid., Mar 29, 1938.99 Ibid., Apr 8, 1938.100 Ibid., Mar 22, 1938.101 See the report in NYT, Mar 30, 1938.102 Monthly report by British vice consul at Breslau, Mar 31, 1938 (PRO file FO.371/21674).103 Henderson to F.O. Apr 8, 1938 (ibid).104 Unpubl. diary, Apr 5, 1938.105 See the report in NYT, Apr 5, 1938.106 Unpubl. diary, Apr 10, 1938.107 Ibid., Apr 11, 1938.108 Ibid., Apr 12, 1938.109 Ibid., Apr 11. Of 49,403,028 entitled to vote, 49,279,104 had voted, of which48,751,857 had voted for Hitler and Anschluss. Analysed: ibid., Apr 26, 1938.GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICH 44729: The GamblerTHAT Anschluss vote was the crowning achievement of his first five years asminister. Foreign rumour often speculated on his replacement and on hispersonal life, but he was preoccupied with greater things.1 On March 18 Hitler signeda decree setting up a new film academy, which would offer courses on film history,propaganda, and audience-analysis—a subject close to his heart.2He was also preparing his onslaught on Junk Art (entartete Kunst). In June 1937he had been shown some sorry examples of what at that time he called ‘artistic bolshevism’,and he had begun planning a mocking exhibition. At first the mortified andeffete art world of art connoisseurs had given little help.3 Speer had offered to helphim stage the exhibition but later even he baulked and changed his mind.4 On June
Goebbels29 Hitler authorised Goebbels to confiscate all such works...exhibition. Goebbels immediately instructed Professor Adolf Ziegler, a radical professorof art in Munich, to ‘select and secure all works of German decadent art andsculpture since 1910 in German Reich, provincial, or municipal possession’ for thepurposes of the exhibition.5 It opened in Munich in July 1937. ‘The “Junk Art”exhibition is a gigantic success,” recorded Goebbels on the twenty-fourth, ‘and adeadly blow. The Führer stands fast at my side against all enmities.’ Hess, Rosenberg,Speer and other Nazis all had favourite artists they tried to protect, but Goebbelswas merciless; the next day he phoned Ziegler to purge all the museums—‘It willtake three months, then we’re clean.’6 The concentrated effect of so much that was448 GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICHgrotesque and avant-garde was stunning. Although only six of the 112 exhibits wereby Jews, Hitler pinned the blamed on them in his introduction to the catalogue:‘Jewry has been able,’ he wrote, ‘largely by exploiting its position in the press, toobscure all normal ideas of the nature and function of art.’ Using methods well provenin the years of struggle, Goebbels hired actors to circulate among the crowds feigningdisgust at the works on display.Within a few days three-quarters of a million people had thronged the exhibition’shalls. Professor Ziegler told Goebbels that the Weimar government had forked outsix million Gold marks for this junk art before the Nazis came to power.7 When themayors of Stettin and Cologne protested at losing their museum treasures, Goebbelsshowed to Hitler the ‘art filth’ that they were promoting, and confidently invited himto arbitrate.8 With Hitler’s approval, and over the objections of Rust and Rosenberg,Goebbels drafted a law formally confiscating all of the ‘junk art’ works without compensation.9 The Reich sold them off to less discerning nations and used the foreigncurrency to buy-in real Old Masters.10Visited eventually by three million people, the junk art exhibition would visit thirteencities in Germany and Austria, exhibiting works by Dix, Nolde, and Kokoschka.A typical item was Kirchner’s ‘Self Portrait as a Soldier,’ showing him holding up abloodied stump instead of a hand (‘an insult to German heroes,’ read the exhibition’stag). Grosz’s similar indictments of war were branded a deliberate sabotage of nationaldefence.THE glorious reunification of Germany and Austria has mellowed Magda. He spendsseveral Sundays out at Schwanenwerder with his platinum blonde wife, just like oldtimes. For a few days she has to go to the clinic—her heart is playing up again as thefinal weeks of
