Doctor Goebbels: His Life & Death

this, her sixth pregnancy begin to tell on her. ‘I soon comfort her,’ herecords.11 Perhaps this is the occasion when he confesses that he does not find it easyto remain faithful, except now because Magda is pregnant.12 Magda blissfully repeatsthese lines to her venomous sister-in-law Ello and adds, starry-eyed, ‘Joseph and Iare now just as close to one another as ever.’GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICH 449He is probably telling the truth. Lida Baarova is being difficult. He visits Lanketwice alone in April; he plays the piano, sleeps, walks, indulges in some pistol practice,then repeats in his diary, ‘I am all alone out here.’13 On May 2 he leaves Magda toaccompany Hitler on his state visit to Italy. ‘I give her a gold medallion bearing mylikeness,’ he records. ‘The dear thing cries at our parting.’14AS they waited for their limousines at the chancellery Hitler told him that he hopedto conclude a firm alliance with Mussolini which would keep him out of the anti-German front that London and Paris were cooking up.15There is little point in dwelling on their week-long visit to Italy. Goebbels’ newlydiscovered diary confirms anew the Nazis’ contempt for monarchies. All were grimlyagreed: ‘Never again a monarchy!’16 The king of Italy treated Hitler’s ministers likeshoeshine boys, in Goebbels’ words. ‘This entire pack of royal toadies: shoot the lot!They make you sick. They treat us as parvenus! … Here’s a tiny clique of princeswho seem to think Europe belongs to them.’17 Hitler decided he must warn his generalsonce and for all against monarchist tendencies.18 As for the Italian people,Goebbels observed that they seemed easily enthused. ‘But only the future can showwhether they will stand fast when push comes to shove.’19In two long secret meetings with Mussolini on May 4, Hitler told him in confidenceof his plans in the east.20 He told Goebbels briefly that so far, so good. Mussolini’sstudy, Goebbels afterwards found, was oppressively large, furnished with justone monolithic desk and a globe. Hitler thanked the Duce for helping him get Austria,and promised to repay the favour. ‘Over Czechoslovakia,’ noted Goebbels, ‘Mussolinihas given us a totally free hand.’ (Hitler had hinted in a secret letter to Mussolinijust before the Anschluss that he was going to deal with the Czechs next.) Thefinal outcome was, as Goebbels put it, a military alliance of sorts—though not oneon paper as Hitler would have hoped.21Hitler rewarded Mussolini immediately. At their final banquet he ceremoniallyguaranteed their existing frontier, thus writing off the South Tyrol for ever. ‘But it iscorrect,’ conceded Goebbels lamely, as their train headed back north through Italy.450 GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICH‘And things won’t work out otherwise.’22 Through the train windows Goebbels fanciedhe could see clusters of weeping South Tyroleans whom his Führer had justbetrayed.23 Mussolini parted from Hitler in Florence with the words: ‘There is nopower on earth that can drive us apart.’24WHILE on board the Italian flagship Conte Cavour Hitler has handed a signal form toGoebbels. Magda has given birth to another girl at two P.M. that day, May 5. ‘Sincetoday is our Navy Day,’ Mussolini pompously suggested, ‘You might name her “Marina”.’Goebbels merely grins. He will decide at first to call the infant Hertha, butshortly opts for Hedda instead—Magda’s mother has just seen a fine performance of‘Hedda Gabler.’25A week passes before he is back in Berlin and sets eyes on his fourth daughter. Shehas had a difficult birth. ‘What women go through for children!’ he sympathises inhis diary, and drives straight out to spend the next two nights at Lanke.26 Perhaps herdelivery has released him from his self-imposed constraints. Whatever; at his lakesidevilla he plays music, reads, and relaxes, then lazes, reads some more, takes out themotor launch, basks in the sun, and enjoys ‘some music and parlaver,’ so he is evidentlynot alone. By thought association his next diary entry mentions his spouse—‘Magda is okay.’27The next five weeks probably destroy any illusions that Magda may have cherished.True, he writes about making plans with Magda for the future, but it is not certainthat that future actually includes her.28 There are bitter rows between them. Over thenext five weeks he registers eleven ‘parlavers’ with her29—and unequal bouts theymust have been, conducted between Goebbels with all his rhetorical skills and hisless sophisticated wife, with her Belgian convent accent still clinging thickly to hervowels and consonants. Probably Lida Baarova is the cause, because he has been outto Lanke again twice in mid May before fetching mother and baby Hedda home fromthe maternity clinic on the seventeenth—and he goes out there again on May 20. Hisinfatuation with Lida is now at its zenith. He spends so many hours on the phone toher, that Göring’s wiretappers have to assign extra staff to monitoring her line (be-GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICH 451cause she is a Czech and thus a potentially enemy alien.)30 The Gestapo is also involved.He meets Lida at Hilde Körber’s villa in Grunewald, No.1a Lassen Strasse;but she too is a Czech, and her nine year old son Thomas will remember Goebbelssending him to keep a look-out for Gestapo cars from the window.31 Eventually Hitlermentions this to Goebbels and suggests he break off the affair—but it is only thissecurity aspect that bothers him.32On the day after Goebbels once more visits Lanke in mid-June, he, Magda, and hissister all ‘talk things over’ in a little pub in Berlin’s West End.33 Only twice in all thoseweeks does he escort Magda to public functions, in Charlottenburg (the diary logsanother row that night), and Vienna: on their way back from Vienna, he sets herdown in Dresden, where she is to take a cure lasting several weeks at her regularclinic. ‘A heartfelt farewell,’ writes Goebbels, and drives straight out to Lanke again.34That summer one of the two swans on their little lake died. ‘It’s an omen,’ says Lida.‘It’s all over.’35Magda only puts up with all this for so long. Once in his absence she spends anevening with Hitler and hints at these problems. Embarrassed, Hitler refuses to listen.Magda sniffs afterwards to Ello, ‘Once a corporal, always a corporal!’36While