Doctor Goebbels: His Life & Death

term of 1920 however Gundolf directed him to Professor Max Baron vonWaldberg, a fellow Jew who had authored many a work on the history of literature.Waldberg assigned as his doctoral topic the obscure playwright Wilhelm von Schütz(1776–1847). In his competent dissertation Goebbels made perhaps over-frequentuse of the first-person (as in, ‘As far as I can see.Ê .Ê .’) and carefully praised the opinionsof Gundolf and Waldberg.16 Later he would have the university’s records doctoredto imply that his dissertation was more concerned with the political undercurrentsof the Early Romantic Period; and when in 1943 the university ceremoniallyrenewed his degree they tactfully omitted Waldberg’s name from the festivities.Universities, like lawyers, have never been ashamed to aspire to what even the Godsdo not: namely to alter that which has already happened, in accord with the spirit ofthe age.He did not ignore the other sex entirely during these last months of his formalstudies. He would later refer cryptically to perhaps a score of females— ‘MissSchucking’ was one, ‘a young Swedish girl’ another, ‘the beautiful Belgian’ and ‘thebeautiful violinist’ two more. Since Mumme had now threatened legal sanctions if hedid not stop pestering Anka Stalherm,17 Goebbels took his revenge by rewriting‘Michael’ to make the heroine suffer as much despair as he.Back at Heidelberg after Christmas 1920 Professor Waldberg told him to studyanother term before submitting his dissertation. Goebbels returned to Rheydt inMarch 1921 to draft and redraft the masterpiece while Flisges kept him company. An46 GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICHunwary comrade loaned him his fiancée, Maria Kamerbeek, to type the dissertation.He dedicated the completed 215-page opus to his parents. Waldberg was impressedand offered a few suggestions for improvement (‘But it’s already typed,’ wailedGoebbels in his notes and submitted it unchanged.) He attended the oral examinationin the prescribed top hat on November 18, 1921. The four professors includedWaldberg himself. At that evening’s seminar party Waldberg addressed him with aknowing wink as Herr Doktor.Thus he had made it. He now had the coveted title which opened doors to class,wealth, and authority18. He shared his triumph with his rowdy friend Richard Flisges;they caroused all night long, then travelled tipsily north to Bonn still wearing theirtop hats. Their friends, also sporting top hats, were waiting on the platform. Then onto Rheydt: the humble house in Dahlener Strasse was bedecked in flowers as theProdigal Son returned, haggard but well spoken, educated, and Latin in his looks. Ifthere had been a fatted calf to kill, old Fritz Goebbels, eyes awash at this visual proofthat he was pulling his family through into a better future, would surely have doneso.1 Fritz Göbbels’ correspondence with JG is in BA files NL.118/112 and /113.2 Fragment of a Drama, ‘Kampf der Arbeiterklasse,’ winter 1919/20 (Genoud papers;Reuth, 45).3 ‘Die Saat. Ein Drama in drei Akten, von Joseph Goebbels.’ The cast includes: the worker,his wife, their son; first, second, third workmen; the French lieutenant; a French sentry.‘The setting is somewhere in Germany.’—Handwritten MS in BA file NL.118/107.4 JG to Anka, Mar 4, 1920 (BA: NL.118/110); speaking the Plattdeutsch dialect of Rheydthe would have found it easy to learn Dutch.5 JG, ‘Sursum corda!’ in Westdeutsche Landeszeitung, Nr.55, Mar 7, 1922 (on film in Mönchen-Gladbach city library; courtesy of Reuth).6 See JG’s correspondence with Geitmann and others in BA file NL.118/112.7 JG to Anka, Jun 29, 1920 (BA: NL.118/126).8 The four sheets show no folds.—JG to Anka, undated (BA: NL.118/118).9 JG, ‘Mein Testament,’ Rheydt Oct 1, 1920. Not witnessed; inked on a small page evidentlya flyleaf torn from a book (BA file NL.118/118; a similar version in /113).10 Flisges to JG, Oct 31, 1920 (BA: NL.118/112)GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICH 4711 JG memoirs 1924.12 Dr Georg Mumme, born Brunswick Oct 31, 1892, joined NSDAP Feb 1, 1930 (No.190,196), later headed the Gau legal section of Thuringia and the legal department of theReichsleitung (NSDAP headquarters) in Munich; died in Düsseldorf in 1970 (BDC files).13 Anka to JG, Nov 24, 1920 (BA: NL.118/126); diary, Aug 7, 1924.14 JG to Anka, Nov 27, 1920 (ibid.)15 Diary, Apr 3, 1929.16 JG, ‘Wilhelm von Schütz als Dramatiker. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte des Dramas derRomantischen Schule,’ Ph.D. thesis, 215 pp., Ruprecht-Karls university, Heidelberg, 1921.17 Diary, Jan 20, 1929: ‘I tell [Anka] of the terrible pain I felt at our separation when ...[Mumme] was so lousy to me and turned up with a lawyer... But I believe she was probablynot to blame for it.’18 A copy of the diploma dated Apr 21, 1922 is in BA file NL.118/128.48 GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICH3: ‘A Wandering Scholar, I’JOSEPH Goebbels cherished that Doctor’s title. He asked to be called ‘Herr Doctor’and used it even when just initialling—‘Dr G.’ But for the next four yearshe remained perforce a nihilist doing nothing. To the quiet despair of his parents hesquandered the pittance that he did earn from his meagre writings or tutoring. Germanymeanwhile slithered into economic chaos. The marching resumed: the Polesinto Silesia; new parties in Germany; Mussolini on Rome. On January 11, 1923 theFrench marched into the Ruhr. President Friedrich Ebert called for a campaign ofpassive resistance, and the French put the twenty-nine year old Albert Leo Schlageterbefore a firing squad for sabotage.1 Later that year a young malcontent called AdolfHitler, 34, staged a coup d’état in Munich, was double-crossed by the Bavarian politicians,and imprisoned at Landsberg. Berlin undertook to pay reparations at the rateof 2·5 billion marks a year. Economic ruin faced Germany.Goebbels neither noticed, nor protested, nor cared. His head was in the clouds.He even cast plans with Flisges to emigrate to India. But since that would cost moneytoo, he lay on his bed at home and drank in Oswald Spengler’s writings on the declineof the west instead. The truth about his middle twenties was therefore unedifying,and in later years he would skirt around it in ever-widening circles. Later he allowedlegends to circulate about his heroic undercover activity and early commitment tothe Nazi party. Clad in what looked like infantry battledress, he was heard beginningone speech in Frankfurt in the winter of 1924–25 with the