Doctor Goebbels: His Life & Death

understandableindignation was its spontaneous answer to the murder of the embassy counsellor.’51 ‘Enough is enough,’ he commented in his diary. ‘If we let it continue, there’s adanger that the mob will take over. In the whole country the synagogues have beenburned down.’ He repeated yet again, with grim and vengeful satisfaction, ‘Jewry ishaving to pay dear for this dead man.’52He made his report (on ‘what to do next’) to Hitler in the Osteria, the Führer’sfavourite Italian restaurant, and was careful to record this—perhaps slanted—notein his diary, which stands alone, and in direct contradiction to the evidence of Hitler’sentire immediate entourage: ‘He is in agreement with everything. His views arequite radical and aggressive. The Aktion itself went off without a hitch. A hundreddead. But no German property damaged.’ Each of these five sentences was untrue, aswill be seen. Goebbels continued: ‘With minor alterations the Führer authorizes mydecree re: breaking off the Aktionen. I issue it immediately through the press. TheFührer wants to proceed to very harsh measures against the Jews. They must repairtheir shops themselves. The insurance companies will pay them nothing. Then theFührer wants Jewish businesses gradually expropriated and their owners compensatedwith paper which we can [word illegible: devalue?] at any time. Meanwhile peopleare starting with their own Aktionen. I issue appropriate secret decrees. We’rewaiting to see the repercussions abroad. For the time being there is silence there. Butthe hullabaloo will come.’ Despite the toughing-out tone of these entries, there aremore than enough hints that Goebbels was deeply concerned by the extent of thepogrom and its effect on foreign opinion; and that he had hastily thrown everythinginto reverse. He hoped, he wrote, that the Judenaktion was over for the time being—‘Provided there aren’t any sequels,’ he added with ill-concealed nervousness. But histroubles were just beginning.GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICH 499I speak on the phone with Heyderich [sic]. The police bulletin from the entireReich conforms with my own information. Order has been restored everywhere.Only in Bremen have there been ugly excesses. But they submerge from view inthe overall Aktion. I arrange with Heyderich how the party and police are to cooperateon this.Work on until evening. Reports come in from Berlin about really seriousantisemitic outbreaks there. The public has taken over. But now there really mustbe an end to it. I have appropriate directives issued to the police and party.Signing as the party’s national director of propaganda, Goebbels issued a confidential‘communiqué’ to all gau propaganda officials. It specifically alluded to his earlierorders (which are missing from the archives): ‘I refer,’ it began, ‘to my today’s announcementre ending the anti-Jewish demos and Aktionen.’Together with the police, all gau HQs are to take all due steps to make good thedemolished Jewish shops in the shortest possible time at the expense of theirJewish owners.He gave notice that an ordinance would follow voiding the liability of insurancecompanies to pay out on Jewish claims. ‘Moreover a series of measures will shortlybe enacted against the Jews…’ Most significant was the document’s last paragraph:‘The anti-Jewish Aktionen must now be called off with the same rapidity which whichthey were launched. They have served their desired and anticipated purpose.’53 It isworth remarking that Goebbels felt comfortable issuing orders to both other gauleitersand police.54That evening Hitler received four hundred leading pressmen in the Führer Buildingand delivered an extraordinary secret speech to them. He made no mention ofthe pogrom, and no secret of his admiration for Dr Goebbels’ propaganda triumphs.55Goebbels sat up until midnight listening to Hitler debating with the journalists, then‘had to’ leave, as he put it, for Berlin. The foreign radio stations were now full of thepogrom. Things were getting out of hand. ‘I assume full authority for Berlin,’ he500 GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICHwrote. ‘At such times of crisis, one man must take charge.’56 Hitler stayed in Munich,perhaps keeping as much distance as possible from Dr Goebbels.WERNER Naumann, who travelled back to Berlin with the minister, would state thatGoebbels fulminated with suppressed anger at the extent of the pogrom and issued apublic dressing down to his deputies Görlitzer (in the Berlin gau) and Wächter (inthe Reichspropagandaleitung, the party’s propaganda HQ) for the synagogue fireswhen they met him on the railroad platform early on November 11.57 Given thecontent of Goebbels diary—as he and Wächter knew, he himself had ordered thesynagogues destroyed—this scene displays nothing but his utter cynicism.He drove straight out to Schwanenwerder for Magda’s birthday. The broken glasshad been swept away, the shattered store fronts were already boarded up. ‘In Berlin,’he recorded, ‘everything has remained calm during the night.’ With further breathtakingcynicism he took the credit with his radio broadcast. ‘The Jews,’ he added,‘ought to be downright grateful to me.’58Rattled by the mounting global outrage over the pogrom, he called one hundredand fifty foreign journalists into his ministry at two-thirty P.M . The atmosphere wasicy. ‘Explained the whole thing to them,’ he told his diary; but the journalists foundhim pasty, haggard, and ill at ease. ‘You can’t blame me for what happened,’ he said.‘Why, I was in Munich…’59 He claimed that the Reich frowned upon such ‘spontaneous’demonstrations—but that the wrath of the people this time had been toogreat to contain, and that the police could scarcely open fire on crowds with whomthey sympathised. Shrugging off any personal responsibility he scoffed: ‘If I, DrGoebbels, had organised the demonstration, the result would have been very different.’To his listeners he seemed unconvincing, self-contradictory, and confused.60 (Afew days later the foreign press corps howled with glee when Louis Lochner told adeparting colleague, ‘I think you will agree that our efficient secretary managed toorganize a very fine spontaneous demonstration for you’.61) Still unashamed, Goebbelsdrafted together with Hans Hinkel, head of the Jewish desk at his ministry, petty andGOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICH 501repressive ordinances denying Jews access to all places of public entertainment henceforth.‘This takes the whole question a great step forward,’ he congratulated himself.WHILE Foreign Minister von Ribbentrop earned grudging praise for his handling ofthe protests abroad62, Dr Goebbels found himself a pariah in official Berlin. He had toseize and suppress