Doctor Goebbels: His Life & Death

extend to the Carpathians,’ Goebbelspenned into his (hitherto unpublished) diaries: ‘The Ides of March.’We fix all the details already. We are after all well versed in this now. I recallBerndt and Böhmer [domestic and foreign press department heads] from leave…We’re all very pleased, even Ribbentrop. The Führer shouts with joy. This is goingto be a pushover. We’ll start broadcasting Slovakian bulletins from our [black]Vienna transmitter. I’ll turn the volume up over the next three days full blast…In the afternoon I work out the battle plan on my own. I think it’s going to beanother masterpiece of strategy and diplomacy.Late in the afternoon over to the Führer again. We infer from one report thatbefore its arrest the Tiso regime appealed in despair to the German government.The actual text can always be obtained later. The Führer says, and rightly so, thatyou can’t make history with lawyers. You’ve got to have heart, head, and courage—just what lawyers lack. In the evening, at my suggestion, the Führer visitsthe People’s Theatre to put up a facade.Afterwards he sat sipping tea with Hitler until four A.M. in the artistes’ club—‘Wehave our alibi,’ wrote Goebbels, ignoring the word’s criminal connotations. UpsettingHitler’s cynical plot, the Slovak leader Father Tiso refused to sign the appeal forGerman help that Hitler had sent him. The steam was going out of the plan. ‘We’regoing to have to help it along a bit,’ observed Goebbels. ‘The balloon’s got to go up.We’ll find a cause.’69 Next day, March 11, began with bad news—that Prague hadrestored Tiso to office; this proved wrong, and Goebbels sighed with relief. ‘Ouroperation is running according to timetable,’ noted Goebbels. ‘Abroad, nobody’sspotted anything.’ Berndt reported in, and Goebbels jokingly appointed the thickset,burly Nazi propagandist his ‘Reich Rumourmonger.’ It was the Sudeten crisis all overagain.GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICH 519Directives to the press: stir things up, but don’t let the cat right out of the bag…Lunch with the Führer. We talk things over. Everything still pretty confused. Clashesare being provoked. If Germans are mixed up in them we’ll raise merry hell. Otherwisekeep everything simmering. On Monday and Tuesday full blast. Then on Wednesdaythe balloon can go up.That evening he viewed several films, including ‘The Sweetheart,’ starring LidaBaarova, a ‘wonderful, poetic and moving love story’ which deeply upset him; hedrove out to Lanke to sleep it off amidst the snow and ice of a winter that had suddenlyarrived.70 (He had not seen Lida since, allegedly, she had suddenly materializedbefore him, mischievously disguised in a wig, at a Winter Relief collection.71) Thenews during the night from Bratislava, Slovakia’s capital, was distressingly calm. Withthe activists in jail, the momentum had gone. ‘The attempt to whip things up withour S.S. has only partly succeeded. It looks as if Slovakia’s not playing along,’ notedGoebbels in disappointment. Moreover Prague too was refusing to be provoked thistime. ‘So we’re going to make history there ourselves,’ noted Goebbels. ‘But thatwill be very difficult. And we’ve got to have it all ready by Wednesday.’ He discussedthe psychological aspects with Hitler at midday on the twelfth; they decided to keepthe crisis out of the editorials, the press must wear an impenetrable mask until Wednesday,the day itself. ‘If only we had a permit,’ lamented Goebbels, ‘i.e. an appeal for aidor military intervention. That would make it all so simple.’ All day long the messengersscurried between his ministry and Hitler’s chancellery, while the Berlin publichad not an inkling of what was brewing.72After another ‘alibi’ visit to an operetta, Goebbels and Hitler stayed up until threeA.M. talking foreign policy with Ribbentrop:He takes the view [recorded Goebbels a few hours later, referring to Ribbentrop] thatthere’s bound to be a conflict with Britain later. The Führer is preparing for it, buthe does not consider it inevitable. Ribbentrop displays no tactical flexibility over520 GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICHthis. He is intransigent and to that extent he lies rather athwart our lines. But theFührer corrects him. There is a heated argument…73Still the foreign press acted as though nothing was happening. Early next morning,Tuesday March 13, Hitler sent for Goebbels to agree leaflets for the invasion. WhileGoebbels, back at his ministry, drafted the wording —‘any resistance will be bloodilyput down’—his children came for half an hour to roister around, an idyll on theirony of which he himself commented. That afternoon Germany’s newspapers suddenlyopened fire, roaring with one voice a broadside of rage at Prague. ‘Berndt … isthe best man for such jobs,’ Goebbels recognized. ‘Now the cat is out of the bag.’London and Paris expressed themselves disinterested.Over to the Führer in the evening. He has received Tiso. Explained to him thatSlovakia’s historic hour has come. If they don’t act they’ll be swallowed up byHungary. He is to think it over and go back to Bratislava. No revolutions, it mustall be constitutional and above board. Not that we expect very much from him.But that doesn’t matter now.The Führer goes over his plan once more. Within five days the whole operationwill be over. On the first day we’ll already be in Prague. Our planes within twohours in fact. I think we’ll pull it off without significant bloodshed. And then theFührer intends to take a lengthy political breather. Amen! I can’t believe it, it’stoo good to be true.74The next morning, March 14, brought what Goebbels called ‘a long day of heatedfighting.’ Tiso persuaded his Slovak parliament to declare independence from Prague,but ‘not, as at first reported, with an appeal to Berlin for aid.’ The Slovaks wanted noGerman troops. Hungary began to retrieve frontier villages she has lost in 1919.’Our press,’ wrote Goebbels, ‘rampages just like last September.’ London and Parisstill kept well out: ‘Once bitten, twice shy!’ was Goebbels’ assessment. He had printedtwenty-five million leaflets overnight, and now briefed the press on what was coming.At midday Hitler discussed with him the new statute for Bohemia and Moravia,GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICH 521as Prague’s territories would be styled. (‘We order that the name Czechoslovakia isnot to be used any more,’ noted Goebbels, ordering swift research conducted intoGermany’s historic claim to