Doctor Goebbels: His Life & Death

France and Britain.88 In December he asked to see the astrological calendars for 1940 (and bannedthe lot the next day.)89That winter he turned out millions of propaganda leaflets designed to subvert theFrench troops. Some asked the French soldiers how they’d like to die for Danzig.Others included a famous one shaped like a yellowing autumn leaf, and asking thesoldiers if they intended to die and fade away like this. Two clandestine radio stationsstarted transmissions in French. He supervised their content closely.90 ‘I direct thatenemy statesmen are no longer to be portrayed as figures of fun,’ he wrote, ‘but ascruel, vengeful tyrants. This goes for Chamberlain above all.’91 He spared the Dukeof Windsor from this campaign, as a precaution for the future.92 For Churchill he hadboth admiration and contempt. ‘Riddled with lies and distortions,’ he wrote afterGOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICH 575one Churchill broadcast. ‘He’s grown really old. But he’s a cunning old fox all thesame.’93The topics of his ministerial conferences ranged from the ridiculous to the banal,from the supply of shoes, potatoes, diapers, coal, nail varnish, and cosmetics to thechronic shortcomings in the forces’ mail.94 When London published an uncomfortablyaccurate account of Himmler’s concentration camps, Goebbels commissioned ariposte about their forerunners, the British camps in the Boer War and other colonial‘atrocities.’95 ‘The world,’ he recorded, ‘is being flooded with shameless lies and atrocitymyths about Germany … the craziest items, from the cruel persecution of the aristocracyhere and the execution of well-known generals to the imprisonment of PrinceMax of Baden (who in fact died ten years ago) and so on.’96 He published an articleabout these ‘myths’ having himself, at Hitler’s suggestion, just ordered the fakeProtocols of the Wise Men of Zion exhumed for a new leaflet against France.97He remained obsessed with the ‘crime’ of listening to foreign broadcasts. He feltthat the courts were being altogether too lenient in sentencing. Despite draconicsentences it was clear from Gestapo reports that listening was on the increase.98British bombers had however now started dropping millions of leaflets including aminiature Völkischer Beobachter wittily called the Wolkiger Beobachter, the Cloudy Observer.The first issue declared: ‘The revolver-journalist Goebbels and the younghacks scribbling at his behest may have destroyed the proud craft of German journalismbut they cannot assuage so easily the thinking man’s natural hunger for news.’ Itscaricatures were apposite—like Hitler reading Karl Marx and Stalin browsing in‘Mein Kampf’; and there was a moving obituary of General von Fritsch completewith a black border.99 Goebbels conceded that the British propaganda was becomingmore sophisticated.100His own press policies were still diffuse. He noted that he had lightened up on thepress a bit, adding: ‘We must allow them a free rein.’101 But the press directives reflectnone of this. After a train crash near Friedrichshafen killed 132 passengers on December22, and a second rail accident not far away killed fifty more the very nextnext day, he ordered both news items suppressed; but the second death toll rose to576 GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICHninety-nine and he had to release it several days later.102 He banned press coverage ofseveral Poles for massacring ethnic Germans, as well as reports on the execution ofrebellious Czech students and other steps against their intelligentsia.103 More enlightenedwere his bans on the printing of anonymous film or book reviews and,conversely, the names of defendants in minor court actions.104 Many of these rulesstill hold in Germany today.On December 16, 1939, he warned editors not to delve into the ancestry of theFührer, his childhood, or his private life, and he rebuked them for drawing festiveparallels between Adolf Hitler and Jesus Christ.‘The Führer does not desire such comparisons,’ he said.1051 Testimony of Schirmeister, IMT, vol.xvii, 258f, 275f.2 Testimony of Fritzsche, ibid., 161.3 RPA Frankfurt, confidential information, No.197/39, Sep 1 (Oberheitmann collection,BA file ZSg.109/5); Unpubl. diary, Sep 2, 1939.4 Interrogation of von Schirmeister, May 6, 1946 (NA film M.1270, roll 19).5 RPA Frankfurt, confidential information, Sep 3, 1939.6 JG, 25pp memo for Hitler, ‘Gedanken zum Kriegsbeginn 19193’ (BA file NS.10/37).Later (diary, Nov 4, 1939) JG would decide not to accept any memos longer than 3pp.7 Note for Italian minister of popular culture on phone call to JG, Sep 10, 1939 (NA filmT586, roll 415, 6583ff).8 Unpubl. diary, Sep 7; Hitler’s draft ordinance (Verfügung) of Sep 3 is publ. in ADAP(D),vol.vii, No.574. On Sep 9, 1939 JG recorded, ‘There’s still no end to Ribbentrop’s mischief.’9 Hitler had known since Sep 27 that a German submarine was responsible for the sinking,but he did not tell JG; Heinz Lorenz confirms this in interrog., Dec 3, 1947, part ii (NA filmM.1019, roll 43).10 Hitler did not tell JG that the assassin Georg Elser had already been caught on Nov 9 andinterrogated.11 Unpubl. diary, Sep 2, 1939.12 Ibid., Sep 3, 1939.13 Ibid., Sep 3, 1939.14 On Blomberg, see unpubl. diary, Dec 2, 1944; on Fritsch, Jun 14, 1938.GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICH 57715 Groscurth diary, Sep 29; in unpubl. diary, Sep 24, 1939 JG noted: ‘Fritsch died amagnificent death. His body had to be recovered by shock-troops. He was right up front. Atrue soldier!’16 JG visited Führer’s HQ on Sep 7 (FHQ war diary, Sep 7; IfZ film MA.272, 0627); andSep 14: Bormann diary and JG’s phone conv. with Alfieri that day (loc. cit.)17 Rosenberg diary, Sep 29, 1939.18 Darré diary, Sep 9, 1939 (transcript in BA, Darré papers, vol.65a).19 Unpubl. diary, Sep 3, 1939.20 See JG to Lammers, Sep 1, 1939 (‘No objections have been raised’) and other documentsin NA film T120, roll 2474, E255273ff; the Mar 1936–Jul 1941 file on listening toenemy broadcasts in ZStA Potsdam, Rep.50.01, RMVP, vol.630; and C F Latour’s paperinVfZ, 1963, 418ff.21 Gürtner to Lammers, Sep 1, 1939 (loc. cit., E.255277f).22 Lammers minute, Sep 1, 1939 (ibid., E.255279).23 Ibid., Sep 2 (‘that’s great: we have smitten this weapon from the enemy’s hand’);Groscurth, official diary, Sep 8;. On Sep 3 (unpubl. diary) JG noted, ‘Big row over thedecree on foreign radio stations. Göring, Frick, and Gürtner don’t want to go as far as I.’ Thelaw was gazetted in the RGBl on Sep 7, 1939.24 Hess