Goebbels37: Propaganda Means RepetitionTHE winter of 1939–40 wrote its name in the history of Europe with weeks ofbarbaric blizzards. The canals froze over; deprived of coal, the arms factoriesslowed down, and power stations dimmed.1 The radiators in Goebbels’ ministerialpalace were stone cold. Playhouses and movie theatres closed.2 He discussed withAlbert Speer putting even stronger security fencing around Lanke, and gave ordersfor a two month renovation of Schwanenwerder as well.3 The forests around Lankewere blanketed in snow. He took Magda and the children out on sleigh rides until thesnow lost its magic for him. Judging from his diary the chattering children were hisonly joy. ‘Children are at least quite honest,’ he wrote. ‘They say what they mean.Why can’t we?’4 Visiting his mother at Rheydt he did what he could to help her tomake ends meet. ‘She brought me through the World War,’ he reasoned. ‘Now I’mgoing to see her through this one.’ Still plagued with money problems, he persuadedMagda to pass the hat round among their wealthier friends.5 As Europe froze, Hitler’splans congealed as well. Once, on January 8, 1940, he invited Goebbels aroundfor a cup of real coffee; but he made no attempt to discuss Yellow, his planned attackon France.6Goebbels boasted to Hitler that their propaganda broadcasts were now going outin twenty-two foreign languages, including Gaelic, Afrikaans, Arabic, Hindustani anda babel of Balkan tongues, compared with four languages a year before. Their Englishlanguage broadcasts targeted the working-classes, with an emphasis on the anti-plutocraticcharacter of the war; the News Chronicle, Goebbels told Hitler, reported that582 GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICHfifty-four percent of the ‘little people’ in England admitted tuning in to his propaganda.7He was ill at ease in war. His ministerial functions largely bored him. He repeatedlycriticized the party’s newspapers like the S.S. organ Das Schwarze Korps, whichprinted these words: ‘If, one way or another, a girl evades her supreme obligation tohave legitimate or illegitimate children, she is as guilty of desertion as is a conscientiousobjector.’8 To the foreign journalists stationed in Berlin he offered both thecarrot and the stick. He told Karl Bömer to open up luxurious retreats for theseimportant gentlemen, with no expense spared to mollycoddle them; but he alsorecommended arresting one from time to time and saddling him with ‘interminablecourt proceedings’ as a salutary lesson.9 He also directed Bömer to ensure that OttoStrasser’s autobiography was banned ‘in every country in which it is slated to appear’.10 The book was not flattering about Goebbels.SEVERAL times during those weeks he defined his basic propaganda tenets. OrderingFritzsche to continue plugging the Athenia mystery, Goebbels lectured him cynically:‘Never lose sight of the fundamental principle of all propaganda, the constantrepetition of the most effective arguments.’11 A month later he reiterated, ‘Propagandameans repetition and still more repetition!’ ‘I keep dinning it into my peopleover and over: repeat it until even the densest has got it.’12 Speaking to editors onApril 5, 1940, he said much the same. In August he would call repetition the ‘linchpinof all propaganda.’13Almost equal in importance came accuracy and promptness. Local people hadbeen dismayed by the press’s furtive reporting on the Friedrichshafen rail disaster.14Moreover, headlines had to match the story. A Berlin evening newspaper headlinedthe sinking of ‘two British warships’, but they were only patrol boats.15 As the Britishair raids began during May 1940 Goebbels ruled that the local press was always toreport death-rolls accurately. After casualties in one Berlin raid were first announcedas six dead, then revised to thirty-six, he ordered the press to admit their error. ‘Thepeople must not start doubting the credibility of German reporting,’ he explained.16GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICH 583In overseas broadcasting he allowed greater objectivity than at home. He releasedthe newsreel record of the last moments of the pocket battleship Graf Spee only forforeign consumption.17 With the increasing setbacks of 1941 Goebbels’ policy oftotal truth became harder to enforce. When the navy lost its three top submarineaces, Günter Prien, Joachim Schepke, and Otto Kretschmer, on one day he orderedthe news suppressed.18 He began to deceive his own diary more systematically, tellingit on November 19, 1941 that Ernst Udet had ‘died suddenly,’ although it is plainfrom the rest of the entry that he knew that the Luftwaffe general had died by hisown hand.19He saw little point in issuing official denials. ‘Denials alone won’t work,’ he statedwhen the British started alleging Nazi atrocities in Poland. ‘You’ve got to counterattack.’In this case he suggested producing eye-witnesses of the Polish massacre ofseveral thousand ethnic Germans at Bromberg.20 During one crisis in the Norwegiancampaign he recognized a need to rebut the enemy attacks immediately; but this didnot necessarily mean counter-attacking on the same theme. ‘Our principle mustalways be, never hold your tongue: always say something. If need be, force our enemiesto lose themselves in denials instead of spewing out still more lies.’21 Denials,he defined, must always be categoric.22 When an official asked in 1944 for formaldenials of Soviet allegations about Nazi atrocities in Maidanek concentration camp,his ministry replied that none would be issued, ‘as we shall be totally on the defensivein any discussion of this matter.’23As for lying,
