Doctor Goebbels: His Life & Death

fresh airbornelandings, and took care not to rebut enemy stories about Nazi secret weapons.31Already he was preparing a new recording of massed choirs singing the NetherlandsThanksgiving Prayer, ready for victory.32 As Hitler’s armies began their historicwheel toward the north-west Goebbels reflected unabashedly: “Since 1938 we haveconquered seven European countries.”33 As the King of Belgium conceded defeatChurchill broadcast his famous warning that Britain would fight on the beaches.‘He’s still insolent,’ decided Goebbels,’but you can hear the perspiration tricklingout of every frightened pore.’34 He ordered it brought home to the British and theFrench that it was their governments who had declared this war on Germany, and hecommissioned a special England victory fanfare for the German radio.35 ‘They declaredthis war,’ said Hitler, informing Goebbels of his intention of battering theFrench into submission. ‘Now let them whimper for peace.’36GENERAL Reichenau would tell the ministry’s staff, after Hitler appointed his fieldmarshals,‘The one who really won the French campaign was Goebbels.’37 Although abiography is not the place to analyse propaganda methods in detail, there was somethingin that. As the British expeditionary force fell back in disarray towards thebeaches around Dunkirk, Goebbels’ black transmitters were softening up the Frenchpublic and doing all they could to generate amongst the poilus the feeling that theywere already done for. He himself wrote many of the scripts for ‘Concordia’ and‘Humanité’, including a religious service of cunningly pacifist flavour. His purposewas simple: to spread despondency and dismay among the French. This he did byreporting rumours that Paul Reynaud’s regime was fleeing Paris; by urging all Frenchpatriots to withdraw their bank savings immediately lest the Nazis confiscated thebanks; and by broadcasting meaningless code-phrases to a non-existent French underground;Hitler directed him to talk freely about this fictitious ‘Fifth Column.’38His transmitters gave helpful advice to the French on surviving the cholera epidemic594 GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICH(there was none); and how to hoard scarce food supplies. No true Frenchman, theywarned, should trust the perfidious English. He spread rumours of peace talks, thenclaimed a day later that Britain had torpedoed them. Gutterer and Raskin faked thediary of a British soldier describing his sexual exploits among the wives of Paris.Other stations spread word of appalling atrocities, designed to choke the Frenchroads with panic-stricken refugees. He brought to bear the main transmitters ofRadio Cologne, Leipzig, and Stuttgart, to beam these poisonous messages into enemyterritory.39Learning that the turgid communist jargon of ‘Humanité’s’ scripts was turning offits listeners, Goebbels retrieved Wilhelm Kasper and Karl-Loew Albrecht from concentrationcamp.40 Together with Ernst Torgler they helped Goebbels to foment communistunrest among the Paris working class. ‘Magnificent,’ he congratulated himself.‘Keep tipping oil onto the flames.’41 Over the half-megawatt Deutschland Senderhis broadcasters warned that many of the Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany toFrance and England were really Hitler agents in disguise.42 Churchill ordered theinternment of over twenty thousand Jewish refugees, a spectacular success forGoebbels’ evil tongue.43 Settling scores with the exiled Otto Strasser and HermannRauschning, he had his ministry issue ‘official denials’ that they too were members ofthe Nazi Fifth Column. Then he arranged for an anonymous well-wisher’s telegramto reach Strasser tipping him off that the game was up.44As the black propaganda campaign gathered momentum, the roads behind theFrench lines were choked with terror-stricken refugees. Twice Hitler mentioned toGoebbels how moved he was by the French ‘refugee misery’ that he had seen.45 Theminister instructed his staff never to tell outsiders of the part their tactics had played—‘Even after the war,’ he directed, ‘it will be necessary to keep our operations secret.’46He stepped up the pressure on Britain too. William Joyce toured prison campsrecruiting English speakers.47 Goebbels was in doubt that Churchill would prove atougher opponent than Reynaud. ‘He will be England’s gravedigger,’ he prophesied.He warned the media not to speculate on Churchill’s parentage without cast-ironGOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICH 595evidence.48 Normal libels would not suffice against this man: perhaps monster-libelswould. He told Joyce to announce that Churchill was planning to torpedo the linercarrying fleeing Americans back to the United States (‘I wouldn’t put it past the oldrogue anyway,’ he commented, as though that were justification enough.)49In Churchill, Goebbels had met his match. Before his marvelling eyes, the ‘oldrogue’ converted the disaster of Dunkirk into a propaganda triumph for England.Churchill’s legend of the Little Ships fired the imagination of the world. ‘You can’thelp admiring the brazen effrontery with which they are putting out this monstrouslie,’ wrote Goebbels. ‘There’s no doubt that they’ve managed to halt the avalanche inpublic opinion that was developing.’50 Goebbels was dismayed to hear from d’Alquènand Hippler that not only were the French troops loyally covering the British retreat,but that whatever the French was saying to the contrary the Tommies were fightingwith unexpected bravery. ‘The British,’ he realized, ‘are going to be a tough nut tocrack.’51Hitler staged the surrender talks in the forest at Compiègne, the site of Germany’shumiliation in 1918. Telephoning Goebbels that evening he described with relish theFrench delegation’s consternation upon finding him there in person. Later Goebbelslistened to the secret recordings of the peace negotiations.52Broadcasting over the B.B.C., Churchill announced that Britain would fight onalone. ‘That idiot is plunging all England into misfortune,’ wrote Goebbels. He orderedhis ‘black’ transmitters realigned on England. He did not share his Führer’smaudlin affection for the English. He found the early British war movie ‘The Lionhas Wings’ so ludicrous that he had it shown to the press corps and public audiencesin Berlin for laughs.53Hitler however hesitated. Goebbels could see that he hated the idea of pursuingthe defeated British army across the English Channel. In an interview with Americanjournalist Karl von Wiegand the Führer once again insisted, for English listeners’consumption, that he did not desire the destruction of their empire. This conciliatoryattitude suited neither Dr Goebbels nor Mr Churchill, who sent his bombers toBerlin on the night of the Compiègne armistice ceremony. Goebbels drove over to596 GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICHsee the resulting damage at Babelsberg and admitted at the next morning’s pressconference that there had been fatalities. When Hitler phoned later that day Goebbelspleaded in vain for retaliatory raids.54 He had to