Doctor Goebbels: His Life & Death

occupiedNorway and turned the barrage up to half-volume.14 But still Hitler held backhis bombers. He explained that the Reichsmarschall was still testing the sinews ofBritain’s defences. ‘If the losses we sustain are within reason,’ wrote Goebbels afterseeing Hitler again on the sixth, ‘then the operation will proceed. If they are not,then we shall try new ways. Invasion not planned,’ he noted almost casually.* ‘But weshall hint at it subliminally in our propaganda to confuse the enemy.’* Thereby settling one major historical controversy. This author has long maintained, e.g.in Churchill’s War (London, 1987) and Hitler’s War (London, 1991), 311ff., that Hitler neverintended to invade Britain and that Operation Sea Lion was only strategic deception. Traditionalhistorians have been slow to accept this.608 GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICHGoebbels briefed only a few of his staff on Hitler’s startling disclosure. ‘The Führerhas still not ordered the air attack on Britain,’ he noted after a further visit to himthat day. ‘He’s still rather hesitant.’ Anxious to exculpate his vacillating idol in hisdiary, Goebbels conceded: ‘It is a tricky decision.’15 And it was: bombing Londonwould finally close the door to peace. Churchill knew this too, and this was onereason why his bombers were trying to provoke Hitler. Goebbels found himself hisunwitting ally. ‘The people,’ he wrote privately, meaning himself, ‘are afraid thatwe’re missing the opportune moment.’ Over lunch on the eighth Hitler howeversaid that the weather was not good enough. Goebbels squirmed, but noted: ‘Perhapsit’s all for the best.’16To his dismay Churchill’s information machine proved slicker than his as the battleof Britain began. He did not mind that Churchill inflated his victories, claiming fiftythreeLuftwaffe planes when the real total was ten; but the British announced thisvictory in as rising crescendo of fourteen bulletins issued during the day, while theGerman High Command was still ponderously releasing one.17 Goebbels remindedthe world that Churchill had frankly confessed to lying his way out of awkward situationsin the earlier war.18Hitler still hesitated to bomb London. Goebbels resorted in his diary to his nowthreadbare palliative: ‘The Führer will surely seek out the right moment and thenstrike accordingly.’19 Göring decided to launch Eagle Day, the mass attack on southernEngland, on the thirteenth; but only half the two thousand planes got airborne inbad weather, and London itself was still off limits.20 Goebbels anticipated that Churchillwould soon get to work on the world’s tear glands, as he put it, with harrowingphotographs of pregnant air raid victims. He told his ministry to dig out file photographsof, ironically, the Freiburg raid and comparable British atrocities in India.For several more days bad weather continued to thwart Göring. The Gestapo reportedthat the German public was getting jittery.21 On the twentieth Churchill famouslyextolled Britain’s young fighter pilots, speaking of how so much had neverbeen owed by so many to so few. Goebbels mechanically dismissed the speech asGOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICH 609‘insolent, arrogant, and mendacious,’ but he had to admit, as one orator invigilatingover another, that it was good stuff. ‘He has a seductive style,’ he wrote.22Autumn was drawing in. The nights were getting long enough for Churchill topush his bombers as far as Berlin. On the night of August 19–20 a Blenheim bomberwas actually shot down over the city. Goebbels announced the incident only in hisoverseas services. He was confronted by something of a dilemma—how to profitfrom the raids on Berlin without affording comfort to the enemy.23 Late on the twentyfourtha Luftwaffe plane sent to attack a Thames-side oil refinery strayed over theeast end of London; there were no casualties, but Churchill ordered a hundred heavybombers to Berlin the next night.24 Alone out at Lanke—Magda and the children hadleft for Schwanenwerder as the new school term began—Goebbels watched Berlin’sflak batteries opening up in the distance. Damage was again minimal, but the fourhouralert robbed him of precious sleep and he spent the next night out at Lanke too.Expecting the worst to be over in three weeks, he agreed with Göring that theyshould close all theatres until then.25The British raids continued. On August 28–29 their bombs killed ten Berliners. Atsix A.M. the radio revealed to Germany that their capital had been bombed. Goebbelsdecided on balance that since he had little to work on, he might as well stay out atLanke for another night.26 Hitler, made of sterner stuff, hurried back from Bavaria tothe capital and assured Goebbels over lunch on the thirtieth that if only the weatherwould improve Göring would begin his unrestricted air warfare against Britain.Goebbels reflected that Berlin would then be in for a ‘pretty hot time’ too.27CHURCHILL, Hitler, and Goebbels were alike in tragically over-estimating the strategiccapabilities of saturation bombing. Each side believed that its opponents were lessbrave. At his confidential morning conference on September 3, 1940 Goebbels admittedthat opinion on this differed. ‘There is no doubt,’ he defined, ‘that a nationreally determined to defend its freedom can only be wrestled to the ground in manto-man combat.’ He doubted however that Britain had that determination. Commonsense might yet prevail there. ‘We’ll have to see how things turn out.’610 GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICHIn fact he cynically hoped that Churchill’s raids would get heavier. He needed whathe called an alibi, to justify in advance the Schrecklichkeit which the Luftwaffe wasabout to inflict on London. Hitler had ruled out an unopposed invasion of Britain asunnecessary. Both men expected a walk-over once the Luftwaffe really got at London.Goebbels began planning ahead with Gutterer for the occupation of London,nominating first his police major Walter Titel, of his war operations staff, and thenDr Friedrich Mahlo, head of his tourism section, as chief of the England task force,and determining which buildings, like the British Broadcasting Corporation, it wouldneed to seize.28While Berlin now prepared for the worst, removing priceless paintings to safetyand digging in flak batteries around the city, Hitler and his propaganda minister debatedendlessly the central question: whether bombing alone would force the Britishto their knees. Goebbels eschewed any opinion, but wondered privately how muchlonger London had before the onslaught began. Hitler however was awaiting a responseto his further peace feelers,