Doctor Goebbels: His Life & Death

Hitler told him afterwards that he had decided to deal with Yugoslaviaat once. For several days anti-German demonstrations rocked Belgrade. Goebbelsallowed his newspapers to publish reports on them without any comment otherthan, as he put it, a few choice drops of poison. On April 4 his black transmitterswent into action, broadcasting in all the regional dialects, promising everybody autonomyif Yugoslavia were destroyed.81 Goebbels was already choosing the Balkanvictory fanfare.82Looking at the clock over dinner on April 5 he disclosed to his closest staff thattheir bomber squadrons were already being fuelled for the attack on Belgrade.83 Atone A.M. Hitler sent for him; he wanted company. Three hundred bombers, saidHitler, would smash Belgrade at daybreak, followed by three hundred more the nextnight. ‘We’re going to smoke out this nest of Serbian plotters,’ noted Goebbels,aping Hitler’s language. Hitler said he would prosecute this war without pity. Theysat sitting tea until precisely five-twenty, the hour appointed for the attack, thenHitler retired to bed.84 ‘The Führer himself,’ Goebbels told his senior staff at eleveno’clock that morning, ‘estimates the duration of this whole operation at two months,632 GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICHI myself think it may well be shorter.’ Their propaganda was to attack the Serbiangenerals, particularly the coup’s ringleader Dusan Simovic. ‘I am convinced,’ he said,‘that they have been bribed by the British. They did just the same in the Boer war.’ Asfor Russia’s likely response, Goebbels calmed his staff’s fears. ‘Russia will think twicebefore poking her fingers into this blaze. She’ll stand there clenching her fists withrage, and watch what happens next. You know the Führer’s methods. Today and tonighta judgment is being inflicted on Belgrade on such a scale that for a thousandkilometres around people will say, “Hands off! Don’t get involved!” And that’s theobject of the exercise.’85Seventeen thousand were killed in the air raids on Belgrade.86 There was worldwideoutrage; when Churchill bombed Berlin on April 10, damaging the university,state library, and state opera house, Goebbels was perversely pleased as he could usethis raid to offset the bombing of Belgrade. The British claimed to have killed threethousand Berliners; the real total was fifteen.87FOR Hitler’s concurrent campaign in Greece Goebbels planned a two-tier propagandapolicy. For domestic consumption, the British expeditionary force in Greecewas to be described as powerful; but abroad, it was to be mocked as puny and ineffective.88 Moreover, since it was in Germany’s strategic interest to detain and destroythe British there, Goebbels publicly accused Churchill of planning to do a bunk.89‘We have to pillory Churchill as a typical gambler,’ he said on April 15, explaining histactics to his morning conference, ‘more at home in the gambling salons of MonteCarlo … cynical, ruthless, and brutal, spilling the blood of others so as to spare theblood of the British.’ If the B.B.C. now announced that Churchill was pouring reinforcementsinto Greece, he said, their response must be: ‘Lies, all lies! It’s not true,it’s just a cowardly fraud perpetrated by Mr Churchill. Our own precise observationsclearly prove that the British are taking to their heels.’ And if London’s Reutersagency now referred to the British as ‘taking up new positions,’ then German propagandamust taunt: ‘These new positions consist of the troop transports in which theBritish are planning their getaway.’90 Richard Otte, his verbatim stenographer, tookGOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICH 633down his words at conferences such as these, and within minutes they were beingtelexed to every newspaper in the Reich. Soon the world’s press was resoundingwith the insults which he had dictated. Even the New York Times predicted that Britainwas preparing to get out of Greece.His orthodox propaganda capabilities within Greece were strictly limited. Therewere only 37,000 radio sets in the entire country.91 Besides, the Greeks were neverHitler’s enemy. He was infatuated with the Athens of antiquity and, he told Goebbels,he had forbidden, any bombing of the city.92 Had the British not sent in their troops,he twice told his propaganda minister, he would have happily left the Italians to stewin their juice.93 Now, as the Germans fought the British forces once more toward thecoast, Mr Churchill lapsed into a brooding silence. Goebbels heard that he was seekingsolace in whisky and cigars. ‘Just the kind of opponent we need,’ Goebbels observed.94 By the last day of April the British had all left, aboard troop transportsbound for Crete and elsewhere.‘First,’ wrote Goebbels, ‘a short breather, and then the grand slam.’95Until now he had kept his knowledge of Barbarossa strictly to himself. On April10, 1941 he directed Dr Taubert to resuscitate his anti-comintern staff secretly again.96Taubert’s eastern department eventually became a huge body with eight hundredemployees running the radio, press, film, and cultural life of the occupied territoriesexcept the Government-General, with a vaguely anti-Moscow-centralism, antisemiticline.97That rainy Easter weekend, he took a few colleagues out to Lanke. ‘How do youthink,’ he suddenly asked, strolling around the little Bogensee, ‘the German peopleare going to react to a war with Moscow?’ Without waiting for the answer he continued:it would be their most gargantuan propaganda feat ever. For fifteen years theyhad demonized the Russians. Then Hitler had signed his pact with Stalin. ‘If we doanother about-face,’ he pointed out, ‘nobody is ever going to believe us again.’ Helapsed into silence, as he limped along the board-walk round the lake, then brightened.‘But as nobody will be believing us anyway,’ he exclaimed, ‘we won’t ever haveto take anybody into consideration again!’98634 GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICHStalin obviously feared something. Standing on the Moscow railroad platform forMatsuoka’s onward journey to Japan, he hugged the German military attaché Krebsand loudly promised eternal friendship. ‘Splendid,’ commented Goebbels privately.‘Stalin evidently doesn’t want to make the acquaintance of our panzer divisions either.’99 Before leaving Moscow, Matsuoka rather inconsiderately signed a Japanese-Soviet non-aggression treaty. ‘That doesn’t suit the Führer one bit,’ Goebbels observed,‘given the on-going planning.’100Churchill’s air raids were raising both strategic and propaganda problems. ThatApril he started dropping four-thousand pound bombs on Berlin. ‘That makes thefuture look pretty bleak,’ Goebbels admitted.101 But he remarked to Hitler that ifanything the raids were making their own public even more refractory.102 Neitherpaused