Doctor Goebbels: His Life & Death

by the Forschungsamt codebreakers, Ribbentrophad greedily seized on this chance of scoring off Goebbels.35 Hitler announced thathe was going to have the head of ‘whichever minister’ had betrayed the Barbarossasecret to Bömer. He ordered a full-blooded Gestapo inquiry and the luckless professorwas thrown into jail.36 ‘That’s what comes from boozing,’ wrote Goebbels.37He had to save Bömer if only to save his own skin. Witnesses named by Bömerswore that he had been misquoted; the professor claimed not to have known thesecret anyway. His minister did what he could, while cautiously telling his diary thatBömer had only himself to blame.38 ‘Ribbentrop,’ he also wrote, ‘does not play fair.He confuses politics with selling champagne, where the only thing that matters isdoing your opponent down.’39 On Hitler’s personal insistence Bömer was eventuallystood before the People’s Court on October 18. In an unusual alliance, forged of amutual enmity to Ribbentrop, both Dietrich and Goebbels testified on Bömer’s behalf—the minister declaiming theatrically, “If you find Bömer guilty, then you mustfind me guilty too!”40 Convicted of carelessness rather than treason, Bömer was sentencedto two years in prison.41 It was further proof how low Goebbels’ stock hadunaccountably sunk at Hitler’s HQ.He could hardly wait for the new war to begin. On June 4 he shared the deadlysecret with Leopold Gutterer, his Staatssekretär and trusty amanuensis (‘upon whom,’he had written, ‘I can impose at will.’)42 Since the last week in May he had beenfeeding ‘invasion’ rumours to the British, but there was disappointingly little evidencethat they were rising to the bait.43 He wondered if he was being perhaps toosubtle, and decided on blunter tactics.44 With Hitler’s approval he drafted for theBerlin Völkischer Beobachter’s June 13 edition an article, ‘E.g., Crete,’ which impliedGOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICH 645that the airborne assault on that island had been the final dress-rehearsal for theinvasion of Britain; he then arranged for the Gestapo to seize the entire edition assoon as the embassies and foreign press corps had received their copies. As soon asthe wiretappers heard one American correspondent file his story on this sensation toNew York, all phone lines out of Germany were cut.45It was one of his most devious stunts. To the uninitiated his ‘gaffe’ looked like theterminal blow to his prestige. News of it spread throughout the government grapevine.He hammed it up all day: he did not attend his morning press conference (instead,backstage, he was trying out new fanfares for Barbarossa.) Dyed-in-the-woolNazis like Reichsfrauenführerin Gertrud Scholtz-Klink thought it prudent to cancellong-standing appointments with him. ‘That’s human nature for you,’ reflectedGoebbels, and he chuckled at these faiblesses while outside his door Helga Hoenigand his other secretaries wept real tears over his apparent disgrace. Only the muchmalignedRobert Ley showed strength of character, telephoning him to ask if therewas anything he could do—an act of true compassion of which Goebbels often spokelater on.46*Hitler returned to Berlin that day, Friday June 13, 1941. Keeping up pretences,Goebbels did not walk over to the chancellery for his usual lunch either that day orthe next. On Sunday however he was driven in pouring rain to the back entrance ina borrowed car and hidden behind a copy of the Börsenzeitung. Schaub saw him andHitler laughing uproariously over the fake VB edition.47Hitler told him that Barbarossa would begin on Sunday June 22 with the mightiestartillery bombardment in history. ‘The example of Napoleon will not be repeated.’Fortunately Stalin was massing his armies on the frontiers, so Hitler estimated that itwould all be over in four months. Goebbels, who set little store by the Russians’* The effectiveness of this costly stunt was arguable. The New York Times and othersreported the suppression of the VB edition carrying his article, but the truth aboutBarbarossa had long been known to Mr Churchill at least, from code-breaking.646 GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICHfighting strength, estimated even less. ‘If ever an operation was a walkover then thisis.’ They had so much in reserve, said Hitler, that failure was impossible. Hitler haddrawn no limits on the map—the fight would continue until Stalin’s forces weredestroyed. As for the pre-attack period, their tactics this time would be different asGoebbels pointed out in his diary: there would be no protracted crescendo in thepress, but total silence until the day of the sudden onslaught itself.Goebbels was pleased that Hitler was going ahead with Barbarossa. He had abhorredthe period of uneasy collaboration with Stalin as a blot on the Nazi escutcheon.He even spoke kindly of Alfred Rosenberg, saying that the coming campaignjustified all that he had stood for. ‘Right or wrong,’ he quoted Hitler as saying, ‘we’vegot to win. It’s the only way… Once we’ve pulled it off who’s to question us abouthow we did it?’ Goebbels added, ‘We’ve got so much to answer for that we’ve just gotto win.’He had begun drafting the leaflets, brochures, and posters (‘Adolf Hitler the Liberator’)for this new crusade weeks before. In top secrecy Taubert’s staff had recordeddiscs, films, and radio broadcasts in the Ukrainian, Byelo-Russian, Lithuanian,Latvian, and Estonian tongues as well as in Russian, and in the dialects of countlessCaucasian and other tribes.48 He (wrongly) assumed that Hitler was planning toexploit the latent hatred of Moscow as he advanced. ‘Probably,’ wrote Goebbels, ‘oursoldiers will never have been welcomed with such enthusiasm.’49 He learned of Hitler’spolicies on Russia only at second hand and, as it turned out, most imperfectly.Rosenberg was to become minister for the occupied eastern territories with hischief of staff Arno Schickedanz in the Ukraine. Goebbels was uneasy about these twomen, they were too doctrinaire.50 But Rosenberg told Taubert that he planned todismantle the Soviet Union and restore each constituent republic’s liberty, whichseemed sound enough.51Goebbels’ dummy Task Force England was unobtrusively disbanded. The East PrussianJoachim Paltzo, with Dr Friedrich Mahlo and Adolf Mauer, both of the ministry’stourist office, would direct the real Task Force Russia.52 Thirty propaganda companieswould fan out behind the armies, making propaganda for the first time amongGOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICH 647the liberated peoples—one Propagandatrupp for each city—and they would bringreports back to Germany. Goebbels’ propaganda guidelines to the Soviet Union