Doctor Goebbels: His Life & Death

that while victory was indeedcertain, nobody could say when; then, in Das Reich, as the first wintry blizzards beganto harass Hitler’s mud-spattered and exhausted riflemen, he published an editorialentitled, ‘When, or How?’108 This too, despite the question in the title, talked ofGermany’s victory as inevitable. ‘The chance which the German nation has today isits greatest, but also its last.’ The entire nation, he wrote, must make one giganticeffort for victory. With powerful echoes of Winston Churchill, on whom he was nowincreasingly modelling his oratory, appealing to Britain in the dark hours of 1940, DrGoebbels now exhorted: ‘Let us therefore go forth and fight, and labour until victoryis ours.’666 GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICH1 Diary, Jun 25, 1941.2 Ibid., Jun 24, 1941.3 JG in VB, Jun 26, 1941.4 JG in Das Reich, Jul 6, 1941.5 Capt. Wolf Junge MS (IfZ, Irving collection) 231; Semler, ‘Jun 30, 1941’.6 Diary, Jun 30, Jul 3, 5, 6, 1941.7 MinConf., Jun 9, 1940.8 Diary, Jun 30, 1941; in Aug 1941 JG had a ‘very heated argument’ with the Führer’s HQwho in all seriousness again proposed to broadcast five special communiqués at hourly intervalswith the same ‘odious consequences’ as on Jun 29. Unpubl. diary, Aug 10–12. (For theunpubl. diary of 13–20, 1941 see NA film T84, roll 267).9 Unpubl. diary, Nov 22, 1941: ‘Let’s postpone that until the war’s over.’10 Diary, Jun 30, 1941.11 Unpubl. diary, Aug 16, 1941; annexe to JG’s letter to Hitler, May 23, 1943 (BA fileR.55/799).12 Diary, Jul 3; Semler, ‘Jul 5, 1941.’13 Unpubl. diary, Nov 7, 1941.14 For a Soviet leaflet with the German text see BA file NS.26/vorl.1194.15 Diary, Jul 5, 1941.16 Ibid., Jul 5, 6; unpubl. diary, Aug 13, 1941.17 Heydrich, report, Jul 2; Chef d. SiPo u.SD, “Durchsuchung sowjetrussischer Botschaft,”Jul 23 (Hewel Vorlagen beim Führer); Lahousen, report on official trip to Paris, Jul 7–10(IWM file AL/1933); Ambassador Karl Ritter, memo of Jul 20, 1941 (Pol.AA: Ritter, Russlandvol.1, on NA film T120, roll 764, 8996ff); see David Irving, Hitler’s War (London, 1991),344f.18 Unpubl. diary fragment, Aug [10–12?], 1941.19 Diary, Jun 5, 13, Jul 8; unpubl. diary, Aug 13, 1941; Semler, ‘Apr 9, 1943.’20 H C Bartels to JG, Aug 3, 1943 (ZStA Potsdam, Rep.50.01, RMVP, vol.4).21 Diary, Mar 29, 30, 1941.22 Author’s interview of Richard Otte, Mar 31, 1971; and see Daily Mail, London, Jul 9,and General-Anzeiger, Bonn, Jul 11, 1992. On Mar 12, 1946 Leo Barten of USFET MISCwrote to Capt Smith (G-2) that Otte, then living near Minden, ‘had sole custody of all thepersonal documents and manuscripts of Goebbels’; on which see also USFET MISC SIRinterrogation of Schwägermann, Jun 20, 1946 (Trevor-Roper papers, author’s film DI-36).23 Diary, Sep 23, 1942 ((1943?)24 Ibid., Jul 9, 1941.25 Ritter, memo, Jul 14, 1941 (Pol. Archiv AA, Serial 1386; NA film T120, roll 764, 359006);Luther, note of Jul 8, 1941 (ibid., 359008f).26 Schmidt-Leonhardt to JG, Oct 19, 1942 (BA file R.55/799).27 Diary, Jun 29. On Jul 3, 1941 however JG noted, ‘Rosenberg’s stopped making a fuss.He’s leaving the propaganda up to us entirely.’28 So JG said to Göring. Unpubl. diary, Mar 21, 1942 (NA film T84, roll 261).29 Diary, Feb 5, 1944.30 Ibid., Jul 13; Semler, ‘Sep 24, 1941’.GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICH 66731 Hadamowsky’s report from HQ, cited in diary, Aug 1, 1941.32 See e.g., the notes by S.A. Standartenführer Werner Koeppen, Rosenberg’s pers. Referent,on Hitler’s table talk with him, esp. Sep 18 (NA film T84, roll 387, 0770) and Sep 22,1941 (ibid., 0784f).33 For Rosenberg’s papers on propaganda in the eastern territories see BA files R.6/192;for Goebbels’, BA files R.55/799 and /1436.34 Interrogation of d’Alquèn , Feb 16, 1948 (NA film M.1019, roll 2).35 Taubert report; and JG diary, Mar 16, 1942.36 Diary, Jun 26, Jul 13, 1941.37 Ibid., Aug 1, 8, 1941.38 For JG’s propaganda issue of this book with a German commentary see BA file NS.26/42; a 12pp extract by the Reichsring of RMVP is on NA film T81, roll 672, 0606ff. See theSD Meldung of Jul 31 for the public’s reactions to these extracts (NA film T175, roll 261,4438ff) and Oct 2, 1941 (ibid., 4918ff).39 Theodore N Kaufman, Germany must Perish (Argyle Press, Newark, N.J., 1941), 7; reprintedas facsimile by Faksimile Verlag, Bremen, 1985.40 Unpubl. diary, Aug 3, 1941. Adolf Eichmann wrote in his notes in 1956 or 1957,‘Kaufman’s plan for the complete Ausrottung of the German people was known to us at thetime when the first order was given for the physical destruction of the Jews.’ (Originaltypescript in the author’s possession.)41 See the OSS R&A report No.695, Jan 14, 1943: ‘The Use of Professor Renner’s articleby Axis propagandist’ (USAMHI, Carlisle, Donovan papers, box 35c).42 Diary, Aug 9; on Aug 29, 1940 he added, ‘The Russians ran wild in Kaunas. Anybodywho looked above average was bumped off.’43 Ibid., Aug 17, 23, 1940. On the Madagascar Plan as a Solution of the Jewish Problem seenote of Jul 2, 1940 (ND: NG.5764).44 Diary, Sep 2, 1940.45 Ibid., Nov 5 (‘… and later on we’ll push the Jews out of this region too.’)—For HansFrank’s version, see his diary, department head conf., Nov 6, 1940.46 Diary, Dec 22, 1940.47 MinConf., Apr 26, Jul 8, 15; Sep 12, 24; diary, Sep 25; SD Meldung, Nov 28, 1940 (NAfilm T175, roll 260, 2860f).48 Diary, Jan 31, 1941. Heydrich had disassociated himself from Bouhler’s euthanasia Aktionin a letter to the ministry of justice, Nov 1, 1940 (BA file R.22/5021).49 Diary, Feb 14, Jun 21, 1941.50 MinConf., Feb 26, 27, Mar 4, 7; diary Feb 27, Mar 1, 1941.51 Diary, Mar 19, 1941.52 MinConf., Mar 23, 26; VB, May 24, 1941.53 Die Zeit ohne Beispiel, 319f.54 MinConf., Sep 6; here he stated 71,800 Jews, but in MinConf., Sep 17, 1940 he stated72,327 Jews were in Berlin.55 Ibid., Sep 17, 1940; testimony of Schirmeister, IMT, xvii, 276.56 MinConf., Apr 21; diary, Apr 22, 1941; interview of Gutterer, Sep 13, 1992.668 GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICH57 Tiessler, submission to party chancellery, Mar 7, 1941 (NA film T81, roll 676, 5597); cf.JG diary, Jun