Doctor Goebbels: His Life & Death

past.’ Hisbiting witticisms about the ‘perfumed dandy’ Anthony Eden delighted Goebbels asdid his sinister reference to his 1939 prophecy about the Jews. ‘Of those who laughedthen,’ Hitler mocked, ‘countless already laugh no longer today.’ Then he boasted thatStalingrad was as good as theirs: ‘That was what I wanted to capture, and, do youknow—modest that we are—we’ve got it, too! There are only a few more tiny pockets!’Back at the Brown House afterwards he told Goebbels that the French were unlikelyto join the German cause. The Allies would certainly not hesitate to do what hehad refrained from in 1940, namely bombing Paris. Sure enough, the Vichy Frenchadmiral in Algeria, Jean-François Darlan, asked the Americans for an armistice. A728 GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICHmonth later the Forschungsamt reported to Goebbels that that was why Darlan hadgone to North Africa.Goebbels returned to Berlin late on the ninth. At his Berlin conference the nextmorning he cajoled his department heads once more to keep a stiff upper lip. It waslike a football match, he suggested, developing a new line of debate: the home teamhad been four-nil until half-time, but now suddenly the visitors had scored a goal.67He hoped for dramatic news from Hitler’s meeting that day with Pierre Laval, theFrench prime minister, and directed the press to express ‘warm feelings’ towardFrance.68 Nothing came of the meeting however and Hitler ordered his troops intothe unoccupied half of France. He moved his air force straight into Tunisia, far aheadof the Allied invasion troops. By occupying this ‘bastion of North Africa’ he expectedto gain another six months and perhaps even give Rommel another chance of victory.‘German propaganda,’ admitted Goebbels on the twelfth, ‘is in for a toughtime. Its most importance principle must be to put on a resolute and confident face,to show no signs of weakness, and … to pull everyone together as Churchill did afterDunkirk.’69BRITISH air raid dead so far totalled forty-three thousand; the corresponding Germanfigure was 10,900.70 Preparing to turn that ratio to Germany’s disadvantage, theBritish government was loudly proclaiming that it was Hitler who had started thebombing of civilians.71 In Tokyo the Japanese put captured American bomber crewson trial; Goebbels decided against encouraging the lynching of British bomber crewsin Germany however, arguing that the result would be total lawlessness, as he rathergrotesquely told his staff.72 Touring the most vulnerable cities in the west he wasencouraged to find people there more phlegmatic than the S.D. reports suggested.73‘The enemy,’ he announced on November 17, 1942 in Wuppertal, scene of manyearly political memories, ‘has thank God left us in no doubt as to the fate he has instore for us if we ever lose faith in victory.’With Rommel in retreat Goebbels suggested that the Mediterranean was of lessimportance than ‘the war of the lieutenant-commanders,’ as he called the U-boatGOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICH 729war. A retreat in North Africa was regrettable but not of pivotal importance. Theyhad sunk a million tons of shipping during September, 750,000 tons in October, andas much again already during November, or so he claimed. As for the British air raids,which had now resumed in force, he emphasized: ‘Mr Churchill cannot wash hishands of the historic guilt for having started this war against innocent civilians.’ Hepromised that the hour of retribution would come.74Two days later the Red Army crashed through the eastern front at Stalingrad, andthe Sixth Army found itself fighting for its life. By November 22, 1942 it was totallysurrounded, and Goebbels was facing the most challenging crisis of his career as apropagandist.1 ‘Vom Sinn des Krieges.’—Unpubl. diary, Aug 14–15, 1942 (NA film NL.118/125).2 Memo Wilson to R Leeper, Aug 21, 1942 (PRO file FO.898/67).3 Martin, 33f.4 Propaganda-Parole No.33, Jun 2, 1942 (NA film T81, roll 672, 0810ff).5 MinConf., Aug 15–18; diary, Aug 10, 1942.6 MinConf., Aug 21; unpubl. diary, Aug 20, 1942 (Moscow archives.)7 Diary, Aug 9,1942.8 MinConf., Aug 17, 22, 23, 24, 1942.9 JG, ‘Seid nicht allzu gerecht!’ in Das Reich, Sep 6, 1942.10 Unpubl. diary, Sep 30, 1942, pp.30f (author’s film DI-52; IfZ).11 JG referred to his secret speech, delivered to Berlin’s editors and foreign press corps, inibid., Sep 24; see too VB, Sep 25, 1942. The text I have quoted is a 5pp. copy typed on flimsy‘Flight Post’ stationery on an English typewriter (no Umlaut), evidently obtained by Polishintelligence; it was forwarded by Mr F Savery (of the British embassy to the Polish governmentin exile) to Frank Roberts of the FO: a ‘Mr Wzelaki’ mailed it to Savery on Feb 25,1943 (PRO files FO.371/30928, /34454). The 49-year old Jan Wszelaki was deputy Secretary-General of the Polish ministry of foreign affairs in exile; see his correspondence withSavery in Polish Institute archives, Kol.39.—As for the text’s authenticity, I am impressedby JG’s similar references to ‘exaggerated craze for objectivity’ in his speech of Nov 17,1942, and to the needless ‘love of truth’ and ‘functionalism’ of German media reporting, inhis secret speech of Jul 17 or 18, 1943 (see VfZ, 1971, 83ff).12 However on Jul 22 he had told the People’s Court in a speech that there were ‘still40,000 Jews’ in Berlin (Report by Crohne in Schlegelberger’s files, ND: NG.417); he hadquoted the same figure in his diary on May 11, 1942.730 GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICH13 This is very similar to JG’s ‘Jews who have nothing to lose’ argument (cf. Diary, May 30,1942; NA film T84, roll 267).—At his MinConf. on Dec 8 JG agreed that the ‘maltreatmentof the Jews in Poland’ was a tricky issue, and too hot really to handle; he also discussed themultiplying British and American allegations about ‘atrocities against Jews’ in the east in hisconferences of Dec 12, 14, 16 (‘What must happen is that each side accuses the other ofatrocities; the general hullabaloo will eventually lead to the topic being removed from theagenda’) and 18, 1942.14 Diary, Dec 14, 1942.15 Ibid., Dec 18, 1942.16 MinConf., Aug 13, 1942.17 Kempner, 185.18 Unpubl. diary, Sep 27, 1942 (author’s film DI-52).19 Propaganda directive to all gauleiters, No.12, Oct 2, 1942 (NA film T81, roll 672,0663f)20 When Fritz