Doctor Goebbels: His Life & Death

minutiæ of this vastGOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICH 741programme.’ Hitler had however authorised him to attend all its meetings and toensure that all its proposals were ‘radical’ enough. The minister further told his diarythat Hitler had ordered an internal dictatorship set up with Goebbels as the ‘psychologicaldictator and motive force’. This was somewhat premature, indeed downrightuntrue. As Himmler was informed a few days later, Goebbels had tried to persuadeHitler to appoint him alone as ‘Führer of the Home Front.’ ‘But he has not succeeded.’60AFTER this meeting Hitler had to see Goebbels in a new light. None of his armygenerals had ever stood up to him like this. For that matter, none could inspire himthe way Goebbels did either.61 When he now asked Goebbels to return as often aspossible, it was perhaps no longer a casual pleasantry. As he hoisted himself aboardthe Berlin-bound train at Rastenburg, Goebbels caught sight of young men of theFührer’s escort battalion on another platform, mustering for the eastern front. Hewondered how many would survive the next twelve months.62The Sixth Army would probably not survive another week. As Goebbels begandrafting the inevitable communiqué—choosing his language with the utmost care,because in ages to come Germans would always recall how they had heard of thedeath of their army in Stalingrad—the mood in official Berlin was already catastrophic:‘For the first time,’ noted General Dittmar, ‘there is everywhere personal bitternessat the Führer who led us to Stalingrad… A searing sense of shame fills us all.’63Dittmar heard from Colonel Martin how easily Goebbels had persuaded Hitler tochange the tenor of the High Command communiqué to allow greater gravity andmore truth after the generals themselves had not dared to ask Hitler themselves. Thequestion was, Martin had said, how to restore Hitler’s bruised prestige among thetroops.It was a sombre time. Goebbels decreed that January the Thirtieth, tenth anniversaryof the Nazi seizure of power, would not be a public holiday: no flags, no parades.At eleven A.M. Göring would broadcast to the armed forces from the air ministry. Atfive P.M. Goebbels would speak from the Sport Palace and read out a proclamation on742 GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICHHitler’s behalf.64 Briefed by the British embassy in Stockholm, London shortly announcedall this—Goebbels was furious that the enemy had somehow learned of hissecret plans.65British Intelligence seemed to be better in every way than Hitler’s. When Churchilland Roosevelt met in Casablanca, and announced their demand for unconditionalsurrender, Goebbels at first missed it and then ignored it; his rage was directed at theAbwehr which had confidently translated Casablanca as ‘The White House’ and declaredthat the Allied meeting was in Washington.66 On January 27 Goebbels briefedjournalists that unconditional surrender was probably Roosevelt’s reference to thecapitulation of the French generals in Algiers, and even when Churchill announcedthe demand in the House of Commons Goebbels ignored it, his only commentsbeing on the prime minister’s statements about the submarine war and General Eisenhower’sappointment as supreme Allied commander.67 Reviewing thirty differentNazi newspapers, Allied Intelligence officers found their ‘unconditional surrender’slogan ignored except for one reference in the Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung.68Returning to his struggle for total war, Goebbels dictated a blazing article for DasReich.69 When the Reich Gazette published the first ordinances closing down bars,confectioners, and jewellers however, and announcing the call up of men and womenfor labour service, the upper age limit for women was set at forty-five, not at fifty.70The lack-lustre Lammers committee also showed a marked reluctance to shut downmany businesses. The enemy bombers, Goebbels bitterly pointed out to Hitler eighteenmonths later, closed most of them down anyway.71Infuriated by the committee’s weakness, he decided to go ahead with his plan for amass meeting to put pressure on Hitler. ‘Public opinion,’ he noted, ‘is always a powerfulally.’72 He had honed his skills promoting the images of Hitler, Rommel, Speer,and others. The time had now come to promote his own.NEVER had Nazi Germany suffered a disaster like the one approaching in Stalingrad.Goebbels ordered the magnificent Hitler posters entitled ‘Adolf Hitler is Victory’called in and stored away for future use; a tenth anniversary poster designed byGOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICH 743‘Mjölnir,’ the top Nazi artist, ‘January 30, 1933—January 30, 1943: One Fight, OneVictory,’ was called in and pulped.73 On the historic thirtieth itself, British Mosquitobombers inflicted on Göring of all people the ultimate indignity of having to broadcastfrom an air ministry shelter, and an hour later than planned.74 As Dr Goebbelsspoke from the Sports Palace that evening the bombers reappeared; he carried onregardless.75Goebbels had become by default the spokesman for the Reich. He had tried in vainto get Hitler to speak since December.76 During the coming year in fact Hitler wouldspeak only four times (and Göring only this once). As Hitler reminded Goebbelsbefore this speech, it was proper even now to compare Germany’s situation nowwith 1933. Goebbels had already done this subtly with his Christmas broadcast, bringingin the voices of soldiers in Stalingrad, Lappland, southern France, and the Caucasus—in short from the four corners of Hitler’s still vast empire. He now did it againwith the radio preamble to his speech of January 30:This is the Greater German Radio with the German shortwave stations beamedto all parts of the world—The transmitter groups Bohemia-Moravia with the stations Prague, Brno, andMoravian Ostrau; the stations of the Government-General, Kraków, Warsaw, andLvóv; the Baltic transmitter group with the chief station Riga and the stationsMadona, Gdynia, and Libau; Radio Kaunas with Vilnius, Radio Reval and Dorpat,Radio Minsk with Baranovice.The transmitter group Ukraine with the chief station Ukraine, the station Vinnitsaand the shortwave station Kiev; the German Europa stations Alps, Bremen, Calais,Danube, Frisians, and Vistula—and so the list went on, as listeners were reminded that their troops were also inBelgrade, Athens, Salonika, the occupied eastern territories, Norway, Holland, Belgium,Paris, Argenteuil, Bordeaux, Lille, Normandy, Rennes, Bulgaria, Croatia,Romania, Slovakia, and Hungary.77744 GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICHThe British thought his delivery diffuse and nervous; the Americans consideredthat he threw in his climax sooner than usual. Twice he was actually heckled: ‘TheGerman people want to know,’ one voice was heard shouting, ‘won’t we be hearingfrom