Doctor Goebbels: His Life & Death

for total war his chance to rededicate the party to its former socialist ideals.12On the morning of the big speech, February 18, his ministry telexed the entiretext to newspapers, forewarning editors that Dr Goebbels intended to ask the audienceTen Questions. ‘In your front page make-up,’ the newspapers were instructed,‘their response is to be reported as the express will of the entire nation.’13 Whilethere were no claqueurs in the vast auditorium, Goebbels had arranged for the usualcanned applause and laughter to be trickled into the loudspeakers to trigger audienceresponse at the proper moments.The demand for tickets was colossal. Fifteen thousand packed in, just as in thegood old days before 1933, ordinary people coming together in a mood of selfdoubt.14 Here in Germany’s undoubted hour of crisis they were to rediscover theircommunity of purpose and sense of power. The hall was sparsely decorated. Just onehuge banner hung above the podium, reading TOTAL WAR: SHORTEST WAR. As Goebbelsskilfully whipped them up, his audience had an overwhelming sense of release. Hehad deliberately chosen the amplitude, intonation, and rhythm of each passage. Thenewsreels captured extraordinary scenes of emotion. Within minutes the audiencewas leaping to its feet, saluting, screaming, and chanting (‘Führer command! Weobey!’) ‘Goebbels’ delivery,’ wrote one postwar analyst of this famous speech, ‘wasGOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICH 753grave, imploring, moralising, stern, provocative, mocking, derisive, ironic, and evenmonotonous as need dictated.’ ‘Key words, particularly superlatives, were drawnout and acccentuated. He paused deliberately before important passages. Embarkingon a particular challenge he increased the tempo so that the words came out in arush, and he leaned closer to the microphone to increase the volume. He was particularlyadept at the trick of building on applause by briefly carrying on speakingdespite it. He augmented the shouts of assent to his questions by hurling words intothe applause like “Is that what you want?” or “Are you willing?”’15 Over two hundredtimes his audience interrupted with exclamations, shouts of approval, applause, andlaughter; soon they were cheering every sentence, sometimes every phrase. Oneseasoned journalist later described the audience as being in a kind of euphoria. ‘Eventhe foreign and neutral journalists were excitedly jumping up and down applaudingGoebbels.’16The audience included most of the government and party leadership. The newsreelsshow the front rows filled with war-wounded with attendant Red Cross nursesand bemedalled soldiers. Behind them, as Goebbels remarked during the speech, satBerlin’s ordinary munitions workers, doctors, scientists, artists, engineers, architects,teachers, and civil servants (‘Of course,’ he pointed out, ‘the Jews are notrepresented here.’*) Camera operators picked out popular film stars like HeinrichGeorge—he was seen in close up cheering, leaping to his feet and saluting excitedly—and several children in the front rows including Helga and Hilde Goebbels,allowed their first glimpse of such a mass meeting.17 Between them sat their motherwho had just been discharged from the clinic.Addressing this huge multitude Goebbels promised an unvarnished picture of thecrisis—he flattered the ‘schooled and disciplined German people’ that they could betrusted with the truth. He was not going to apportion blame for Stalingrad, he said:the future would show why the sacrifice had not been in vain. The last bulkhead of* This sentence was cut from the published transcript.754 GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICH‘our venerable continent’, he said, to tactful applause, were Germany and her allies.18 Toward the end he hurled at them the Ten Questions, challenging their belief invictory, their willingness to fight, and their determination to work if need be sixteenhours each day and to ‘give all they had for victory.’ The orgiastic climax was reachedby the question: ‘Do you want total war? Do you want war more total, if need be,and more radical than we can even begin to conceive of today?’ And then, almostcasually, ‘Do you agree that anybody who injures our war effort should be put todeath?’19 The bellow of assent each time was deafening.He dined that evening with Milch, Paul Körner, Wilhelm Stuckart, Thierack, Ley,and Speer. Somebody remarked that the speech had been a kind of ‘silent coup d’état’by Goebbels. He quoted this phrase with satisfaction in his diary, while hastening toadd that the coup was ‘against bureaucracy.’20This speech was his greatest achievement in a lifetime of speaking. Curiously, neitherHitler nor Göring bothered to hear the broadcast. Hitler was at the front, andGöring had retired to bed at five P.M.21Goebbels however listened to its broadcast at eight P.M.; the answers to his TenQuestions nearly burst the loudspeaker membranes of his radio. For twenty full minutesafter his final defiant phrase, ‘Arise as one nation, and let the storm burst uponthem!’ the radio network continued to broadcast the tumult of acclaim. The fieldagencies of the S.D., briefed to stand by twelve hours earlier, had sent agents toeavesdrop in railroad waiting rooms and cafes; at one A.M. the S.D. regions(Leitabschnitte) telexed their collated reports to Himmler’s Amt III in Berlin, andthis provided the propaganda ministry with a glowing summary two hours later.22Goebbels’ field offices reported in equally favourable terms.23 Studying every availablenewspaper from around the world, Goebbels basked in glory. The Forschungsamt,wiretapping the foreign journalists in Berlin, recorded high praise. Only the finalS.D. report was critical.24 Jealous army officers were also less enthusiastic.25No matter, Goebbels was the man of the moment. ‘It is beautiful,’ he dictated, ‘tobe the gauleiter of Berlin and to gather around one so many prominent men of partyand state.’ He decided to do it more often, ‘since the central leadership is lackingGOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICH 755now, during the Führer’s absence from Berlin.’26 These words reveal that he was settinghimself very ambitious goals indeed.THE fine weather which now set in displeased Goebbels. For his purposes he neededthe winter gloom to linger on.27 Toward the end of February the eastern front wasstabilized again; he forbade the media to mention it. Their propaganda would forfeitall respect if it bleated about crises each winter, and forgot them in the spring. Whenthe Waffen S.S. shortly retook Kharkov, Goebbels even tried to prevent any specialcommuniqué being issued.28 ‘We got over the first winter crisis relatively well,’ hereminded his staff. ‘But we only just survived the