Doctor Goebbels: His Life & Death

the one which regularly ended Monday broadcasting—‘Andso another Fine Day is Over’; and the radio band was no longer allowed to play ‘IDance in your Arms right up to the Skies.’66 Once Fritzsche boasted that despite theGOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICH 761latest raids on Essen the Krupps works was still working flat out. The bombers returned,and Goebbels got the blame.67THAT April he made a well-publicised tour of Essen. On the way over Göring’s deputyMilch, who had spent two traumatic weeks on the Stalingrad front, remarked that ifhe had been Paulus he would have disobeyed Hitler and brought the Sixth Army outto safety.68 Disobey Hitler? Goebbels—for the record—disputed the very notion inhis diary, but it clearly gave food for thought. His mother also told him about growingpublic dissatisfaction with their commanders.69 Conversely, captured Russiansoldiers’ letters provide evidence of the enemy’s high morale. Stalin’s slogan—‘Betterto die on your feet that survive on your knees’—had taken root, nurtured by thebrutality of the Nazis in the east.70There were thus fundamental problems that Goebbels needed to discuss with Hitler,still recuperating from the winter’s strains on the Obersalzberg.He set off for Berchtesgaden late on April 11, ostensibly for a manpower conferencecalled by Göring with Speer and Ley.71 The next morning however he learnedthat Hitler would not see him, pleading lack of time.72 Goebbels took this snub veryhard; he declared that he would leave at once, and ducked the Göring conference.He dictated a petulant note in his diary that he must have an entire afternoon withthe Führer. He masked his injured feelings with a real or imaginary kidney-stoneattack. Ley, taken in (again), sent a posy of hand-picked flowers to the train. Morellwas summoned to inject morphine; aboard the rattling train Werner Naumann administeredtwo more shots during the night. The minister had the train halted somedistance from Berlin’s Anhalt station so that nobody would see him alighting, and hetook to his bed moaning with pain.73 Still sulking, he refused to allow the stockpiled‘Adolf Hitler is Victory’ posters to go up for the Führer’s coming birthday.74 By thefourteenth the illness had passed; although an X-ray examination had found nothing,he toyed with taking a cure in Dresden or Karlsbad.75At the end of the month he was still angling for that audience with Hitler, butBormann kept fobbing him off again. He had a healthy respect for Martin Bormann762 GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICHand recognized his inherent weakness in his dealings with him. Once over lunch heaccurately described him as ‘a primitive OGPU type’ like, the Russians who hadescorted Molotov to Berlin in 1940; two days later he warned his staff never torepeat what they heard him say at table.761 Schirmeister interrogation, May 6, 1946 (NA film M.1270, roll 19).2 Unpubl. diary, Feb 1, 1943 (author’s film DI-52; IfZ).3 Ibid., Feb 16, 1943; Gutterer interrogation, Oct 24, 1947 (NA film M.1019, roll 23).4 Ernst von Weizsäcker to his mother, Feb 21, 1943 (Hill, 325).5 Generalluftzeugmeister conference, Feb 16, 1943 (Milch Documents, vol.18, 4461,4481); JG diary, Feb 16, 22 (p.19); and Milch diary, Feb 15, 1943 (author’s film DI-59).6 Göring diary, Feb 1943 (author’s film DI-171).7 With to Himmler, Feb 11 (NA film T175, roll 124, 9607f); and see too the diary ofColonel Gerhard Kühne, chief of staff of the Allgemeines Heeresamt (general army office),Feb 9, 1943: ‘[JG] felt himself under attack, turned nasty and went over to the counterattack…’(IfZ archives).8 On this speech see in general Helmut Heiber’s text in Goebbels Reden (Düsseldorf, 1972),vol.ii, 172ff; Willia Boelcke, ‘Goebbels und die Kundgebung im Berliner Sportpalast vom18. Februar 1943,’ in Jahrbuch für die Geschichte Mittel- und Ostdeutschlands, 1970, 19; Tiessler’sfile on the propaganda background of total war in BA file NS.18/26, and above all GünterMoltmann’s paper, ‘Goebbels Rede zum totalen Krieg am 18. Februar 1943,’ in VfZ, 1964,13ff.9 Diary, Feb 13, 1943.10 Ibid., Feb 14, 15, 18, 1943.11 Semler. Hitler had certainly endorsed JG’s Total War policies (see MinConf., Feb 8); butalthough both Werner Stephan and Moritz von Schirmeister told Moltmann in 1959 thatthey believed JG had first obtained Hitler’s approval for the speech, see JG’s own diary forFeb 18: it was difficult to contact the Führer as he was at the Werewolf HQ—but they‘thought alike’. And Feb 25: a proclamation by the Führer was very much in line with hisspeech, ‘So there’s no danger of my being disowned in any way… From this one again seesthat it’s best to create faits accomplis.’12 Edward L Deuss, ‘The Effect of Total Mobilization on German Morale,’ Feb 22, 1943(NA file R.226, entry 16, box 0354, file 35653).13 BA, Fritz Sänger collection.14 In his diary on Jun 6, 1943 JG would however write, ‘While on Feb 18 it was mainly theparty, this time it is Berlin’s munitions workers…’—Walter Hagemann, writing in Publizistikim Dritten Reich. Ein Beitrag zur Methodik der Massenführung (Hamburg, 1948) suggested thatGOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICH 763the audience had been bussed in and instructed how to act. Not so. Hagemann judged thatthe radio audience found the ‘hysterical screaming’ of the audience irritating. The Allieswere however deeply impressed by the broadcast. See Alexander L George, Propaganda Analysis.A Study of Inferences made from Nazi Propaganda in World War II (Evanston, Illinois, 1959).15 Moltmann.16 Dr Hans Joachim Kausch, 1962, to Moltmann.17 Diary, Feb 19, 1943. A photo in the Hamburger Tageblatt also showed the popular actorsEugen Klöpfer, Theodor Loos, and Franz Grothe.18 At his MinConf on Feb 8, 1943 he directed his staff to keep secret the fact that the 300mile wide breach in their front had begun with the failure of a certain ally.19 For the text of his speech see the newspapers of Feb 19, 1943; and A I Berndt and H vWedel (ed.) Deutschland im Kampf No.83–84, Berlin, Feb 1943, 80ff; and A I Berndt (ed.),Das Archiv. Nachschlagewerk für Politik, Wirtschaft, Kultur (Berlin, 1942–3), 975ff.—It was issuedas a brochure, Nun Volk steh’ auf und Sturm brich los! , though belatedly because JG keptaltering the title and planned a foreword describing the atmosphere in the Sports Palace(Scheffler to gau propaganda officials, May 28,