Doctor Goebbels: His Life & Death

more.’48A summer downpour drenched Berlin as his train pulled out at nine-twenty P.M.that evening. Since his special saloon coach had been shunted out of Berlin to safety,four regular sleeping compartments had been emptied of their indignant occupantsto make room for him. Here on the train he found Professor Hofer, who was torepair the faulty surgery on Magda’s jaw.49 Hofer told him that it was vital to getHitler to broadcast to the people.Hitler had spent the whole of the historic previous day flying down to Zaporozh’yeto see Manstein, then back to his HQ at the Wolf’s Lair. He had not retired until fiveA.M. Despite this and the shocking news about Italy he was poised and optimistic.50He sent for Goebbels straight after breakfast and bragged that he was going to wipethe floor with the Italians: he was ready to write off all of Italy south of the Apennines.In Russia too, he would fall back, building an East Wall along the Dniepr river.Finding him in such a realistic mood, Goebbels ventilated the possibility of cutting adeal with Stalin. Hitler however declined—‘And quite right too,’ dictated Goebbelsprudently afterwards to Otte, ‘given the crisis in the east.’ Hitler seemed more inclinedto dealing with the west: surely the British must see reason eventually? Here itwas Goebbels who disagreed, although he did ponder whether taking Sicily mightsatisfy Britain’s imperialist appetite. ‘Sooner or later,’ Goebbels reflected, ‘we shallfind ourselves having to lean one way or the other.’51For hours that day—the Wolf’s Lair diary shows him lunching and dining withHitler, and taking tea with him until nearly four A.M.—Goebbels pleaded with Hitlerto broadcast to the nation. At 6:35 P.M. the next day, September 10, he finally hadhim before a microphone, speaking a twenty-page script down the ministry’s special790 GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICHline to a tape machine in Berlin. Hitler’s broadcast expressed concern about the‘unique injustice’ done to Mussolini; but privately he was more callous. Ice-coldpragmatism, he told Goebbels, would dictate his decisions from now on. Now Germanywould retrieve the South Tyrol after all, and all of Austria’s former dominionsas far as Venice. After a special communiqué about Rommel’s success in seizingRome—‘It is,’ dictated Goebbels, ‘almost like the great advances of 1939 and 1940all over’—Hitler’s speech went out over the airwaves at eight P.M. The Russians werenot mentioned. But Hitler did promise Vergeltung, revenge for the air raids.As the days became weeks, Goebbels often expected the bombers to return.52Once, Beppo Schmid, commanding the night fighter corps, phoned from Hollandwarning that massed bomber formations were thundering eastwards overhead; buttheir target was Hanover.53Goebbels shifted Magda and the children out to Lanke, and his mother and sisterwere also living there. The children went by pony cart to the local village school atWandlitz, leading a Disneyesque existence with ponies, horses, rabbits, and goatscrowding their brief lives.54 Magda’s trigeminal nerve still caused her agony, butHitler talked her out of an operation fearing her looks would be disfigured.55 Goebbelsmeanwhile delved into Machiavelli, reading his ‘Thoughts on Politics and War.’56His own literary efforts were complicated by the reversal in Germany’s fortunes.Preparing his next anthology of articles and speeches, he found it prudent to omitseveral passages where his bolder predictions had now been overtaken by events.571 Oven, 43.2 For the public’s reaction to the ‘rain of phosphorus’ bombs, see SD report Jul 5, 1943(NA film T175, roll 265, 9810f).3 Unpubl. diary, Jul 25 (NA film T84, roll 265); RMVP air war notice No.13, Jul 27, 1943(NA film T84, roll 322, 1121f.)4 Semler, ‘Jul 10’; Oven, 55, ‘Jul 10, 1943.’5 Semler, ‘Jul 10’. JG’s speech of Jul 9 to Heidelberg university was published as Dergeistige Arbeiter im Schicksalskamp[ des Reiches (Franz Eher Verlag, 1943); see too NYT, Jul 10,1943.GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICH 7916 Semler, ‘Jul 10.’7 Diary, Jun 5, 1943.8 Remark by Col Pasewaldt (air ministry, technical department) on May 2, 1945:CSDIC(UK) report SRGG.1187 (PRO file WO.208/4169); Milch diary, Jul 15 and 20,1943 (Author’s film DI–59); on the latter date all ministers, state-secretaries and gauleiterswere at Rechlin.9 Diary, Mar 25, 1943.10 JG to Harlan, Jun 1, 1943; quoted in Söderbaum, 191ff.—Diary, Jun 5, 1943.11 Remark by Major Baron von Blanckart, Aug 25, 1944, in CSDIC(UK) report SRM.831(PRO file WO.208/4462). The speech was probably on Jul 18, 1943. Oven, who puts it on‘Jun 28’, also records the light grey trousers and navy blue jacket.—There is no correspondingentry in Schmundt’s war diary (BA-MA file H4/12).12 The RPL discs of JG’s speech in the ministry’s Throne Room, which internal evidencesuggests was held on Jul 17 or 18, were found after the war in the mountains at Rottach onthe Tegernsee. See Krausnick, Kotze, Es spricht der Führer (Gütersloh, 1966), 369ff andHildegard von Kotze, ‘Goebbels vor Offizieren im Juli 1943,’ VfZ , 1971, 83ff.13 RMVP air war notice No.13, Jul 27, 1943 (NA film T84, roll 322, 1121f).14 Unpubl. diary, Jul 25, 1943 (NA film T84, roll 265); so the entry was less prophetic thanwould appear.15 Oven, ‘Jul 27,’ 81ff; JG diary, Jul 26, 1943.16 Diary, Jul 28, 1943: ‘More and more urgent are the calls to HQ that some man inauthority, preferably the Führer himself, should speak out… We’re doing too much warringand too little jawing. In the present situation, in which our military successes are not all thatimpressive, it would be a good thing if we polished up the art of politics a bit.’17 Diary, Jul 27, 1943; describing these deliberations I have also used the diaries of Rommel,Richthofen, the naval staff war diary, and the Führer’s naval conferences.18 For Canaris’ faulty intelligence on Italy, see OKW war diary, Jul 30–31, Aug 3, 5; navalstaff war diary, Jul 29; Lahousen diary, Jul 29–Aug 3, 1943.19 Diary, Jul 28, 1943.20 Ibid., Jul 29, 1943.21 Speer at a meeting of Central Planning on Jul 29, 1943 (Milch Documents, vol.48,10,443ff.)22 Speer, 297; cf. Milch diary, Jul 31, 1943 (author’s film DI–59).23 Milch at a Generalluftzeugmeister conference on Aug 3 (Milch Documents, vol.23,6607f).—The SD’s morale report of Aug 2, 1943 analysed the German public’s reaction tothe dissolution of fascism in Italy; it