Doctor Goebbels: His Life & Death

in the garden beneath Goebbels’ windows, then set off back to the traitorousHase’s HQ, telling the minister that he would phone every twenty minutes to beon the safe side. Hase however had transferred to the Wehrmacht district HQ onHohenzollerndamm.On General Olbricht’s orders a Major Friedrich Jacob with troops from the infantryschool at Döberitz had occupied the main radio building in Masuren Allee; Olbrichthad ordered Jacob to report back when he seized the building. Instead, he phonedGoebbels. The latter sized up the situation in an instant and told the major to acceptorders only from him. ‘Nobody broadcasts without my express permission.’26 Wit-844 GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICHnessing this exchange Speer marvelled at Goebbels’ composure. He was ‘as coldbloodedas a warlord on a battlefield,’ he would say the next day.27 Hans Fritzschesent two or three hundred S.S. men over to the radio building under an S.S.Obersturmbannführer. Together with Jacob they secured the building against thetraitors all night and this enabled a recording of Hitler’s speech, made with a soundtruck at the Wolf’s Lair, to be piped through from East Prussia and transmitted nationwideat one A.M. This dealt a further death blow to the plot.NOT for nothing had Goebbels had a company of his senior officials given infantrytraining after Mussolini’s overthrow in 1943.28 Around seven-thirty P.M. they wereordered to pick up their machine guns and report to No.20 Hermann-Göring Strasse.Major Remer transferred his command post from Hase’s former HQ to Goebbels’address as well, a more than symbolic move. Eventually there were about a hundredand fifty soldiers trampling around in Goebbels’ garden in the gathering dusk. Hewent down and spoke briefly to them, illuminated by the light flooding through theopen garden door, arousing a fire of holy indignation in these elderly soldiers aboutthe traitors in high places.Confusion reigned in Berlin even now. When the ministry staff tried to leave theirbuilding at about eight-fifteen the soldiers still detained them. Major Rudi Balzer,Martin’s successor, phoned Hase’s HQ; here a Major Baron von Massenbach put himthrough to a Colonel Fritz Jäger who said he was just on his way over to the ministry.29 In fact Hase, making one more attempt to get his man, had ordered Jäger withtwo units of military police to arrest Goebbels and occupy S.S. Gruppenführer ErnstKaltenbrunner’s R.S.H.A. building; however these units also joined forces withRemer.30 When a Gestapo official shortly told Major Balzer that the army was staginga coup, he was incredulous, and protested at this peddling of ‘unfounded rumours’against the army.There were unsung heroes in these confusing hours, Hadamowsky later toldGoebbels.31 When Colonel Mertz von Quirnheim had falsely announced at BendlerStrasse that Hitler was dead, a Lieutenant-Colonel Herber, unconvinced, had leftGOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICH 845with about fifteen men for No.20 Hermann-Göring Strasse and armed them withmachine guns and grenades; after confirming that Hitler was alive, they burst in onGeneral Olbricht, in conference with Stauffenberg and Quirnheim, and arrestedthem all after a brief exchange of small-arms fire. There followed an anxious momentas Remer’s troops arrived, since Herber had no means of contacting eitherHitler or Goebbels to approve of his having arrested these very senior officers.32Remer had ordered Lieutenant-Colonel Rudolf Schlee to contact this loyal unit atthe war department building. After hearing Schlee’s report, which revealed that thebuilding was nothing less than the traitors’ headquarters, Goebbels phoned Hitlerand secured authority to smoke them out.33 He told Schlee to go back and arrest‘every general.’ At about nine P.M. he sent a telex to all the gauleiters—he did notstate by what authority—reporting for their own information that a ‘dilettantish’plot by reactionary army generals had been uncovered. ‘Gauleiters are called uponto display extreme vigilance and to ensure that their organisation remains effectiveand intact and that they preserve their freedom of action and movement at all costs.Further directives follow. Heil Hitler. REICHSLEITER DR GOEBBELS.’34At the same time Bormann, the more usual signatory for such directives, telexedto the gauleiters his theory that the ‘reactionary criminal vermin’ had staged theputsch in conjunction with the traitors in Moscow (he named General von Seydlitzand Count Einsiedel). Had it succeeded, he said, a generals’ clique consisting ofFromm, Olbricht, and Hoepner were to take power and make peace with Moscow.Bormann followed with a further message at nine-forty, warning that ‘a GeneralBeck’ was trying to take over the government. ‘The erstwhile Field-Marshal vonWitzleben is posing as the Führer’s successor. Of course no national socialist gauleiterwill allow himself to be duped by, or accept orders from, these criminals…’35EVEN now Dr Goebbels’ situation was anything but secure. An armoured brigadeunder Colonel Ernest Bolbrinker, one of Rommel’s toughest Afrika Corps regimentalcommanders, had arrived at Fehrbelliner Platz from the armoured warfare schoolat Krampnitz.36 Another tank unit under Colonel Wolfgang Glaesemer had churned846 GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICHto a halt in the Tiergarten park, only a few hundred yards west of Goebbels’ residence.Remer’s adjutant Lieutenant Siebert found out that General Guderian, thetank commanders’ superior officer, had given them orders to shoot anybody who didnot obey his orders. What was he up to? It was common knowledge that Hitler hadtreated him shabbily in December 1941.37Remer’s predecessor Lieutenant-Colonel Kurt Gehrke offered to go to FehrbellinerPlatz to find out. Not fully trusting any army officers now, Goebbels sent Hadamowsky,his chief of staff in the RPL, as well and even when Gehrke reported that Guderian’sofficers were ‘for the Führer’ he was not satisfied and had Remer telephone thePanzer Reserve Brigade at Cottbus to send a battalion of heavy tanks to Berlin in caseit came to a firefight with Guderian.38General von Hase was still doggedly trying to salvage Valkyrie. He sent an officerover to order Remer to return to him. Major Remer, equipped now with Hitler’spersonal authority, replied that on the contrary the general was to come to No.20Hermann-Göring Strasse. Hase arrived with Schöne and Massenbach. A monocled,upright officer of striking appearance, Hase put on his most affable air and told Remerthat General Hermann Reinecke (a loyalist Nazi) had ordered him to seize the BendlerStrasse building. Goebbels intervened and no less affably invited Hase to remainunder his roof as his guest.