Goebbels55: Total WarCATAPULTED to the Nazi equivalent of stardom for crushing the putsch in Berlin, Dr Goebbels arrived by train in East Prussia on Saturday July 22, 1944.He was determined to speak his mind to Hitler about total war and the need for amajor show trial of the plotters.1 Lieutenant von Oven gave him the latest cables.The British press was bragging about Stauffenberg’s English-born wife. Other foreignsources claimed that ‘the Jews in the neutral capitals’ had known in advanceabout the bomb plot.2 Moscow’s newspapers were more logical, pointing out thatthe war would only be won on the battlefields—now barely one hundred miles fromthe Wolf’s Lair. Goebbels saw this as proof that Stalin fully appreciated the hiddenstrength of ideological mass movements, and that they could talk with him when thetime came.3He called first at Hans Lammers’ nearby field HQ. The change in attitude towardshim was dramatic. Bormann and Lammers could not have been more friendly. Takinghim aside, Keitel admitted that he had cried tears of joy on seeing that their Führerwas unscathed. ‘A miracle,’ agreed Goebbels. The staff conference called by Lammerswas soon over. Lammers himself proposed giving Himmler sweeping powers to rationalizethe armed forces, and Goebbels the same powers over state and public life.Goebbels was somewhat astonished, but still orated to them for an hour on the needto present a united front to Hitler. ‘The Führer,’ he said, ‘must be relieved of allminutiæ so that he can dedicate himself to his great tasks.’ Even Keitel backed him;he freely admitted that the Wehrmacht had manpower to spare.4 When Speer flourished854 GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICHhis own Total War document, Goebbels swatted him like a bothersome insect, castingdoubt in particular on the statistics. Lammers agreed to see Hitler the next dayto win the agreed powers for Himmler and Goebbels.5Goebbels was flabbergasted at how easy it had been. If Hitler endorsed it, theywould have created ‘practically a domestic dictatorship’––with Dr Goebbels as thedictator.6He drove over to the Wolf’s Lair with Naumann that afternoon in a broiling sun.He found Göring snorting about the army generals in Berlin—less for having tried acoup d’état than for declaring martial law without consulting him, the lawful successorif Hitler was indeed dead.HIS head and legs still bandaged and sore from the myriads of splinter-wounds, Hitlerlimped over from his bunker to greet Dr Goebbels. The spectacle tore at the loyalhenchman’s heart.7 Goebbels flung a Nazi salute with exaggerated formality. Hitlerresponded awkwardly, proffering his left hand. He told Goebbels that his first instinctafter the blinding flash and explosion was to check that his eyes, arms, and legswere intact. His stenographer had lost both legs, and Schmundt one eye; Korten hadbeen impaled by a fragment of oak table—all three were mortally injured.A Berliner, the hut’s telephone operator, had first identified Stauffenberg as themurderer. But he had got away—a hidden blessing in fact, as Goebbels reflected,because if he had been stopped they would never have unmasked the traitors in Berlin.Hitler fulminated with rage at ‘that masonic lodge,’ the general staff. Dr Dietrichwas opposing Goebbels’ idea of a political show trial, but not Hitler.8 No buddybuddycourts martial for them, he grimly said: he would have the culprits stripped oftheir uniforms and turned over to the People’s Court. Judge Roland Freisler wouldknow how to deal with them.When Hitler revealed that the traitor-generals had planned to arrest all the ReichDefence Commissioners like Goebbels, it was the minister’s turn for indignation.‘What gives some jumped-up general,’ he exclaimed, ‘the right to treat as gangstersthe leading national socialists who put him in that uniform in the first place!’9GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICH 855Dictating his diary entry afterwards, Goebbels spoke with glutinous fervour of hislove for the Führer. ‘He is the greatest historic genius of our times. With him we shallsee victory, or go down heroically.’ Even Ribbentrop was nice to him during thisvisit, although put out by recent Goebbels articles which he felt might create inTokyo the dangerous impression that Berlin was wooing London. The prospects ofdoing a deal with Mr Churchill were more than dim, Ribbentrop advised
