Doctor Goebbels: His Life & Death

photographs show him limping at Hitler’s side through Weimar’s cobbled streets,wearing a jacket buttoned just beneath his tieknot. He claimed that fifteen thousandmen were in the march past; the Party’s history would speak of ten thousand. Thepictures suggest a smaller turn out. One shows him and Lutze heading a thin columnof men clutching flags with rather scrawny swastikas, marching past knots of curiousGOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICH 87onlookers; a group photograph of Lutze’s Elberfeld contingent shows Goebbels withtwenty-two men.He willingly accepted Hitler’s invitation to the Obersalzberg a few days after Weimar.Emil Maurice, Hitler’s chauffeur, drove them out to the idyllic Lake Königssee; Hessand his girlfriend Ilse came too. Up at his still modest mountain villa Hitler dilatedon Germany’s social and racial questions; Goebbels fell in love with him all overagain and decided that here was the creator of the Third Reich: ‘Catlike—crafty,clever, skilful, compassionate; but like a lion too, roaring and larger than life.’62 Oneafternoon Hitler lectured his guests about the point of revolutions. Goebbels hadalready entertained similar thoughts himself. Infected by this prolonged exposure tohis idol, Goebbels saw in the sky a white cloud shaped like a swastika; and a glitteringlike that could only be a portent of his destiny. Hitler whiled away a whole rainySunday with him, spoiling him like a child. He became the Great Architect, talking ofhow he would set his mark upon Germany’s cities; then the Great Statesman, settingout the new constitution he would impose on Germany. ‘Now,’ wrote Goebbels,hypnotized, leaving him on July 25, ‘the last doubts in me have vanished. Germanywill live! Heil Hitler!’63HIS brain awhirl with these impressions, he is still nursing Hitler’s farewell bouquetof red roses as he boards the overnight train back to the Rhineland. A beautiful womanshares his compartment. She talks engagingly with him, and they arrange to meet inDüsseldorf on the morrow. He limps around the city for two hours searching for her,but without luck.‘God has disposed otherwise,’ he writes afterwards, finding the Divinity a usefulalibi for his own shortcomings.6488 GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICH1 Diary, Sep 30; Oct 2, 1925.2 Ibid., Oct 2, 1925.3 Ibid., Jan 31, 1926.4 NS Briefe No.8, Jan 15, 1926.5 Diary, Oct 9; VB, Oct 22, 1925.6 Diary, Oct 26, 1925; Jan 13, 1926. There are entries about payments of 1,500 and 800marks by Arnold on Mar 21 and 27, 1926.7 Ibid., Sep 30, 1925.8 Ibid., Dec 5, 1925.9 Ibid., Nov 10, 1925.10 Krebs, 162.11 Diary, Apr 30, 1926.12 Ibid., Dec 16, 1925.13 Ibid., Dec, 21, 1925.14 Ibid., Oct 10, 1925.15 Ibid., Apr 30; VB; Nov 25, 1925, May 5, 192616 Diary, Feb 27, 1926.17 Ibid., Oct 2, 7, 1925.—Carl Severing (1875-1952), son of a cigar worker, trades unionist,had been Prussia’s minister of the interior since Mar 29, 1920.18 Ibid., Oct 26; VB, Oct 30, 1925. There were 49 injured.19 In notes at the end of his 1927-28 diary JG jotted: ‘End of November ’25 Hitler. Firsttime Berlin’ (BA file NL.118/108).20 Diary, Nov 6; cf.VB, Nov 6, 1925.21 Ibid., Nov 23; VB, Nov 25, 1925; cf. diary, Nov 21, 1928.22 Ibid., Nov 23, 1925.23 Ibid., Jan 25, 1926.24 Wilfred von Oven, Finale Furioso, (Tübingen, 1974), entry for ‘Jul 10, 1943,’ 39 .25 Diary, Nov 14, 23; VB, Nov 29-30, 1925.26 Diary, Dec 7; VB, Dec 13-14, 1925.27 R. Wagner, Die Kunst des Dirigierens.—Diary, Jun 27, 1924.28 Ibid., Dec 14, 1925.29 Ibid., Dec 29, 1925.30 Ibid., Dec 18, 23, 1925; Jan 6, 1926.31 Ibid., Jan 8, 1926. The personality studies appeared later as part of JG’s Das Buch Isidor,whigh had the sub-title, ‘Thirty of this republic’s characters.’—JG’s first published book DieZweite Revolution. Briefe an Zeitgenossen, appeared Feb 1926.32 For his fascination with Russia, see e.g. Diary, Oct 21, 1925.33 Otto Strasser, Hitler und Ich, 116; for several interrogation reports on Otto Strasser andhundreds of postwar telephone- and letter intercepts, see NA: RG.319, IRR, file G8172121.34 Rosenberg diary, Mar 3, 1939.35 Diary, Feb 11, 1926.36 Ibid., Feb 15; cf. VB, Feb 25, 1926.37 Krebs, 161.38 Diary, Feb 22, 1926.GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICH 8939 JG to Streicher, Feb 18, 1926 (BDC file, JG; author’s microfilm DI-81). Hitler did notreply; Hess did (diary, Feb 24).40 Diary, Mar 13, 1926; see JG’s article on the South Tyrol in NS Briefe No.12, Mar 15.41 Ibid., Feb 22, 1926.42 Ibid., Feb 22, 1926.43 Ibid., Mar 7, 1926.44 Thus in VB, Mar 17, 1926. Kaufmann was still regarded as primus inter pares, however,with JG remaining gau manager (Geschäftsfuhrer). See the Rheinische Landeszeitung, Sep 1,1935.45 Report on convention of Rhein-Ruhr gau Mar 6-7, 1926 (NA film T581, roll 5; BA fileNS.26/136).46 Diary, Apr 13; VB, Apr 10, 1926; cf JG’s police file.47 It is in NSDAP Hauptarchiv, NA film T581, roll 54, now BA file NS.26/1290.48 Diary, Apr 19, 1926. The Württemberg police later (Oct 13) reported to Berlin, ‘Goebbelsis a man of good education with an unusual talent for speaking. Not on such good terms withHitler now as earlier’ (Police file).49 Minutes of NSDAP annual general meeting, May 22 (NA film T581, roll 52; BA fileNS.26/1224). VB, May 26; JG diary, May 24, 1926; police file.50 Diary, Mar 13, Apr 1; VB, May 7, 1926.51 Lutze was commander of the S.A. Gausturm; Erich Koch was Bezirksführer of the Ruhr’sBergisch Land region.52 Diary Jun 12, 1926.53 Ibid., Jun 28; and see Oct 18, 1926.54 Ibid., Jul 12, 15, 23, 1926.55 Ibid., Jul 23, 1926.56 Ibid., Jul 15, 1926.57 Ibid., Jun 16; similar on Jun 17.58 Ibid., Jun 19, 1926.59 Ibid., Jun 21, 1926.60 Ibid., Feb 22, 1926; she had written him since then (Mar 13).61 Ibid., Jul 6. He reprinted his speech in NS Briefe No.21, Aug 1; see VB, Jul 7, 1926.62 Diary, Jul 23, 24, 1926.63 Ibid., Jul 25, 1927. In his ‘notes on diary for Jun 9, 1925-Nov 8, 1926’ JG recapitulated:‘Jul 23-26 Obersalzberg. Strasser, Hitler, Rust. Decision: Berlin! Jul 30: Pfeffer is to be S.A.supreme commander, me Berlin’ (BA file NL.118/108).64 Diary, Jul 31, Aug 1, 1926.90 GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICH

Goebbels6: The