Doctor Goebbels: His Life & Death

horrific scenes. Oddly, because the result must inevitably be the same scenes ofrefugee chaos that Goebbels had himself striven to produce in France in 1940, heembodied these atrocity reports in press announcements so lurid that the local populationcould have no doubt what awaited them if they stayed.25It seems clear that he was interested less in victory now than in his place in posterity.On November 12 the Volkssturm volunteers were sworn in at emotional ralliesall over Germany. Goebbels himself took the salute on Wilhelms Platz that Sundaymorning. Many were old enough to be his father. ‘We were home again by noon,’wrote one veteran, who would later die defending Hitler’s Chancellery. ‘This OldSoldier’s heart just laughed out loud. So now I’m a full sworn-in Volkssturm man.Our motto: “We’re going to give our bloody enemies what-for until they’re ready tooffer us an honourable peace.” He found the minister’s speech just ‘wunderbar.’26Grizzled but proud, these elderly, bemedalled Berliners marched past the newsreelcameras like a hundred thousand extras in a film epic: rank upon rank, proudly keepingstep to the thump and blare of the bands, some wearing captured Italian helmets,many shouldering ancient flintlock rifles, muskets, and carbines, others more modernweapons that were taken from them as soon as they had marched out of camerarange. Goebbels promised them better weapons when their time came, and warnedthem frankly that they might be committed on the main eastern front and not justhere in Berlin.His ministry now urged newspapers not to use the word durchhalten, ‘hold out,’ asit struck unhappy chords in those who had lived through World War I.27History, argued Goebbels in Das Reich, would surely not be so unjust as to letGermany lose again.28 The Allies were war-weary, he said, speaking on November25. When Churchill now conceded that London had been under ‘V–2’ attack for fiveweeks Goebbels used this tardy admission to illustrate the unreliability of Britishpropaganda. ‘Millions of people,’ he triumphed in Das Reich, ‘were witnesses of theuse of the new German long-range weapon, which is incomparably more destructivethan the V–1.’29874 GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICHHitler left the Wolf’s Lair and returned to Berlin for an operation on his throat. Intotal sympathy with his chief, Goebbels too felt poorly, with chest pains. He had hischest X-rayed but nothing was found.30 He called at the Chancellery on December 1and stayed with Hitler until five-thirty A.M. (He would call this talk one of the mostinteresting he ever had with Hitler). His voice still only a croak, Hitler excitedlyrevealed his secret plans for the coming Ardennes offensive. ‘When I consider,’marveled Goebbels afterwards, ‘how sickly and weak he was when I saw him bedriddenseveral weeks ago, when he already outlined these same great plans to me…Ê then I can only say that a miracle has come over him.’Hitler’s main problem would be to inspire his generals, because they were infectedwith defeat. Nothing, he said, matched the western front in importance now. If hisoffensive succeeded they could Dunkirk the British all over again, blame the Americans,and restart their V–1 bombardment of southern England. As for the V–2, Hitleradded meaningfully: ‘Mr Churchill had every reason to keep it secret from hispublic.’ With no lack of confidence in the final outcome himself, Hitler mentionedthat after the war he was going to give fine estates to his best political and militaryofficers.31IT was unlikely that Reichsmarschall Göring would qualify. Every night the Britishdestroys yet another city.Hitler expressed uncomprehending sorrow about Göring. How could he still livein such repugnant luxury, wearing his pompous pearl-grey silk uniform? He hadadvised Göring, he said, to spend less time out at Carinhall surrounded by his assortedaunts, cousins, and sisters-in-law. Göring had even taken to receiving generalsin a floor-length dressing gown and furry slippers. Hitler was determined tosmash the camarilla of corrupt generals surrounding the Reichsmarschall, and tohelp his better qualities come to the fore.In a fire-raid on Heilbronn on December 4–5 most of the city was ravaged and7,147 people burned alive. At midday on the sixth Goebbels found Göring at Carinhalljust as Hitler had described—sipping tea surrounded by elderly female relatives,GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICH 875friends, and sycophants like Philipp Bouhler (the euthanasia mass-murderer) andBruno Loerzer, Göring’s crony in the Richthofen squadron and ex-chief of Luftwaffepersonnel. (Hitler had sacked him). For four hours Göring whined and argued, pleadinghis innocence for the Luftwaffe’s failures. He blamed everybody but himself.32Two days later, at 6:45 P.M. on December 3, 1944 a chauffeur-driven car broughtHitler over to No.20 Hermann-Göring Strasse to pay what proved to be his last visitto the Goebbels household. The children put on long dresses made from old curtainsin ‘Uncle Führer’s’ honour. As he was helped out of his greatcoat, Magda’s motherfound him a shadow of his former self.33 His hands trembled uncontrollably. Thechildren had not seen him for four years. Whereas Helga and Hilde (at twelve andten, the oldest) had earlier captivated him, now his attention turned to six-year oldHedda. She had eyes only for Günter Schwägermann, however, her father’s one-eyedadjutant: she declared she was going to marry him, explaining: ‘He can take his eyeout!’ Hitler beamed special favours on Helmut too; two days earlier Goebbels hadread out to him his little boy’s school essay on ‘November 9, 1923’—one of theparty’s high holy days—and tears of unkind laughter rolled down their cheeks. ‘Youwould never have guessed,’ his father had indulgently dictated into his diary, ‘that hewas the son of a writer.’34Surrounded by their finest paintings which they had retrieved from the bunker forthe occasion Hitler reminisced about Junk Art as an adjutant handed him the flask oftea and cookies he had brought. He talked of the devastation in Berlin and his sorrowat the loss of life. But he had done what he could, he sanctimoniously remindedGoebbels, to prevent this kind of barbarism in 1939.Then he chuckled at the rash statements the British were uttering about the war.Things were looking up, he said—a dark allusion to his new offensive, now only daysaway. ‘I of course,’ Goebbels prided himself, ‘understand precisely what he’s gettingat.’35At eight-thirty P.M. Hitler made his excuses