Doctor Goebbels: His Life & Death

they’re no longer able to fight on.’ ‘History,’ he declared, ‘willgrant to us the victory, because we alone deserve it.’32 Writing in Das Reich he said:‘The only thing that matters is for a people to have the nerve to wait for its greathour and then to use it.’ The best thing a warring nation could do, he argued, was tothink only of war, and then to devote itself to it body and soul: ‘The most total war isalways the most merciful.’33 These were slogans that all sounded very familiar: theyhad lost their captivating power.He saw Hitler again on Sunday evening March 11 and told him about Lauban.Hitler told him Göring had recently visited him to discuss the need to ‘clear the airpolitically’ toward the enemy. Hitler had retorted that he’d do better to clear the air,period. Clutching at straws, Hitler was convinced the enemy coalition was disintegrating.But they could not deal with the British. Churchill, said Hitler, was runningamok—he had got it into his head to destroy Germany, regardless of whether heruined his empire in the process. In a reversal of his earlier stance Hitler now believedthat if he could inflict a bloody enough reverse on the Russians, the KremlinGOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICH 891might open up toward him: in the resulting separate peace with Russia, he hoped hemight still achieve a beneficial partition of Poland, with Hungary and Croatia withinthe German ægis and freedom to continue operations in the west. Whether he couldno longer bear to listen to such fateful illusions, or whether he too was wearying ofthe war: Goebbels decided that one such talk a week with Hitler, on a Sunday evening,was worth any number of regular daily visits.34IT was twelve years to the day since he had set foot in the propaganda ministry onWilhelm Strasse for the first time as minister. Schinkel’s ornate palace had survivedfive years of continuous air raids, including some of the heaviest in history. Betweeneight and nine P.M. on March 13 it was hit by a single 4,000 pound blockbuster bombdropped by a twin-engined Mosquito plane. Goebbels drove straight over, and foundhis beloved theatre, the Throne Room, the Blue Gallery and all the other fine architecturalfeatures on whose restoration he had lavished so many years of effort, levelledto the ground. For a while the fires which had broken out threatened to touchoff five hundred bazookas he had stockpiled in the building. The front wing had collapsed,and the blast wave had wrought havoc in Hitler’s old chancellery too.35 ‘Theworst imaginable augury for the next twelve years,’ reflected Goebbels, and addedsome nasty remarks at Göring’s expense.Hitler told him that night that in their latest talks Göring had been ‘totally shattered’—‘But what use is that!’ exclaimed Goebbels impotently in his diary. Stillchewing over past grievances Hitler also showed him the shorthand record of theconferences in which he, unheeded by his generals, had correctly predicted that theRussians were going for Pomerania next. Together they walked over to watch thefirefighters quenching the smouldering ruins of the propaganda ministry.36On March 16 Goebbels invited the press round to his residence and lectured themfor an hour on the barbarity of the allies in the west.37 He now knew that Ribbentrop’speace feelers to Britain had been rebuffed. Goebbels’ emotions were mixed, betweenSchadenfreude and apprehension about his own future. He commented onrumours that Himmler had offered the enemy Hitler’s head, ‘They’re demanding892 GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICHmore heads than just Hitler’s,’ he remarked in his diary.38 Hitler still hoped that thenew Me262 jet fighters would prove Germany’s salvation. But they had too few, andthis was all coming too late. The Americans saturated Berlin’s poorer districts withbombs on March 18, killing about five hundred people. With flames still devouringhis capital Hitler phoned Goebbels to ask about morale. He mentioned that he hadbeen in conference with his generals until six A.M. That day Kolberg was evacuated;Goebbels saw to it that it was not mentioned in the High Command communiqué.39One after another all their fortress-cities were captured, except one. On March20 Gauleiter Karl Hanke sent a dramatic report from Breslau. The city was in ruins,but he and his men were making the Russians pay in blood for every inch. ‘Gentlemen,nobody is too good to die for Grossdeutschland,’ he had proclaimed, quotingthe words of Rommel, his commanding officer in France in 1940: ‘Attack!’ The experiencehe had gained in the battle for Berlin before 1933 had served him well, hewrote to Goebbels, who reflected once more that this was the type of national socialistwho put their army generals to shame.40 Hanke managed to put through onephone call on March 29 to Goebbels and Magda, and even to send her a gift; shethanked him in terms of touching warmth, praising his courage and telling him thatHitler had recently called him ‘the Nettelbeck of this war’. ‘Our fondest wishesalways go with him,’ wrote Magda to Hanke’s trustiest friend, ‘and I sincerely believethat he will one day get out.’41 Forbidding the fortress military commander to surrender,Hanke’s men fought on until they had only two hundred guns, seven tanks, andeight assault guns left; the city held out until May 6—by which time Hitler hadappointed him Himmler’s successor; Hanke escaped, and was murdered by Czechspartisans a few days later.The army generals meanwhile distinguished themselves by apathy and negligence.The Americans found a bridge across the Rhine intact at Remagen and hurled theirforces across it. On March 21 Goebbels found Hitler tired and dejected, aged by thisfresh and unexpected catastrophe, and kept going only by ‘iron will-power.’ Moraleeverywhere in the west was collapsing. Food was running out. Deprived of sleep bythe Allied bombers, the population was irritable and hysterical. When GoebbelsGOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICH 893mechanically mentioned Frederick the Great Hitler snapped that the Seven YearsWar was very different from this one. ‘I can’t get anywhere with him,’ noted Goebbels,alarmed, ‘even with my analogies from history.’ Göring, said Hitler, revealing onecause of his aggravation, had just set off for Bavaria with two trainloads of entourageto visit his wife. Yet he again refused