Doctor Goebbels: His Life & Death

Goebbels’ suggestion that the man must go.Goebbels dictated in impotent fury: ‘What can I do? All I can do is unremittinglybadger the Führer and put my criticisms to him.’ Back home he found No.20 Hermann-Göring Strasse in darkness: a power cable had been hit in the afternoon’s Mosquitoraid. Magda had left for Dresden to visit her women friends. He felt low and depressed.‘What should I do,’ he pondered, ‘to implement what I consider to be right?’He felt responsible to the nation, as one of the few people left with Hitler’s ear.42In Dresden Magda visited Ello Quandt at the White Hart sanitarium. ‘The newweapons will be our salvation,’ she encouraged her sister-in-law, then guiltily checkedherself: ‘No, I’m talking nonsense. There’s nothing else. Germany’s defeat is only amatter of weeks.’ Ello asked what she intended to do. ‘We’re all going to die, Ello,’she replied. ‘But by our own hand, not the enemy’s.’ They had been the leaders of theReich, she explained; they could not duck the responsibility now. ‘We have failed.’43AT the back of her husband’s mind were the Russian newsreels of their heroic defenceof Leningrad—of civilians collecting the bodies of their soldiers, tossing them intopits, and fighting on.44 Berlin could and must be defended to the last man. He askedHitler’s permission to convert Berlin’s main east-west highway to a landing strip—itwould mean dismantling the ceremonial lamp standards and tree-felling in theTiergarten on either side. Hitler grudgingly said, ‘That’s okay by me,’ but disallowedthe tree-felling later.45 Berliners would need trees, when all this was over. Goebbelscalled on the western city of Mönchen-Gladbach to put up a special fight, but thattown fell and the neighbouring Rheydt, his home town, surrendered without a shotbeing fired to the Americans in mid March.894 GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICH1 E.g., Heinz Linge, Hitler’s appointments register, Jan 24, 25, 27, 28, 29, 31, 1945 (NAfilm T84, roll 387).2 Diary, Jan 29; Linge, appointments register, Jan 28, 1945 (NA film T84, roll 387).3 JG, circular propaganda directive, Feb 5, 1945. DE.53/DIS.202 (Hoover Libr., Lernerpapers.)4 Diary, Jan 1945 (BA file NL.118/124).5 By Zdenko von Kraft, Alexanderzug; JG to Hitler, Jan 10, 1945 (NL.118/107). Thepassage begins: ‘Death, said Philippos [the king’s doctor], had already been quite close forthe king…’6 Diary, Jan 14, 1930.7 Diary, Feb 28, Mar 5, 22, 24, 1945. Published as Joseph Goebbels, Tagebücher 1945. Dieletzten Aufzeichnungen 1945 (Hamburg 1977).8 Ministerialrat Dr Fries (of Hippler’s office) to JG, Dec 12, 1944; with note, ‘The Ministerhas refused.’ DE.492/DIS.202 (Hoover Libr., Lerner papers.)9 RMVP air war notice No.178, Jan 18, 1945 (NA film T84, roll 322, 1469ff).10 JG (as RPL) circular to all gau propaganda officials, Jan 15, 1945 DE.331/DIS.202(Hoover Libr., Lerner papers).11 Roger Freeman, The Mighty Eighth (New York) 1970), 208.12 Heinz Linge, Hitler’s appointments register, Feb 2, 5, 7, 11, 12, 14, 1945 (NA film T84,roll 387).13 Freybe to Salon Berthe, Feb 1, 1945 (ZStA Potsdam, Rep.90 Go 2, vol.2).14 Magda to Harald Quandt, Feb 10, 1945: facsimile in Behrend, op. cit., No.8., Feb 23,1952.15 Hanke to his wife, Feb 13, 1945 (Hanke papers; by kind permission of the late FredaRössler).16 JG to Streicher, Feb 12, 1945 (ZStA Potsdam, Rep.90 Go 1, vol.3).17 Sündermann, ‘Feb 17,’ 273; Interrogation of Steengracht, CCPWE No.32, DI–19, Jul2; and by US State dept., Sep 4, 1945.18 A news item in Basler Zeitung, Feb 19, 1949. This adds that JG abandoned the planbecause the BBC revealed details on Feb 22; at the MinConf he threatened to strangle withhis bare hands the culprit (who had deliberately revealed it to a Swedish journalist).19 Steengracht’s remarks of Jul 2, 1945 in CCPWE No.32 report X–P.21 (PRO fileWO.208/3438).20 Diary, Mar 30, 1945.—On this subject see Ribbentrop, Von London bis Moskau, 266f; Jodlto Hitler, Feb 21, 1945 (ND: 606–D) and notes, Jan 15, 1946 (Jodl papers); William Scheidt’snotes in Echo der Woche, Oct 28, 1949; and the testimonies of Helmut Sündermann, BaronSteengracht, and Hitler’s stenographer Ludwig Krieger (IfZ, Irving collection). Kaltenbrunneralso claimed credit for thwarting JG, in conversation with Dr Hermann Neubacher. USFETMISC CI–RIR/4, Feb 1, 1946 (NA file RG.407, entry 427, box 1954b).21 NYT, Jun 29, 1946.22 Diary, Feb 28; Heinz Linge, Hitler’s appointments register, Feb 27, 1945 (NA film T84,roll 387).23 JG speech, Feb 28, in DAZ, Berlin, and NYT, Mar 1; the Daily Herald, London, Mar 1,1945 headlined its report GOEBBELS PLEDGED TO DIE.GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICH 89524 Ibid.25 Remarks overheard on Feb 28, 1945. CSDIC(UK) report GRGG.265. Major-GeneralBruhn was heard telling Lieutenant-General von Schlieben, ‘According to what Goebbelssaid … pure murder is going on in the east of Germany, on a large scale. That’s the first I’veheard of it. … One must assume that that’s another lie.’ ‘I suspect him of possessing so devilisha nature that he upholds all those things which appeal to the soul of the people withoutacknowledging their application to himself.’ Bruhn then described what Lieutenant GeneralKittel had told him about mass shootings which the Nazis had carried out in the east (PROfile WO.208/4177).26 ‘Robert Ley as described by his mistress,’ SAIC.40, Jun 4, 1945 (NA file RG.165, entry79, box 756).27 Diary, Mar 5, 1945.28 Diary, Mar 8, 1945.29 Dittmar diary, Feb 27; JG at first accepted Dittmar’s script, with its hidden appeal to thewestern powers in general (Mar 22) and the Americans as the strongest partner in particular(Apr 7), on Apr 10, 1945 however he banned it (author’s film DJ-60).30 Diary, Mar 12, 1945.31 Sündermann, ‘Mar 10, 1945,’ 303.32 Diary, Mar 9. JG’s speech in Hamburger Zeitung, Mar 10, VB and NYT, Mar 11.—TheEuropean Political Report, Mar 16, 1945, vol.ii, No.11, commented: ‘German propagandathis week devoted an extraordinary amount of newspaper and radio output to lurid tales ofAllied atrocities’ (USAMHI, Donovan papers, box 37b).33 JG, ‘Der Zeitpunkt, der die Wende bringt,’ in Das Reich, Mar 11, 1945.34 Diary, M ar 13, 1945.35 Albrecht to his wife, Mar 14; there were no casualties (IfZ, Irving collection);Sündermann, ‘Mar 14, 1945,’ 309.36 Diary, Mar 14, 1945.37 Sündermann, ‘Mar 16, 1945,’ 310f.38 Diary, Mar 17; cf. Sündermann, ‘Mar 18, 1945,’ 311f.39 Diary,