Doctor Goebbels: His Life & Death

for.’Dr Goebbels’ own farewell letter to his stepson was couched in the same unrepentantvein. ‘We are confined to the Reich chancellery’s Führer bunker, fighting forour lives and honour… I think it unlikely we shall ever meet again.’ Justifying thecruel pact that he had agreed with Magda, he continued, ‘We do not have to bepresent in flesh and blood to have an impact on the future of our country. It may wellbe that you are left alone to continue the family tradition. Germany will survive thisterrible war, but only if our people have examples they can look up to for inspiration.’Seized by his own distorted sense of history, he added: ‘The lies shall one daycome tumbling down, and truth shall triumph over all.’ ‘Farewell, my dear Harald,’the letter ended.65THAT afternoon the news agencies announced that Heinrich Himmler had offered tothe Allies the unconditional surrender of Germany.66 To Hitler and Goebbels it nowseemed obvious why there was still no news of the relieving armies. They had beenbetrayed.The six children came as usual to see ‘Uncle Führer’ and stroke his Alsatian, Blondi;as they filed back to their room Schwägermann heard them call Eva Braun ‘FrauGOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICH 919Hitler’ in passing, which rather startled him.67 But Hitler had already revealed toGoebbels and his adjutants his intention to marry the mistress who had shared hisisolation for fourteen years.68 ‘At her own wish,’ Hitler dictated that night, ‘she willmeet death with me as my wife.’69 He asked Goebbels to find an official empoweredto solemnize the marriage—no easy charge, given that Russian snipers were nowonly a few hundred yards away. Presently however a short, slim, fair-haired official ofthirty-four wearing the brown party uniform with a Volkssturm armband was broughtdown into the bunker. 70 Goebbels, Naumann, and Bormann acted as witnesses at thelittle ceremony in the tiny map room. Goebbels described it to Traudl Junge afterwardsas ‘very moving.’71 The official quietly said, ‘In the presence of the above namedwitnesses I ask you, mein Führer, whether you are willing to take Miss Eva Braun inmarriage.’ Momentarily forgetful, she began signing with a ‘B’, then crossed it outand wrote Eva Hitler instead.72Afterwards Hitler invited Goebbels, Magda, and Naumann to an intimate champagnedinner along with a few others.73 For a while he reminisced about the FirstWorld War. Fourteen years before, he then recalled, he had been best man at theGoebbels wedding. ‘What a contrast!’ he wryly observed. ‘For me, marriage anddeath and to be somewhat more closely linked in time.’74 he confirmed once morethat he did not intend to fall into Soviet hands alive. Death would be almost welcome,he said, now that so many had betrayed him.75Hitler went next door to dictate his Political testament to Traudl Junge. After awhile he called in Goebbels to discuss a new Cabinet. The most important questionwas who should succeed Hitler as head of state? Himmler had disqualified himself.Göring was in disgrace. For weeks Goebbels had been selflessly canvassing the nameof Grand Admiral Dönitz—he was upright, military, and incorruptible.76 Hitler agreedthat the admiral should be the nominated as Reich President and Supreme Commander.He named the trusty Dr Goebbels himself as his successor as Reich Chancellor,and Bormann as party minister. Werner Naumann would succeed Goebbels aspropaganda minister.77 The rest of this document, like a final shuffling of non-existentarmies across long-obsolescent maps, was a global settling of scores. Himmler,920 GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICHGöring, Speer, and even Ribbentrop—Hitler’s ‘second Bismarck’—were all dismissedfrom office. Probably at Goebbels’ recommendation Hitler appointed Karl Hanke,still holding out in Breslau, as the new Reichsführer S.S. The testament ended with afinal gratuitous outburst against the Jews and those international statesmen who hadsold out to Jewish interests. Hitler rejoiced that the ‘culprits’ had paid for their sins,‘albeit by more humane means than war’—whatever that might mean. He signed atfour A.M. and Goebbels and the others witnessed his signature.The document had formally commanded Goebbels and his family to leave Berlin‘to take part in the nation’s struggle.’ But the minister knew that even as Reich Chancellorhis miserable existence would be prolonged only by as many weeks as wouldseparate his capture and the opening of the gallows trapdoor beneath his feet. Heexclaimed that as Defence Commissioner for Berlin he could not in conscience leave.Weeping profusely he rushed next door and interrupted Traudl Junge’s typing of thedocument to dictate his own defiant ‘annexure’ to it.‘For the first time in my life,’ he declaimed, as her pencil flew across the pad, ‘Imust categorically refuse to obey an order of the Führer. My wife and children joinme in this refusal.’ It was not just that he could not bring himself to desert the Führerin his hour of need—‘I should appear for the rest of my life as a dishonourableturncoat and common scoundrel,’ he wrote, with no right to the respect of his fellowcitizens. ‘In the delirium of treason which surrounds the Führer in these mostcritical days of the war there must be some people at least willing to abide by himunconditionally until death.’ He ended, ‘For this reason, together with my wife andon behalf of my children who are too young to speak for themselves but would, if oldenough, approve this decision unreservedly, I utter my unalterable decision not toleave the Reich capital even if it falls, and at the side of the Führer to end a life whichwill be of no further value to myself if I cannot spend it in the service of the Führerand next to him.’By five-thirty A.M. all the documents had been signed. Three couriers slipped outof the bunker at noon-fifteen, carrying copies to the outside world. Hitler toldGoebbels that he would wait for word that at least one copy had reached its destina-GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICH 921tion before departing on his own, more distant, journey. Shortly he was brought anews agency report describing the ugly end of Benito Mussolini and his mistress,‘hanging from the Standard Oil kiosk in [Milan’s] Piazzale Quindici Martiri.’ A dozenof the Duce’s staff had been ‘shot in the back’ as well.78Hitler handed out cyanide