Doctor Goebbels: His Life & Death

law student Horst Wessel,whose diary we now have. Aged just nineteen, he had joined the Party that autumn.‘How I came to the National Socialists?’ he asked. ‘Out of disillusion really. My nationalistradicalism, or rather my radical nationalism had not found a home. But theNazis, as they were already called, were radical—radical in every respect.’ WesselGOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICH 99had been a member of the Bismarck- and then Viking League since 1922, but theseorganisations had just played soldiers. Goebbels’ gau was, he soon found, different.Goebbels put the accent on socialism. ‘The rightwing parties spurned us for our socialistslant,’ wrote Wessel, ‘and they weren’t all that wrong, because National Socialistshad more in common with the [communist] R.F.B. [Rote Frontkämpferbund]than with the [rightwing] Stahlhelm.’ At first he found it hard to follow the new Nazipolicies. ‘But unlike earlier, I now began to think politics.’43During December Goebbels reorganized Berlin’s S.A. into three regiments(Standarten). He tightened discipline, banning smoking and drinking on duty. OnNovember 20 he met section leaders (Kreisleiter) and laid down guidelines for thefuture. Later than month he spoke in the Veterans’ Building on ‘Germany, Colony orState?’ Scores of new members joined that same evening. Two weeks later eighteenhundred people crowded in to hear him speak on ‘The Road to Power.’ A breathlessunanimity replaced the brawling and bickering of previous gau meetings. Speakingat a beerhall in Schöneberg to the Freedom League elite he assured them that theywould be on the inside track when they seized power44. Police agents saw him swearin eight new members that night. ‘Isidor’s’ political police, he announced, had justcharged him with having praised Rathenau’s assassins.45Horst Wessel was one of those dedicated to the Party. ‘No sacrifice in time ormoney,’ he would write, ‘no danger of arrest or violence could scare me off… TheSturmabteilungen, the S.A., were the stewards, the movement’s fist against the policeand the marxists. The structure itself was copied from the communists—sectionsinstead of locals, the cell-system; our press advertising and propaganda clearly betrayedtheir [communist] inspiration. The vitality of this new movement was vast,best demonstrated by the defections to us from the marxist camp.’ Goebbels createdan atmosphere of constant activity. ‘To Dr Göbbels [sic] alone,’ wrote Wessel, ‘goesthe credit for having impinged the movement so rapidly on the Berlin public’s consciousness.The man had extraordinary talents for oratory and organisation. Therewas nothing he couldn’t turn his hand to. The members were devoted to him. TheS.A. would have let itself be torn to pieces for him. Göbbels was like Hitler him-100 GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICHself… He took care of the injured—he really was a first class leader, a leader withclass.’46At first the ‘Judenpresse’ ignored Goebbels. Denied the oxygen of publicity, heforced bloody confrontations with the communists. After an initial blooding in Spandauon January 25, when two hundred of them infiltrated intending to disrupt his speech,Goebbels’s ‘troops’ fought three battles, at Cottbus, in Berlin’s sleazy Pharus Rooms,and at suburban Lichterfelde.Goebbels had sent five truckloads of S.A. men to Cottbus to boost the puny localcontingent during a two-day Nazi ‘freedom rally.’ It was an icy January night, and themen drove into Cottbus at dawn where the local S.A. provided billets. ‘We wantedto show them,’ wrote Muchow, ‘that the Berlin S.A. turned up everywhere we wereneeded.’ The march through Cottbus began: ‘Our Doktor [Goebbels] was with Daluegeat Kaiser-Wilhelm Platz, taking the salute.’47 As Goebbels delivered an impromptuspeech there were already taunts of ‘long live the communist Internationale!’ A pitchedbattle broke out. The police and soldiers waded in with truncheons and rifle butts.But the S.A. stood their ground and attacked ‘like true soldiers, just as out Doktorhad taught, over and over again.’ The S.A. had two seriously injured, the police four.But the blood had been shed for naught: ‘The entire Berlin “Judenpresse”,’ lamentedMuchow, ‘breathed not a word about our Cottbus demonstration.’The Strassers’ Arbeiterzeitung (masthead slogan: ‘The workers’ only newspaper inBerlin not beholden to loan-capital’) published Goebbels’ appeal for funds for ‘ourwounded S.A. comrades.’ Seven hundred marks flowed in. Goebbels owed a lot tothe Strasser brothers.48 Otto had also arranged for Hans Steiger, an editor on a bourgeoisBerlin newspaper, to provide cheap lodgings in the rooming house run by FrauSteiger at No.5, Am Karlsbad. No doubt he wanted to keep an eye on Goebbels. MrsSteiger provided a full-length mirror to enable him to practice public-speaking postures;but her husband erred badly, trespassing on Goebbels’ feelings by circulating aballad that touched upon the gauleiter’s private live and using a limping, lop-sidedmeter designed, Goebbels felt sure, to mock his disability.49 Goebbels, it turned out,could stand any amount of satire so long as it was not levelled at him.GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICH 101The second great battle happened in the rundown Pharus rooms, a traditionalcommunist meeting place behind No.124 Müller Strasse in Berlin’s working classsuburb of Wedding, on February 11. There were two hundred communists amonghis thousand strong audience. As Goebbels spoke on ‘The Collapse of the BourgeoisClass State’ trouble broke out and Daluege sent in the S.A. to evict the first troublemakers.The communists retreated but the Nazis held the high ground, the gallery. Inthe few minutes before the police could intervene, the S.A. had roughed up eightythreecommunists. When Goebbels resumed speaking, the platform was littered withbloodstained stretcher cases.50 One man, Albert Tonak, 21, was hospitalized withconcussion.51 In the VB report Goebbels described how he had learned that a surgeoncalled Levy was planning to delve into Tonak’s skull; one hundred of his S.A. men,‘unemployed proletarians in brown shirts,’ had stormed the hospital and rescuedhim. Goebbels added an appeal for funds to establish a Party clinic of seven or eightrooms to treat their own emergency cases.52 Tonak became the Little Doctor’s chauffeur,and later died on Hitler’s eastern battlefields. Edmund Behnke, an S.A. manalso injured in the Pharus rooms, would lapse into a coma and die in the clinic in1930.53 Hanno Maikowski, another S.A. veteran of the battle, would be the last Nazito be killed in the struggle for power, in January 1933.54After this battle the press howled with rage—and more funds flowed in. Goebbelshad found