Goebbels10: A Rather Obstinate GentlemanHE had the uneasy feeling that he was leading a charmed life. He wrote toAnka that he would actually welcome some setback, preferably a minorone, to help break the spell. ‘I have liquidated everything ugly from the past,’ hewrote, referring perhaps to ‘Michael’ and ‘Blood Seed,’ ‘and can now contemplatethe future with greater fortitude.’1One ugly item from the past still haunted him: the Catholic charity in Colognenow instructed lawyers in Berlin to extract from him the four hundred marks stillunpaid from his student loan twelve years before. The lawyers served a writ.2 Thecourt awarded judgement in default on April 6, 1929. A few days later the bailiffscalled and glued their traditional paper cuckoo to his radio set, the only item of valuein his apartment. Still he did not pay up. ‘We are evidently dealing,’ the lawyersreported to Cologne, ‘with a rather obstinate gentleman… It is to be hoped that thisspokesman of the National Socialist party will fight shy of declaring bankruptcy.’3The charity calmly ordered the lawyers to have him bankrupted. On May 16 thebailiffs removed his beloved radio—with his piano, the only instrument he had wherewithto amuse his girlfriends—and sent it to be auctioned.4 When he appealed, theCatholics claimed they acted repressively only when there was evidence of a ‘ruthless’attitude on the debtor’s part. Not until February 1930 would he make the finalpayment, closing the ledgers on a rather puzzling episode.True, he had weightier matters on his mind. ‘Sunday morning,’ he jotted on April15. ‘We march, right into the communist districts. I stand in the thick of the mêleeGOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICH 155and am recognized. Our men march unflinching through the catcalls and whistles ofthe Reds.’5 He was planning ahead for the Nuremberg rally in August and for an openair rally in Berlin in September as a prelude to the important November municipalelections.Constantly expanding his horizons, on May 10 he launched a National SocialistLeague of Schoolchildren at a jamboree of one thousand eager girls and boys. Cashwas always a problem however.6 He pleaded with Angriff not to court a renewedprohibition. Finding in one issue a blatant libel on their foreign minister GustavStreseman he himself ordered all unsold copies recalled—not that he was loath towound the statesman.7 ‘This plenipotentiary of German democracy,’ he called him,‘somewhat fat, jaundice-hued, perspiring, his little tricky eyes bedded carefully incushions of fat, a smooth, rectangular forehead topped by an enormous expanse ofbald head, there he stands, in the midst of his beloved Jews.’THAT Easter outing to the Harz with Anka and George Mumme crowds his memoryfor weeks. ‘Why must I lose out on Lady Luck?’ he ponders. ‘Probably so that everybodyin Germany is the happier one day.’ ‘Anka is everywhere,’ he adds. ‘But shewon’t declare herself.’8 Travelling to Cologne on an unclean Polish train, he takes thefountain pen she gave him and writes her a plea to tell him all her innermost thoughts.9Later in April Dr Mumme comes to Berlin and the two rivals for her affections driveout for a coffee together and a chat about everything but the one thing that unitesthem.10Suddenly there is a new flavour of the month. Its name is Xenia (‘Stranger’), anotherteenaged girl, and Goebbels risks a first letter to her just after writing to Anka.11Xenia von Engelhardt’s unexpected visit to Dr Goebbels is the start of a platonicfriendship which endures almost to the end of his bachelor days. She wangles herway past the sentinels posted on his heart by the usual wiles, pouring out her woesabout her unfaithful boyfriend, laughing, blushing, and instinctively gauging his needs.12Once she stages a scene and turns on her heel; then stalks back and spends a nightwith him which he describes as glückdurchbebt, quaking with happiness. By May 4156 GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICHthey have captured each other, each presuming victory. They take in a Greta Garbomovie (another ‘divine woman,’ sighs Goebbels). The diary glimpses them motoringoff with the bickering Mr and Mrs Schweitzer for a weekend at Fürstenberg. Afteranother tiff, Xenia storms off, returns, knocks on his door. He does not open—he isreading the Sunday papers and, yet again, Moeller van den Bruck’s ‘The Third Reich.’That afternoon they go for a row, and make up again. ‘And then,’ records Goebbels,picking his words carefully, ‘comes a long, blessed night, filled with silence. Xenia isall modesty and sacrifice.’13Back at his lodgings he finds a letter from the eternal temptress, Anka. She hopesto see him at Weimar. ‘Poor Anka,’ he
