Doctor Goebbels: His Life & Death

was evidently one reason why he dared not to show hisface in Goebbels’ city.Immediately after the ceremony Goebbels phoned him and drafted another letterthreatening resignation. He sent Göring down to Bavaria carrying this ultimatum.Hitler offered still more promises to be conveyed back to Goebbels.29 He repeated inparticular the offer to make Goebbels Reich Proaganda Director (‘for the umpteenthtime!’ commented Goebbels sarcastically, learning of this.) His faith in Hitlerwas cooling.30SEVERAL times his diary carried signs that the Nazis were gaining support in Berlin’sGOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICH 179regular police force.31 Half of them were former army officers. While Dr BernhardWeiss seemed secure in office, to Goebbels’ delight his political superior AlbertGrzesinski was suddenly obliged to resign—on the day of the Horst Wessel funeral—because of his marital irregularities. ‘That,’ Goebbels triumphed, ‘is one swine down.’32He had relied hitherto on his parliamentary immunity to protect him. On February11, 1930 the Reichstag took the first steps to revoke his immunity in three cases.‘I’ll probably be spending the next years in the clink,’ he gloomily reflected.33 Hisbenefactress, the dowager Viktoria von Dirksen, asked Prince August-Wilhelm tocontact the lawyer Count Rüdiger von der Goltz. Goltz, an imposing figure who hadlost a leg in the war, would act for Goebbels, three years his junior, in many of thecoming court battles. They met over dinner at the Dirksen home in MargarethenStrasse. When Goebbels boasted that his Nazis were willing to die for their ideals,one guest, Baron Freytag von Loringhoven, murmured, ‘I am sure some might beprepared to die for the D.N.V.P. cause.’‘Indeed,’ mocked Goebbels, ‘but only of old age!’Goltz agreed to defend him. He had already heard report of the gauleiter’s sharpintellect. He found him modest, polite, and to the point. In the Gypsy Cellar inKurfürstendamm after that dinner party a young gipsy asked to read Goebbels’ hand.Goebbels thrust him aside. ‘I can just see tomorrow’s headline in Eight P.M.,’ hewisecracked: ‘The truth on hand, but a liar from head to toe.’34The most serious allegation was that of high treason, and on March 10 the Reichstagrevoked his immunity on that charge. Meanwhile despite its crippling financial provisionsthe government pased the Young Plan into law and Hindenburg signed it.Anticipating violent opposition, the government revived the hated Law for the Protectionof the Republic. Goebbels led the parliamentary protest on March 13.35 Roundingon Carl Severing, the minister of the interior, he evoked laughter when he recalledthat it was Gustav Noske, a predecessor, who had once said, ‘Even an ass canrule by state of emergency.’36 And that was precisely what this new law was. ‘It is nocoincidence,’ he shrilled, ‘that the Law for the Protection of the Republic is beinggiven its second reading precisely one day after the Young Law is enacted.’ ‘You your-180 GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICHself point out that in the course of the Young Plan economic harships are inevitable,and that two or three millions will become permanently unemployed in Germany.’This, he said, revealed the law in its true light— ‘A law against the unemployed… Agrotesque attempt to use artificial means to contain the revolutionary forces generatedby your own policies.’ Severing had wanted to call it a ‘Law for the Pacificationof Public Life in Germany,’ scoffed Goebbels. ‘Mr Severing! Public life would bepacified if there weren’t parties of traitors in office today.’ Amidst righteous shoutsof indignation from the socialists he continued, ‘Public life would be pacified if youkept your 1918 promises to the German people: you promised Freedom, Beautyand, Dignity.’Several times the Speaker sharply reprimanded him. ‘Marxism,’ declared Goebbels,‘tried before the war to detroy an honest state with dishonest means. We want to getrid of a dishonest state with honest means.’The screams of fury from the Social Democrats turned to cheers as he was orderedto sit down.The new law was certainly repressive and designed to choke even the parliamentaryopposition: under it, any prison sentence rendered a person unfit for publicoffice: Dr Weiss’ police were empowered to dissolve any political association andconfiscate its entire assets. The crisis however continued, and Dr Heinrich Brüningbecame chancellor.Loss of immunity therefore threatened Goebbels with far-reaching consequences.Apart from the old allegation of high treason the files which the police now avidlydusted off were a ragbag of misdemeanours, many of them concerning his efforts topuncture Dr Weiss’ pride and vanity.37 In Weimar Germany as in many authoritarianstates however the offense of lèse majesté was taken dreadfully seriously, and Weisswas publicly considered the ‘uncrowned king’ of Berlin. The most awkward caseinvolved the president; a recent article and caricature in Angriff had asked ‘IsHindenburg still alive?’38 Goebbels had also declared at the last Nuremberg rally thatthe present state was ‘an un-state.’ He had stated in another speech, ‘It is the Reichdefence minister [Wilhelm] Groener who is subverting the army and not the Na-GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICH 181tional Socialist party.’39 Worse, on October 20 Angriff had referred to the then Prussianminister of the interior as ‘Comrade Grzesinski, born in the House of Cohn.’The court summons in this latter case survives in the archives, a cheaply printedform folded into an envelope and stamped MOABIT CRIMINAL COURT40; more summonsesarrived it seemed by every mail— on April 14 he counted nine, including the onealleging high treason. “A fine show this is going to be,” he wrote in his diary. “Severaltimes he simply refused to testify, and the hearings ended with the judge in a deeplysatisfying fury.41But the writ from President Hindenburg disturbed him, and he cursed the editorialstaff of Angriff for saddling him with this case.42 Hindenburg’s personal prestigewas very great, and by modern standards of journalism the article was very tame. Ithad appealed to Hindenburg to invoke his presidential powers to block the ruinousYoung Plan:But even the remaining personal admirers and friends of Hindenburg entertainfew illusions as to any activity to be expected from him in this direction. Here asin every other similar situation Mr von Hindenburg will do whatever his Jewishand marxist advisers ask of him.Goebbels was all for pleading justification (Ritter von Epp had provided him with‘annihilating material’ about the field marshal).43 Goltz discouraged this.