Doctor Goebbels: His Life & Death

remained for Dr Goebbels that summer was the law courts. DrWeiss was determined to see him serve his two months in jail. On May 13 the prosecutorsconfidentially asked the Reichstag if it was still formally in session.75 OnGoltz’s advice Goebbels persuaded Dr Leonardo Conti, the gau’s medical officer, tosign a sick note. That would give him four weeks’ grace. The prosecutor’s officedemanded an independent examination. The mailman brought to Goebbels’Württembergische Strasse lodgings a new summons, for libelling Albert Grzesinski(by calling him ‘Cohn’); it was returned to the courthouse with a note, ‘Gone away,’and ‘no forwarding requested.’76His relations with women have come to a similar impasse. Visiting Anka in January1930 he has failed to detect that she is four months pregnant by yet another man.Returning to Weimar in June he checks into the ‘Elephant’ and sends her tulips anda card: ‘Can I call round?’ it reads.77 Meanwhile he has his eye on the neat daughter of188 GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICHHitler’s photographer, Henrietta Hoffmann; but she is already stepping out with ahandsome Nazi student leader.78 A half-cocked but still platonic episode begins inJune when Lucie Kammer, a young shorthand secretary (‘still a pure child’) with amuch older, unloved, and now mortally ill husband comes to the gauleiter with hermarital problems; he rapidly grasps that she loves him.79 A few days later he decidesthat Princess zu Wied loves him too; at the Görings he meets the Baroness Erika vonPaleske and records that ‘Ika’ (because there is already another Erika in his ménage)also loves him. His phone jangles all day—Charlotte, Xenia, L.K.—‘Always the same,’he whimpers in his diary, ‘I am a victim.’ Women are a plague upon him. ‘But they arean incredible stimulation to work,’ he confesses. What he fears is losing his liberty.He writes about Ika that August, ‘She comes on too strong… Thank goodness wewere sitting out in the open.’80He is vacationing—or hiding—at Erika’s house in the forest when word comes onJuly 18, 1930 that Brüning’s government is in difficulties. Tonak rushes him back tothe Reichstag building in the Mercedes Supercharger. Goebbels romanticizes that hisone vote may seal Brüning’s fate. In fact Brüning dissolves the Reichstag. As the communistdeputies roar the Internationale, Goebbels slips out of the building, naked tothe law, even his residual parliamentary immunity annulled.1 They were Hans Kütemeyer, Nov 17, 1928; Gerhard Weber, Nov 4; Walter Fischer, Dec14; Werner Dölle, 16, stabbed to death by a Jewish opponent in Kurfürstendamm, and FritzRadloff, Dec 24, 1929.2 Diary, Oct 2, 6; Dec 23, 1929.3 Ibid., Oct 30, 1929.4 Ibid., Dec 23, 1929.5 Ibid., Sep 29, 1929.6 Stennes, Jul 29, 1968 (IfZ; ZS.1147).7 Report by Berlin police section IA.III.1, Berlin, Jun 9, 1931 in Wessel’s file in NSDAPHauptarchiv (BA file NS.26/1370a).8 The case files against ‘Ali’ Höhler, Else Cohn, Rückert, Kandulski, Junek, Mrs Salm andthe brothers Max, Walter and Willi Jambrowski (Landesarchiv Berlin, Rep.58, item 11)were marked for historical preservation but released to the Soviet sector in 1947 and notGOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICH 189returned. Höhler, Willi Jambrowski and seven others were tried on Sep 26, 1930 for manslaughterand given sentences ranging from one to six years. ‘There these creatures sit in thedock,’ wrote JG (Sep 24, 1930), ‘real criminals with an air of injured innocence... PoorHorst. To die at the hands of [illegible word] pimps like these!’ In a subsequent trial from Jun15, 1934 against the defendants Peter Stoll (seaman), ‘Sally’ Epstein (Jewish painter), andHans Ziegler (barber), Epstein and Ziegler were sentenced to death, Stoll to seven and a halfyears; Höhler (who was kidnapped from his prison cell and lynched by S.A. men in 1933)was stated to have ‘deceased in the interim’ (Landesarchiv Berlin, Rep.58, item 22; Stollcase files courtesy of R G Reuth).—Report on trial in Vossische Zeitung,Ê Sep 23, 24, 1930.9 Diary, Jan 19, 1930.10 Ibid., Jan 27, 1930.11 Angriff, Feb 6, 1930.12 Rote Fahne, Jan 15, 1930.13 Diary, Feb 24, 1930.14 Vossische Zeitung, Mar 2, 1930.15 Angriff, Feb 27, 1930.16 Diary, Mar 2, 1930; Dokumente, 311f.17 Ibid., Jan 13, 1930.18 Ibid., Jan 20, 31, 1930.19 Ibid., Jun 10, 20-22, 1928.20 Ibid., Jun 22, 1928; Oct 18, 1929.21 Ibid., Jan 16, 17, 1930.22 Ibid., Jan 24, 1930.23 Ibid., Jan 29, 1930.24 Ibid., Jan 30, 1930.25 Ibid., Jan 31, 1930.26 VB, Feb 5, 1930. On Feb 6 Angriff published a statement by JG on the newspaper questiondesigned to reassure his gau members.27 Diary, Feb 8, 9, 11, 15, 16, 1930.28 Ibid., Feb 20, 21, 1930.29 Ibid., Mar 2, 4, 1930.30 Ibid., Mar 5, 1930.31 E.g., Mar 12, 1930.32 Diary, Mar 1, 1930; Grzesinski MS33 Diary, Feb 11, 1930.34 Ibid., Feb 21, 1930; Goltz memoirs, MS (BA file Kl.Erw., 653/2) and interrogations,NA : RG.319, IRR case file XE 1026, esp. U.S. Seventh Army interrogation SAIC/X/10, Jul5, 1945. Born Jul 10, 1894, father of ten children, Goltz had been a lawyer in the Stettincounty court since 1926.35 Reichstag, 141. Sitzung, Mar 13,, 4442ff; diary, Mar 14, 1930.36 In the Sport Palace on Feb 7, 1930 he attributed the remark to August Bebel. ‘Attackingthe present system of government,’ the police reported, ‘he wound himself up into evergreater ecstasies ... [saying] the opponents of the NSDAP were now laughing on the other190 GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICHside of their face.’ (Justice ministry file,‘Libel actions against Joseph Goebbels Nov 1929—Aug 1931’ in Deutsches Zentralarchiv; IfZ film MA.118).37 Police file, 20f. He was accused of libelling Weiss in issues of Angriff dated Oct 29, Nov26, Dec 10, 1928; Sep 9, 1929; Apr 8, May 1, 1930: seven volumes of court files are inLandesarchiv Berlin, Rep.58, item 47; of libelling him at a speech in the Victoria Park onMar 23, 1929 (item 39); and at a speech on Sep 20, 1929 at the Veterans Building printed asDer Kampf gegen Young. Eine Sache des deutschen Arbeiters (item 2); for further libel cases resultingfrom articles in Angriff, see item 39.38 Angriff, No.65, Dec 29, 1929.39 Police file, NA film T581, roll 52, BA file NS.26/1224.40 Summons dated May 17, 1930 (ZStA Potsdam, Rep 90, Go