Doctor Goebbels: His Life & Death

of Nazi candidates. Goebbelswas amused to see how tame Strasser and the other fractious big-shots suddenlybecame. They finally agreed a list of one hundred names (though not in their wildestdreams did they expect to win so many seats.)5The list brought the problems with the S.A. to a head. Stennes sent to the SupremeS.A. Commander, Franz von Pfeffer, a letter asking for safe Reichstag seats for threeS.A. men.6 But Hitler was opposed to allowing the S.A. any more political clout thanit already had. On August 1 Stennes mentioned in his diary reports from all his subordinatecommanders that relations between the S.A. and Munich were becomingintolerable. He invited his boss, Pfeffer, to Berlin at once. Meanwhile on the secondhis S.A. commanders reiterated their demands for Reichstag seats. The next dayPfeffer revealed that Hitler was on the contrary talking of cutting the S.A. back towhat they could afford.Monetarism did not commend itself to the Brownshirt rednecks. ‘This shows,’reported Stennes’ chief of staff, ‘that the objectives of the Reich director [i.e. Pfefferin Munich] are no longer those of old.’ This was true. Hitler intended to attain powerstrictly legally. In Munich Goebbels, now Reich propaganda director, briefed hisdeputy Himmler on the broad outlines of the election campaign, then returned toBerlin. Nationwide over the next two months the glaring red hues of his posterswould invade telegraph poles, billboards, and newspapers.7 He printed millions leafletsto be sold to Nazis at one pfennig each. Sleepless with work and worry, his nervestautened, frayed, and snapped. At the beginning of August 1930 one thousand of hisofficials packed into a pre-election conference. From tram conductor to princess,every rank of society was active in the party’s campaign.8Flaunting beer-bottle rings on their white shirts as ersatz ‘uniforms’ theCharlottenburg S.A. marched on Sunday August 3. The Red Flag shrieked for a counter-demonstration. ‘When we reached Kaiserdamm,’ wrote one Nazi militant, ‘ourDoctor arrived. Roars of delight. Yes, “our Doctor”! The communists called him194 GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICH“Berlin’s top bandit”… The report came that all of Friedrich-Karl Platz was in communisthands… We had to fight our way in. Mounted police cleared part of thesquare for us. The square was packed with hate-filed faces. And then our Doctorspoke. As he spoke, the hubbub died away.’9 In this 1930 election battle Goebbelswould organise twenty thousand meetings up and down the country; in Berlin hewould stage twenty-four mass meetings on the last two days alone.The ruling Social Democrats tried to bury Goebbels with court actions. TheHindenburg case was revived along with the ancient charges of high treason. (‘Thejudge was most decent,’ he wrote ironically after a new treason hearing. ‘Just wantedme to remember what I said in speeches of ’27. They’ve gone plumb crazy.’10) Sevenmore summonses arrived, accusing Goebbels of having libelled the Prussian primeminister Dr Otto Braun11, Albert Grzesinski, municipal officials, and the entire Jewishcommunity.12 Fearing summary imprisonment he prefabricated a stack of articlesfor Angriff; on August 3 he was notified of ten more court dates (‘with the gentlemenof Angriff to blame for most of them’).13While the S.A. built up an ugly steam head in his rear, Goebbels was fighting anationwide election campaign and preparing half a dozen trial defences. Thus theS.A. could hardly have chosen a less propitious moment to strike. Stennes, a sheaf ofresignation letters from his commanders in his pocket, wrote to Pfeffer that his S.A.had a right to a hearing from Hitler. He got no reply. He then tackled Goebbels andthreatened to withdraw his S.A. commanders—the Berlin S.A. would then shrinkfrom fifteen thousand to perhaps three thousand, he predicted. Goebbels exploded;Hitler described the S.A.’s actions to Pfeffer as ‘mutiny and conspiracy.’ Believingthat Stennes’ clumsy intrigues were at the bottom of the S.A.’s unrest, Goebbelstackled the top S.A. commanders in Berlin like Bruno Wetzel; he too spoke of mutiny,comfortable in the knowledge that he had Hitler behind him.14 A few days laterStennes took an S.A. delegation down to Munich where he demanded to see Hitler.For two days they waited in the lobby. Loyal S.S. men barred the way. Goebbels,worried, discussed the gathering crisis with Göring. ‘I don’t trust Stennes at all,’ hewarned his diary. ‘So let’s keep an eye on him!’15GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICH 195HIS week in court arrived on Tuesday August 12, beginning with the Otto Braun libelaction in Hanover. The Hindenburg appeal was set down for Thursday in Berlin.16President Hindenburg let it be known that he would drop the case if they could agreeon a joint statement; they could not.On the twelfth he and his lawyer Goltz took the morning train to Hanover. Aneager crowd of Nazis met them at the station along with the local gauleiter BernhardRust and his S.A. commander Viktor Lutze, one of the few who were refusing totruckle to Stennes. The rowdy procession swept the one-legged Goltz and his lameclient along to the courthouse. The charge was that Goebbels had accused Braun oftaking bribes from ‘Galician spivs.’ Three police agents swore on oath that he had saidthis; supported by witnesses, Goebbels admitted having accused Bauer, the formerSocial Democrat Reich chancellor, of taking bribes. The prosecutor demanding ninemonths prison, arguing that if Goebbels had even libeled Hindenburg he was quitecapable of having libeled the prime minister. Goltz pointed out that even the Jewisharch-swindler Julius Barmat had been sentenced to only eleven months, with halfremitted. Goebbels was acquitted and awarded his costs. Instead of a jail term he hadwon huge publicity. Burly S.A. men chaired him out of the courtroom, singing theHorst Wessel anthem; he went off to carouse with Lutze, their commander.17One down, three to go. The government’s Shylocks were determined to evisceratehim now, in mid election campaign. The hundred pound Dr Goebbels was equallydetermined to keep his flesh intact.On Thursday the fourteenth the court heard his appeal in the Hindenburg case.The prosecutor now demanded a nine-month prison sentence. Goltz however readout a letter from Hindenburg—he himself wanted to withdraw the original complaint.As that was not possible, he now considered the matter closed and had ‘nointerest’ in punishing Dr Goebbels.18 The public prosecutor snapped that he,