Doctor Goebbels: His Life & Death

for a general ban on the party, and the speaking ban onGoebbels was extended to the whole of Prussia.51After that Brüning’s emergency decrees could no longer contain the rising discontent.Goebbels arrived at one huge Königsberg rally to find that he had been bannedfrom even entering the hall, where twelve thousand had gathered to hear him. Thousandsof cheering East Prussians escorted him and Prince August-Wilhelm back tothe railroad station, carrying the little doctor shoulder high up to the platform. As heclimbed onto a bench, a police major ordered truncheons drawn and thirty of hisofficers waded in, laying out both Goebbels and the prince.52 The incident was widelyGOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICH 225reported abroad.53 Magda Quandt visited the injured gauleiter upon his return toBerlin, and her accomplishments in bed that night (‘6, 7’) made up for his bruises. Inhis diary he passed over the irritable letters from Hella Koch, from Erika, and fromCharlotte almost without comment. ‘I now love just one,’ he wrote.54When Hitler now invited him down to the Obersalzberg for Easter, Goebbelssurprisingly turned him down.55 His notes had recently contained several disparagingreferences to that ‘damned party home’ the Brown House; to Hitler’s coffeehousementality and milieu; and to his softness and ‘fanatical compromising’ nature.56 He spent Easter with Magda instead, and added two more notches to thescore, ‘(8, 9)’: nine times in six weeks.57 It was not, perhaps, enough to justify thejack-rabbit reputation which posterity would endow him with, and which he didnothing to dispel.ON March 26, the Reichstag adjourned for nearly seven months. Two days later Brüningissued an emergency decree allowing his government to ban any meetings, and tocensor the leaflets and posters of any party. ‘And Brüning is Göring’s friend!’ commentedGoebbels sarcastically. He did not mind the ban on speaking. At the big SportPalace meeting on March 27 a recording of his latest speech was played. But he didfear a ban on his newspaper, which was now printing eighty thousand twelve-pagecopies a day.58 The supreme court declared Grzesinski’s latest ban illegal. MeanwhileHitler appealed to all his followers to avoid being provoked into illegal actions.59This was particularly addressed to the S.A. The taut relationship between themand the party overhung Goebbels throughout that spring. He was torn between loyaltyto Hitler, and his gratitude to these long-suffering streetfighters. In Munich Hitlerhad confided to him in October 1930 that he was gradually going to reconstructthe S.A. and recover total control of it.60 But Goebbels found it hard not to sympathisewith the criticisms of Munich voiced by his Berlin S.A. men. Their plight wasunenviable: two-thirds of them were unemployed, including their Oberführer BrunoWetzel.61 While in Breslau one S.A. Sturm could not go on parade in the snow becausethey had no boots, they heard of the opulence of Hitler’s new HQ in Munich226 GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICHand of elite new S.S. units being raised which were no longer subordinate to the S.A.as they should have been.62Both Walter Stennes, the supreme S.A. commander in eastern Germany includingBerlin, and his subordinate commanders were already deeply concerned about Munich’s‘wretched waffling about legality’ and Hitler’s persistent wooing of the bourgeoisparties. When Hitler now demanded that the S.A. membership cough up anotherfour thousand marks for a painting to go in his study, they were baffled.63At the end of November 1930 Hitler had revealed to his party lieutenants his latestplans for the S.A. He was now their commander, with the pallid, flabby Ernst Röhmas his chief of staff. Goebbels had vaguely known Röhm since 1924 and had read hismemoirs, ‘A Traitor’s Story.’64 After Röhm’s return from Bolivia he had entered in hisdiary, ‘He’s nice to me and I like him. An open, upright soldier type.’ Two weeks laterhe added, ‘He’s a dear fellow, but no match for Stennes.’65 Stennes however noticedonly that Röhm was a blatant homosexual, who make few friends other than notorioushomosexuals like Karl Ernst and his lover Paul Röhrbein.66 Stennes had nothingbut contempt for Röhm and his unmanly ways.67Dr Goebbels deduced that Hitler intended to phase out the regional S.A. commanderslike Stennes. He suspected that Stennes was plotting to set up a revolutionaryFreikorps—‘proof,’ he felt, ‘how naïve these fellows are about politics.’68 ButGoebbels was even more naïve. He solemnly tipped off Röhm in January 1931 thatRöhrbein was a homosexual, and noted afterwards that Röhm was ‘very concerned.’69Only six weeks later did he learn the truth about Röhm from Stennes. ‘Disgusting!’,he expostulated in his diary—his own sexuality being at last a matter of record.‘Here too Hitler is paying too little attention. The party must not be allowed tobecome a paradise for poofters.’70Cleverly playing off Goebbels against Göring, Captain Stennes tackled them individually.Goebbels too played a double game.71 He invited the local S.A. commanderWetzel and his five Standarte (regiment) commanders round to his apartment atSteglitz, and using revolutionary language agreed with them that Germany wouldnever be liberated by the ‘spirit of Munich’ alone. Only the Prussian spirit, the spiritGOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICH 227of the wars of liberation, would do. But, he warned, his instinct told him that this wasnot the time for a confrontation with Hitler. Fearing Stennes’ growing influencemeanwhile, Hitler removed several S.A. regions (North Saxony, East Prussia, Danzig,and Mecklenburg) from his control.Stennes sent a long letter of complaint to Röhm.72 Goebbels wondered if Stenneswas not biting off more than he could chew.73 Röhm personally came to Berlin andthere was a furious row with Stennes which ended with a categorical refusal byStennes to swear obedience to Röhm.74This put Goebbels in a dilemma. Not only did he need the S.A. stormtroopers,they provided much of the staff of Angriff too. In Munich on March 23 Ernst Röhmtold him he was going to get rid of critics like Captain Stennes.75 Goebbels washorrified and urged both Hitler and Röhm not to do it. But Hitler’s loyalty was toRöhm, his old and intimate friend. In his diary, Goebbels began writing alibis: ‘Ifthere’s got to be a clean break,’ he recorded on March 25, ‘then I’m with Hitler.’ Atthe same time he told Stennes’ men that he was with them.76