Wetzel; the handbill oncemore rubbed in the Brown House scandal.87 Ignoring frantic appeals from his HQ toreturn to Berlin, Goebbels went south to Munich, sharing a railroad compartmentwith Hitler.Hitler was undoubtedly shaken by these events. The next day’s bourgeois presscrowed over his embarrassment. In an article in the VB Hitler vigorously attackedStennes for his treachery.88 Goebbels now wondered which dark powers might havebribed Stennes and Weissauer to act as they had. The party later obtained copies ofurgent Berlin police instructions ordering police officers not to seized Stennes’ handbillsannouncing his takeover.89 Hitler signed an authorisation for Goebbels to act‘ruthlessly’ in purging his Berlin gau. ‘Better no National Socialist movement at all,’this read, ‘than a party in disarray, without discipline or obedience.’90 It was time forbackbiting all round. Hearing that Göring had pleaded with Hitler to give thesepowers to him, Goebbels noted: ‘I’ll never forgive Göring… He’s a mound of frozencrap.’91 Acting from Munich HQ, he issued appeals for loyalty and sacked the mutinousS.A. men. Stennes took perhaps two hundred others with him, and began abrief flirtation with Dr Otto Strasser.Goebbels was worried by the accumulated evidence of his own latent unpopularityin Berlin, but Hitler loyally stood by him.92 The radical left-wingers among the BerlinNazis circulated an ironic news sheet attacking Hitler, Goebbels, and the new legalismhamstringing the party:Hitler and his fellow doctrinists have … finally turned their backs on socialismover the last few months. Only a few weeks ago he has Goebbels gagged because heGOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICH 231knows he’s his deadliest rival. Then, after the S.A.’s dust-up with the party, he assuresGoebbels of his unalloyed confidence and calls him his trustiest henchman. Will Hitlerbreak his word to Goebbels in a few months’ time, just like his promise to Stennes?Perhaps—unless Goebbels breaks Hitler’s neck first. 93WORRIED and ill Goebbels finally slunk back to Berlin on Wednesday April 8, 1931.Paul Schultz, who had replaced Stennes, assured him that the Berlin S.A. now stoodbehind them. Goebbels’ five district commanders confirmed that evening that notone party official had defected, only S.A. men.94 Addressing his officials on the tenthhe explained why he had put so much distance between himself and Berlin duringthe crisis. During a battlefield crisis, he said, the generals did not go into the mutinoustrenches either.95 ‘Of course the whole Jewish press is shrieking with glee,’ herealized privately, and confined himself to bed with a thermometer for company.961 Hans Hinkel stated in Jun 1969 he had ‘got to know’ her before JG (IfZ, ZS.1878).2 Bismarck, a counsellor at the German embassy in Rome, was quoted in Count Ciano’sdiary, Oct 17, 1941—The bitchy Bella Fromm included similar canards about ‘MagdaGoebbels, divorced Quandt, née Nothing at All’ in her diary, mid Dec 1932: Magda, wrotethis Jewish Berlin gossip columnist, had been brought up after WWI by the Nachmann’s, afamily of Berlin Jews, and had met Quandt at the Ullstein publishing house. ‘So she struckreal lucky with the Jews.’ (Boston Univ. Libr., Special MS Division, Fromm papers, box 1).3 She was born Oct 31, 1879; Alexander Hubert Theodor Wilhelm Oskar Ritschel died inDuisburg, Apr 4, 1941.4 Birth certificate No.101/1901, No.4 Registry Office Kreuzberg, Berlin (IfZ: F82, Heiberpapers).5 Diary, Jan 26, 1933.6 Auguste Behrend, ‘My daughter Magda Goebbels,’ in Schwäbische Illustrierte, Stuttgart(cit. hereafter as Behrend), No.13, Mar 29, 1952.7 Heiber is also dubious about Auguste Behrend’s marriage, though inclined to accept it. Inthe Jul 1931 amendment of Magda’s birth certificate, later referred to, there is mention ofRitschel only as her father, and not as Behrend’s divorced husband.8 Ritschel, supplementary testament, Apr 3, 1941 (ZStA Potsdam, Rep 90 Go 2, MagdaGoebbels, letters); it benefited Ritschel’s two brothers Gustav and Wilhelm, paying off thelatter’s debts.232 GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICH9 Diary, Jul 24, 1931.10 I have found no source which furnishes Friedländer with a first name. See e.g. the seriesby ‘Jürgen Peters and Hans Roos’ (Dr Erich Ebermayer and Dr Hans-Otto Meissner), ‘MagdaGoebbels,’ in Revue, Munich, Feb 22, 1952. Since Behrend does not specify any dates ofmarriage to or divorce from Friedländer, this may have been an equally loose arrangement.11 Ebermayer & Meissner state he acquired a small cigar store.12 Behrend, Mar 8, 1952.13 Quandt was born at Pritzwalk (Prignitz) on Jul 28, 1881; he had a brother Werner.Before his first wife Antoine, neé Ewald, died in 1918 she bore him two sons—Hellmut, andHerbert, born Jun 22, 1918 at Pritzwalk. For more on Günther Quandt see NA, RG.226,OSS reports, No.106,145, Dec 1, 1944.
Goebbels14 See Quandt’s own version of all this in his privately...and Harald Quandt (Mensch & Arbeit Verlag, Munich, Jul 1961).
Goebbels15 Magda’s Jewish background was frequently bowdlerized,...Forbes of the British embassy in a telegram to Anthony Eden on Jan 6, 1938: ‘He [JG] ismarried to the former (divorced) rather pretty wife of a rich Jew…’ (PRO: FO.371/21671).16 Amendment to birth register approved by minister of justice on Jul 15, 1920; Magdawas ‘declared legitimate … at her father’s request.’ (IfZ, F.82, Heiber papers.)17 Behrend, Mar 8, 1952.18 Harald Quandt was born in Charlottenburg on Nov 1, 1921. Under interrogation by K.Frank Korf on Apr 4, 1948 he stated he last saw his grandmother ‘Auguste Friedländer,divorced Ritschel’ in Berlin in Jan 1944 (Hoover Libr: Korf papers).19 Quandt memoirs.20 Hans-Otto Meissner, Magda Goebbels, ein Lebensbild (Munich, 1978); based largely on thetestimony of the late Ello Quandt.21 Her interest in Buddhism, which became profound, came from Ritschel. Revue, Feb 22,1952.22 According to Curt Riess (Das war mein Leben. Erinnerungen, Munich, 1986, 326) this wasViktor Arlosoroff; Viktor Chajim Arlosoroff, born in the Ukraine in 1899, emigrated toPalestine, became a fanatical leader of the Labour-Zionist movement and was assassinated inTel Aviv in 1933 by Revisionist-Zionists of the Jabotinsky movement.23 Eleonore Quandt, born at Eisenberg on Sep 28, 1899, had married Günther’s brotherWerner. Lying about her age she told Magda they were the same age; Ello was two yearsolder. Like millions of others she joined the NSDAP on May 1, 1932 (BDC file).24 Quandt memoirs.25 BDC file, Magda Quandt.26 Hinkel.27 Behrend, Mar 29, 1952.28 Die Rote Fahne, Jan 30; Berliner Tageblatt, Feb
