Doctor Goebbels: His Life & Death

brother Hans’s girlfriend Maria Liffers, does not return his feelings becausehis teachers and her parents protest and Goebbels has a frightful scene with hisfather. All of his pals have girlfriends—Hompesch has one enticingly called MariaJungbluth. Goebbels however senses only a ‘dark yearning’ as Eros awakes in him.‘My libido is sick,’ he will write aged twenty-six. ‘In affairs of the heart we humansare all scandalously selfish. For the phallus we sacrifice hecatombs of immortal souls.’16Basking in what he sees as one woman’s love he will reflect, ‘I am everything toher.Ê .Ê . Or am I allowed to savour life’s treasures more intensely because I am doomedto depart it early on? Now and again I have this premonition!’17At age eighteen, in 1915, he begins a three year infatuation with a local girl, LeneKrage. He calls it love, and will long recall their first chaste kiss in Garten Strasse.26 GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICHBut she is capricious and flighty, and his tormented soul drives him to the timehonouredrefuge of writing a private diary. At Christmas 1916 he sends her a book ofhis own poetry. Leaving Rheydt for Bonn university in March 1917 he says farewellto Lene. They find themselves locked in Kaiser Park that night, and he kisses herbreast for the first time: characterizing this milestone event seven years later hewrites coyly, ‘She becomes a loving woman for the first time.’ It will become clearthat he means this only in the broadest sense.HE was to study philology, Latin, and history. Desperately lonely, he lodged in a coldbare room. His aspirations were overshadowed by hunger, cold, fatigue, and ill-health.He had made one good friend in the law student Karlheinz Kölsch however andfagged for him as the Leibfuchs (freshman valet) in the tradition of all mediæval universities.‘Pille’ Kölsch, as he was known, remained his foppish, loud-voiced, jovial,staunch friend and rival long after their careers had drifted apart. With his modishheadgear and yellow gloves, Kölsch became his first role-model.18 He roped Goebbelsinto the tiny Bonn chapter (‘Sigfridia’) of the Catholic fraternity Unitas on May 22,1917.19 Its half-dozen members spent the weekly meetings solemnly debating religionand quaffing beer in the local hostelry, The Cockerel. A record of the fraternity’sget-together on June 24, 1917 shows them all partaking of Holy Communion,then listening while Goebbels—who had chosen the classical name of Ulex for himself—delivered a well-received speech on “Wilhelm Raabe and us.”20 The fraternitybulletin refers to Ulex as one of their ‘splendid foxes’ (freshmen) and ‘determined todo honour to the principles of Unitas.’21His funds ran out, which scarcely mattered as at the end of July 1917 he was brieflyinducted into war service, and absolved his obligations by pushing a pen for a fewweeks in a home auxiliary service (he wrote an excellent copperplate script). Hewas keen to continue at university, but his father could put up only fifty marks permonth; Joseph earned a little more by tutoring. He frittered away that summer withLene on vacation, spending at least one chaste night with her on her sofa atGOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICH 27Rheindahlen, and committing to his memory that she ‘stayed pure’. He left a numberof unpaid bills at Bonn, which his father settled.The winter semester began on October 1, 1917. He submitted a formal applicationfor aid to the Diocese in Cologne. The Albertus Magnus Society there providedaid to promising young Catholics. The documents22 supporting his application showthat his father now earned 3,800 to 4,000 marks per annum, and had no liquidassets. His scripture teacher Mollen testified:“Herr Goebbels comes from decent Catholic parents and deserves commendationfor his religious fervour and his general moral demeanour.“Father Mollen, his mentor and spiritual benefactor, would explain years later thathe furnished this testimonial with the clearest conscience: ‘He was a very promisingscholar. For nine years he had taken scripture lessons from me and had always shownmuch interest, comprehension, and devotion. He regularly attended school churchservices and the monthly Communion. His attitude to me was confident, proper,and reverential.’ The parish priest at Rheydt seconded him. Backed by these documents,Goebbels humbly submitted on September 5, 1917, his application to theDiocesan Committee of the Albertus Magnus Society for financial support for thewinter term 1917-18.“Because of a lame foot I am exempt from military service, and I should dearlylike to continue my studies next term. For this however I am entirely thrownupon the mercy of the charity of my Catholic fellow-believers.“The charity evidently asked him to produce an attendance certificate from Bonnuniversity. He explained on September 14 that he had not been able to complete theterm. Convinced that his was a worthy cause, the Society sent him 185 marks as afirst interest-free instalment of a loan finally totalling 964 marks—about three monthsof his father’s pay. His address was now given as No.18 Post Strasse in Bonn; hewould return there in October 1917.28 GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICHBY the time of his final Ph.D. examination in November 1921 he would have attendedfive different universities; this was not unusual in Germany. The reasons are obscure:sometimes he was pursuing a particular girl, sometimes a certain professor, sometimesa special course; frequently the lack of lodging space in one city decided thathe should study elsewhere that term instead.His speaking talents were already developed. Hompesch told him he was a bornorator. ‘Motor mouth!’ joked Kölsch’s brother Hermann in one letter, ‘There yougo, shooting it off again. Well, there’s nobody can touch you on that score.’ ‘We reallyought to open a stall,’ Hermann joked in a letter two weeks later, ‘and do the roundsof the church fêtes displaying you as the Man with the All-Round Mouth.’23Goebbels and ‘Pille’ Kölsch were inseparable. They arranged for Jesuits like FatherRembold to lecture to the students, and once Goebbels proudly invited his old scriptureteacher, Father Mollen, to lecture too. At Bonn he studied under Adolf Dyroff,professor of philosophy. He attended the literary seminars of Professor BertholdLietzmann, and wrote well-regarded essays for Professor Carl Enders on the youthfuldrama fragments of Johann Wolfgang Goethe. He stayed on in Bonn after termended on February 1, and moved into Kölsch’s lodgings