B006OAL1QM EBOK (34 page)

That's the way English gentlemen are: they are nonchalant and polite as long as everything is well with them, but they cast off their masks and reveal themselves as brutal world oppressors the moment one trespasses on their preserves or a man appears on the scene with whom they must reckon.
⁶⁰

After the House of Commons had observed a minute's silence in December 1942 in memory of the Jews murdered in Poland, Goebbels wrote:

That was quite appropriate for the British House of Commons, which is really a sort of Jewish exchange. The English, anyway, are the Jews among the Aryans.
⁶¹

Goebbels is, however, prepared at times to extend a grudging admiration to Germany's oldest opponent:

Although England is fighting at present against tremendous obstacles it cannot be said that morale among the common people is low. The English people are used to hard blows and to a certain extent the way they take it compels admiration.
⁶²

If Goebbels had, for the most part, a poor opinion of his enemies, we may comfort ourselves that he had a scarcely better one of his allies. He despised the Italians and, for that matter, the Fascist movement as a whole as contrasted with National Socialism.

The Italians are not only doing nothing about the war effort, but they are hardly producing anything worth while in the realm of the arts. One might almost say that Fascism has reacted upon the creative life of the Italian people rather like sterilisation. It is, after all, nothing like National Socialism. While the latter goes deep down to the roots, Fascism is only superficial.
⁶³

Goebbels touched now and then on one of the trickiest problems that faced him in assessing the value of the Axis partners to Germany— his inner conviction of their racial inferiority to the Germans. This obviously had to be kept very much in the background.

The Italians fight tooth and nail against being regarded as racially inferior to, or even different from, ourselves.
⁶⁴

With the Japanese this problem was equally difficult. Goebbels was second to none in admiring their military qualities—though he came eventually to distrust their news reports as much as the Allies distrusted his. But the race of these partners in the Axis presented other factors which embarrassed him as a representative of the German
Herrenvolk
.

The United States is trying desperately to drag us into a discussion of racial questions, especially with regard to Japan…. I have forbidden the German news services even to mention these somewhat ticklish and delicate problems, as I am convinced we can't win any laurels here. As a matter of fact our position with Japan and the problems of eastern Asia is rather precarious, since we are uncompromising in our racial views. It is best to overcome this difficulty by silence.
⁶⁵

Goebbels' views on the development of war-time propaganda were naturally coloured by his attitude to the people, whether German or foreign, to whom his ideas were addressed. He professed his belief in the fundamental importance of news, but it was news designed to serve political ends. “News policy is a sovereign function of the State which the State can never renounce,” he wrote in February 1942.
⁶⁶
“News policy is a cardinal political affair.” He was against the Party (that is, Dietrich) having control over news; only the Government (that is, himself) should exercise this function. “During a war,” he wrote on another occasion, “news should be given out for instruction rather than for information.”
⁶⁷
That was the essence of the matter. News put ideas into people's minds, and the ideas must be the right ones. In a significant passage, with certain important subconscious implications, he remarks:

In war-time one should not speak of assassination either in a negative or an affirmative sense. There are certain words from which we should shrink as the Devil does from holy water; among these are, for instance, the words ‘sabotage’ and ‘assassination’. One must not permit such terms to become part and parcel of everyday usage.
⁶⁸

Even words isolated from the context of a sentence might prove dangerous. In February 1942 he planned the revision of the German-language dictionaries required in the occupied territories.

I have given instructions for our ministry to prepare dictionaries for the occupied areas in which the German language is to be taught. They are, above all, to use a terminology that conforms to our modern conception of the State. Especially those expressions are to be translated that stem from our political ideology. That is an important form of propaganda from which I expect rather good results in the long run.
⁶⁹

Goebbels' broadcasts to Britain provide a most interesting case of his attempts to apply his special principles of propaganda to a voluntary audience in a State free from control by the Nazis. His biggest single triumph was the use of Lord Haw-Haw during the earlier period of the war.
⁷⁰
His broadcasts began from Hamburg on 10th April 1939. William Joyce was a British citizen born in New York of Irish parents. He was a graduate of London University and had been an enthusiastic member of Mosley's Blackshirts, for whom he became Director of Propaganda. In Britain he had been violently anti-Semitic. Having broken with Mosley, he eventually left England in 1939 for Germany where he became known as Herr Fröhlich (Mr. Joyous!) and worked in Fritzsche's department in the Ministry. As soon as he began broadcasting in his dry, sly manner he intrigued the British public on the level of a music-hall joke. He was christened Lord Haw-Haw in the
Daily Express
. This kind of reception was exactly what Goebbels wanted—at first. Once his success was established he branched off into skits lampooning the British upper class with Orpington and Orpington (who met in their club to grumble about the war), Sir Izzy Unge-heimer, who avoided his taxes, Bumbleby Mannering, the parson who made money out of munitions, and Sir Jasper Murgatroyd, who gave away Britain's guilty secrets. His attitude was radical, and his concern was gradually to expose Britain to the British as a corrupt and hypocritical nation. For a year at least he was an unquestionable success, and Goebbels used him also for broadcasts to the United States. As soon, however, as Winston Churchill became Prime Minister, Haw- Haw's manner hardened to match the new spirit in Britain. The fun was over and he lost his hold on the public. Shirer, who knew him in Berlin and found him “an amusing and even intelligent fellow”,
⁷¹
states that by September 1940 Joyce claimed he had become a German citizen and that he considered National Socialism to be the radical movement to which he had always belonged in spirit. He also reveals that at first the Ministry thought his nasal voice quite unsuitable for broadcasting. Goebbels' own attitude to his manner on the air by 1942 was significant:

Our broadcasts in English are, after all, very effective, as I have been able to determine from a dependable source. However, an aggressive, superior, and insulting tone gets us nowhere. I have often said so to our various departments and shall now insist that this nonsense be eliminated immediately. At present you can only get anywhere with the English by talking to them in a friendly and modest way. The English speaker, Lord Haw-Haw, is especially good at biting criticism, but in my opinion the time for spicy debate is past. During the third year of a war one must wage it quite differently from the first year. During the first year of the war people still listen to the delivery; they admire the wit and the spiritual qualities of the presentation. Today they want nothing but facts. The more cleverly, therefore, the facts are put together and the more psychologically and sensitively they are brought before the listening public, the stronger is the effect.
⁷²

News, properly presented, was to become the staple form of propaganda to Britain.

A curious slant to Goebbels' propaganda is his use of the astrological, which is mentioned on a number of occasions in the 1942 section of the diary.

In the United States, astrologers are at work prophesying an early end for the Führer. We know that type of work as we have often done it ourselves. We shall take up our astrological propaganda again as soon as possible. I expect quite a lot to result from it, especially in the United States and England.
⁷³

Berndt has drawn up a plan demonstrating how we could enlist the aid of the occult in our propaganda. We are really getting somewhere. The Americans and English fall easily for that type of thing. We are therefore pressing into our service all the experts we can find on occult prophecies, etc. Nostradamus must once again submit to being quoted.
⁷⁴

As for films, Goebbels' favourite medium, the diary is filled with references to the progress of the industry in its penetration of the occupied countries and its success under ministry guidance and control. Goebbels also reports on various captured films he has seen privately and admired—including the Soviet
General Suvorov
and the American
Swanee River
. His observations on this Hollywood musical are of particular interest:

All the film producers have been visiting me. In the evening we saw an American Technicolor picture,
Swanee River,
which gave me an opportunity to make a number of observations on the creation of a new German film based on folksongs. The fact of the matter is that the Americans know how to take their relatively small stock of culture, and, by up-to-date treatment, to make of it something which is very
á propos
for the present time. We are loaded down far too heavily with tradition and piety. We hesitate to modernise our cultural heritage. It therefore remains purely a matter of history or for the museums, and is at best understood by groups within the Party, the Hitler Youth, or the Labour Service. The cultural heritage of our past can only be made fruitful for the present if we present it with modern technique. We shall have to do something about it. The Americans have only a few Negro songs, but they present them so topically that they conquer large parts of the modern world which is, of course, much attracted by such melodies. We have a much greater fund of cultural assets, but we have neither the artistry nor the mind to modernise them. That must be changed.
⁷⁵

The production of films continued in France under the eye of the Germans. The high quality of certain French films excited Goebbels' attention:

I took a look at another French film,
Annette et la Dame Blonde
. It is as witty and elegant as the Darrieux movie,
Caprices
. We shall have to be careful to prevent the French building up a new reputation for artistic films under our leadership that will give us too serious competition in the European market. I shall see that the most talented French film actors are gradually engaged for German pictures.
⁷⁶

Goebbels' official diary makes little mention of his domestic life. There are occasional references to his wife and children. In May 1942 he notes that Magda was due to speak to an audience of women on Mothers' Day and was “scared out of her wits”. The following month he writes as if his wife had been ill again during the winter but mentions that she had recovered and was well enough to agree with him uncompromisingly “on the question of total war” which was by then uppermost in his mind after the fall of Stalingrad. The previous December he says how much he regrets the little time he can spare to be with his children.

Perhaps this reference to his children was all the more poignant for him because during that same month an attempt was made on his life. The discussion of such things was taboo according to Goebbels' code and no mention of the matter appeared in the press; there is, indeed, only the briefest reference in Goebbels' own diary to the trial before a People's Court of “the traitor who planned an attempt on my life and was condemned to death”.
⁷⁷
There is, however, a further reference in Semmler's diary. He gives the man's name as Kumerow and states that he was a wireless engineer. The plot had been to blow up the bridge leading across the water to Goebbels' Schwanenwerder property on Wannsee; Kumerow, posing as a fisherman, had intended to do this as Goebbels' car was crossing the bridge. He was arrested, according to Semmler, as he was placing the charge in position. After this, security precautions at the Ministry were tightened and Goebbels' offices were sealed off and placed under armed guard.

Hitler was horrified when he heard the news. Immediately additional guards were placed wherever Goebbels was in residence. On Christmas Eve a huge, elegant Mercedes arrived; it was bullet-proof and mine-proof with eight millimetres of armour-plate in its bodywork. The glass was three centimetres thick. It was Hitler's Christmas present, and it came with the Führer's best wishes and orders that Goebbels was in future to use no other car.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Total War

T
HE FINAL SURRENDER
of the German armies at Stalingrad on 31st January 1943 is commonly regarded as the turning-point of Hitler's fortunes in Europe. Any celebration of the tenth anniversary of Hitler's rise to power on 30th January 1933 had to be forgotten. Goebbels did not hesitate to make the flesh of Germany creep at this dire news; muffled drums preceded the announcements on the radio and the newspapers the following day were edged with the black bands of mourning. In the same month of January British and American forces occupied French North Africa and General Montgomery completed his break-through of Rommel's lines at El Alamein. Hitler had ordered both Rommel and von Paulus to hold their ground to the last man. Neither succeeded; von Paulus became a prisoner of war and Rommel was eventually recalled home. After the Generals' plot of July 1944 Rommel was to be told to commit secret suicide because Hitler did not want to acknowledge in public that the most popular General in Germany had been among the traitors; he did so and was then accorded a State funeral in place of the firing squad.

The years 1943 and 1944, the years of total war, are also the years of Hitler's moral bankruptcy. Five million slave-workers from Russia, Poland, France, Holland, Yugoslavia and, eventually, Italy were press-ganged for sweated labour in Germany, which meant as often as not death from privation. The meaning of rule by the S.S. and the Gestapo needs no description here. The results shame our civilisation. The concentration camps and the extermination camps worked night and day in the fulfilment of the systematic policy ordained by Hitler and approved by Goebbels of destroying the Jewish race in Europe. So great were the numbers killed that the records became saturated and unable to keep count of the millions involved. Himmler, who was proud to be in charge of this operation, himself believed that more than six million Jews were slaughtered, gassed, starved or tortured to death. The Commandant of Auschwitz in Poland claimed that three million died at his camp alone, where the gas-chambers were specially designed to accommodate at a single time two thousand victims, who took from three to fifteen minutes to the “according to climatic conditions”.
¹

In spite of Stalingrad, the Germans managed to hold on to their main positions in Russia through the summer, but in North Africa Hitler lost a quarter of a million men when his army was finally defeated in May 1943. In Italy Mussolini's régime was on the point of collapse, though Hitler twice summoned the Duce to conferences at which he tried to inspire him with the will to fight in the cause of history. But Mussolini said nothing. He went home for the last time as a free man and was placed under arrest on 25th July.

The Allies had landed in Sicily on 10th July. Though Marshal Badoglio, the head of the new Italian Government, claimed that he would maintain Italy's partnership with the Axis, Hitler knew instinctively that Italian capitulation to the Allies was only a matter of time. He hurried every man he could spare down into the Italian peninsula. He intended to take the leaders of the new régime and members of the Royal Family prisoner; he even planned to invade the Vatican. Goebbels was among those who dissuaded him from violating the Papal territory. But the first thing he needed to do was rescue Mussolini from captivity so that he might exploit him as a figurehead to justify his actions in Italy. He used to the full the six weeks that passed between the fall of Mussolini in July and the announcement in September of an armistice between the Allies and Badoglio to build up his strength in Italy.

The Allies landed successfully on the Italian mainland south of Naples. Hitler was concerned to hold central and northern Italy, and he succeeded for virtually a year. On 12th September Mussolini was rescued by a special squad of German commandos, accompanied by a film cameraman, to record the event, but he was by now an old and broken man clinging to his mistress and no longer able to sustain the rôle for which Hitler had cast him; nevertheless his restoration as Duce was publicised as a matter of form. The Fascist puppet government became a hotbed of petty intrigue, and eventually Hitler had Ciano killed. When the Italians at last recaptured the Duce and his mistress they shot them both and left their bodies hanging head downwards on barbaric display in the Piazzale Loreto in Milan. But by that time Hitler was confined to his Bunker.

Meanwhile the German forces were being slowly but inflexibly pressed back. Although they managed to hold the Allies in Italy during the hideous winter of 1943-44, they were not so successful in Russia where Hitler's policy of stand and fight to the death only led to unnecessarily heavy losses of men as well as of territory. Hitler refused all advice which implied a strategic withdrawal of his forces in any sector. He preferred them to die, or be taken prisoner. During 1943 in Germany itself the Allied bombardment of the industrial centres was massive, incessant and crippling; the Luftwaffe was chased out of the skies. In the same year the U-boat menace in the Atlantic was conquered.

Hitler himself, who was now fifty-five, became more and more the isolated, ageing figure, savagely berating his commanders for their incompetence. He was a sick man, suffering from partial paralysis, stomach-cramp and fits of giddiness. He was also kept constantly under the influence of drugs of many different kinds by his quack physician, Professor Morell, in whose hands he placed himself unreservedly and also those intimately connected with him, including Goebbels, who was not infrequently unwell. Unlike Goebbels, who was always out and about, Hitler almost entirely withdrew from public life and did nothing to comfort the hard-pressed German people by making his presence felt. Only rarely could he even be persuaded to make a speech or broadcast. This was left to Goebbels, who became a constant visitor to the devastated areas, where he did his best to hearten those who had suffered in the raids. Hitler remained hidden away most of the time at his Command headquarters which were remotely situated in East Prussia. After the fall of Stalingrad Hitler made only two public speeches of any importance and five broadcasts before his death. He withdrew himself into his dreams of conquest.

1944 was the year in which the fantasy of ultimate victory finally overcame his judgment. He dreamed that he would defeat the West by means of his secret weapons and the East through the overwhelming strength of the German Army guided by his intuitive strategy. Gradually his obsessions drove his ministers and commanders from him; Göring absented himself, living a life ofluxury, while Ribbentrop no longer enjoyed Hitler's confidence. In the last year of his life those who managed to exercise spasmodic influence over him were reduced to Himmler, Bormann, Speer, Doenitz and Goebbels himself. Himmler's powers were spread wide through the S.S., the Army and the Intelligence Service; Bormann, Hess's successor, became Hitler's personal assistant, constant adviser and jealous watchdog; Speer was in charge of Germany's industrial war effort until he turned eventually against Hitler in 1945. Doenitz was to become Hitler's choice to head the Government which should follow on his death, with Goebbels as Reich Chancellor.

The many plots to kill Hitler—there are records of seven of them in 1943—all failed for one reason or another. Himmler was well aware that a large network of conspiracy was being created in Germany with the sole purpose of ridding the country of the Führer. Arrests were constantly made as suspicion centred round now one name, now another, but the fires of assassination could not be stamped out. Politicians, diplomats, generals, members of the German underground for political, religious or intellectual reasons formed conspiracies which waxed, waned and wavered in their endeavours to bring about the Führer's death. The plot which came nearest to success was that of 20th July 1944. Goebbels, as we shall see, played a decisive part in the frustration of the attempted
coup d’ état
which followed. Hitler, shaken and still further deranged, survived to continue his grand strategy.

By this time the Russians had all but pressed the German armies out of Soviet territory, while the Allies had taken Rome in June. In the same month British and American forces had landed in Normandy; as usual Hitler blamed the incompetence of his generals and departed for Berchtesgaden with his drugs. He divided his time now between Berchtesgaden and his military headquarters in East Prussia. It was here, at Rastenburg, during one of his military conferences that the bomb placed under his table just failed to kill him on 20th July. Hitler's revenge on the conspirators was widespread and thorough, and Goebbels was at last given the internal powers in Germany for which he had been asking the Führer since 1943. His propaganda for total war now had teeth behind it.

The surviving fragments of Goebbels' diary give his comments on events occurring during certain weeks and odd days between March and December 1943. They are significant because they show the development of his thinking against the background of this adverse period in German history. Goebbels remained completely self-sufficient, his satisfaction with his own achievements in writing and speaking unimpaired. As he says: “One must have absolute self-assurance, as it is the only thing which can radiate assurance to others.”
²
But what pleased him most of all was the praise he is able to record from the lips of the Führer, with whom he was in frequent contact.

The Führer became exceptionally open-hearted and personal at the end of our discussion. He hides absolutely nothing from me. Intimate talks like that really strengthen one's heart. The Führer assured me again and again that he was not only extremely satisfied with my work, but that he had the greatest admiration for it. German war propaganda was a masterpiece from beginning to end. I can therefore feel very proud of the recognition given me.
³

The Führer spoke to Speer in terms of the highest praise for my articles in
Das Reich
. He told him he read them every time and had not once discovered a psychological error in them. He regards them as the best political prose now being written in Germany.
⁴

In a curious passage he accepts what he readily interprets as praise from an enemy source at the same time as he reveals that the German people were not quite unanimous in their appreciation of him—partly, no doubt, because of the growing ruthlessness of his radicalism.

A number of English papers and periodicals have been laid before me which give evidence of great respect for my person and my work. The
News Chronicle
calls me the most dangerous member of the Nazi gang. I can feel very proud of this praise. If the English continue to respect my work so much, I believe I shall gradually also win the approval of the German people.
⁵

Nevertheless, he seldom stopped impressing upon Hitler what were his own ambitions. First of all he wanted to gather every branch of propaganda into his own hands.

I developed my ideas to the Führer about the nature of propaganda. I believe that when a propaganda ministry is created, all matters affecting propaganda, news and culture within the Reich and within the occupied areas must be subordinated to it. I emphasised that I insist on totalitarianism in carrying out the propaganda and news policies of the Reich. He agreed with me absolutely and unreservedly.
⁶

Then, secondly, he wanted Hitler to extend his powers as Gauleiter of Berlin to the whole of Germany. His pride in the control he possessed over the internal affairs of the capital is always evident, and he was particularly proud of the way in which he handled the aftermath of the bombing; this was something he continually brought to Hitler's notice.

He confirmed once more that in situations like that I am the supreme and sole commander of the capital. The ministries, too, are to obey my orders. The entire public life is subordinated to me. In times of catastrophe only one person can give orders.
⁷

But, argued Goebbels to himself, if Hitler granted his effectiveness as Gauleiter of Berlin, why did he not give him similar powers for Germany as a whole?

Our propaganda within the Reich also doesn't seem to have the right spark to it, as I gather from a number of reports from Gauleiters. Here again the sad fact is that we are without a governing hand at home. I should be quite willing to undertake to solve all these problems, provided I were given the necessary plenary powers.
⁸

For Goebbels there could be no hard line of demarcation between the actual administration of a country and the propaganda associated with it. Propaganda isolated from power was useless—"a sharp sword must always stand behind propaganda if it is to be effective”.
⁹
Not only personal ambition but the sheer logical necessities of his work as he understood it demanded that he be given these plenary powers and so become the ruler of Germany while Hitler controlled the war. This would be a partnership in which there was no room for other ministers or commanders except in relatively subordinate positions.

Consequently, Goebbels now began to impress upon Hitler the need for the civilian population to be made to participate in the demands of total war as he conceived them.

Total war is giving me a lot of work to do, but matters are progressing according to rule and programme…. The people identify the idea and conception of total war with me personally. I am therefore in a certain sense publicly responsible for the continuation of total war.
¹⁰

Goebbels' sense of power was always affronted when he contemplated immunity from the effects of war still enjoyed by many of the more privileged people in Germany, including some of the Nazi leaders.

I made complaint about a number of Reichsleiters and Gauleiters whose standard of living is very much out of tune with the times. The Führer had heard about this, too. He is going to forbid hunting for the duration of the war and the use of alcohol at any events sponsored by the Party. In principle only a one-course meal is to be served.
¹¹