Goebbels: A Biography (11 page)

At the beginning of March, at a special Party conference in Essen, the former Gaus of North Rhineland and Westphalia merged to form the “Greater Ruhr Gau.” Goebbels was named along with Kaufmann and Pfeffer as a member of a triumvirate Gau leadership; three months later Kaufmann took over as sole Gauleiter.
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The party conference in Essen increased the tension with Munich. Gottfried Feder, then the leading author of the Party program, complained to Hitler after the event that in his publications, especially where the Soviet Union was concerned, Goebbels sounded like a “communist agitator.”
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While Feder was writing this letter, Goebbels was busy preparing “Lenin or Hitler” for the press; he had already begun to adapt his views on the Soviet Union to the Party line, at least in part. On another foreign policy question, too, Goebbels sought to link up with Munich: In March he read Hitler’s pamphlet
Die Südtiroler Frage und das deutsche Bündnisproblem
(The South Tyrol Question and the Problem of German Alliances), in which the author, with an eye to an alliance with fascist Italy, argued for renouncing German claims to the South Tyrol. Finding this a “fabulously clear and tolerant booklet,”
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Goebbels rapidly aligned himself with Hitler’s thinking by writing an essay counseling against an economic boycott of Italy.
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Early in April Hitler invited the triumvirate leadership of the Greater Ruhr Gau—Goebbels, Kaufmann, and Pfeffer—to Munich. Strasser had instructed Goebbels beforehand to “weigh carefully every single word he uttered, whether in public or in private”; Goebbels made a firm promise to do so.
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In Munich Hitler courted the West German opposition. “What a splendid reception,” commented Goebbels later, delighting in retrospect at having been met by Hitler’s driver at the station.
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The next day Hitler placed his car at their disposal for an outing to Starnberg. In the evening Goebbels gave a speech in the Hackerbräu Beer Hall. In it—in complete contrast to his earlier statements—he ranked the solution of the “social question” as the central challenge facing the NSDAP but resisted giving any clear-cut account of what he understood as “socialism.”
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He had obviously gotten the message: “At the end Hitler embraces me. There are tears in his eyes. You could say I’m happy.” On the other hand,
and quite understandably, Kaufmann and Pfeffer reproached him: His speech had “not been good.” Goebbels ascribed this criticism to envy on Kaufmann’s part.
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The next day Goebbels visited the NSDAP headquarters. His thumbnail sketches of the leading figures, who appear in his diary as a collection of ludicrous fuddy-duddies, demonstrate not only arrogance but above all an attempt to account for his differences with Hitler by referring to the leader’s incompetent, scheming clique back at headquarters. The three visitors from Wuppertal first of all had to listen in Hitler’s office to “a whole catalogue of complaints,” albeit “elegantly and nicely expressed.” Then the Führer extended his hand in reconciliation: “Let’s put it behind us!” In the afternoon he delivered a three-hour lecture to the visitors from the Rhineland. Goebbels was not entirely convinced by the content, but he was once more completely overwhelmed by the Party leader’s personality: “It’s enough to drive you mad. Italy and England our allies. Russia wants to devour us. All this is in his pamphlet and in the next volume of his ‘Kampf.’ We wrangle. We question. His answers are brilliant. I love him.”

On the “social question,” too, Hitler gave Goebbels some completely “new insights”: “His ideal—a mixture of collectivism and individualism. The soil, something solid for the people. Productivity, creative, individualistic. Businesses, trusts, finished products. Transport etc. nationalized.” Goebbels was convinced of one thing: “A man so brimming with ideas is welcome to be my leader. I bow to the greater man, the political genius!” (So impressed was Goebbels that he went on to adopt Hitler’s basic ideas about the mixed economy lock, stock, and barrel for a Party recruiting leaflet.)
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Finally, Hitler gave the three delegates from the Ruhr his “firm confirmation” of their position in the Party: “And there should be peace between us from now on.” While Kaufmann and Pfeffer returned to Essen, Goebbels stopped briefly in Lower Bavaria to report to Gregor Strasser and to fulfill a few speaking engagements. This was where he met Strasser’s assistant Heinrich Himmler for the first time: a “good fellow, very intelligent. I like him.”
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Goebbels then went back to Munich, where he had another long conversation with Hitler. Although impressed by Hitler’s arguments, he was by no means convinced as yet. He thought Hitler had “not yet fully grasped the problem of Russia. But I’ll to have rethink quite a
few things.”
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The two men then traveled to Stuttgart, where they both spoke at several mass meetings.
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Goebbels felt that Hitler had “taken him into his heart like nobody else.” The net effect of the journey was plain: “Adolf Hitler, I love you because you are at once both great and straightforward. What they call a genius.”
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He reported to Strasser on the last few days and asked him to request an interview with Hitler as soon as possible “so that all the points on your side can be cleared up and we can collaborate with full confidence with Munich.”
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Back in Elberfeld, he wrote an article for the
Briefe
called “The General Staff” in which he urged Hitler in exalted fashion to create a close “Führer circle” around himself, a “General Staff–type organization of the spirit of our movement”: “With rigor and discipline a group must be selected from among the best, the bravest, and the most self-sacrificing. Strengthened by a puritanical toughness toward themselves, they must fortify their hearts against that day when more will be asked of us than conviction: brutality, thoroughness, certainty of insight, clarity of vision.”
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On May 22 he took part in the general meeting of NSDAP members in Munich, at which a change to the Party constitution strengthened the position of Hitler within the Party and the Party program of 1920 was confirmed as “unalterable.” Goebbels was pleased that Hitler not only expressed his appreciation of the developments in the Ruhr area but also declared his contentment that “this year a few first-class speakers have once more emerged, above all our friend from Elberfeld, Goebbels.”
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It is not surprising that this rapprochement between Goebbels and Hitler aroused the distrust and suspicion of the Gau business manager in the Elberfeld head office.
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For his part, however, since the beginning of 1926 Goebbels had begun to take an increasingly critical view of the way Kaufmann conducted the affairs of the Gau.
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He suspected that Kaufmann was coming more and more under the influence of Elbrechter, a Party comrade active in the background, and this led to feelings of jealousy on Goebbels’s part.
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In the end, though, he decided to stand by Kaufmann, because “in the depths of my heart I love him.”
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By June 1926 dissent among the Goebbels-Pfeffer-Kaufmann triumvirate was so far advanced that a reorganization was inevitable. Kaufmann accused Pfeffer of having misrepresented the financial
position of his old Gau at the time of their merger. In the internal Party investigation that followed, Goebbels came down on the side of Pfeffer, whereupon Kaufmann turned his attack on Goebbels.
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In the end Goebbels had to acknowledge ruefully that Kaufmann had gained the upper hand in the conflict. Goebbels was inclined to believe that “political machinations” by leading Party comrades in the Gau lay behind these disputes. He was disappointed to find he had no role to play in the reorganization.
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In mid-June Hitler came up to the Rhine-Ruhr area to settle the dispute. Goebbels, who accompanied him on this journey, was once again completely bowled over: “As a speaker he achieves a wonderful coordination of gesture, action, and word. A born demagogue! You could conquer the world with that man.”
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At the Gau meeting on July 20, in Hitler’s presence, the Gau leadership question was resolved at last: “Yesterday we appointed Kaufmann as Gauleiter,” wrote Goebbels in his diary on June 21. Although he made positive comments on the outcome, the resolution smarted: “There’s something of a split between me and Kaufmann. He’s not straight.”

For some time Hitler had been preoccupied by much more far-reaching changes in Party personnel. Goebbels noted in this connection that there was a plan to move him to Munich as “general secretary” of the movement. But there was also talk of making him Gauleiter of Berlin.
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Early in July the first NSDAP rally was held in Weimar.
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Goebbels spoke—to great applause, as he wrote—on the subject of “propaganda” and addressed the National Socialist student organization on “Students and Workers.”
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He was deeply moved as he followed the Führer’s words to the rally: “Deep and mystical. Almost like a gospel. Shuddering, you walk with him past the abysses of existence.”
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After the rally Goebbels gave several speeches in Bavaria and then arranged to see Hitler in Berchtesgaden.
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Accompanied by varying members of the Party elite—Rudolf Hess, Bernhard Rust, Gregor Strasser, and others—the two of them undertook excursions in the surrounding countryside.
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Goebbels’s notes show that he had now fully internalized Hitler’s arguments. This applied to the “social question”
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as much as to “race questions”: “He is a genius. The naturally creative instrument of divine destiny. I stand before him deeply moved. That is how he is, like a child, nice, good, kind-hearted. Like
a cat, sly, clever, and agile; like a lion, roaring, great, and gigantic. A splendid fellow, a man.” He claims to have seen a “white cloud forming a swastika shape” overhead as Hitler spoke: “A blazing light in the sky, which cannot be a star. A sign of destiny!?”
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The genius of the “Master” seemed inexhaustible: “He talks about the country’s future architecture and is the complete master builder; he sketches a new German constitution. And is the complete statesman!”
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Hitler’s parting gesture was to give him a bouquet of “red, red roses,” as Goebbels reported happily.
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Goebbels could not escape the concentrated charm of Hitler. With the intimacy Goebbels now believed was fully established between them and the recognition and praise bestowed by Hitler on his work, the man he had picked out two years earlier as the “savior” figure was now providing him with the self-confirmation that the narcissist Goebbels demanded. What were differences over policy compared to this? What mattered was to submit to the genius.

Quite obviously, however, the courting of Goebbels was part of the tactics used by Hitler to divide the “northwest German” opposition: give the protagonists new tasks and thus tie them more closely to the Munich leadership. On July 1 he put Strasser in charge of NSDAP propaganda throughout the Reich; Pfeffer was already a spokesman for the SA during discussions and was to take over that office starting on November 1.
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The proposed “promotion” of Goebbels should be seen in the same light. The very fact that Hitler so ostentatiously lavished attention on him led to growing mistrust among Goebbels’s political friends and undermined his position in Elberfeld—which in turn could only serve to bind him more closely to Hitler.

Corresponding at the beginning of August, Strasser and Goebbels “had a forthright exchange about our relationship to each other,” but Goebbels still believed he could “straighten things out” with Strasser.
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He recorded on August 23: “The latest line: People in the movement are noting my Damascus. I have bowed to Hitler and Munich. Gossip-monger: 1. Strasser, and 2. originators: Elbrechter and Kaufmann.”

Goebbels dealt with his critics in an open letter that he published in the
Briefe
.
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The revolution, he said, was no abstract “thing in itself” but a “practical political step on the way to socialism.” To stand solidly behind the “Führer,” who “is an instrument of the divine will that shapes history,” had nothing to do with “Damascus.”

At the end of August the Munich office offered him the position of acting Gauleiter of Berlin, with a four-month tenure. But Goebbels was undecided.
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In mid-September he traveled to the capital, where the incumbent Gauleiter, Ernst Schlange, and his deputy Erich Schmiedicke tried to persuade him to accept the position.
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In the middle of October he returned to Berlin “with a full heart.” His relationship with Else was now breaking down completely, which may have accelerated his decision to move to the capital.
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Goebbels, after his Elberfeld experience quite unused to being celebrated, clearly enjoyed the Berliners’ attempts to recruit him. After three days in the capital he was ready “to take over Berlin and to rule. Period!”
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The Party leadership dispelled his last doubts at the beginning of November during a stay in Munich.
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As was Hitler’s intention, the working association of the northwestern Gauleiters had meanwhile been quietly dissolved.
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Credit 4.1

Goebbels was able to assert himself in the position of Gauleiter of Berlin only because he could count on the Party leader’s protection. This photo from the Nuremberg Party rally of 1927 clearly illustrates this relationship of dependency. At this point, the NSDAP in Berlin-Brandenburg had been banned for three months. On their return from the Party rally, the 450-man Berlin contingent was picked up by the police and arrested en masse.

Conditions in the Berlin NSDAP in the mid-1920s were notoriously difficult. Right-wing radicalism had certainly enjoyed something of a heyday until 1923, but with the stabilizing of the Republic the various groups sank into insignificance. Moreover, there persisted within the
newly founded NSDAP from 1925 onward a strong paramilitary formation, the Frontbann: Jealous of its independence and still wholly attached to “putschist” tactics, it was reluctant to accept the Munich leadership’s new “legal” strategy. Consequently, the Party did not participate in the Berlin municipal elections of October 1925—apart from one district, Spandau, where it gained a grand total of 137 votes (0.3%). The Party leadership tried to bring the paramilitary element decisively under its authority by forming a “Sportabteilung” (sports section), a temporary substitute name for the Sturmabteilung, which had not yet been officially re-founded after its banning. However, this SA, as the paramilitaries themselves called it, continued to lead an independent existence as before: There were 450 men in the SA, compared to about 200 Party members. The situation was further complicated by the fact that the Strasser brothers, who called for a distinct “left-wing” direction for the NSDAP, were powerful within the Berlin Party. Their publishing house, Kampf-Verlag, was based in Berlin, and their newspaper,
Der nationale Sozialist
, which appeared in Berlin as the
Berliner Arbeiterzeitung
(Berlin Workers’ Newspaper), was the sole National Socialist press organ there.
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In the course of the year the conflict between the Party and the SA became more acute, such that Gauleiter Ernst Schlange was forced to hand over responsibility to Erich Schmiedicke. At a Party meeting in August 1926, the SA leader, Kurt Daluege, managed to install the former Free Corps commander Oskar Hauenstein as Schlange’s successor; in the process there were wild scenes during which Otto Strasser and Hauenstein slapped each other in the face.
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To try to get a grip on the situation, the Munich office sent an outsider to Berlin to calm tempers. Joseph Goebbels seemed to be the right man for the job.