Goebbels: A Biography (15 page)

Credit 5.1

The “conquest of red Berlin”—here Goebbels appears in a proletarian pose in the north of Berlin, 1929—was, in fact, a propaganda invention on Goebbels’s part. The NSDAP did not manage to outdo the election results of the two left-wing parties in Berlin: In the Reich capital, the results were always several percentage points below the average for the National Socialists throughout the Reich.

The last session of the Reichstag elected in December 1924 took place on March 31, 1928; a new election was scheduled for May 20. As early as the previous November Hitler had offered Goebbels a place in the list of NSDAP candidates, and after some hesitation Goebbels had accepted: “Although it does my reputation no good, damn it, [it’s worth it] if only for the sake of the immunity.” The prospect of placing himself beyond the reach of the law was the factor that finally swayed him.
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In February Hitler had conceived the idea that Goebbels
should stand simultaneously for a seat in the Prussian state parliament (the Landtag) and become leader of the parliamentary Party there.
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Goebbels suspected that the plan was to shunt him off into the Landtag because he was too difficult a customer for his Party comrades in the Reichstag.
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But the double candidacy project came to nothing.

At the beginning of the election campaign, the Berlin chief commissioner of police lifted the ban on the NSDAP in Berlin.
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On April 14 the Party was officially re-founded in a solemn ceremony held at the Veteran Soldiers’ House.
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The newly legalized party now moved into new headquarters at Berliner Strasse 77.
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The SA, too, now appeared openly again in public. Goebbels was forced to take into account the fact that this troop of about a thousand strong (about eight hundred in Berlin and two hundred in Brandenburg)
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immediately stated its claims on the political organization, for example with regard to the selection of candidates for the Reichstag election.
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During the campaign Goebbels organized SA marches through various districts of Berlin; on May 13 they paraded in Wilmersdorf, for instance.
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On May 17, Ascension Day, they undertook a “march out” to Spandau and subsequently made a wide detour via Tegel to Wedding, where there was a confrontation with communist counterdemonstrators. Goebbels considered it a great success that they managed to force their way through here, in enemy territory, and continue the march despite all attempts to disrupt the proceedings.
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In the Reichstag elections on May 20, the National Socialists gained a meager 2.6 percent of the vote in the Reich as a whole and did even worse in Berlin, at 1.6 percent.
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For Goebbels this was—strange to say—a “fine result, but we earned it by our hard work, after all.” The NSDAP had twelve deputies in the Reichstag, among them Joseph Goebbels: “So now I’m an M.d.R. [Mitglied des Reichstags, Member of the Reichstag]. Immune, that’s the main thing.”
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In
Der Angriff
he asserted that he was “not a Member of the Reichstag. I am an I.d.I. An I.d.F. A possessor of immunity [Inhaber der Immunität], the holder of a free ticket to ride [Inhaber der Freifahrkarte].”
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The Strasser brothers immediately criticized the poor election results in Berlin: Gregor Strasser in the
Berliner Arbeiterzeitung
on May 27, and Otto in the
Nationalsozialistische Briefe
of June 15, where he complained that the NSDAP had attracted lower-middle-class
and farming community votes above all but no proletarian ones; this was apparent in the Berlin results, among others.
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The shaky outcome in Berlin was indeed sobering for Goebbels, who liked to see himself as “socialistic.”

Although his immunity as a deputy now protected him from having to serve any future prison sentences, he had to face a series of prosecutions before he could enjoy this protection. Hence at the end of April he was sentenced to three weeks’ imprisonment for an “Isidor insult” in
Der Angriff
.
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On June 6 he was fined 200 marks because of an article in which he called the policemen who testified against him in an earlier trial “White Chekists.”
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On June 8 there was another fine of 20 marks as a result of the so-called department store case (this had to do with a special edition of
Der Angriff
in December 1928),
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and on June 19 his fine in connection with the Stucke case was reduced to 600 marks. He commented defiantly: “I won’t pay a single penny.”
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On July 14, 1928, the Reichstag passed an amnesty law that protected Goebbels from further court cases: “Now I’m as pure as an angel again.”
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At the beginning of July Goebbels gave his maiden speech in the Reichstag. “When one takes part for the first time as a novice in this democratic swindle,” declared the deputy, “it’s a horrifying sight.” He made use of the topic of the debate—the introduction of a national day—to mount polemical attacks, suggesting August 29 (the day on which the Reichstag had passed a law accepting the revised Dawes Plan for reparation payments) and the Jewish festival of Purim as suitable days to celebrate the nation. His personal summary of the day was: “An endless din as I told those swine what’s what until it came out of their ears.”
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During the summer of 1928 the conflict between Goebbels and the Strasser brothers became increasingly turbulent. Comments about Gregor Strasser proliferated in the diary, which also recorded even more frequently evidence of serious differences of opinion with his brother Otto. In June 1928 Goebbels learned from the Essen Gauleiter, Josef Terboven, that Otto Strasser, Kaufmann, and Reventlow were planning to start a new party “with more emphasis on steering a socialist course.”
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In June Goebbels agreed to support Kaufmann and the Ruhr Gau in publishing a new paper called
Die neue Front
(The New Front), no doubt hoping with this project to land a blow on “the Satan of the whole movement,” Otto Strasser.
²²
For a while, with
Hitler failing to back him in his confrontation with the Strassers, he even considered resigning his position as Gauleiter. But after a long personal discussion with Hitler in mid-July, in which according to Goebbels Hitler expressed “sharp” views about Otto Strasser, Goebbels dropped the idea.
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At the end of July Goebbels went alone to Borkum to recuperate. The island was a bastion of
völkisch
sentiment and largely
judenfrei
(free of Jews), which was a source of pride.
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The campaign to achieve this was led by Pastor Ludwig Münchmeyer, whom Goebbels called on immediately. He respected him for the “enormous battle” he had fought on the island, but he also considered that the anti-Semitic minister had acted “ineptly.”
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During his vacation he gave several speeches on behalf of the Party, and after almost two weeks he felt “fresh and restored. All that’s missing is a beautiful woman.”
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Back in Berlin, he discovered that a serious crisis was building up within the Party. Since April there had been signs of increasing dissatisfaction within the SA—not just in Berlin but throughout the Reich. The ex-military men who headed the SA, Walter Stennes in Berlin and Pfeffer in the Reich, were seeking—so it seemed to Goebbels—to put the leadership of the Party under increasing pressure.
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Now there were indications that this crisis was becoming more and more acute.
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In fact, this conflict represented a systemic problem of the National Socialist movement that was present from its inception: How was the paramilitary wing of the Party, the SA, to be integrated into the NSDAP? This question was to lead to repeated, deep-seated conflicts and was never truly resolved until the problem was “solved” in bloody fashion on June 30, 1934.

The background of the conflict lay in the following complex: While the Party leadership perceived the SA as an auxiliary force useful for providing security at meetings, turning out for propaganda marches, and distributing leaflets, the ambitions of the SA leaders—mostly ex-officers and former Free Corps fighters—went considerably further. They saw themselves as “political soldiers” and the SA as a “military unit,” an independent instrument of power that could be used
to apply political pressure internally, as well as a military reserve organization with a role to play in the context of the secret expansion of the Reichswehr. The self-confident SA leadership naturally enjoyed cross-connections with the various military outfits on the right and held out political promises to try to attract recruits from the other formations. On the other hand, however, since they were not prepared to allow the Party leadership—mere politicians—any opportunity to scrutinize, let alone control, their possessively guarded “military” sphere of operations, their behavior risked compromising the Party’s political line. The “putschism” that was still rife within the SA leadership was bound to jeopardize the Party’s policy of operating within the law.

Hitler had suffered as early as 1923 from the substantial limitations imposed on his freedom of action as a politician by what were then the close ties between the SA and the radical right-wing scene in Bavaria. Preparations for a putsch by the military formations, which fully embraced the SA, had developed such an independent momentum that Hitler was left with practically no option but to take part in the risky enterprise of November 9. What he learned from this experience was that in the future the SA should be completely subordinate to the Party and forget about its war games.
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Now, in August 1928, just back from his vacation, Goebbels found that the SA was on the brink of open revolt. He managed to eavesdrop on a conversation between Stennes and one of his confidants, noting afterward: “Now I know what I’m dealing with.” He resolved to “give these gentlemen a rap on the knuckles before long.”
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But first of all, in fact, he allowed himself another breather. He took a trip to Garmisch, where, not far from the grave of his friend Richard Flisges, he revised the “Michael” manuscript of 1924.
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In Berlin, meanwhile, the conflict with the SA that had long been festering had now broken out. Stennes and a group of
Standartenführer
ostentatiously resigned from the Party when their financial demands—the SA in Berlin had accumulated debts of over 3,000 Reichsmarks—were not met by the Party leadership in Munich.

Goebbels told himself separation was the answer: “And now there will have to be a split. Party or military unit, revolution or reaction.”
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But his words were bolder than his deeds. For the time being, he saw no reason to cut short his stay in Bavaria. He clearly tried as much as he could to keep out of the dispute between the Party and the SA. It
was to be almost two weeks before he returned to the capital. There he found a short-term solution to the crisis by making substantial concessions. He agreed to provide Stennes with additional resources by raising credit and asked Hitler to come and speak more often in Berlin (which, because of a ban on speaking imposed on him in Prussia, he could only do in closed NSDAP meetings).
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Reporting to Munich, he found that Hitler regarded Stennes, as well as Pfeffer, as “freebooters”—“Probably rightly.” But it was clear to Goebbels that at this moment “a crisis was the last thing they needed” and that it was now important to keep the peace at all costs: “I convince the boss against my own better judgment. But I’ve got to take this action in order to save the Party.” In concrete terms, all that was agreed was that Hitler should appear more often in Berlin to calm unruly spirits.
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Then Goebbels continued his vacation until the end of the month.
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For the Gauleiter of Berlin, whose propaganda campaign depended crucially on “his” SA and who at the same time was doing his utmost to stay in the Party leader’s good books, great danger lay in an open conflict between the Party and the SA. So he tried to contain the conflict by offering concessions to the SA leaders, on the one hand, and placating the leadership in Munich, on the other. He came to an agreement with Stennes that from now on they would work “loyally” together.
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At the end of August and the beginning of September, Goebbels attended a meeting of the Party elite in Munich that lasted several days. He was repelled by the performance of the top Party functionaries, finding it to be “shocking.” Hitler alone was “phenomenal.” Goebbels learned here that as part of a regional reorganization of the NSDAP, his Gau was to be divided: He was now responsible only for Berlin, while a new Gau would be formed in Brandenburg. He commented laconically: “Thank God, that takes a lot of trouble off my shoulders.”
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