Goebbels: A Biography (67 page)

As a result of the positive depiction of military developments Goebbels noted that morale within Germany during the second half of August was good.
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He now began, however, to arm himself for the next crisis of morale. First, he ordered the replacement of Ernst Braeckow, hitherto head of the propaganda department, with whose work he was not satisfied, by the previous head of the radio department, Alfred-Ingemar Berndt, whom he fetched home from the North African theater of war and to whom he assigned the reorganization of propaganda for the coming winter.
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He wanted to strengthen morale above all by emphasizing the contribution required from the Party’s work on the ground and ordered it to ensure that it had an appropriate public presence in his Gau. At the beginning of August Goebbels instructed the Berlin SA “to establish a propaganda organization. […] We can’t simply leave the field open to the grumblers. […] There ought really to be a Party comrade standing in every line in front of shops, who can intervene and sort things out the moment disagreements occur or grumbling starts.”
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In the autumn when, as a result of a shortage of tobacco, lines started forming outside the tobacconists in Berlin, he was concerned about the damage to the official image of Berlin, which must not be allowed to be affected by shortages. Thus, as in 1939 when he ordered that lines in front of cafés should be dispersed, Goebbels gave orders that this should be stopped. In November, however, Berliners were still lining up for cigarettes.
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Above all, however, he developed the idea of extending the anti-Semitic campaign, which he had launched in the propaganda
aimed at the Soviet Union and in his raving against the plutocratic-Bolshevist world conspiracy, to German domestic policy. The German Jews were to be stigmatized as the enemy within, in order to support the assertion of the existence of an international world conspiracy. Moreover, on August 12, he referred in his diary to the idea that he had been pursuing since the spring,
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“to identify the Jews by a badge,” because they act as “grumblers and killjoys.” The Jews were “to be excluded from the German nation” by being given a visible mark of identification. His initiative coincided with efforts by the security police and the Party that tended in the same direction.
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On August 14 an inter-ministerial conference took place in the Propaganda Ministry at which, among other things, this plan to visibly identify the Jews was discussed.
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As well as the “Jewish question” Goebbels addressed another problem that threatened to damage morale: the conflict with the churches. When, at the beginning of July 1941, the feared British air raids, particularly against targets in northwestern Germany, had begun,
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it was soon clear to Goebbels that the air raids were aimed specifically at “Catholic” cities such as Aachen, Münster, and Cologne because the British believed that they could damage morale the most there.
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This was a further reason for Goebbels not to get involved in confessional issues during the war as a matter of principle. In this he was largely at one with Hitler,
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even if in the spring he had been reluctant to obey Hitler’s order not to leave the church. “And that’s the rubbish I’ve been paying my church tax for over a decade for. That’s what really gets me.”
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In general, however, the watchword was not to respond to criticism by the churches during the war. This proved particularly difficult when information about “euthanasia” became increasingly widespread.

As is clear from his diary,
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Goebbels himself was informed about the “T4 action,” the systematic murder of many patients in institutions for the mentally handicapped ordered by Hitler at the beginning of the war, at the latest from early 1940. When, at the beginning of July 1941, a pastoral letter was read aloud in Catholic churches protesting against the killing of innocent people, in other words “euthanasia,” he gave instructions to ignore the incident.
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On August 3, 1941, the Bishop of Münster, Clemens August von Galen, who had already protested the confiscation of church property in two sermons, now publicly condemned the systematic murder of such patients
in a sermon. During the following days news of his protest spread rapidly throughout the Reich.
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Goebbels only noted this “outrageous and provocative address” in his diary on August 14, while at the same time expressing his regret that “at the moment [it was] probably not really psychologically feasible” to make an “example” of von Galen, as really ought to happen.
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On the following day he wrote that he must “ask the Führer whether he wants a public debate about the euthanasia problem at the moment”; he himself in any case was against the idea at the present time.
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A few days later he heard about a letter from the chairman of the German Catholic bishops’ forum, the Cardinal of Breslau, Adolf Bertram, in which he requested that the minister for churches, Hans Kerrl, comment on the “euthanasia issue.” According to Goebbels, Bertram “brings up a lot of stuff that can’t simply be rejected”; thus he was confirmed in his view that “the church question should be put on ice,” and, continuing in the same vein, “it’s different with the Jewish question. At the moment all Germans are hostile to the Jews. The Jews must be put in their place. It seems grotesque that that there are still 75,000 Jews in Berlin, of whom only 23,000 are employed.”
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On the occasion of his visit to Führer headquarters on August 18, Goebbels had the opportunity to bring up both issues. Even before his interview with Hitler he came to an agreement with Bormann that for tactical reasons it would now be more prudent to exercise restraint in the church question. When, shortly afterward, he met the dictator, the latter was in complete agreement with this line.

As Goebbels had previously assumed, Hitler too adopted an uncompromising position on the “Jewish question.” “He agrees that we should introduce a large visible Jewish badge for all Jews in the Reich” so that “the danger of Jews being grumblers and malcontents without people recognizing them as Jews is removed.” Moreover, Hitler had promised “to deport the Berlin Jews as quickly as possible to the east as soon as the first transportation becomes available. There they will be subjected to a harsher climate.” Later Hitler once more returned to the topic and expressed his conviction that “the prophecy that he had made to the Reichstag back then that, if the Jews succeeded once again in provoking a world war, the final annihilation of the Jews would be assured. During these weeks and months, that was coming true with a certainty that was almost uncanny. The Jews must pay the
bill in the east; in Germany they had almost paid it and would have to pay still more in the future.”

Hitler was referring to the increasing number of mass shootings of Jewish civilians by SS and police units, sometimes with the support of indigenous forces, that had been carried out in the east since the beginning of the war. Based on the diaries, it can be shown that at this point Goebbels was already aware of the massacres and during the coming weeks discovered concrete details about them.
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On August 22 Goebbels discussed the “church question” with the Westphalian Gauleiter, Dr. Alfred Meyer.
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He advised moderation: “The church question can be solved after the war with a stroke of the pen. During the war it’s better not to touch it; it can only become a hot potato. […] Whether it was a good idea to set the euthanasia ball rolling in such a major way as has been done in recent months is an open question.” At the time of this conversation Goebbels already knew that the mass murder of patients in the context of the “T4 action” was coming to an end.
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On August 24 the “euthanasia program” was then officially ended by an order from Hitler. This was partly because of the discontent and the protests on the part of the churches and partly because at this point those responsible for the “euthanasia” considered that they had achieved the goal they had set themselves at the start of the war, namely the murder of seventy thousand people.
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The murder of patients in mental institutions was to continue during the coming years but in a decentralized and more carefully disguised manner.

Goebbels attempted to avoid unnecessary attacks on the churches in other spheres as well. Around this time he told Gauleiter Albert Forster that he was opposed to further interference with church life. All “the hard-liners who just at this critical time want to take up all these tricky problems should be brought to heel.”
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In this connection he was not at all happy about an edict issued by the Gauleiter of Munich/Upper Bavaria and Bavarian Interior Minister Adolf Wagner ordering the removal of crucifixes from all school buildings in Bavaria. “Whether or not crucifixes hang in schools is probably unlikely to have much impact on the outcome of the war. But the fact that the removal of the crucifixes is likely to produce conflict and discord among our people is of very considerable importance.” According to Goebbels he succeeded in securing the withdrawal of Wagner’s edict
in August after it had led to protests and even to public demonstrations.
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In the coming months Goebbels continued to stick to this cautious, but always tactically determined, line on church issues. Typical of his real opinion was the malicious way in which he continued to gather material against von Galen, who in his opinion was an “impudent liar and agitator” whom they should “deal with at the next favorable opportunity.” Goebbels kept bemoaning the fact that nothing could be done about the bishop so long as the war in the east was continuing.
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On the other hand, when in October, through the mediation of Ambassador Attolico, his sister Maria managed to secure a private audience with the Pope, and Pius used the opportunity to “pass on his blessing to him personally,” Goebbels noted this gesture with obvious satisfaction and a certain pride, even if he added that he could “not buy much with it.”
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Whereas he was anxious to maintain a trouble-free relationship with the churches, his views on the “Jewish question” were quite different. Two days after Hitler promised him the introduction of the “Jewish badge” on August 20, 1941, Goebbels expressed his opinion in another diary entry that “with the help of this identification of the Jews [he would] very quickly be able to carry out the necessary reforms without [the need for] legal documents.” Thus the introduction of the badge served in the first instance to enable him to push through further restrictions on the life of the Jews, who had now been made “visible,” through simple administrative regulations instead of having to get involved in laborious legislative procedures. In fact, between July and September 1941 the regulations for Jewish forced labor in Berlin were toughened and the movement of Jews to the capital was completely stopped.
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“Even if it is at the moment impossible to make Berlin a completely Jew-free city,” Goebbels further noted on August 20, “in any case Jews will no longer be allowed to appear in public.” In the medium term, however, the Jewish “problem” would be solved in an even more radical way, for Hitler had promised him that “I can deport the Jews to the east immediately the eastern campaign is over.”
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While he was dealing with the practical aspects of introducing the badge,
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Goebbels launched a new anti-Semitic campaign in order to prepare the population for it. He gave the starting signal at the ministerial briefing in the Propaganda Ministry on August 21.
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A central
role in this campaign was played by a pamphlet published in the United States in which a certain Theodore N. Kaufman had among other things demanded that the German people be sterilized.
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After this pamphlet had been attacked by the German press in July,
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Goebbels ordered a pamphlet to be printed in which Kaufman’s piece was extensively quoted and commented on, with an afterword written by though not specifically attributed to Goebbels. He had sought Hitler’s express permission for this action.
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In this pamphlet, of which millions of copies were produced,
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Kaufman, who was in fact a private individual completely unconnected to American government circles, was described as a Roosevelt adviser and his pamphlet, which had appeared early in 1941, was linked to the Atlantic Charter. Kaufman was described as “one of the intellectual originators of the meeting between Roosevelt and Churchill.”
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In fact, the communiqué that Roosevelt and Churchill signed on August 14 after their meeting on a British battleship off of Newfoundland defined the Allied goals for the postwar world.

On September 12 Goebbels issued a short press announcement about the impending introduction of the Jewish badge.
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The
Völkischer Beobachter
of September 13 contained, in addition, a commentary directly inspired by Goebbels
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that made a direct link between the badge and the war in the east: “During the eastern campaign the German soldier has got to know the Jew in all his repulsiveness and cruelty. […] This experience has prompted German soldiers and the German people as a whole to demand that the possibility of Jews disguising their identity at home and so of breaking the regulations that enable German national comrades to avoid coming into contact with them be removed.”
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There were similar commentaries, particularly in the Party press.
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Finally, the Propaganda Ministry had a leaflet
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printed specifically dealing with the badge that was distributed to all German households along with their food ration cards.