Hitler and the Nazi Cult of Celebrity (7 page)

Finally, in July, he met Hitler, and was overjoyed when Hitler sent a circular to all regional branches of the party praising Goebbels for a booklet he had written called
Das kleine ABC des Nationalsozialisten
(
The Little ABC of the National Socialists
).

In November, Goebbels was assigned to speak at a rally in Braunschweig where Hitler was the star attraction. There he met Hitler formally; the
Führer
shook Goebbels's hand ‘like an old friend'. Then Goebbels left to give his speech, which was followed
in due course by Hitler's star turn as ‘the born people's tribune'. Wanting to see Hitler again, Goebbels did what many fans of celebrities do: he waited outside Hitler's house, and for his endeavours he received another handshake.
129

Knowing of Hitler's obsession with Wagner, Goebbels shrewdly chose to visit Winifred Wagner at her Villa Wahnfried in Bayreuth. In 1926 Frau Wagner joined the National Socialist Party, and Goebbels noted in his diary, ‘She is a fanatical supporter of ours.'
130
At Villa Wahnfried he met Houston Stewart Chamberlain, and he visited Wagner's grave before being taken to see the ‘master's room', which had been preserved intact since Wagner's death. He later went backstage at the
Festspielhaus
and recalled the impact Wagner's
Tannhäuser
had made on him when he first heard it at the age of thirteen.
131

Goebbels's obsession with the Nazi Party, his being constantly on the move in its service and his infatuation with Hitler and all it entailed, all seem to have finally overwhelmed Else to the point where she wrote him ‘a brief, matter-of-fact, farewell letter' in June 1926.
132
He returned to Bayreuth in September to speak at Wagner's grave, and then met Else one last time in Cologne.

He had driven away the one woman in his life who adored him despite almost everything. What staggers the imagination is that here was a man who would become one of the most vile perpetrators of suffering upon mankind, someone who preached the gospel of ethnic cleansing, who claimed hatred for the Jews, and yet loved one of them so dearly that he never expunged his many loving entries about her from his diary. It was as if it were a doctrine he believed in because he believed in the cause, but found it a hard path to tread for personal reasons, or because of weakness in his faith. One could hypothesise that if fate had moved in a slightly different direction he might not have become an arbiter and harbinger of death. But he overcame his personal feelings because he had something more powerful than his love for Else. It was his love for Hitler.

At that time, not everything that spewed from Hitler's mouth
appeared as gold to Goebbels. He did not agree with all of Hitler's policies, especially in regard to Russia, which Hitler saw as an inevitable enemy which had to be crushed. And yet he had no doubt that Hitler was Germany's anointed one. It was the classic struggle between a man of faith – with foibles and weakness which kept him from perfection – and his infallible God.

Hitler had perfected his act and was a master at playing Hitler. He was the brightest star in the National Socialist Party, and Goebbels idolised him, so much so that he was finally able to break down the barrier that had stopped him giving himself completely to the woman who loved him with such a deep and seemingly abiding passion – he stopped accepting her as a human being. And he did it for Hitler.

In the three years since becoming leader of the National Socialists, Hitler succeeded in organising the party into a tightly knit organisation with local branches springing up all over Germany. He also had a new paramilitary group to protect him, the
Schutzstaffel
– the storm squadron, better known as the SS, which was loyal to Hitler whereas the SA was loyal to Ernst Röhm.

In November 1926, Hitler appointed Goebbels as
Gauleiter
in Berlin, making Goebbels the head of the Nazi Party in the German capital and one of the most important men in Hitler's regime. The new
Gauleiter
published his own newspaper in Berlin,
Der Angriff
(
The Attack
), which he used to great effect in influencing thousands of people to join the National Socialists. From being released weekly, it went bi-weekly in 1929, then daily in 1930, becoming the most widely read Nazi newspaper in Germany. If Goebbels had failed to become the world-renowned author and playwright he had set his heart and hopes on being, he was, at least, writing and publishing for a living, and proving very successful at it too. He had in his hands one of the greatest tools to propagate Hitler's still increasing celebrity; he could write what he liked, and in advancing the Nazi cause he was advancing the personality and celebrity of Hitler, giving Hitler what he had desired more than anything.

Goebbels would, in his own way, come to write the Gospel of Adolf Hitler as they began to carefully craft the legend around the facts. And there even seemed to be a film deal in the offing.

E
very year Hitler held a rally at Nuremburg. Supporters came from all over the country to take part and see their idol. The National Socialist Party was still only a minority party relatively, but it was exceptionally well organised and people became increasingly intrigued by a man who could attract such a large and devoted following. At the closing of the parade, thousands crowded into the Nuremberg marketplace hoping to see the party leader. Hitler was now a past master at staging a political rally as if it were a carnival, and it was a natural progression to put it all on film.

Goebbels had taken an interest in film as a valuable propaganda tool and got involved with a number of party pictures, beginning with a thirty-minute film of the party rally in 1927, then another in 1929. The films got longer;
Battle for Berlin
lasted almost an hour. Then in 1930, the party made the first of its
NS-Pictorial Report
films, featuring scenes from the funeral of one of the greatest Nazi heroes, Horst Wessel.

Wessel was almost a creation of Goebbels, who turned the life of an insignificant Nazi ‘brownshirt’ into a national hero celebrated in books and a major motion picture.

He was a talented musician, playing a
Schalmei
– a type of German oboe – and he wrote songs, including a Nazi fighting song, ‘Kampflied’, which Goebbels published in
Der Angriff.
The song later became a Nazi anthem and generally known as ‘Horst-Wessel-Lied’ – the Horst Wessel Song. But that would never have been his legacy if he hadn’t been shot when answering a knock on his door on the evening of 14 January 1930. He died in hospital nine days later. Albrecht Höhler, a Communist, was arrested, tried
and sentenced to six years in prison, and was later executed by the Gestapo. Doubts remain as to whether Höhler was guilty or a quick and easy solution to a Nazi problem that made a martyr of Wessel. Goebbels was instrumental in the virtual canonisation of Wessel, writing a detailed account of his death, ‘Die Fahn Hoch!’ (Raise High the Flag!), in
Der Angriff
on 17 February 1930.
133

Wessel became one of the first to be elevated in the cult of celebrity, even if it was in death. His elaborate funeral on 1 March gave Goebbels and Hitler the chance to indulge in their cult of death at which they were become so adept. It became the perfect showcase for the art of the Nazi documentary film. By the time Goebbels had finished with the legend of Horst Wessel, it was said when a man died for the cause that he had joined ‘Horst Wessel’s combat group’, or had been ‘summoned to Horst Wessel’s standard’.
134

By 1929 the world was in the grip of an economic crisis. In Germany, unemployment figures topped three million and doubled within two years. Hardship and poverty were everywhere. The National Socialists’ optimistic answer to the general depression was a programme of communal activities in which everyone, regardless of class, had a good time. They didn’t offer a solution to the problem of poverty, but they did offer everyone fun and a sense of belonging. The Nazis set up self-help programmes and labour pools, declaring, ‘Anyone who hasn’t got a shirt on their back can always put on a brown shirt.’
135
The party handed out soup, all carefully staged and filmed, increasing its popularity. The image of Nazism was carefully promoted and presented like any film star, except that behind the image of the welcoming Nazi face lay something sinister and hidden. The economic crisis brought new members into the party by the thousand.

Goebbels had been such an effective and loyal
Gauleiter
that in April 1930 Hitler appointed him as Reich Propaganda Leader. One of Goebbels’s first acts in his new role was to disrupt a screening of the American-made film about German soldiers in the First World War,
All Quiet on the Western Front
, based on the book
Im Westen
nichts Neues
by Erich Maria Remarque, a German veteran of the
war. The book describes the German soldiers’ extreme physical and mental stress in the trenches. First published in the German newspaper
Vossiche Zeitung
in November and December 1928, it was released as a book in January 1929. The title is a reference to the official communiqué at the end of the novel and literally means ‘Nothing New in the West’; it was named
All Quiet on the Western Front
by its English translator, Arthur Wesley Wheen, and under that title it was filmed by American studio Universal and directed by Lewis Milestone in 1930. Goebbels described the film as ‘Jewish provocation’ in his newspaper
Der Angriff,
and personally instigated several days of violent provocation, calling the protestors ‘the bearers of our morality’. As a result, the film was withdrawn on 12 December 1930.

Goebbels oversaw a Nazi documentary that went by the title of
Der Angriff,
the same name as his newspaper. But most of the films he was behind were not entirely successful as propaganda because, for one thing, he was not a skilled filmmaker. Unable to shoot, cut and edit a film himself, he could only try to influence the content and final edit. Nazi films didn’t reach a wide audience because there were few places they could actually be screened, such as at Nazi meetings.

Hitler had even become a regular feature of mainstream
newsreels
made by UFA which were shown in cinemas all over Germany. Goebbels studied their technical aspects, and he also studied himself whenever he appeared in them so he could learn how to better project on film. When he saw himself for the first time in 1932, he thought it ‘quite alien … otherwise fabulous.’
136

When Hitler should have been at his busiest, he allowed men such as Goebbels to do the work while he spent time in leisure, often at Bayreuth with Winifred Wagner. He made surprise visits there, phoning her to say he was in Berneck, 12 miles from Bayreuth; she would pick him up in her car. She was the first woman in Bayreuth to get her driver’s licence. She always drove Siegfried, even when they went by car to Italy. When the car broke down, she fixed it herself. ‘She did the grease and oil changes
herself, she did everything herself and didn’t mind hard work,’ said Wolfgang Wagner.
137

Winifred Wagner recalled:

He liked to be picked up at dusk. The children were rounded up and everyone got ready for Uncle Wolf’s arrival. When he stayed, he was allowed into the nursery to bid the children goodnight. Siegfried tolerated the visits; Winifred told Goebbels that Siegfried displayed ‘no jealousy, no interest. Siegfried is too soft.’
139

Siegfried died in the summer of 1930, and his mother died a few months later. At thirty-three, Winifred became the guardian of the Wagner legacy, but despite appearances to the contrary, there was little money. She and Hitler became closer than ever, taking intimate boat trips on Lake Röhren, each of them rowing. ‘She definitely found him sexually attractive,’ said granddaughter Daphne Wagner.
140

There were rumours in Bayreuth of a wedding. Wini, as he called her, visited his mother’s grave. Before long, he proposed to her; a marriage to the Wagner heiress would serve his political aims. ‘The idea of marrying Winifred came from Hitler,’ said Gottfried Wagner. According to Philipp Hausser, the Wagner family doctor, he asked her twice between 1930 and 1933 to marry him, ‘and she answered both times that she could only do so if he had an official position’.
141
She declined only because she felt she should wait until he achieved greater authority in Germany. She was the one woman in the whole of Germany Hitler was prepared to marry without hesitation, but it was she who hesitated.

Since 1926 Joseph Goebbels had been the Nazi Party’s most
resourceful rabble rouser, and in Berlin as
Gauleiter
he had been preparing the way, leading his assault force straight into areas dominated by the Communists. Before long an underground civil war broke out, and the republic teetered. Hitler was waiting in the wings, ready to step onto the stage and into the limelight – the great saviour of Germany. All he needed was a Holy Trinity.

As if by providence, into Goebbels’s life stepped ‘a beautiful woman by the name of Quandt’.
142
She was Magda Quandt, the recently divorced wife of rich industrialist Günther Quandt.

They had a son, Harald, but Magda became bored and frustrated because Quandt was away on business often, and, aged
twenty-three
, she became drawn to her eighteen-year-old stepson Helmut, from Quandt’s first marriage to Antoine Ewald. After Helmut died from appendicitis in 1927, she and Quandt toured America for six months, during which time she became attracted to a nephew of President Herbert Hoover.
143

Quandt distrusted Magda and hired private detectives to watch her. They divorced in 1929 on friendly terms, and he gave her a very generous settlement. Hoover’s nephew came to Germany to be with her, but they were in a car crash which left her with serious injuries.
144
Recovering, and with no need to work, she attended a National Socialist meeting in Berlin and was impressed by one of the speakers, Joseph Goebbels. On 1 September 1930 she joined the party and undertook voluntary work as secretary to Goebbels’s deputy Hans Meinshausen. He assigned her to take care of Goebbels’s private archives
145
and it was in his office that Goebbels first saw her.

He was instantly attracted to her when she arrived at his home on 28 January 1931 to work on his archive. He lived in a handsome apartment in Steglitz, south of the city centre, and quickly became infatuated with her, writing, ‘I really wish that she loved me,’
146
and, ‘I will love you very much,’ calling her ‘my queen’.
147

Although she was involved with another man at that time, on 21 February 1931 Goebbels took her with him to Weimar for the weekend for a party meeting, and their relationship progressed
through March after she ended her relationship with the other man. She continued to live in her own expensive flat in the Reichskanzlerplatz in the centre of Berlin with her nine-year-old son Harald; Goebbels liked Harald the first time he met him, noting he was ‘quite blond and somewhat cheeky’.
148

Hitler was also attracted to Magda and had made advances to her.
149
While Goebbels was away for a meeting in the Ruhr in September, she told Hitler she wanted to marry Goebbels. Hitler was ‘cast down’, but declared his loyalty to Goebbels and was ‘resigned’ to the inevitable. Goebbels recognised that Hitler had ‘no happiness with women. Because he is too soft-hearted to them. Women don’t like that.’
150

Hitler’s approach to Magda was more likely to have been to become his mistress rather than his wife, but although she turned him down, she remained very close to Hitler and took on the role of a surrogate mother by preparing his meals and patiently listening to his endless monologues.

The bond strengthened between Hitler and Joseph Goebbels, his most loyal and devoted disciple, when Hitler gave his blessing to the union, and took Goebbels’s hands and tears came to his eyes. Goebbels recorded, ‘My brave comrade and
Führer
! Fortune has not smiled upon him.’
151

Magda’s romantic rejection had left Hitler in a highly emotional state. Just a few days later, members of his staff found his niece Geli Raubal dead in his flat in Munich; she been shot in the lung. The official cause of death was suicide, based on the fact that her door had been locked from the inside. There was no autopsy, but a doctor estimated that her death had occurred the previous day, 18 September.
152
It was Hitler’s Walther that had been used, and rumours circulated that Hitler had shot her, possibly for infidelity; but it was an unlikely scenario, Hitler having been in Nuremberg when she died.

He released a statement to the
Münchener Post
: ‘It is untrue that I and my niece had a quarrel on Friday 18 September; it is untrue that I was violently opposed to my niece going to Vienna; it is
untrue that my niece was engaged to someone in Vienna and I forbade it.’
153
Hitler was hardly known for his honesty, but there was no solid evidence that there had been any arguments leading up to her death.

Geli left a note, addressed to a friend in Vienna, which read: ‘When I come to Vienna – hopefully very soon – we’ll drive to Semmering.’ The note was unfinished, as if interrupted. Ernst Hanfstaengl insisted that Geli killed herself following a ‘flaming row’ with Hitler, claiming Hitler had discovered she was pregnant by a Jewish art teacher in Linz.
154
An autopsy would have revealed if that was true or not.

The most plausible cause of her death was suicide, and she was driven to it by whatever madness Hitler seemed to rouse in his young lovers; Geli was not the first, nor would she be the last of his ‘girlfriends’ to attempt and even succeed in committing suicide.

When Hitler heard the news of Geli’s death he returned immediately to Munich, where he went into a deep depression which was said to have lasted for months. ‘He locked himself in Geli’s room,’ recalled Hitler’s caretaker Herbert Döhring. ‘The loaded pistol lay on the table. My wife saw it. He said, “Anna, I’m going to kill myself. Don’t cook for me.” She said, “You mustn’t, Mr Hitler. Life goes on.”’
155
Otto Strasser remained with Hitler for three days following the funeral, to prevent him from committing suicide.
156
Hitler often threatened to commit suicide during moments of personal crisis or defeat: in 1932 he threatened to kill himself if Gregor Strasser split the party;
157
then again in 1933 if he was not appointed Chancellor; and in 1936, if the occupation of the Rhineland failed.
158
During the Munich Putsch he told the officials he was holding prisoner, ‘There are still five bullets in my pistol – four for the traitors, and one, if things go wrong, for myself.’
159
He threatened suicide in front of Frau Hanfstaengl directly after failure of the putsch when he was hiding from police in her home.