Joseph Goebbels
Paul Joseph Goebbels was a German politician and philologist who was the Gauleiter of Berlin, chief propagandist for the Nazi Party, and then Reich Minister of Propaganda from 1933 until his suicide in 1945. He was one of Adolf Hitler's closest and most devoted followers and was known for his skills in public speaking and his virulent antisemitism which was evident in his publicly voiced views. He advocated for progressively harsher discrimination, including the extermination of Jews and other groups in the Holocaust.
Born in Rheydt, Goebbels aspired to be an author and obtained a doctorate in philology from the University of Heidelberg in 1922. He joined the Nazi Party in 1924 and worked with Gregor Strasser in its northern branch. He was appointed Gauleiter of Berlin in 1926, where he began to take an interest in the use of propaganda to promote the party and its programme. After the Nazis came to power in 1933, Goebbels' Propaganda Ministry quickly gained control over the news media, arts and information in Nazi Germany. He was particularly adept at using the relatively new media of radio and film for propaganda purposes. Topics for party propaganda included antisemitism, attacks on Christian churches, and attempts to shape troop and civilian morale.
In 1943, Goebbels began to pressure Hitler to introduce measures that would produce "total war", including closing businesses not essential to the war effort, conscripting women into the labour force, and enlisting men in previously exempt occupations into the Wehrmacht. Hitler finally appointed him as Reich Plenipotentiary for Total War on 23 July 1944, whereby Goebbels undertook largely unsuccessful measures to increase the number of people available for armaments manufacture and the Wehrmacht.
As the war drew to a close and Germany faced defeat, Magda Goebbels and the Goebbels children joined Hitler in Berlin. They moved into the underground Vorbunker, part of Hitler's underground bunker complex on 22 April 1945. Hitler committed suicide on 30 April. In accordance with Hitler's will, Goebbels succeeded him as Chancellor of Germany; he served one day in this post. The following day, Goebbels and his wife, Magda, committed suicide, after having poisoned their six children with a cyanide compound.
Early life, education, and relationships
Paul Joseph Goebbels was born on 29 October 1897 in Rheydt, an industrial town south of Mönchengladbach near Düsseldorf, Germany. Both of his parents were Roman Catholics with modest family backgrounds. His father, Fritz, was a German factory clerk; his mother, Katharina Maria, was born to Dutch and German parents in a Dutch village close to the border with Germany. Goebbels had five siblings: Konrad, Hans, Maria, Elisabeth and Maria, who married the German filmmaker Max W. Kimmich in 1938. In 1932 Goebbels commissioned the publication of a pamphlet of his family tree to refute the rumours that his maternal grandmother was of Jewish ancestry.During childhood Goebbels experienced ill health, which included a long bout of inflammation of the lungs. He had a deformed right foot, which turned inwards due to a congenital disorder or an infection in the bone. It was thicker and shorter than his left foot. Just prior to starting grammar school he underwent an operation, which failed to correct the problem. Goebbels wore a metal brace and a special shoe because of his shortened leg and walked with a limp. He was rejected for military service in World War I because of this condition.
Goebbels was educated at a Gymnasium, where he completed his Abitur in 1917. He was the top student of his class and was given the traditional honour of speaking at the awards ceremony. His parents initially hoped that he would become a Catholic priest, which Goebbels seriously considered. He studied literature and history at the universities of Bonn, Würzburg, Freiburg and Munich, aided by a scholarship from the Albertus Magnus Society. By this time Goebbels had begun to distance himself from the church.
Historians, including Richard J. Evans and Roger Manvell, speculate that Goebbels' lifelong pursuit of women may have been in compensation for his physical disability. At Freiburg he met and fell in love with Anka Stalherm, who was three years his senior. She went on to Würzburg to continue studying, as did Goebbels. By 1920 the relationship with Anka was over; the break-up filled Goebbels with thoughts of suicide. In 1921 he wrote a semi-autobiographical novel, Michael, a three-part work of which only Parts I and III have survived. Goebbels felt he was writing his "own story". Antisemitic content and material about a charismatic leader may have been added by Goebbels shortly before the book was published in 1929 by Eher-Verlag, the publishing house of the Nazi Party.
At the University of Heidelberg Goebbels wrote his doctoral thesis on Wilhelm von Schütz, a minor 19th-century romantic dramatist. He had hoped to write his thesis under the supervision of Friedrich Gundolf, a literary historian. It did not seem to bother Goebbels that Gundolf was Jewish. As he was no longer teaching, Gundolf directed Goebbels to associate professor Max Freiherr von Waldberg. Waldberg, who was also Jewish, recommended Goebbels write his thesis on Wilhelm von Schütz. After submitting the thesis and passing his oral examination, Goebbels received his PhD on 21 April 1922. By 1940 he had written 14 books.
Goebbels returned home and worked as a private tutor. He also found work as a journalist and was published in the local newspaper. His writing during that time reflected his growing antisemitism and dislike for modern culture. In the summer of 1922 he met and began a love affair with Else Janke, a schoolteacher. After she revealed to him that she was half-Jewish, Goebbels stated the "enchantment ruined." Nevertheless he continued to see her on and off until 1927.
He continued for several years to try to become a published author. His diaries, which he began in 1923 and continued for the rest of his life, provided an outlet for his desire to write. The lack of income from his literary works – he wrote two plays in 1923, neither of which sold – forced him to take employment as a caller on the stock exchange and as a bank clerk in Cologne, a job he detested. He was dismissed from the bank in August 1923 and returned to Rheydt. During this period he read avidly and was influenced by the works of Oswald Spengler, Fyodor Dostoyevsky and Houston Stewart Chamberlain, the British-born German writer whose book The Foundations of the Nineteenth Century was one of the standard works of the extreme right in Germany. He also began to study the social question and read the works of Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Rosa Luxemburg, August Bebel and Gustav Noske. According to German historian Peter Longerich, Goebbels' diary entries from late 1923 to early 1924 reflected the writings of a man who was isolated, preoccupied with "religious-philosophical" issues and lacked a sense of direction. Diary entries from mid-December 1923 onwards show Goebbels was moving towards the Völkisch nationalist movement.
Nazi activist
Goebbels first took an interest in Adolf Hitler and Nazism in 1924. In February 1924, Hitler's trial for treason began in the wake of his failed attempt to seize power in the Beer Hall Putsch of 8–9 November 1923. The trial attracted widespread press coverage and gave Hitler a platform for propaganda. Hitler was sentenced to five years in prison, but was released on 20 December 1924, after serving just over a year, including pre-trial detention. Goebbels was drawn to the Nazi Party mostly because of Hitler's charisma and commitment to his beliefs. He joined the Nazi Party around this time, becoming member number 8762. In late 1924, Goebbels offered his services to Karl Kaufmann, who was Gauleiter for the Rhine-Ruhr District. Kaufmann put him in touch with Gregor Strasser, a leading Nazi organiser in northern Germany, who hired him to work on their weekly newspaper and undertake secretarial work for the regional party offices. He was also put to work as party speaker and representative for Rhineland-Westphalia. Strasser founded the National Socialist Working Association on 10 September 1925, a short-lived group of about a dozen northern and western German Gauleiter; Goebbels became its business manager and the editor of its biweekly journal, NS-Briefe. Members of Strasser's northern branch of the Nazi Party, including Goebbels, had a more socialist outlook than the rival Hitler group in Munich. Strasser disagreed with Hitler on many parts of the party platform, and in November 1926 began working on a revision.Hitler viewed Strasser's actions as a threat to his authority, and summoned 60 Gauleiters and party leaders, including Goebbels, to a special conference in Bamberg, in Streicher's Gau of Franconia, where he gave a two-hour speech repudiating Strasser's new political programme. Hitler was opposed to the socialist leanings of the northern wing, stating it would mean "political bolshevization of Germany." Further, there would be "no princes, only Germans," and a legal system with no "Jewish system of exploitation ... for plundering of our people." The future would be secured by acquiring land, not through expropriation of the estates of the former nobility, but through colonising territories to the east. Goebbels was horrified by Hitler's characterisation of socialism as "a Jewish creation" and his assertion that a Nazi government would not expropriate private property. He wrote in his diary: "I no longer fully believe in Hitler. That's the terrible thing: my inner support has been taken away."
After reading Hitler's book Mein Kampf, Goebbels found himself agreeing with Hitler's assertion of a "Jewish doctrine of Marxism". In February 1926, Goebbels gave a speech titled "Bolshevism or National-socialism? Lenin or Hitler?" in which he asserted that communism or Marxism could not save the German people, but he believed it would cause a "socialist nationalist state" to arise in Russia. In 1926, Goebbels published a pamphlet titled Nazi-Sozi which attempted to explain how National Socialism differed from Marxism.
In hopes of winning over the opposition, Hitler arranged meetings in Munich with the three Greater Ruhr Gau leaders, including Goebbels. Goebbels was impressed when Hitler sent his own car to meet them at the railway station. That evening, Hitler and Goebbels both gave speeches at a beer hall rally. The following day, Hitler offered his hand in reconciliation to the three men, encouraging them to put their differences behind them. Goebbels capitulated completely, offering Hitler his total loyalty. He wrote in his diary: "I love him ... He has thought through everything," "Such a sparkling mind can be my leader. I bow to the greater one, the political genius." He later wrote: "Adolf Hitler, I love you because you are both great and simple at the same time. What one calls a genius." As a result of the Bamberg and Munich meetings, the National Socialist Working Association was disbanded. Strasser's new draft of the party programme was discarded, the original National Socialist Program of 1920 was retained unchanged, and Hitler's position as party leader was greatly strengthened.