Goebbels: A Biography

This is the second long, encyclopedic book about one of Hitler's lieutenants by Peter Longerich that I've read. The first was his book on Himmler, which I found to be thorough, encyclopedic and yet not piercing the mystery of who Himmler was. Longerich shared a lot of information about the "what" of Himmler, but not the "why" or the "who."This book is similar to the prior book. This is a long and thorough book that runs to approximately 700 pages of text and 200 pages of sources. We learn a lot about Goebbel's life, but Longerich generally restrains himself from interjecting himself into particular science or episodes to offer editorial comments or his opinion about Goebbel's motivations. This is probably a virtue compared to the many history books that go so far as to presume to tell the reader what the subject was thinking or feeling. We do not get that with Longerich; the reader is allowed to draw his own conclusions, albeit Longerich does set forth an initial frame - and a conclusion - that Goebbels can be explained as a narcissist who needed validation from someone whose love he desired. However, for the most part, while Longerich alludes to the motivations of Goebbels - for example, with respect to the relationship between Hitler, Goebbels and Goebbels' wife, Magda - but permits the facts to speak for themselves rather than offering his explanation in a neat summary.This makes the book a fine source, but does not provide much "value added" in terms of the insights of the author.My own particular interest in the subject of Nazi Germany illustrates this. I am interested in the period because I am interested in the relationship of the Catholic Church to the Nazi party. I hoped that this book could offer some insights into that relationship, but it really doesn't.For example, my interest was sparked by Christopher Hitchens' claim that Goebbels was excommunicated because he married a Protestant. In fact, Goebbels marred a divorced Protestant. Since divorce is not recognized in the Catholic Church - without the first marriage being annulled - the fact that he married a divorced woman - rather than a Protestant woman - is a significant indicator of Goebbels' relationship to the Catholic Church.Unfortunately, Longerich is not interested in this issue. He identifies Magda as divorced, but the issue of her status and Goebbels relationship to the Catholic Church in that regard are not mentioned. Longerich does not mention the excommunication - which may suggest that Hitchens was inventing that story. On the other hand, Longerich does write:"His witnesses were Hitler and Franz Ritter von Epp. After the ceremony, says Goebbels, Hitler "gave him an emotional hug." "Magda gives him a kiss. He has tears in his eyes." The religious ceremony-- which Goebbels was loath to forgo, despite his hostility to the church-- took place immediately afterward in the village church in Severin. Goebbels's sister Maria was a bridesmaid, and Magda's son Harald, once more in SA uniform, was Goebbels's "aide" at the altar." (p. 168.)What kind of religious ceremony was it? No idea, but if it was a Catholic ceremony, that would imply that Goebbels was not excommunicated for marrying Magda. Unfortunately, this passage is not footnoted.Goebbels' religious history might be a useful way of charting the development of the man that Goebbels became. We learn very little about that subject. We do learn that Goebbels was originally financed by a Catholic scholarship from the Albertus Magnus Society of Cologne and that his father was concerned about the possibility of Goebbels' apostatizing during one of his youthful crisis of faith:"Once again he had doubts about his Catholicism and turned for help to his father, who in a long letter of November 1919 offered Joseph comfort and advice , trying to reassure his distraught son: Crises of faith were quite normal among young people; prayer and the sacraments would see him through it. He reminded Joseph of his sister Elisabeth's death in 1915 , when the whole family had been helped by praying together. He would not cast him out (as the son had feared he might) even if he turned away from the church, but he had to ask him two questions: Did he mean to write anything incompatible with the Catholic religion, and did he intend to take up work to which the same applied? If this were not the case, then everything would fall back into place again . Goebbels was grateful for this understanding reply, which shows, however, how far he had moved away from the petit bourgeois Catholic milieu of his parents."It is not clear in this book when Goebbels lost his religious faith; its loss seems to be presupposed. Goebbels appears to have traded any sense of religious redemption for political redemption with a political savior:"In any case, he told himself in October 1923, he would "soon have to part company with my God." 13 He wrestled constantly with his religion in these months, but he always returned to the conviction that Christian belief would not fail to bring him the "redemption" for which he so desperately longed. 14"And:"The "call for salvation," meant for Hitler's ears, ended a painful quest stretching over many years. Goebbels had reached the culmination of a biographical development that, given the lack of balance in his personality, was in a certain sense the logical outcome. Having struggled with his Catholicism and so desperately sought "redemption," Goebbels himself had initially slipped into the role of "redeemer": first as a writer, then as proponent of a cultural new departure. Then, in symbiosis with his friend Flisges, he had found in the role of Michael, in "redemption" through hard work in the mines, in close connection with working people, a model--immortalized by Flisges's death-- for salvation at the national level. He had then transposed his search for a savior onto the völkisch movement, undersupplied as it was with leader figures, and once again-- flirting with the great exemplars Schiller, Wagner, and others--had fantasized his way into this role . But he had finally reached the conclusion that it was for someone else to be the savior-leader and that his destiny was to be the latter's first disciple.This transfer of the role of savior to another person , somebody greater , and the desire for the most perfect possible symbiotic fusion with this idol played to Goebbels's narcissistic disorder. He himself could feel great only if he had constant confirmation from an idol he had chosen. Hitler was to be this idol: Celebrated on the extreme right as a martyr since the days of his Landsberg incarceration, he was busy exploiting this role and, as the admired Führer, elbowing aside his remaining rivals in radical right-wing circles. It is not a matter of wild speculation to maintain that in Goebbels's imagination Hitler played the part of the solicitous, protective, and affirming mother. Goebbels himself quite openly confessed as much in his official speech on Hitler's forty-sixth birthday, in 1935: "But the whole nation loves him because it feels as safe in his hands as a child does in the arms of its mother." 21" (p. 54 - 55.)Likewise, Goebbels' "Mary Sue" character of Michael Voorman "wrestles with his Christian belief and ultimately abandons it." (p. 96.) Goebbels also disdained religious sentiment:"Impressed as he was by the ceremony, he found the funeral address of Dohrmann, Bishop to the Forces, insupportable: "I'm never going to have any parson talking at my graveside.""Likewise:"One day before the event, however, Hitler and Goebbels decided not to attend the church service in Potsdam the next morning, opting instead to make a pointed statement by visiting the graves of SA members in the Luisenstadt cemetery in Berlin. The ostensible justification for this was that the two Catholics were both regarded by their church as "apostates." As a result, they arrived in Potsdam around half past eleven. 54"Goebbels' opposition to Christianity made its way into his propaganda in a way that might be surprising to those who have been taught that the Catholic Church supported the Nazis over the Bolsheviks - Goebbels refused to characterize the war against Soviet Russia as a Crusade:"In his propaganda Goebbels endeavored as much as possible to avoid another ideological motif. When, at the end of June, the Reich press chief, Otto Dietrich, issued the slogan "Crusade against Bolshevism" to the press, Goebbels successfully opposed using this Christian motif in German propaganda. In his view, the use of religious symbols represented an unnecessary gesture of respect to the Christian churches, which were systematically to be ignored during the war in the east and their importance reduced. 29"The antipathy between Catholicism and the Nazis is also gestured at in this paragraph:"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, 58 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. 59 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, 60 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." 61 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, 62 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. 63 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. 64 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. 65 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. 66"The idea that Catholic cities were targeted in order to incite friction is one I had not heard before. Likewise, it seems that Goebbels would have left the Catholic Church except for Hitler's instructions to the contrary, which seems to have been a political move.Another surprising fact was the concern that the Nazi government had for public resentment of its anti-Semitic policies:"With the decision to begin the deportations, Goebbels's policy of making the Jews visible in order to ban them from the public sphere was, as far as propaganda was concerned, redundant. For, as much as possible, the deportations were intended to be carried out without creating too much of a stir. In fact it turned out that the population's response to the introduction of the badge was much less positive than Goebbels was expecting. Although morale was high because the war situation was perceived as positive , there was little enthusiasm for the introduction of the Jewish star.According to the minutes of the propaganda briefing of September 25 , the ministry had been informed that "the Jewish badge had produced expressions of sympathy from a section of the population, particularly from the better off," an impression that is confirmed by other sources. 124 Goebbels expressed his disappointment at the negative reactions in bourgeois circles to his staff: "The German educated classes are filthy swine." 125"On a larger level, I was surprised at how distant Goebbels seems to have been from the decisions. Goebbels often seems to have been dispatched for one ostensible reason that was a front for some change in policy being hatched by Hitler. Likewise, Goebbels apparently had to discover the massacre of Jews and civilians in Poland for himself. Goebbels was apparently a person who carried out tasks for Hitler and not an advisor, although, frankly, I'm not sure if Hitler had advisors. For example, he was dispatched to the League of Nations just before Hitler pulled Germany out of the League. On the other hand, Goebbels may have been the person behind the burning of the Reichstag and Krystalnacht.Ultimately, Goebbels reached the pinnacle of success in Nazi Germany as the successor of Hitler.And then he would have his children murdered and he and Magda would commit suicide.This book did not answer the questions I was interested in, but it did provide insights into the time and the culture. For someone with an interest in the period, this is a book worth the investment of time.

Goebbels by Peter Longerich is a surprising portrait of the Nazi propaganda minister in the Third Reich. For a man with such an obvious gift at crafting the message even as distasteful as many may find the message, I found myself surprised at the portrait of Goebbels Longerich lays out.Goebbels himself is a complicated man at once driven and ambitious, but yet often dependent upon other people in order to get to the powerful positions he wants. Of particularly note is his deference to Hitler and/or the women in his life be it his wife or mother, which makes him appear weak and dependent. He comes across as a person who will do anything for those in power and with a power over him to the point of only marginally existing as his own man.It is a fascinating portrait as he shows himself a chameleon able to adapt to the political winds at least early in life and there’s more than a dash of hypocrite—I mean consider some of the Jewish women that he was with and somewhat protected. But I think the overall picture is a man above all else consumed by power and prestige so much that he would do anything to keep it and when Hitler and his ideas where defeated Goebbels just couldn’t take it because he had so totally surrendered his life and individuality to them.Goebbels is a dark more than a little bit sad read, but it’s a story that needs to be told.

I really like this book. It wasn't what I wanted but it did open up my eyes to new things. The book is very comprehensive and well documented. It takes the reader through the very early days all the way to 1945 and the fall of Berlin. This comprehensive approach opens up your eyes to who Goebbels really was. I think if he was born today he would be just as successful. His tactics mentioned in the book read like something you see in today's news. That process takes you past the World at War video to something deeper.I disliked the how the book really glossed over the big events of history. All they give you is a few sentences at best. I thought it would be a better book if we learned what Goebbels did say during Normandy, Battle of the Bulge or whatever. The author does talk a little about what Goebbels says. However, the book doesn't really dive into the rhetoric of what Goebbels said in his speeches or in the media from his empire. It would be a better book if the rhetoric was tracked.The positive of the book through its methods reveals who this guy is. You learn he started out as a socialist. He was an intense friend of Hitler. He at times had Hitler's ear more so than anyone else. At other times we learn Goebbels was cut out of some of the big decisions early in the war like the invasion of Norway. I was very surprised at learning how Goebbels advocated a political settlement by 1943 onward. I think that is something most history books miss. We see that Hitler dithered at the thought of anything short of war victory. The author does document how the Japanese wanted to broker a peace.We also see how Goebbels through control of communication grows to control almost everything. The message provides energy for the home fight. It helps fuel the German war against the Jews. It pushes Goebbels into more or less becoming the Interior Minister. He shows up everywhere to try to keep up civilian morale.This book takes a lot to get through. The book is over 700 pages. If you wade through the book you will be rewarded with a deeper understanding of the war.

Longerich has written a thorough and well-researched book. What comes across above all is Goebbels's narcissism - a man who even noted in his diary the number of times he had sex with his future wife Magda. The latter comes across as a flighty individual, who was constantly having arguments with her husband and even temporarily leaving him, before the inevitable making up.Where Hitler was sustained by copious amounts of drugs and potions, Goebbels depended on his regular fix of Adolf, as the addict does his shot of heroin. Essentially friendless, Goebbels needed Hitler for validation. One can even see this in the way he gave his children names beginning with the letter H, and how he and Magda mirrored the deaths of Adolf and Eva Braun.As for propaganda - Goebbels was clearly a master of that dark art. Indeed he reminds one of a man effortlessly spinning plates. The trouble is, eventually those plates will come crashing to the ground.

This is a work of significant scholarship in the historical understanding of the rise, development and downfall of National Socialism. Goebbels was a key figure in this process but, as the author shows, he was not on of Hitler's inner circle. Longerich tries - not altogether successfully - to explain Goebbels fixation with Hitler in psychological concepts, principally, narcissism. One fascinating theme of the author' s study of the Goebbels' diaries is the mysterious triad relationship of Hitler, Goebbels and the latter's wife Magda. This long book is well worth reading.

Chilling how one minute you can be laughing at Goebbels's disputes with the other Nazis or his wife's weird, creepy relationship with Hitler (going away to visit him alone for weeks at a time) and viewing him as a bizarre and somewhat pathetic figure, and the next chapter can describe something truly monstrous. A very well written and informative book, the only thing is I wanted to read more about Magda's relationship with Eva Braun

After reading the author's superb Himmler biography, I was hoping for similar things, but this book is so reliant on Goebbels own, very self serving diaries, we miss out on learning about the man from other peoples' viewpointsThe central premise of a narcissist whose very being is dependent on Hitler's favour is strong, but it's ultimately not much of a read

fascinating. well written. didn't come across to me as too dry. would recommend.