Doctor Goebbels: His Life and Death

My interest in Goebbels stems from his reputation as a genius propagandist - without him the Nazi movement might never have taken control of Germany during 1932-33. Goebbels has been the subject of a number of articles and biographies - mostly written under Nazi influence. Author Manvell obtained introductions through meeting Goebbels' sister, and studying his unpublished diary covering the years 1925-26.Goebbels was born 10/29/18987 to a father who had risen to a minor governmental position, and a naturalized German mother from Holland. At age four, Joseph contracted polio. Recovering, he became a voracious reader, but was not popular in school because of sometimes being a tattletale. Attempting to enlist when the 1914 war came, he was immediately rejected and cried for two days. Graduating from school at 19, he was headed towards becoming a Catholic priest. However, Goebbels commitment to the cloth eventually waned, and he became distracted by nationalism, the attraction of a woman (soon ended - she had Jewish blood), and in 1924 - Nazism.Goebbels became successful as a speaker - he rehearsed like and actor and was always more concerned with the effect he had on an audience than with what he was saying. In 1925 he became fascinated by Hitler's magnetic personality. After only 18 months in the Party, Hitler chose Goebbels to put an end to a power struggle over Party leadership in Berlin because of his intelligence and oratorical skills. Previously Goebbels had told Hitler than the weakness lay in the junior leaders.By 1828 unemployment had been reduced to manageable proportion, only to be followed by the depression of 1930. Between 9/1929 and 1/1933 (when Hitler became Chancellor) unemployment rose from over 1 million to 6+ million. The Nazis won only 800K votes in the 1928 elections, 6.4 million in 1930. Hitler only used force against opponents lacking their own army, and relied on propaganda for the rest. Hitler's Mein Kamph had previously declared that a populace preferred a strong man to a weakling, did not want to read, and only succumbed to the force of the spoken word.' Writers, he added, are seldom leaders - their attitude to their audience is too generalized and abstract.The art of propaganda consists in being able to awaken the imagination of the public through an appeal to their feelings. All effective propaganda must be confined to a few bare essentials and expressed as far as possible in stereotyped formulas and persistently repeated. Propaganda must present only the aspect of the truth favorable to one's own side.An orator receives continuous guidance from the people before whom he speaks - he can always gauge by the faces of his listeners how far they follow and understand him and whether his words are producing the desired effect. The writer does not know his reader at all.The Party must always be fighting an enemy - success merely leads to softening and poor quality membership. The more radical and exciting my propaganda, the more it frightened weak and wavering characters away and prevented them from entering our organization. Party membership in Berlin was about 1,000 when Goebbels took over - he stripped it immediately to 600 by getting rid of the more idle riff-raff. Goebbels would also arrive about 10 minutes late - to impress people.He redesigned his posters to be provocative, amusing, and incite curiosity. He used large display type with headlines that were inexplicable on their own, and in blood-red ink. To keep his unemployed strong-arm thugs busy, street-fights and organized demonstrations of violence at meetings became the way to bring the Party into the public eye and instil fear into the flaccid, bourgeois soul he hated. On 2/11/1927, Goebbels hired Pharus Hall in a working-class district. The hall was associated with Communist meetings, and its choice was a deliberate act of provocation. Every member of the Nazi Party was ordered to parade with flags prior to the meeting. Communists were present and one started the desired trouble by challenging the Chairman on a point of order. The protestor was thrown out by a group of Storm Troopers, and a melee began with bottles, chairs, and knuckle-dusters. Police dispersed the Communists, and Goebbels (principal speaker) rose and ordered Nazi stretcher cases put on the platform where he praised them and created an image of them as both heroes and martyrs.Goebbels also began using a 3-sided mirror before which he could rehearse his speeches. Multicolored pencils indicated various shades of emphasis and pause. He also used Hitler's technique of the ceremonial - banners, processions, marching, music and singing, street parades preceded Goebbels. Police banned the Nazi Party in 1927 Greater Berlin, along with Goebbels as a speaker and wearing the uniform.Goebbels always regarded his press critics as Jewish-inspired, and saw himself and the Party as persecuted as persecuted by the Jews, Communists, and the police. The Party won 12 seats in the 1928 Reichstag election - one for Goebbels - giving him immunity from police interference and prosecution. Thus, in three years he had risen from secretary to a Party left-wing faction(worker-focused) leader to member of the House of Government. In November, In November, Goebbels was appointed Head of Party Propaganda. The 1930 elections brought 6.4 million Nazi votes and 107 seats.Funerals for S.A. and S.S. men, as well as Hitler Youth became occasions for Goebbels to exhort followers against Communists. In Prussia alone, 461 political riots took place in 50 days (Communists vs. Nazis) Reichstag fire (2/27/1933) apparently involved Goebbels and Goring - used to create resentment against the Communists.Goebbels realized early on that radio and the press were the first problems to tackle after the Nazis took over. By the end of the first month (3/12/33) 60 Communist and 71 Social Democrat papers had been suppressed and their leading editors and writers jailed. By the end of April virtually all but Nazi papers had disappeared. A system of local 'wireless wardens' was established to send in reports and see that all important broadcasts were known of in advance and made available through loud-speakers set up in public places. On 4/1, all Jewish shops were closed and Storm Troopers stationed in front of their entrances - Goebbels told them to persuade their kinsmen abroad to stop the reporting about Nazi violence, else the boycott would be repeated. He adopted 5/1, a traditional day of celebration for the Communists, as the day of national rejoicing for the Nazis - a rally of the workers. Hitler then spoke in praise of the dignity of labor and how workers were to be the essential factor in the new Germany. Goebbels saw that the sun would soon break through the clouds and time his speech so that the light would stream down on Hitler as he took his place as speaker.May 2, the S.A. and S.S. took possession of trade union offices throughout Germany. Union officials were arrested and imprisoned. On 5/10, groups of Nazis formed raiding-parties to break into public and private libraries and seize the books of proscribed authors. They were then burned - creating great harm in world opinion.Hitler adopted a policy of divide and rule. Departments of government, including that of Goebbels, were made to overlap, creating rivalries and encouraging rumors and intrigue, and clogging government. Concentration camps were established to cope with all who had or continued to oppose. Heinrich Himmler, S.S. Commander and once the inefficient secretary whom Goebbels had replaced, then rediscovered by Hitler in 1929 running a small poultry farm, was appointed head of the Prussian Gestapo in 1934.Goebbels played a prominent part in the 'night of the long knives' (6/29/34-6/30/34) involved at least 400 men and women. Hitler invented a plot and then set about destroying those he claimed were involved before it had materialized - former rivals were shot. In 1935 came re-adoption of conscription, in defiance of the Versailles Treaty, and laws making persecution of Jews legal. In 1936 came the reoccupation of the Rhineland in violation of the treaty of Locarno. In 1938, was a purge of Army generals against Hitler's policy, followed by occupation and annexation of Austria, and intimidation of Czechoslovakia and ceding the Sudetenland to Germany, the 1939 occupation of Czechoslovakia, occupation of Danzig by Storm Troopers disguised as tourists, invasion of Poland, and the declaration of war on Germany by Britain and France.October 1933 brought the Journalists' Law, making all journalists into State servants who had to have a license issued by Goebbels. The left-wing and Communist press were expropriated and Jews debarred, and in January 1935 artists and lecturers could not leave Germany without authorization. April 1935 the Chamber of Literature was empowered to draw up a black list of books considered hostile to Nazi policy, and it was decreed that independent newspapers could be abolished in favor of party newspapers if they offered unfair competition. Comedy was also throttled. Goebbels previewed every newsreel that he could. Propaganda attache's were posted to German embassies abroad.

Lies and deception, cruelty and hatred were the unsavoury ingredients which were brewed in the brain of Joseph Goebbles (1897-45). He was born in Rheydt in the Rhineland to good middle class parents; graduated with a Ph.D from Heidelberg and wrote "Michael" an early novel. Goebbels was an early member of the Nazi Party. The little doctor was a truculent worshipper of Adolf Hitler his beloved "Fuhrer." Goebbels was a rabid anti-semitic Nazi who drove the Communist Party out of Berlin in his role as Gauleiter of the German capital. Goebbles was a meticulous well organized workaholic demanding perfection from himself and others. It is rumoured that he wore a different suit for each day of the year. He wed Magda Goebbles a lovely divorcee and rabid Nazi. The couple had six children. The Goebbels commited suicide in the Berlin bunker shortly following the suicide of Hitler. The infamous couple poisoned all of their children even though they could have grown up with relatives. Goebbels was unfaithful to Magda conducting affairs with showgirls and movie stars including Lida Baarova the fetching Czech screen idol of Germany. Magda was also, probably, unfaithful to Goebbels. The couple were forced to reconcile on orders from Hitler. Goebbels was a master of mass propaganda controlling German media from radio to cinema to theatre and opera. His word was law and there was no freedom of expression in the arts during his reign over German culture. This relatively brief but comprehensive biography of Goebbles will enable the reader to get inside the mind and world view of this cruel genius of oratory and hatred. The joint authors are deceased writing this book in the 1960s. Despite new research on Goebbles this biography is still worth reading.

I found the book very interesting and also well researched. I wonder if Goebbels was as unlikeable in life as he comes across this book makes it appear so. I would have liked to know why at the end he does go along with Hitler to his death and the terrible death inflicted upon his children was it because he knew he was doomed were he captured, or for love of Hitler? But the truth went with him to the grave. Sadly whether by design or in truth many of these personalities from the Hitlerian regime are totally unlikeable and conjure no sympathy at all. I suppose they should not knowing what history has revealed, but then one wonders what the attraction was to Hitler and why he seems to have been such a source of inspiration and devotion--it is clear from this book that fear, propaganda and violence were the tools of the Nazi trade to establish their will though. Are we so weak as a thinking nation, any nation, that this can happen and is happening today? I think so and the same weapons are being used--our need for safety, our need for assurance, our need for stabilty in the face of uncertainty seems to rob us of rational thought and especially courage. I found this book most telling and also highly readable.

Goebbels is an excellent subject to write a biography of because he was a committed diarist who left his thoughts on paper for many parts of his life. He seemed to despise everyone except Hitler who he worshipped, but he was largely outside of Hitler's inner circle during ww2 until the final days when he chose to kill himself and his family rather than escape. It's unimaginable that he and his wife decided to kill all their children. Ironically the rest of his family survived as could he too had he chosen. This is a good book and the author has little time for his subject, who he writes of with derision.

A fascinating and detailed study of this character from start to finish in this excellent bookHighly recommend this read I could not divert to read anything else as every page drew you into the story of the rise and fall of one of Hitler's Henchmen .

I have read more scholarly works on the role of top Nazi leaders but this one was reasonably well written and a good insight into one of the top leaders in Nazi Germany.

Fascinating.

He was very evil, and makes Hiltler look less so!! Very interesting reading, and sheds more light on the inside happenings of the time.