Goebbels: A Biography (25 page)

Goebbels’s chief election aim was to “break through into the bourgeois
part of the Hindenburg front.” To his Party comrades, he recommended detailed work: “Thus individual units must carefully take soundings from bakers, butchers, grocers, in pubs, etc., to establish who voted for Hindenburg for the above-mentioned reasons.” The Reich propaganda office made templates for posters and leaflets available and published the campaign newspaper
The Flamethrower
as well as a special anti-Hindenburg leaflet.
¹⁰⁴

Several factors made it a difficult campaign for the NSDAP. On the eve of the first round of voting, large-scale “maneuvers” by the SA in the greater Berlin area gave rise to rumors of a National Socialist putsch.
¹⁰⁵
In fact, though, Goebbels warned the Reich Chancellery on election day itself about alleged plans on the part of the “Stennes people” to assassinate Brüning. Goebbels’s move was later interpreted as an attempt to intimidate the Reich chancellor.
¹⁰⁶
A few days after the election, on March 17, the police undertook a big search operation throughout Prussia aimed at SA and SS units. A ban on National Socialist organizations appeared to be in the offing.
¹⁰⁷
On March 23
Der Angriff
was closed down for a further six days.
¹⁰⁸
The business of Röhm’s homosexuality was putting an increasing strain on the Party: At the beginning of April Goebbels was clear—“the compromising letters are genuine.”
¹⁰⁹

Although the NSDAP gained over two million more votes in the second round, Hindenburg won comfortably, with more than 53 percent of the total. Goebbels decided to take a positive view of the outcome, interpreting the defeat as a “springboard for the Prussian election.”
¹¹⁰
After 1933, too, despite some objections within the Party, he would follow the same line of constructing his election campaign entirely around the person of Hitler as the recipe for gaining power.
¹¹¹

The fact is that in spring 1932 the majority of Germans were not prepared to subscribe to the Führer myth propagated by the NSDAP. But after 1933, in the heady days of “Führer fever” stoked up by all of the propaganda methods at Goebbels’s disposal, this fact would be forgotten.

The searches carried out by the police in several SA offices on March 17 revealed some incriminating evidence. Consequently the minister for defense and the interior, Wilhelm Groener, who had thus far argued against a Reich-wide ban on the SA “for defense policy reasons,” dropped his reservations. As Goebbels and other leading Party comrades had expected, the ban came into effect on April 13 at 5
P.M
. precisely. The police occupied the meeting places and offices of the SA and the SS and disbanded the organizations. “We have Groener to thank for this,” commented Goebbels. The action was particularly directed at Schleicher and his close NSDAP connections: “[H]e’s completely shaken. That shit Hindenburg.” Needless to say, the SA and the SS got around the ban by continuing their activities in disguised form, for example by starting up sport clubs or hiking associations.
¹¹²

Despite the ban, in the Prussian Landtag election on April 24, 1932, the NSDAP once again achieved an outstanding result, lifting its share of the vote from 1.8 percent (1928) to 36.3 percent to become the strongest party in Prussia. But owing to the poor showing of the other right-wing parties, there was no prospect of forming a government with them.

In Bavaria, Württemberg, and Hamburg, the NSDAP achieved similar results—and faced the same dilemma. Only in Anhalt, aided by other parties of the right, did it represent a parliamentary majority able to form a government. It was not the case, therefore, that the NSDAP’s sensational election results betokened a political turning point in the individual states. “Something’s got to happen. We’ve got to get into power. Otherwise our victories will be the death of us,” was Goebbels’s commentary.
¹¹³
He too had gotten the point: By themselves the NSDAP would never gain power, either through elections or through threatening SA marches. The cabinet lists discussed by Goebbels with Hitler and other leading National Socialists—featuring Goebbels himself as a possible Prussian minister of the interior, an idea to which he was gradually warming—had now become redundant.
¹¹⁴
Furthermore, the NSDAP’s results in Berlin were considerably below those of the Party in the Reich as a whole.
¹¹⁵

With the “Harzburg Front,” the alliance of the NSDAP, the DNVP, and the Stahlhelm, failing to function in the presidential election—the Stahlhelm and the DNVP had not been able to bring themselves to support Hitler in the second round—the only realistic prospect of gaining power lay in collaboration with the Center Party: “Nothing can be done without the Center Party. Neither in Prussia nor in the Reich.”
¹¹⁶

The diary entry of April 27 marks a striking turning point for Goebbels. Whereas in previous years he had always asserted his opposition to any cooperation with the ultra-conservatives that would dilute NSDAP policy, he was now ready to enter into an alliance with the moderate Center Party, of all parties, a staunch pillar of the hated Republic’s constitution. Goebbels, previously always eager to put himself forward as spokesman of the “revolutionary” tendency in the NSDAP, finally fell into line behind Hitler’s tactically oriented policy of negotiation. This policy seemed to yield immediate success: The Berlin SA leader Helldorf told Goebbels that he had learned from a discussion with Schleicher that the general was ready for a “change of approach”: “Under pressure from him, the Center Party is said to have become compliant. Negotiations in the Reich too. Tolerate the Center Party in Prussia.” Schleicher wanted to work with Goebbels, rather than with Strasser and Göring, as Goebbels noted with much satisfaction. Two days later Schleicher received Hitler. Goebbels was told later by Helldorf, who was allowed to accompany Hitler, that the Party leader had “reached an agreement” with Schleicher.
¹¹⁷

The plot envisaged a role for the Center Party, but not for Chancellor Brüning, and Schleicher set the ball rolling correspondingly. On the night of May 2–3 he informed Brüning about the putative right-wing solution for Prussia and the Reich he had discussed with the NSDAP leadership. When Brüning replied that he wanted to remain in office as chancellor until his Versailles revision policy had been safely passed, Schleicher told him plainly that he did not support such a position.
¹¹⁸

On May 5, while Goebbels and Magda happened to be visiting Hitler in Berchtesgaden, it was announced that the economics minister, Hermann Warmbold, had stepped down. Goebbels’s diary entry makes it clear that this resignation was substantially due to the dismantling of the Brüning government that Schleicher had begun in the last few days: “Schleicher has detonated the bomb.”
¹¹⁹

Goebbels immediately left for Berlin, where on May 7, accompanied by Röhm and Helldorf (both having liaised with Schleicher), Hitler met with Schleicher; the president’s state secretary, Otto Meissner; and Hindenburg’s son and adjutant, Oskar. Goebbels was informed at first hand after the return of the trio: “Brüning is to fall this week. The old man will withdraw his support from him. Schleicher is pressing strongly for it. […] Then there’ll be a presidential cabinet. Reichstag dissolved. The restraining legislation falls. We are free to agitate and deliver our masterstroke.”
¹²⁰

Goebbels’s entry makes plain the role envisaged for the NSDAP in Schleicher’s calculation: It was supposed to tolerate the new government in return for the lifting of the ban on uniforms and the prospect of new elections. In view of the strong performances of the NSDAP in the various states, these concessions were likely to make the NSDAP the biggest party in Parliament.

Finally, the National Socialist leadership contacted Schleicher the same evening by telephone and arranged with him that Brüning’s downfall should be speeded up so that he would not have time to put a vote of confidence to the Reichstag. It was agreed that Hitler should leave Berlin in order to avoid speculation about the background of the imminent toppling of the chancellor. The Severin estate seemed a suitable retreat, and Goebbels, Magda, Hitler, Harald, and a few attendants made their way there the same evening. The following day they held discussions about organizing the next election campaign.
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On May 12 Goebbels participated in a Reichstag session which took a sensational turn: After a group of National Socialist members had beaten up the journalist Helmuth Klotz—the former National Socialist, who had switched to the SPD, had published the incriminating Röhm letters—in the Reichstag restaurant, Paul Löbe, president of the Reichstag, alerted the police and had four NSDAP members removed from the session. When the latter refused to leave the building, a police squad led by Deputy Police Commissioner Bernhard Weiss arrived to arrest the four. The NSDAP benches erupted, and amid the howling of the NSDAP faction Goebbels could be heard saying: “That Jewish swine, Weiss, comes in here provoking us with his presence.” The session was abandoned, and Parliament adjourned until June.
¹²²

Groener resigned as defense minister the same day. Goebbels registered this as “a success for Schleicher,” who had indeed put Groener
under enormous pressure.
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The next day, after Helldorf had visited Schleicher, he noted: “The crisis continues according to plan. That’s good!”
¹²⁴

On May 18 and 19, Werner von Alvensleben, a close confidant of Schleicher’s, provided Goebbels with further information about the increasing isolation of Brüning engineered by Schleicher.
¹²⁵
This is how he learned on May 24 of the chancellor’s imminent fall: “Schleicher is doing good work. Alvensleben has his list of ministers: Chancellor v. Papen, Foreign [Konstantin von] Neurath.” However, there were two points that meant more to Goebbels than these appointments: new elections and the prospect of forming a coalition with the Center Party, the prize held out to the NSDAP in return for tolerating the new government.
¹²⁶

Schleicher’s candidate, Franz von Papen, was scarcely known to the public at large. The conservative estate owner from Westphalia, a diplomat and officer under the Kaiser, was a rather inconspicuous Center Party backbencher who also chaired the board of the party newspaper
Germania
. His combination of a highly conservative outlook, aristocratic origins, a career history appropriate to his class, and membership in the Catholic Center Party all led Schleicher to believe that von Papen was the right man to present to Hindenburg as Brüning’s successor.

In accordance with the calculations made by Schleicher, Hindenburg informed Brüning at this time, through his state secretary, Otto Meissner, that he was aiming for a more right-wing government tolerated as much as possible by the National Socialists, whose participation in a Prussian government he thought desirable.
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While Schleicher continued to work for Brüning to be replaced, on May 25 Goebbels participated in the inaugural meeting of the newly elected Prussian Landtag. Thanks to Center Party abstentions, the NSDAP managed to get its representative Hanns Kerrl elected president of the Parliament; otherwise, however, no progress was made toward brown (Nazi)–black (Center Party) cooperation in Parliament. On this day in the Prussian Landtag, there were violent disturbances as well. After a dispute with the communists, the NSDAP
members brawled, rapidly emptying the chamber. “Briefly but boldly, with inkwells and chairs,” observed Goebbels, with barely suppressed pride: “The Party members were singing the Horst Wessel song. 8 badly injured from different parties. That was a warning example. Creates respect.”
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The next day he left for a campaigning trip to Oldenburg, where on May 29 Landtag elections were likewise due to be held. En route, he met up with Hitler, who told him that Brüning’s political fate was to be decided on the following Sunday.
¹²⁹
Once again Hitler turned out to be extremely well informed: On Sunday May 29 the president received Brüning and told him, much to the chancellor’s surprise, that he did not intend to issue any further emergency decrees on behalf of the Brüning government. Since this was tantamount to completely demolishing the legitimacy of his government, Brüning was left with no choice but to offer the resignation of his cabinet.
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The final spur for Hindenburg’s decision to withdraw his support from Brüning completely was the chancellor’s proposal to oblige owners of bankrupt estates in eastern Germany to auction them off for resettlement.
¹³¹
Spokesmen for the Reichslandbund and the DNVP had made forceful representations to Hindenburg over the previous few days, and as a landowner himself he had no taste whatsoever for his chancellor’s “Bolshevist agrarian” line. “The bomb went off yesterday,” noted Goebbels on Brüning’s resignation.
¹³²
His euphoria was understandably heightened by the fact that the day before the NSDAP had gained an absolute majority of seats in the Oldenburg elections.
¹³³

On May 30 Hitler was already in discussions with Hindenburg, the result of which Hitler passed on to leading Party comrades in Goebbels’s apartment: “Ban on SA dropped. Uniforms permitted and Reichstag dissolved. That’s the most important thing. Everything else will sort itself out. Von Papen is the man. That’s not important either. Voting, voting! Get to the people!”
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The next day, as Goebbels was informed by Hitler, von Papen confirmed the new arrangements.
¹³⁵

The von Papen government, composed predominantly of aristocratic, ultra-conservative ministers, had the weakest conceivable
power base in the Reichstag. On account of all the intrigue leading to Brüning’s downfall, von Papen’s own party, the Center Party, had withdrawn all cooperation from the chancellor, and von Papen—who had originally accepted the chancellorship with the full confidence that he would have the support of the Center Party—had resigned from the party. He could survive in Parliament only with the support of the NSDAP. Relying on a vague pledge of backing from Hitler, Hindenburg and von Papen accepted with equanimity the increased share of the vote the National Socialists were expected to gain in the new Reichstag elections.
¹³⁶
But in the meantime, for the NSDAP the case was much altered. By breaking with the Center Party, the chancellor had in their eyes lost much of his value.

Meanwhile, Hitler and Goebbels were keeping election appointments in Mecklenburg, where voting was to take place on June 5. Both stayed for some days in secluded Severin, where on the first evening there was a heated debate about the form of a future state, which shows the extent to which Hitler—in keeping with his potential right-wing partners—was still toying with the idea of restoring the monarchy after seizing power: “Hitler is in favor of a reformed monarchy. I am too. But we don’t have to select Auwi [August Wilhelm, the fourth son of the last German Kaiser] right away as protector of the Reich. […] Hitler overestimates the people’s promonarchy instincts. Thinks he would be defeated in a contest between Hitler and the Crown Prince. Impossible!”
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On Friday June 3 Hitler had a meeting with Schleicher. Immediately afterward, he came back to Severin and reported to Goebbels: “Reichstag is being dissolved immediately. SA ban lifted.”
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The next day the president proclaimed the dissolution and announced July 31, 1932, as the date for new elections.
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Negotiations were going on at the same time concerning the next steps in Prussia. At the top of the agenda was the possible participation of the NSDAP in a coalition government or at least a promise of parliamentary acquiescence. The previous autumn, Schleicher had already been contemplating an alternative solution, the appointment of a governor for Prussia by the Reich government, which now, with the Center Party having lost its old function of linking Prussia and the Reich by virtue of being the ruling party in both parliaments, was on the table again. Goebbels favored this solution.

On the evening of June 4 Hitler telephoned Schleicher from Severin.
Goebbels noted: “Prussia question still not settled. Governor or prime minister from us.” One thing was definite, however: “No Bavarian and no Protestant.” This ruled out Gregor Strasser.
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In the next few days, Goebbels found himself strengthened in his opinion that the chance of governing in Prussia should be turned down unless the same could be achieved in the Reich: “We’re remaining in opposition until we have complete power, so that we have complete freedom of action. I talked to Hitler by phone: He fully agrees with me.”
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In the following days Goebbels published two articles in
Der Angriff
placing the von Papen cabinet firmly at arm’s length.
¹⁴²

On June 9 the head of his propaganda staff in Munich, Heinz Franke, briefed Goebbels on the situation there, particularly on the imminent reorganization of the Party leadership by Gregor Strasser. Goebbels summarized his plans: “Strasser will give radio talks, Strasser will put together the list of candidates, Strasser appoints the Gau commissars. Strasser takes Hitler for a ride. And he doesn’t put up any resistance.”
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On June 14 he had a “good long personal talk” with Göring, whom he had so often criticized and disparaged. They agreed to bury their past differences; the background of this ceasefire was obviously the common interest they had in preventing Strasser from gaining influence.
¹⁴⁴
On the evening of June 14 Goebbels listened to the speech his Party rival Strasser was allowed to give on behalf of the NSDAP on nationwide radio. For the first time, party political broadcast time had been allocated in this election campaign, and as Hitler would not agree to the conditions—speeches had to be submitted for vetting beforehand—Strasser stepped in. Above all Strasser emphasized state intervention to boost the feeble economy and reduce unemployment. Goebbels’s verdict was: “Not aggressive enough. Too ‘state-political.’ That man will become a danger to Hitler one day.”
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Despite his tireless contribution to the Party’s propaganda work, Goebbels could not prevent Strasser, who had consolidated his position within the Party leadership, from putting his stamp on the campaign with his demand for job-creation measures. So, for example, Strasser distributed six hundred thousand copies of his booklet,
Urgent Economic Program of the NSDAP
, across the Party organization, setting out his agenda for job creation.
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In the instructions issued by the Reich propaganda office led by Goebbels, the stress was above all on distancing the Party from von
Papen’s cabinet and the Party’s commitment to fighting the KPD as much as the “system” and its parties, particularly the SPD and the Center Party.
¹⁴⁷
Once again, great emphasis was laid on “individual propaganda”: “Every comrade must select 2–3 fellow citizens and work on them very intensively until polling day.”
¹⁴⁸
The attention of the Party organization was drawn explicitly to the whole gamut of publicity methods available: from mass meetings, loudspeaker vehicles, sound films, flags, and banners to flyers, the campaign newspaper
Der Flammenwerfer
, leaflets, and posters.
¹⁴⁹

In mid-June, more or less as a prelude to the election campaign, Goebbels spent an evening with SA leaders in full uniform in the Haus Vaterland, the big amusement palace on Potsdamer Platz—a deliberate provocation in response to the ban on the SA. But the police did “not do the participants the favor of intervening,” observed Goebbels. At this point he was not aware that the Reich government had lifted the ban.
¹⁵⁰

On June 27 he was at a meeting of Gauleiters in Munich to present his planning for the ongoing election campaign. There he found out that by means of “organizational changes,” Strasser had been “rigging the Party to suit himself”: “The General Secretary. Means to gradually displace Hitler. Honorary President. That’s not what he wants. He must be primed. Str[asser] is giving all the jobs to his lackeys. That’s how he’s rigging the whole machine. The Party dictator!”
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On July 8 Hitler came to Berlin. Goebbels learned from Alvensleben that Hitler was talking to Schleicher and preparing their next joint move, which this time would be directed against von Papen: He had to “fall.”
¹⁵²
On July 9 Goebbels gave a speech in the Lustgarten in front of—according to the
Völkischer Beobachter
—a crowd of two hundred thousand; by Goebbels’s highly exaggerated estimation “the biggest and most powerful rally Berlin has ever seen.”
¹⁵³
The next day he set out again on the election trail, starting in Rheydt and taking in several west German towns. Back in Berlin, he shared a platform with Goebbels in the Sportpalast.
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But the main attraction of the campaign was another aerial tour by Hitler through Germany, spun by the Nazi press as a “freedom flight.”
¹⁵⁵

On July 18 Goebbels gave his first broadcast talk, the von Papen government having enabled the parties for the first time to use the new medium for propaganda purposes.
¹⁵⁶
He had to make substantial changes to the script—originally titled “National Socialism as a
State-Political Necessity”—after lengthy wrangling with the Reich minister of the interior, whose approval was required for this kind of party-political broadcast. In the end his talk was on “National Character as the Basis of National Culture.” He for one was more than pleased with the result: “The speech makes a fabulous impression. I’m in top form. Brilliant press reaction today.”
¹⁵⁷

Meanwhile, the von Papen government after its fashion was setting about resolving the stalemate in Prussia. The Prussian government under the Social Democrat prime minister Otto Braun had resigned after the Landtag elections in April, but was still acting as a caretaker administration. The coalition parties—the SPD, the DDP, the Center Party—no longer had a majority in Parliament. In terms of numbers, there was a possibility—while there was still a Brüning government, a politically feasible one—of forming a Center Party–NSDAP majority coalition. But under von Papen, who had severed all ties with the Center Party, the NSDAP no longer saw any chance of such a political arrangement at the Reich level. This was why in internal Party discussions since June Goebbels had been strongly opposed to compromising with the Center Party in Prussia.
¹⁵⁸
In principle, his preferred option (but only if the Party was also participating in a Reich government) was to appoint a governor in Prussia. This option was something Schleicher had brought into play as early as autumn 1931. Since June he had been discussing it with the NSDAP leaders, and now, in July 1932, it was a solution the Reich government was seriously trying to put into effect—albeit without the participation of the National Socialists. At the same time, however, it was an advance concession to a future alliance with the NSDAP.

On July 20, 1932, von Papen made use of an emergency decree already signed by the president
¹⁵⁹
giving him carte blanche powers and appointed himself state governor of Prussia. He called in Franz Bracht, mayor of Essen, to be his minister of the interior. The excuse for this step arose out of the events of the “Altona Bloody Sunday,” a violent clash on July 17 involving the police, National Socialists, and communists that resulted in eighteen deaths.
¹⁶⁰
All Social Democrat officeholders were relieved of their positions at this time, as were the top echelon of the Berlin police headquarters, including Goebbels’s arch-enemy Bernhard Weiss.
¹⁶¹

The Nazi leadership knew about the forthcoming “Prussian coup” by July 19, 1932, as Goebbels’s diaries demonstrate.
¹⁶²
When the action
took place on July 20, Goebbels confirmed that everything was “going according to plan,” and he recorded that the Nazi leadership was putting together a “wish list” for Bracht, together with a “list […] of all those in Prussia due for the axe.”
¹⁶³

Goebbels threw himself once more into campaigning, putting in appearances all over Germany.
¹⁶⁴
On July 31, election day, he went to Munich to join in celebrating the anticipated victory. The National Socialists managed to win 37.4 percent of the vote, which gave them 230 seats, making them the largest party in the Reichstag.

Goebbels, whose result in Berlin was, at 28.7 percent, far below that of the average in the Reich as a whole,
¹⁶⁵
drew his conclusion: “Now we have to gain power and eradicate Marxism. One way or the other! […] We won’t get an absolute majority this way. So take a different path.”
¹⁶⁶
But he did not mention what that path would be.