Goebbels: A Biography (49 page)

The complete removal of all Jews still active in his sphere of operations was an integral part of the enforced “reorientation” of the whole of culture and media policy introduced by Goebbels in 1936–37. From the autumn of 1935 onward, there are frequent diary entries showing how concerned he was to thoroughly “de-jewify” the Reich Culture Chamber. An edict from the Culture Chamber to this effect was already in force by June 1935.
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But excluding all Jews (including “half-Jews,” “quarter-Jews,” and “those related to Jews”) from German cultural life turned out not to be as easy as Goebbels had hoped. The individual chambers, which by no means operated a unified exclusion procedure, were constantly making exceptions. Thus in 1937 the Reich Chamber of Fine Art still had 156 Jewish members, mostly art dealers and art publicists. It was not until the end of 1937 that the chambers coordinated their various “Aryan” provisions.
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Although Goebbels constantly gave instructions to accelerate the “de-jewifying” process, reported “great progress,”
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and by early February 1937 considered the Reich Culture Chamber to be “completely de-jewified,”
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he was forced to acknowledge soon afterward that the “cleansing” was not yet complete.
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In the first months of 1938, Goebbels complained of considerable difficulty in “de-jewifying” the Reich Music Chamber,
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and in February 1939 he obtained Hitler’s permission to go on employing “21 non-fully-Aryan or Jewish-related theater or film actors.”
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Various entries from the first half of 1939 show that the action was still not yet over
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—and in fact it would never be completed. Even by May 1943, he found himself stating with consternation that “the Reich Culture Chamber is not yet as de-jewified as I intended”; “a whole lot of quarter-Jews, even a few half-Jews, and numbers of Jewish-related are hanging around there.” But during the war he was no longer so eager to come to grips with the problem, considering that this would “kick up too much dust,” especially in artistic circles.
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While Goebbels was increasingly successful in bringing the whole cultural life of the Third Reich under his control and thereby strengthening his power base, one aspect of his personal development stands out: his increasing isolation from other people. The more lavish his external lifestyle, the more he craved solitude. In his narcissistic self-absorption, he obviously did not feel the need to share the rewards of fame and success with family or friends.

After 1933, he failed to sustain friendships he had made in his youth, as a student, or during his early Berlin years. Certainly, during his visits to Rheydt, which he went on making two or three times a year,
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he met up with old friends, but these encounters mainly allowed him to measure the distance he had so gloriously put between himself and his small-town origins.
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In January 1938, for example, he invited “boyhood friends” over to his hotel in Rheydt: “How unfamiliar and distant they have become to me now,”
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he noted. And of another meeting a couple of evenings later where politics and the economy were discussed, he wrote: “You’re so far from things out here in the country.” In his circle of old friends, since he left town “so much had changed, a few were already dead, most simply petit bourgeois.”
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When old friends visited him, his verdict on them was similar in its condescension: Pille Kölsch was a “real philistine,” and Fritz Prang “a grumbler,” even if “not a bad type.”
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Contact with his brothers was confined to a bare minimum of dutiful visits. In February 1935, Konrad became director of the Völkisch Verlag in Düsseldorf
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but was forced to resign before long because of a conflict with the president of the Reich press chamber, Max Amann,
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although he soon found employment again in the newspaper sector as business affairs manager of the Gau publishing house in Frankfurt.
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After the seizure of power in 1933 Goebbels’s brother Hans, like Konrad a Nazi activist, had found a relatively favorable position in the insurance business,
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but relations with him were complicated by the fact that Joseph could not stand his sister-in-law Hertha.
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By contrast, he had a rather closer relationship with his sister Maria, who in 1936 stayed for some time as a guest in the Goebbels
household and who often accompanied her brother and her sister-in-law on their visits to Hitler.
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In 1937 a new visitor often showed up at Schwanenwerder: the screenplay writer Axel Kimmich, with whom Maria had fallen deeply in love.
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Goebbels, who naturally suspected that Kimmich might be using this private relationship to further his career, immediately had him vetted by the police: The results were positive.
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Having at first cast a skeptical eye at him,
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the head of the household eventually decided he was “nice, but not over-bright.”
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Finally Kimmich, four years older than Goebbels, formally requested her brother’s permission to marry Maria: Goebbels felt “a bit silly in the role of father-in-law.”
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He had further checks carried out on his potential brother-in-law; the answers were again positive. “So as far as I’m concerned they should get married. I don’t want to stand in the way of their happiness.”
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He approved of a film script that Kimmich had shown him.
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The engagement was celebrated on Schwanenwerder in August—Hitler was among the guests
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—and the wedding took place in February 1938.
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But it did not take long for Goebbels to change his mind about his brother-inlaw: “Fathead,” “numbskull,” “a proper milksop.”
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What Goebbels had feared then duly happened: Kimmich, in his view not particularly talented, tried to enlist his brother-in-law’s support in his disputes within the film business. For Goebbels this was another argument for keeping his distance from family affairs. Negative remarks about his sister Maria, too, now began to appear in the diary.
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However, Goebbels made one exception to his self-imposed rule about keeping his distance from relatives: his mother. As ever, he sought a close emotional relationship with her. She often came on visits to Berlin, where she eventually had her own apartment: “Mother is so kind and so wise. Such a refreshing time for me,” he wrote after visiting her. “My best mother! If I didn’t have you. My mainstay!”
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From about the end of 1936, Goebbels’s attitude to Magda gradually changed. Various entries scattered throughout the year indicate this development. With the house on the Bogensee, Goebbels had a refuge all to himself, one that allowed him to avoid Magda, even after the family had moved back to Berlin from their summer residence on Schwanenwerder at the beginning of October 1936.
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He often spent time there, in the solitude of his large wooded grounds.
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Goebbels was far from open in his diary entries about his private life
or his emotions; it is especially noticeable that his affair with Baarová, which began in the winter of 1936–37, left no trace there at first. Certainly, this relationship was an important factor in increasing his distance from his wife, but there are indications that Goebbels became ever more deeply caught up in the affair because he found his relationship with Magda, and his whole private situation, increasingly unsatisfactory and problematic. This is brought out by some entries at the turn of the year, 1936–37, which offer some hints about his state of mind.

Magda had arranged the festivities for Christmas 1936 on a lavish scale. But although Goebbels enjoyed being with the children, he could not get into the Christmas spirit, and he spent the whole day in “sorrow and melancholy.” On Christmas Day he felt the pull of the Bogensee again, where he spent the next few days without his family: “Away from all this festive kitsch!” On December 27 Hitler, who had invited the Goebbels family to Berchtesgaden for Christmas, wanted to know why they had not yet arrived. They packed in great haste, but in the evening they heard that the journey was off, because Hitler suddenly had an important appointment in Berlin. On December 30 Hitler called the Goebbelses in to the Reich Chancellery to wish them a happy New Year; in the evening he traveled by train to Berchtesgaden, where they joined him a few days later at his request.

At the Berghof Goebbels had a chance to discuss all kinds of political topics with Hitler.
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Goebbels left the Obersalzberg for Berlin on January 8; Hitler followed the next day. Magda, however, stayed on in Hitler’s residence a little longer for a rest. Hitler kept her company there again starting on January 18 and then traveled back with her to Berlin five days later.
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During this separation from Magda, Goebbels remarked repeatedly in his diary how much he missed his wife in Berlin and hated being alone: He seemed to resent the fact that this time she was the one who had left hearth and home behind.
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In these days, Goebbels sought opportunities to air personal matters: On January 18 he sat with Magda’s sister-in-law Ello and the actress Erika Dannhoff (a frequent visitor to the house) talking “for a long time about love, marriage, jealousy, etc.” The next day he had a long talk with his state secretary, Funk. “I tell him about my worries and fears. That I can never find peace and completely lack freedom.”
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During these days alone in Berlin, he seems to have become aware how much
his marriage and his whole private life were interlinked with his political position in Hitler’s regime. The more he allowed Hitler to take part in his life and that of his family, thus increasing his closeness to his idol, and the more his family life became a component of his existence as a public figure, the less his family could offer him something like a protected private space. When his wife and children finally returned from Obersalzberg to Berlin, he was quite relieved, and his diary entry suggests that there were emotions at play here that went beyond the pleasure of reunion after a fourteen-day separation: “It’s wonderful. The Führer is very kind, Helga is crying with joy, and then Magda and Hilde. I’m so happy. At home Magda tells me all sorts of things about the Führer, life up there, we talk everything through.”
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He spent the next few days with Magda in their Berlin house.

Family life was overshadowed by serious concerns in the following months. At the beginning of February Magda, who was pregnant, suffered from heart problems and had to go back to hospital once more.
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There, on February 19, she gave birth to her fourth child, a daughter.
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But it was four weeks before she was allowed home.
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Magda’s doctor told Goebbels that she should not have another baby for two years, to give herself the chance of a complete cure.
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As Magda lay in hospital in March, they had planned with Hitler a “summer as a trio together,”
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but Hitler’s invitation to a trip down the Rhine had to be declined because of Magda’s poor health.
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Once Magda was feeling slightly better, though, they spent a good deal of leisure time together: In the spring the Goebbels family moved back into their summer residence on Schwanenwerder, where the dictator often visited.
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When he did so, Hitler took an active part in the Goebbels family life. Among the children, it was Helga with whom he was most taken; at the beginning of February Hitler was “extremely” pleased with some photos showing Helga on the Obersalzberg: “Says that if Helga was 20 years older and he was 20 years younger, she would be the wife for him.”
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The Goebbels family made return visits to the Reich Chancellery, and it often happened that Magda spent time in the Reich Chancellery without her husband.
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In June Magda had to go off again for several weeks to undergo heart treatment in Dresden.
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After her return, there followed a shared vacation in Upper Bavaria, as prescribed by Hitler, although
only Magda was able to enjoy it without interruption. But her health was still so fragile that she elected not to go with her husband to Bayreuth.

Even after the family had moved out to Schwanenwerder, Goebbels stayed for the most part in his official house in Berlin or on the Bogensee and mainly went to the Wannsee to receive guests, whom he took for trips around the nearby lakes. Otherwise, he nearly always made just short visits there. Gradually he began to distance himself from the routine of life there. About one of his visits, Goebbels noted at the beginning of June: “To Schwanenwerder. Magda is expecting ladies for tea. I push off again right away.”
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In August he found his brother Hans with his family there as well as his sister Maria and her fiancé: “Family tittle-tattle. I can’t take it anymore. I’ve grown completely away from that milieu.”
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Schwanenwerder seemed to him less and less like a genuine family refuge; for him it had become a place for display, with his family above all part of Goebbels’s self-presentation.

It was in August that Magda—in spite of the doctor’s warning—discovered that she was pregnant again. Magda now decided to follow the medical advice and largely withdraw from Berlin society. So she stayed on at Schwanenwerder even over the winter,
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which suited Goebbels’s tendency to gradually detach himself from the everyday life of his family. “I get a great reception, like a guest,” he noted—somewhat surprised—on November 6, when he appeared at Schwanenwerder to join in Magda’s birthday celebration.
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In December he established himself in the “Gentleman’s House” on the grounds so that he would no longer have to spend the night under the same roof as Magda when he visited.
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On Schwanenwerder, what he enjoyed most was time spent with the children. But the countless entries in his diary where he mentions romping around and horseplay with the “lovely,” “sweet” children are remarkably stereotyped and superficial. Basically he had little interest in their development and education. From time to time, though, he found himself obliged to give them a “thrashing,” to beat the “stubbornness” out of them—as Goebbels saw it, a tried and tested educational method.
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The family happiness he constantly invoked in his diary meant one thing above all for him: It was an important accessory to demonstrate his personal success story.

As Goebbels isolated himself more and more from other people,
he was at the same time set on making his lifestyle as lavish and prestigious as possible. It is almost as if he was doing so precisely in order to further emphasize his distance from others. From April 1937 onward Magda and Joseph Goebbels were preoccupied with plans for a new house to replace their old home in Berlin, which had become “much too small” for five children.
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Goebbels’s justification to the Finance Ministry for this new building (which at Hitler’s specific behest was meant to conform to his plans for the “rebuilding of Berlin”) was that it had to meet the high standards set by the Führer for his future capital. A “prestigious and spacious treatment” was therefore essential.
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Speer was then called in to cooperate on the plans.
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But when these were ready in the autumn, they did not meet with Hitler’s approval, and the project was put on hold.
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In October Hitler raised Goebbels’s salary “substantially.”
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This raise came at exactly the right time, as he was about to replace his Horch with a Maybach (“A magnificent car!”).
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For her birthday in November Magda too received “a beautiful new car.”
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But in January 1938 he decided to exchange his Maybach for another Horch, because he now found it “too clumsy.”
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Soon afterward his eye fell on two other luxury cars he wanted to add to his pool.
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In 1939, there was further progress in the motorizing of the family: In April he gave his mother a car, and Magda received another new one in June.
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When in August Ley let him try out one of the new Volkswagens, he saw immediately: “That’s the car for our children.”
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