Goebbels: A Biography (54 page)

In the course of October, the anti-Semitic mood became more extreme among radical Party followers. It had been inflamed during the summer by Goebbels’s Berlin “action,” but then he had been obliged to tone it down because of the Sudeten crisis. It seems that Party activists now blamed “the Jews” for the depression that gripped the whole Reich during September because of the threat of war. There must be revenge: Immediately after the conclusion of the Munich Agreement, anti-Jewish activities were resumed. Jewish businesses and synagogues were attacked and damaged. According to the SD
[Sicherheitsdienst
(Security Service)], a real pogrom atmosphere was spreading. On October 26, Himmler ordered the expulsion of Polish Jews living in Germany, and in the following days eighteen thousand people were arrested and driven across the German-Polish border—the first mass deportation of the Nazi period. On November 7, the attempted assassination, in Paris, of the German diplomat Ernst vom Rath, by the seventeen-year-old Herschel Grynszpan, seeking revenge for his parents’ deportation from Germany,
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provided the regime with a pretext for unprecedented levels of violence against German Jews.

Goebbels, long one of the leading anti-Semitic rabble-rousers of the NSDAP, now saw his chance to seize a foreground role by displaying particular zeal over the “Jewish question.” No doubt he was trying to repair relations with Hitler after the strain caused by his marital crisis, but his conduct should above all be seen in the context
of the differences of opinion that had arisen between him and Hitler at the height of the Sudetenland crisis. Goebbels’s objective now was to demonstrate the complicity of the German “Volk”—so obviously lukewarm about the prospects of war a few weeks earlier—in a barbaric, and allegedly collective, action against German Jews, thus making a public display of the solidarity and ideological radicalism of the “national community.” Goebbels’s line of violence against Jews as compensation for the public’s lack of bellicose spirit resonated loudly with the radical wing of the Party.

The first entry in the diary concerning the impending pogrom occurs on November 9. As usual with Goebbels, it refers to the day before, and mentions Grynszpan’s action: “Now’s the time to talk straight. Big anti-Semitic rallies in Hesse. Synagogues are being burned down. If we could only unleash popular anger!” The Nazi media had followed instructions and given the “greatest possible prominence” to the assassination attempt, combined with threats against the German Jews. In response, Party activists in Hesse had already organized full-scale acts of violence against Jewish shops and synagogues during the night of November 7–8 and on the following day.
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Goebbels, who had traveled to Munich on November 7, was back in the Bürgerbräu on November 8 with the “old campaigners” who met there every year. He later attended a reception in the Führer Building, after which he accompanied Hitler and a few cronies to the Café Heck.
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By the next day—when the traditional march took place from the Bürgerbräu to the Feldherrnhalle, and from there to the Königsplatz—vom Rath’s condition had not improved. The press continued with its anti-Jewish campaign.
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Goebbels was pleased with the order issued by his police chief friend Helldorf for all Jews in the capital to hand over any weapons in their possession:
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“They’re going to have to put up with more than that.”

During the day reports came in of big anti-Jewish demonstrations in Kassel and Dessau, where synagogues had been set on fire and shops demolished. In the afternoon came the announcement of vom Rath’s death.

In the late afternoon, Goebbels met Hitler in the Munich City Hall. The following quotation from Goebbels’s diary for November 10 is the most important evidence of Hitler’s undeniable responsibility
for the pogrom: “I tell the Führer about the business. He orders: Let demonstrations continue. Withdraw police. For once, the Jews should feel the anger of the people. That is right. I immediately instruct police and Party accordingly. Then I speak briefly in the same vein to the Party leadership. Wild applause. They all dash for the telephones immediately. Now the people will take action.”

Goebbels gave an incendiary talk to the leading Party cadres in which he pointedly referred to the excesses already seen in Kassel and elsewhere and remarked that Hitler himself had told him that he had no objection to further “spontaneous” events. Later, in a report from the Supreme Court of the NSDAP investigating unauthorized assaults during the pogrom of February 1939, his speech was interpreted to mean that “the Party should not appear to be the originator of these demonstrations, though in fact it should organize them and carry them out.”
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That evening, Goebbels was in his element, as his diary entry attests: “One or two shilly-shallyers copped out. But I pulled everyone together again. We can’t let this cowardly murder go unanswered.” He then proceeded with Gauleiter Adolf Wagner to the Gau office to compose a “precise circular […] setting out what can be done and what not.” He phoned an order through to Berlin to “smash up the synagogue in Fasanenstrasse.”
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The investigation by the Party’s Supreme Court reported that the deputy Gauleiter of Munich/Upper Bavaria had testified that, toward two in the morning when news of the first death in the pogrom reached him, Goebbels said they should “not get worked up about a dead Jew; in the next few nights thousands of them will catch it.”
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Toward midnight Goebbels took part in the swearing-in ceremony for new recruits to the SS that was staged outside the Feldherrnhalle every year. On his way back to his hotel he noted “a blood-red sky”: “The synagogue is burning. […] We only fire-fight as much as necessary to protect nearby buildings. Otherwise let it burn down. […] Reports are now coming in from all over the Reich: 50, then 70 synagogues burning. The Führer has ordered the immediate arrest of 25–30,000 Jews.” He received news from Berlin that the synagogues were burning there too: “The people’s anger is raging now. There’s no stopping it tonight. Not that I want to. Let it rip. […] The synagogues are burning in every major city.”
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Early the next morning Goebbels read the first reports: “The whole nation is in uproar. This death is going to cost Jewry dear.”
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It did not
matter to him that the “people” were, in fact—in accordance with his own orders—well-instructed Party comrades: Stage-managed “popular rage” had now become a reality for him.

Goebbels then formulated a proclamation
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“demanding in the strongest terms” that “all demonstrations and acts of revenge against Jewry […] should cease immediately.” The violence was threatening to get out of hand. He went to Hitler’s habitual haunt, the Osteria in Schellingstrasse, to gain the Führer’s approval for this draft. He was in agreement: “The Führer wants to take very sharp measures against the Jews. They’ll have to put their shops back in order themselves. The insurance companies won’t pay out. Then the Führer wants to gradually expropriate Jewish businesses and give the owners bonds for them which we can devalue anytime we like.” Cooperating closely with Heydrich, Goebbels continued to work at dampening down and ending the “actions.”

Subsequently, with Goebbels and other prominent Party members present, Hitler received four hundred representatives of the press in the Führer Building on Königsplatz in order, as reported in the papers, to thank them “for their commitment to the struggle for the German people’s right to life.”
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In fact, though, Hitler went much further in his speech: He explained to the journalists how he had been forced by circumstances “for years to talk about almost nothing but peace.” Only by “constantly stressing the German will to peace and peaceful intentions” had he been able to achieve his great foreign affairs successes. However, there was a questionable aspect to this “peace propaganda that had been pursued for decades”; it could give people the mistaken impression that he wanted to preserve “peace at any price.” It was time to dispel this mistaken idea; over some months he had begun “gradually making clear [to the nation] that there are things which […] must be accomplished by means of force.” This propaganda line now needed to continue and be reinforced.
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On the one hand, Hitler was clearly expressing his dissatisfaction with the German people’s lack of psychological preparation for war, manifested just a few weeks earlier; on the other hand, his speech contained an indirect acknowledgment and affirmation of the mobilizing of violence as practiced by Goebbels in the past few days. Goebbels’s calculation had proved correct: With his unleashing of the “people’s anger” on November 9 he had managed to signal that a more radical initiative in domestic politics could contribute fully to
creating a pro-war mentality. Late that evening Goebbels returned to Berlin. In a laconic diary comment, he interpreted the speech simply, and absurdly, as general praise for his propaganda: “As regards Berlin, I’m going to take on the whole violence [thing] myself. In such times of crisis, one person has to be in charge.”
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The next morning, he established to his satisfaction that in the capital and the rest of the Reich during the night “everything had been quiet”: “My proclamation worked wonders. The Jews have reason to be grateful to me, into the bargain.” He tried to dilute negative reports abroad with a statement to Berlin-based foreign correspondents. He also contributed a “spirited article” to the German press.
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He wrote menacingly that “the place of Jews in public, private, and business life depends on the behavior of Jews in Germany and above all the behavior of Jews in the rest of the world.” This was followed by a warning to “anti-Germans abroad,” who would do well to leave “this problem and its solution to the Germans themselves. If they feel like supporting the Jews and adopting their cause, any number of them are available.”
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On November 12 he participated in a “conference on the Jewish question” at Göring’s ministry: “Heated conflict over the solution. My standpoint is a radical one.” In fact, over one hundred representatives of the Party, the state, and business associations had gathered in the Air Ministry to deliberate on further measures regarding “Jewish policy.” The substantive outcome was a legal “solution”: The Jews must pay a contribution of a billion Reichsmarks; they were excluded from business life for good; and their insurance claims were to be taken over by the state. At this session various other anti-Jewish measures were raised, most of which were adopted in the following weeks and months.
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Göring expressed himself very negatively at the meeting about the damage caused and the destruction of “the people’s property” (“I would prefer you to have killed 200 Jews rather than destroy such assets”).
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This was clearly a criticism of Goebbels, widely regarded as the instigator of the violence. But he gives the impression that this criticism went right over his head and that the session had been a great personal success for him: “I work fantastically well with Göring. He takes a tough line, too. The radical line carried the day.”

Goebbels took an active part in the discussions, putting forward many ideas. One was a call for all synagogues that were not completely
undamaged to be “demolished by the Jews,” to make way for parking lots (for example). He also proposed banning Jews by edict from visiting “German theaters, cinemas, and circuses.” He himself had introduced such an edict in relation to the Culture Chamber.
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Furthermore, Jews should be “removed from all the public places where they give offense.” It was impossible for a German to share a sleeping car compartment with a Jew. Jews must be banned by edict from visiting “German health spas, beach resorts, and recreation spots.” Thought might also be given “to whether it might not be necessary to exclude Jews from German forests.” Jews should not be permitted “to sit around in German parks”; special parks should be allocated to them—naturally “not the most attractive”—as well as separate park benches. Finally, he demanded that “Jews should absolutely be removed from German schools.”
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The next day, at an
Eintopfessen
(a single-pot austerity meal) in Wedding, he issued a statement announcing that all Jewish businesses would soon become German and condemning attacks on such businesses as “damaging the property of the German people.”
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He gave an interview to Reuters, the British press agency, which was widely reproduced in the German press, and in which he made light of the whole development as “purely about separating Germans from Jews.”
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With Hitler supporting the “Jewish campaign” incited by the Propaganda Ministry, Goebbels proceeded to order all propaganda media to “prepare a big anti-Semitic drive.”
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He perceived a general need for work to be done in the area of “informing” the public about anti-Semitism. The mass observation reports that reached him were mixed, however: “We must do more to inform the people about the Jewish question, above all the intellectuals.”
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Consequently, in the following months the “Jewish question” did indeed become the dominant theme of propaganda. In the individual German papers, and not just the Party organs, contributions appeared daily on this topic. The Propaganda Ministry attached particular importance to anti-Semitic polemics in the area of cultural policy, where the bourgeois public in particular could be targeted—this being the sector of the population known to have held, both during and after the pogrom, the strongest reservations about the violent anti-Jewish policy of the regime.
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But despite the concentration of effort specifically on this area, up
until 1939 the Propaganda Ministry remained dissatisfied with what the press had achieved.
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Goebbels therefore deployed the Party’s propaganda machine to strengthen the anti-Semitic campaign. A few days after the pogrom, Goebbels issued a directive, in his capacity as Reich head of propaganda, that the series of rallies already begun should be extended to March of the following year, for the purpose of “enlightening the whole population about Jewry.” But he warned against going about this too crudely, because it had become apparent during the pogrom that “a large part of the bourgeoisie was not entirely in sympathy with the measures taken.” “The mass of the population,” said Goebbels, “did not regularly read national-socialist newspapers during the years of struggle or later, and therefore did not undergo the education that was a given for National Socialism in the struggle.”
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