Goebbels: A Biography (62 page)

At the end of June Goebbels went on a trip through the conquered territories in the west. To begin with he flew—“over fat Dutch soil”—to The Hague, “a clean, attractive, and cozy city,” and was briefed about the situation in the country by his staff who had been deployed to the occupied Netherlands.
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He then traveled on to Brussels via Antwerp and Louvain. Belgium, he noted, was “not quite as clean as Holland,” but here too, as in the Netherlands, he claimed to find a “positive” mood on the part of the population.

On the early morning of the following day he visited various First World War battlefields (“sites of heroic struggles”), including Ypres, Langemarck, and Arras. He looked around Dunkirk and visited Compiègne, “a site of disgrace and of national resurrection.” In the
evening he arrived in Paris. His first impression: “A marvelous city. What a lot we’ve still got to do to Berlin!”
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On the following day he took time out for an extensive sightseeing tour of the city: “It’s like a dream. Place de la Concorde, the Étoile. Very generously laid out. The Invalides. Napoleon’s tomb. Very moved. In spite of everything a great man. Notre Dame. Rather absurd architecture for a church, like the Madeleine.” He was rather disappointed by Sacré-Cœur, but he very much liked the view from Montmartre: “I’d like to live here for a few weeks.” He set aside the afternoon for a visit to Versailles, which for him was above all a place “where Germany [had been] condemned to death.”

During his visit he received a telegram summoning him to Hitler’s headquarters near Freudenstadt in the Black Forest. When he arrived there the next day, the dictator outlined to him his plan to address the Reichstag and “to give England a last chance.” Britain, according to Hitler, could be “defeated in 4 weeks,” but it was not his intention to destroy the empire, for “what it will lose in the process is likely to end up not in our hands but in those of foreign great powers.” Hitler assumed that by making a peace offer he would be putting “England in a difficult psychological situation, but it [might] also bring about peace.” There was “much to be said for and against both.”
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The first thing to do was to provide Hitler with a terrific reception in Berlin. The greeting of the “victorious Führer” in the Reich capital was one of the most spectacular mass demonstrations that Goebbels had ever orchestrated. Nothing was left to chance in order to convey to the German people and the world at large the impression that the people of Berlin were standing behind the regime as one man and were full of confidence in victory and genuine enthusiasm for the war. The impression made by this demonstration was so strong that even skeptical and critical observers in Germany could not escape its attraction; even decades later historians interpreted it as proof that there had been “genuine enthusiasm” for the war in the country: Hitler had allegedly appeared to the Germans as a “super figure.”
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In fact, however, the mass enthusiasm was perfectly choreographed, for which the Propaganda Ministry had worked out an elaborate “working plan.”
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In an announcement that appeared in the press on July 6, was distributed by the Party organization, and then reinforced by appeals through “house propaganda,”
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Goebbels called on the population to greet Hitler “in our million strong city” with
“unparalleled enthusiasm.” “In a few hours the city will be a sea of flags. […] At 12 o’clock midday factories and shops will close. […] The workers of Berlin will march in closed ranks to the road along which the Führer will drive from the Anhalt Railway Station […] to the Reich Chancellery. No one will want to stay at home, everybody will want to be swept along by the terrific enthusiasm that this afternoon will fill our beloved Reich capital.”
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The
Völkischer Beobachter
’s report on this spectacle reveals further details of how it was organized: During the night, eight thousand people worked to decorate the streets that Hitler was going to drive down the following day. The walls of the houses were garlanded, flag poles erected, and additional poles fixed to the roofs. In the early morning the Party units that were being deployed to control the crowds marched into the city center and were followed at 10 o’clock by the Hitler Youth and League of German Girls (Bund Deutscher Mädel, BDM), who were assigned to fill the front rows of the spectators.

The fact that factories and shops closed at 12 o’clock did not mean that employees had a free afternoon; on the contrary, they were shepherded en masse to particular points: The
Völkischer Beobachter
described how in the early afternoon the workers marched out of their work places in long processions. But it was not only the workers who were being dragooned: The Propaganda Ministry’s instructions stated that “the population will assemble along the road designated for the celebration in accordance with a special plan; the celebratory stretch is to be divided into assembly sections and sub-sections, which will invariably be filled via a side street.”
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Anyone who thought they could escape the celebration was informed by the press that on that day the transportation company had canceled schedules to local vacation destinations and the swimming pools would be closed until the evening.

Photos of the event show flower-bedecked streets, indeed a carpet of flowers on which Hitler’s Mercedes drove to the Reich Chancellery. But this sea of flowers was not a product of the spontaneous enthusiasm of the “national comrades” but rather was the result of good organization. The flowers had been ordered from the Berlin Allotments’ Association.
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The
Völkischer Beobachter
reported on their distribution as follows: “Large trucks arrive at every street corner full to the brim with the most magnificent flowers. Crowds of
BDM girls and Hitler Youth stand ready to spread these flowers over the road minutes before the Führer’s arrival providing him with a unique kilometer-long carpet of flowers.”
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Hitler was expected around 3 o’clock in the afternoon at the Anhalt Station. Goebbels described the scene in his diary, absolutely carried away by the spectacle organized by his department: “Within an hour of my announcement Berlin is on the move. When I arrive at the Wilhelmstrasse in the morning it is already full of people. So they are going to wait six hours for the Führer. […] Then the Führer arrives. A storm of applause fills the station. The Führer is very moved. He has tears in his eyes. Our Führer! Ride through the streets to the Chancellery. It is impossible to describe the huge enthusiasm of a happy people. The Führer rides over nothing but flowers. Our people, our wonderful people!”
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Credit 21.1

On October 21, 1940, Goebbels inspects houses destroyed in the air war. The first air raids on Berlin in 1940, which caused comparatively little damage, were used as the pretext for the Blitz on London.

After Hitler’s July 19 “peace offer” to Britain—his “appeal that even Britain should come to its senses”
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—was rejected, there was a lengthy phase when Goebbels received little information about Hitler’s political and military ambitions. He was only on the periphery of the soundings taken by Hitler as to whether it might be possible to form a European alliance aimed against Britain. By contrast he learned nothing about the alternative plan that was increasingly taking shape in Hitler’s mind of attacking the Soviet Union in order not only to
eliminate the Bolshevist arch-enemy but also to crush Britain’s last potential ally on the continent.

During the remaining summer months, unburdened by such far-reaching strategic calculations going on behind his back, Goebbels concentrated entirely on the main task assigned to him by Hitler: Providing the accompanying propaganda for the air offensive that was designed to force Britain to surrender. The watchword that Goebbels gave to his staff in this new round of the conflict with Britain was: “Don’t attack the people, attack the plutocracy. […] In the process spread panic, suspicion, and horror.”
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On July 24 Hitler told Goebbels that he was planning to launch massive air raids on Britain.
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But at first the dictator hesitated. Final attempts to put out “feelers” to Britain via third-party states failed.
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On August 4 Hitler summoned Goebbels to the Reich Chancellery: “He has decided to get tougher. Large-scale air raids on England impending. Accompanied by a barrage of propaganda to the English people that I’m to prepare and carry out.”
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British air defenses were to be tested by major air raids combined with long-range guns based on the Channel coast. If the losses proved too much, the raids would be broken off and “new approaches would be tried.” But the dictator made it quite clear to his propaganda minister: “No invasion planned,” although propaganda should encourage fears of invasion by dropping hints “in order to confuse the enemy.”
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The dictator’s continued hesitation and poor weather ensured that the attack would once again be postponed.
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Goebbels recorded the events of the next few days in minute detail: After the first major air battles over the Channel, from August 11 onward the Luftwaffe increasingly focused on targets in Britain. On August 13 the first big raid, which had been long in planning, was launched with almost 1,500 aircraft sorties and, over the following days, it was continued on a massive scale.
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However, the German plans were increasingly hampered by fog and poor weather; large-scale raids could be resumed only toward the end of the month.
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The flip side of the coin was the advent of increased British raids on the Reich. After German squadrons had bombed residential areas in the East End of London, according to Goebbels an air raid warning lasting four hours on August 24 had put “the whole of Berlin in a state of turmoil” without the bombs causing significant damage.
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Two days later, twelve British planes turned up over the city and dropped several bombs, causing ten fatalities.
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On September 5, after further British raids, he learned from Hitler: “The Führer is fed up and has now permitted London to be bombed at will.”
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In the meantime, a ring of antiaircraft batteries had been established around Berlin that promised to provide improved protection from further retaliatory attacks.
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In September, in response to the reports from London (“frightful,” “an inconceivably huge inferno”), Goebbels had reached the conclusion that Britain would soon capitulate: “A city with 8 million people can’t cope with that for long.”
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He was already busy setting up a propaganda unit for London.
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Goebbels now gave instructions for propaganda to make more of the attacks on Berlin: “Make a huge thing of it in order to provide us with moral alibis for our massive raids on London.”
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Now German newspapers increasingly carried pictures of and reports on the destruction of civilian targets. On September 12, for example, the
Völkischer Beobachter
reported that “national monuments, hospitals, and residential areas” were the targets of the British air pirates. “We shall take revenge for that,” the paper reassured its readers.
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On September 23, during his midday visit to Hitler, Goebbels learned that an invasion was impossible without “absolute command of the air,” and “at the moment there was no question of that.”
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In fact, a few days earlier Hitler had postponed Operation Sea Lion, as the ambitious plan to invade Britain was called, indefinitely.
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On September 26 or 27 Hitler instructed Bormann to see to the evacuation of children from cities under threat from air raids. This directive launched the Extended Children’s Evacuation Program. What was in reality an evacuation to prepare for air war was portrayed as merely an extension of the program already in operation for improving children’s health by sending city children to the countryside.
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In Berlin an early announcement by the National Socialist Welfare Organization responsible for the program caused concern: The population gained the impression that the children were to be compulsorily removed from their parents, which was not in fact intended. Goebbels was concerned about the alarm provoked in the population. Initially he tried to reassure people by launching a big campaign by the Party and then made an announcement in the press. The whole
affair showed how worried the population was about the air war, which was only just beginning.
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The unrest among the Berlin population was also due to the fact that the city administration had been in a bad state for a long time. Goebbels, as its power-hungry Gauleiter, was not prepared to tolerate a strong personality at the head of the city government. In 1933 he had appointed his old colleague on
Der Angriff
, Julius Lippert, as “state commissioner” to control the city administration. Despite his considerable doubts about Lippert’s capabilities
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(among other things, he called him “old sleepyhead,” “puppet”)
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in 1936 Goebbels had agreed to appoint him to succeed Heinrich Sahm, Berlin’s German nationalist Oberbürgermeister (mayor), who had stepped down the previous year. A law of December 1936 had combined Lippert’s position—in the meantime he called himself “City President”—with the office of Oberbürgermeister. The law permitted Goebbels as Gauleiter of Berlin to be consulted before decisions of “fundamental importance” were made, in other words a right to intervene that was not defined in concrete terms.
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However, even with his increased authority, Goebbels was still not content with Lippert. In August 1938 the tension between them reached a high point: In a long conversation Goebbels endeavored to make clear to him “all the mistakes and omissions that had been made in Berlin,” but Lippert, “a real numbskull with the stature of a Mecklenburg village mayor,” simply would not listen. Goebbels pondered whether he ought to appoint a commissioner with special powers above Lippert.
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During the following months he continued to express dissatisfaction with Lippert as well as with his deputy Gauleiter, Artur Görlitzer.
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But he did not want to dismiss them; he was presumably happy with the fact that the city and Gau administrations were both headed by relatively weak figures.

During the course of 1940, however, his criticism of Lippert increased. In May 1940 he issued “severe reproaches” to Lippert for “Berlin’s disorganization.” Above all, Goebbels was annoyed with the “unpleasant lines in front of shops,” which had to be avoided at all costs.
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The public image of the capital must on no account be marred by the shortages caused by the war. Finally, after a long period of in-fighting
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Hitler accepted Lippert’s resignation.
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Goebbels and Hitler now considered whether once again to separate the two combined functions of City President and Oberbürgermeister. But what
“significant figure” could stay the course with Goebbels as Gauleiter? For the time being Goebbels and Hitler were unable to find a solution to this problem.
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And so for several years Bürgermeister Ludwig Steeg, Lippert’s deputy, officiated as acting Oberbürgermeister and City President.