Goebbels: A Biography (85 page)

The situation on the Eastern Front, which in view of the dramatic events in Italy had taken something of a back seat, now at the start of the autumn once more became the focus of Goebbels’s concern. On August 16 the Red Army had begun its operation to re-conquer the Donets Basin in the far south of the front and, on August 26, 1943, it had also begun a big offensive farther north, level with Kursk. In addition, from the beginning of September, there were further attacks in the whole of the Ukraine. As a result Army Group South was forced to retreat to the Dnieper, but the advancing Red Army was able to establish bridgeheads on the west bank.
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In the middle of September the Red Army began a further offensive against Army Group Center and captured Smolensk on September 25.
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To prevent a mood of depression from developing during the autumn, in the middle of September the Party carried out a major propaganda campaign organized by Goebbels and Bormann that was to last for two months. It comprised a “wave of meetings,” the establishment of “discussion squads” and “air raid shelter-discussion squads,” whose job it was to oppose negative rumors and assert the public presence of the Party with demonstrations and marches and similar activities.
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Goebbels, however, regarded with a degree of unease the fact that in the autumn of 1943 in many German cities there would be processions of well-nourished Party functionaries apparently in the best of health and in the prime of life. He spoke of “noncombatant marches” but then suppressed his concerns. In the end he considered the campaign had been a complete success. He was particularly pleased by the “report that everywhere there was a shortage of Party badges. Once again Party comrades are wanting to wear their Party badges in public.” But there was one problem: “Unfortunately at the moment we’re not in a position to produce more of them.”
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On October 6 Goebbels went to another meeting of Reich leaders and Gauleiters in Posen.
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The main item on the agenda was problems connected with the armaments industry. Goebbels was particularly impressed by a speech by Speer, who announced in grand style that he wanted to transfer civilian plants with a total of a million employees to armaments production. This would enable him to withdraw
sufficient young men to form twenty new divisions. “Actually the Speer program will implement the ‘total war’ that I was calling for in my Sportpalast speech in February [!]. Unfortunately at the time this Sportpalast speech did not produce any action.” Goebbels blamed the economics minister, Walther Funk, in particular for this lack of action. Shortly afterward the latter’s position was considerably weakened when SS functionaries took over responsible positions in his ministry.
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After further speeches Himmler spoke at the end about his new tasks. On August 25, as Goebbels had advocated, he had been made Reich interior minister. Goebbels approved of Himmler’s attacks on the Soviet general Andrey Andreyevich Vlasov and on “the attempts by various German agencies to cultivate the Slav race.” Goebbels agreed with Himmler that the Wehrmacht’s efforts to establish volunteer units under Vlasov composed of Soviet POWs was a disastrous idea.
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Finally, Himmler discussed the “Jewish question,” of which, according to Goebbels, he provided “a completely unvarnished and frank picture.” Goebbels’s diary entry covering the Reichsführer’s comments was marked by the same frankness with which Himmler had spoken about the “final solution”: “He is convinced that by the end of the year we can solve the Jewish question for the whole of Europe. He advocates the most radical and toughest solution, namely to exterminate the Jews, the whole lot of them. That is certainly a consistent, albeit brutal solution. For we must take on the responsibility for ensuring that this issue is resolved in our time. Later generations will certainly not have the courage and obsession to tackle this problem in the way we can now.”
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Late in the evening they went to the headquarters, where on the following day as usual Hitler spoke to his senior functionaries. Goebbels ensured that the text of his address was given to the press in the form of a long communiqué. It stated that the dictator had spoken “frankly” and in “unvarnished” terms: The whole German nation knew that it was a matter of life and death. They had burned their bridges behind them. Their only alternative was to go forward. Ever since Himmler’s speech of the previous day, that was clear to every leading functionary.
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On October 27 Goebbels once again visited Hitler at his headquarters. After Hitler had explained the military situation to him, as always in a very optimistic way, he broached the “key question,” namely: “How do we get out of the two-front war, and is it better to reach a deal with England or with the Soviets?”

In general Hitler believed that it would be possible “to do a deal” with the Soviets “roughly on the basis of 1939 after the Polish campaign. Then we would have the opportunity to sort out the west thoroughly and destroy England, using the Atlantic coast as our base.” Goebbels, on the other hand, argued that it would be more feasible to do a deal with Great Britain and “create space in the east, which is vital for our survival.” Goebbels recognized that they had to “get used to the idea that the big gains that we anticipated from this war can’t be achieved for the time being.” But now was “not the time to begin negotiations,” because they must wait and see “how things develop politically and militarily. […] I have no idea what the Führer’s going to do in the end.”

He told Hitler that he thought that “really we must speak to anybody who wants to talk to us. In fact the Führer is not totally averse to this idea.” In any event “soon” they would be “at a crossroads” and would then be forced to decide to go “one way or the other.” Although, Goebbels concluded, Hitler was “still very skeptical about all these options,” as far as he was concerned what was vital was that the dictator had talked through the problems “openly and frankly” and had brought him into his “confidence as a trusted adviser.”

During his stay at headquarters and over the following days and weeks Goebbels followed up the issue of peace that he had raised with Hitler. On October 27 he learned from Walther Hewel, Hitler’s liaison with the Foreign Ministry, that “in reality Ribbentrop could be won over for either option.” Two days later he discovered from Werner Naumann, who had been talking to Gustav Adolf Steengracht, the state secretary at the Foreign Ministry, that Ribbentrop wanted to contact the Pope, who had himself indicated an urgent willingness to talk because he feared that “Bolshevism was going to spread throughout Europe.”
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A few days later Goebbels also concurred with Himmler that “in this war we must use not only military
but also political means.” Himmler complained about the “complete lack of flexibility in foreign policy and strongly criticized Ribbentrop.” Goebbels was aiming to win a new ally.
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At the end of November he also learned that Bormann was very concerned about German foreign policy but evidently did not believe that Hitler “could be persuaded to part with his foreign minister.” In any case “if that happens” Ribbentrop would “not be in a position to negotiate with either London or Moscow.”
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However, after all these soundings Goebbels was no further forward. It appears that it was not until June 1944 that Goebbels had the opportunity of raising the issue of a separate peace with Hitler. The dictator was well aware of the fact that, in view of the military situation, neither the western Allies nor the Soviet Union would be in the least bit interested in negotiating an end to the war with him.

After Operation Citadel had been abandoned, the military situation on the Eastern Front was dominated by the Wehrmacht’s retreat in all sectors; during the autumn and winter of 1943 German troops had to fight a series of defensive battles against the advancing Red Army.
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Goebbels believed that the depressing reports continually arriving from the Eastern Front offered him the opportunity of getting people used to the situation. He did not consider that the public mood was in permanent decline but interpreted the reports he received as indicating that the mood was stabilizing at a low level; above all, he detected a “great seriousness” and a “very firm and manly spirit.”
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His diary entry of November 12, 1943, is particularly revealing of the way in which the negative mood was prevented from having an impact: “The continual grumbling has been sharply reduced since we have been passing death sentences on defeatists, which we have carried out and publicized.”

After all, there was not an immediate threat of military defeat. The battles were continuing to take place hundreds of miles from the German borders, and the Red Army was not succeeding in cutting off and encircling German troops in large numbers. The argument widely used in German propaganda that they had won so much territory
in the east that they could afford to give up large amounts of it for operational reasons appeared to make a certain sense.

The main concern in the winter of 1943–44 was a different one: the unprecedented extent to which Berlin was being bombed. The British air offensive against the capital began at the end of 1943. Between November 1943 and March 1944 the RAF took part in a total of sixteen major raids on Berlin. On November 18, during the first of these raids, 143 people died and over 500 houses were destroyed. “If the English continue carrying them out in the same way, they won’t be able to achieve much,” noted Goebbels.
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But during the following days three more raids occurred with far more devastating consequences. On November 22, 23, and 26 over 3,700 people were killed, and 8,700 buildings were destroyed.
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On the evening of November 22 Goebbels was surprised by an air raid as he was attending a Party meeting in Steglitz. He immediately went to the “command bunker” at Wilhelmplatz that he had established only a few days before
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as a base from which to direct “our defensive battles for the Reich capital.” The journey there turned out to be quite dramatic: “There are fires burning everywhere; the streets are blocked, bombs and mines keep falling, in fact it really feels like being in a war zone.”
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Among the buildings hit during this night were the Foreign Ministry, the Reich Chancellery, and the ministries of transportation, finance, and agriculture. Goebbels’s house in the Göringstrasse was also on fire. Numerous theaters had been hit, and many large cinemas had burned down.
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On the following evening, the city was, in Goebbels’s words, still “on fire” and the sky “blood red” when there was a further “major first-class raid.”
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Goebbels experienced it in his “command bunker” in Wilhelmstrasse. “A truly hellish noise is going on above us. Mines and explosives are continually raining down on the government quarter. The most important buildings are starting to burn one after the other.” The Propaganda Ministry was also hit, and it took hours to bring the fire under control.

Goebbels responded with tireless activity, just as he had to the series of raids in August and the beginning of September. His report creates the impression that he was entirely responsible for the measures being taken to limit the damage. Writing about the situation in heavily populated housing districts, he noted: “I quickly organize the evacuation of the population from the area and deploy large numbers
of fire engines.”
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In another section of the same entry he reports: “I have to go to great lengths to get the traffic moving again.” “The Wehrmacht willingly adopts my plans and within 24 hours is prepared to put 2½ divisions, the equivalent of 50,000 men, at my disposal.” And: “I dictate a message to the population of Berlin in which I give expression to the feelings which are now in the hearts of everyone. […] The message is to be distributed in millions of leaflets to the welfare centers and will appear in the Berlin press.”

In fact Goebbels was responsible neither for the actual air defense measures nor for the reestablishment of public life after air raids. Firefighting, rescue, and recovery work were the responsibility of the police, the Reich Air Defense League, and the fire service; the reinstatement of essential services and transportation was the task of the municipal authorities and the Reich railways. By contrast, Goebbels’s task was to use the Party organization to help provide immediate assistance for the civilian population and, crucially as far as he was concerned, to subject those affected to propaganda. By intervening everywhere, tirelessly encouraging people to act, putting pressure on the authorities, and pushing the Party into the foreground on top of that, in the hectic atmosphere of these days he perceived himself to be omnipotent.

On November 26 the third raid in the series occurred, which this time focused mainly on the northern suburbs. During this period he reiterated that in his encounters with those who had been affected by bombing he had found “the attitude of the Berlin population toward me beyond praise.” He noted various experiences which confirmed this impression: “I take some of the women from the aid centers with me and have them brought to the east, which they can’t reach on normal public transportation. They’re delighted. By making a few small friendly gestures to these people one can wrap them around one’s little finger.”
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By continuing to try to convince himself that the population admired him and was maintaining its morale, he was not only satisfying his insatiable hunger for recognition but at the same time providing propaganda with a leitmotif: The nation, which Nazism had welded together into a community of struggle, was discovering that its sense of solidarity was increasing as a result of the efforts involved in fighting the war.

All these measures had the effect of raising the Party’s profile. It dominated the scene in the parts of the city that had been affected.
Goebbels insisted that it must appear more “in uniform in public because many people believe that what’s being done for them is being carried out by the city administration.”
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Goebbels had two hundred Party functionaries who were proven good speakers brought to Berlin so that they could speak in the aid centers and in the provisional mass accommodation that had been created.
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At the beginning of December he brought around a thousand full-time Party functionaries from the neighboring Gaus to the city to support the Party’s aid and propaganda measures.
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Goebbels placed great emphasis on propaganda, continuing to stress the unbroken morale of the population that had been badly affected by the air war. On November 28 Goebbels spoke at a rally organized by the Hitler Youth in the Titania Palace, which had survived the bombing: “The speech is surrounded with a solemn, heroic ceremonial that will undoubtedly be very impressive for the radio broadcast. My speech is just right. When I get to the key sentences the audience breaks into loud applause. It almost looks as if we had devised this whole scenario in order to impress the English.”
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Goebbels was of course fully aware that this was the whole point of the occasion. On the following day the
Völkischer Beobachter
report carried the headline “The Whole of Germany Is Calling for Revenge!” on its front page.
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Goebbels’s vigorous activity in Berlin and the fact that he had kept approaching Hitler about matters to do with the air war now began to pay off. On November 25 Goebbels noted that “based on my Berlin experiences” Hitler had given him the task of establishing an “Inspectorate for Air War Damage” under his command. “This inspectorate has the task of visiting all areas in which air raids have not yet occurred and checking the measures that have been taken to deal with them.”
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Four weeks later Hitler signed a Führer edict ordering the inspection of “all measures that have been taken at local level to prepare for, prevent, and assist with aerial war damage” and to involve the relevant agencies.
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Since the air war was increasingly becoming the main issue in domestic policy, Goebbels had thereby acquired an instrument enabling him to intervene in matters affecting a whole range of aspects of life in the individual Gaus.

Hitler appointed Albert Hoffmann, the Gauleiter of Westphalia-South, as his deputy rather than, as Goebbels had wanted, the Cologne
Gauleiter, Josef Grohé, whom Hitler envisaged for other tasks. Instead, Goebbels appointed Berndt (alongside his function as coordinator of the Air Raid Damage Committee) to be “secretary” of the new inspectorate. At the beginning of January 1944 three expert committees were created, which were to visit the Gaus.
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In December four more air raids on Berlin occurred, which together resulted in over a thousand deaths.
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Toward the end of the year Goebbels summarized the effects of the air war on the Reich: Up until then there had been ninety-eight thousand deaths, and around one million homes had been destroyed, about 4 percent of the total. “If the English carry on the air war in the same way they will have to go on for years if they really want to hurt us.”
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He spent Christmas Eve alone in Schwanenwerder: “This year it’s a sad Christmas, which I don’t want to spend outside the city with the family in Lanke.”
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The RAF continued its raids on Berlin over the New Year vacation. On January 2 and 3, 1944, the city was attacked once more, although losses and damage were limited.
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On January 20 there was a further raid that resulted in over three hundred deaths.
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At the end of January the British launched heavy raids on Berlin over three nights—it was not by chance that they coincided with the eleventh anniversary of the “seizure of power”—and more than 1,500 people died.
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On January 30, 1944, a “gray Sunday” as Goebbels noted, he reminisced “wistfully” about the “happy day” eleven years earlier.
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The prospect of having to experience another heavy raid seriously depressed him. In the middle of the broadcast of Hitler’s speech to mark the January 30 anniversary the air raid warning once again sounded, as a large force of American bombers was on its way. While the Americans peeled off just before reaching the city, there was a further British raid that evening, in Goebbels’s view “one of the heaviest we’ve experienced so far.” Among other buildings the Philharmonie burned down, as well as several theaters, but Goebbels was particularly upset by, on this day of all days, the “loss of our old battleground in the Potsdamer Strasse, the Sportpalast.”

For about a week Goebbels was preoccupied with reestablishing seminormal life in the Reich capital.
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On February 4 he undertook an extensive tour of inspection through the city, mingled with people at an aid center in order once again to note “how friendly and nice,” indeed “extraordinarily grateful” people were to him.
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He wrote an editorial in
Das Reich
on the theme of “The Battle of
Berlin” in which he succeeded in praising the badly hit capital as a “truly socialist community.” He was once more proving that the expression “socialist utopia” that he had used in the 1920s could be applied to anything.
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