Goebbels: A Biography (88 page)

Goebbels, however, knew only too well that retaliation propaganda would be insufficient on its own to transform the popular mood. As in the previous year, by renewing the proclamation of “total war” he was banking on sending out a signal to try to mobilize the whole population and thereby gear the public sphere in the Third Reich to the grave wartime conditions. In the middle of July he interpreted the generally very pessimistic reports on the public mood as a “cry for total war,” which he ascribed above all to a speech he had made in Breslau on July 7 as well as to his most recent newspaper articles.
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As in the previous year, in his struggle for the introduction of tougher measures for “total war” Goebbels turned for support to the armaments minister, Speer. On the evening of July 10 he had a long conversation
with Speer. Afterward he noted that the armaments minister also thought that “the German people were capable of providing another few million workers and soldiers.”
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Speer and Goebbels agreed that each would send a memorandum to Hitler.

On the following day Speer gave Goebbels a memorandum, which he had already submitted to Hitler on June 30 and in which he had described the catastrophic effects of the Allied air raids on the German hydrogenation plants.
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On July 12 Speer showed Goebbels another memorandum, which he sent to Hitler on the same day. In it he requested that Hitler “carry out the total mobilization of the German people for our struggle.” This was to be achieved through the closure of businesses, the mobilization of female labor, the reduction of administrative staff, as well as the screening of the Wehrmacht’s home bases for surplus personnel. The implementation of these measures should not be left to the administration, business, or the Wehrmacht but must be entrusted to “personalities.”
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On July 20 Speer went further and by using concrete figures pointed out that there was “a complete mismatch between the numbers of people who are working productively for the home front and those who are unproductive in that they are simply needed to maintain living standards and the administration.” In order to rectify this mismatch Speer once again recommended a “new personality equipped with full powers.”
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Goebbels thoroughly approved of these ideas.
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Goebbels was also delighted with the film of the launch of an A4 (V-2) rocket shown him by Speer. “One has the impression of being there at the birth of a new world. I can imagine that the A4 will bring about a complete revolution in weapons technology and that future wars will look completely different. […] The A4 as it soars upward is not only an imposing but also an aesthetic sight.”
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Goebbels now set about composing a memorandum of his own in which he tried to acquaint Hitler with his “Ideas for the Total Mobilization of Our National Resources for the Purpose of Achieving Victory through our Weapons.” He concentrated on trying to supplement Speer’s figures with arguments based on mass psychology. Goebbels made the assumption that, because of their unbridgeable differences the enemy coalition was bound to break up. Thus in his view it was vital to get through the next few months. As so often, Goebbels argued that the Reich still possessed “huge resources in men and in her economy” that still had to be exploited.

Goebbels proposed having the Wehrmacht thoroughly investigated by an “outsider” and, in addition, getting the Party to eliminate the “slack” in the administration through a ruthless process of inspection, restricting it to work that was absolutely essential. “For every task that needed to be undertaken” Hitler should grant “the widest possible powers to a man whom he could trust and to one of these men the job of coordinating these plans and then, with all those involved, bringing them to you for approval.”

Goebbels did not forget to include a few examples in his memorandum illustrating in a particularly graphic way the “slack in the administration,” and it is not surprising that he used the behavior of his archenemies, Rosenberg and Ribbentrop, whom he accused of providing entirely superfluous competition for his Propaganda Ministry.

The memorandum concluded with a lengthy section that could be headed “personal matters” and which was a kind of résumé of his almost twenty-year-long relationship with Hitler. He had been loyal to Hitler during the critical situation in 1932. He was well aware that during the past two decades, particularly during 1938–39, he had “caused Hitler some concern” about his private life, and he now wanted to repay his “generosity and kindheartedness.” It was not “personal ambition” that was motivating him, and his “political ambition” was focused “entirely on the practical issues at stake.” Toward the end of the memorandum he wrote that when he was with his family in Lanke it was entirely clear to him that “not only I but also all my family could never live in a time that was not our time.”
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A few days before he sent off the memorandum a meeting of state secretaries had taken place at which Speer’s proposals had been discussed. Naumann informed Goebbels about the upshot of the meeting, reporting that it had basically amounted to an attempt to continue the work of the Committee of Three. “The same gentlemen who during the discussions of the Committee of Three criticized and torpedoed my proposals will have no right to decide anything on the question of total war; they must resign and make way for more tough-minded people.”
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In July Goebbels was so busy with the conduct of the domestic side of the war that he even considered the heavy air raid on Munich during this month, which caused two thousand deaths,
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primarily as a positive indication of the movement toward total war. On July 14 he
wrote that it was “perhaps necessary for the capital of the movement to make this sacrifice so that every single member of the Party leadership comes to his senses.” He was not too upset by the destruction of the Party court and its organization department since “the war could be won without these two offices.” The Artists’ House, one of Hitler’s favorite haunts in Munich, was burned out. This was “sad, but as far as the attitude prevalent in this house is concerned it isn’t in the least sad.”

According to his own account, Goebbels received news of the assassination attempt on Hitler by Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg on July 20, 1944, at midday on the same day. He was working in his Berlin office when the Reich press chief, Otto Dietrich, brought him the news and told him that Hitler had received only minor injuries. At this time, however, it was not clear what lay behind the attack.
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In particular, Goebbels had no idea that it represented the start of an attempted coup.

That afternoon Lieutenant Hans Wilhelm Hagen, a ministerial official who was serving with the Grossdeutschland regiment, contacted Goebbels to say that his battalion was in the process of sealing off the government district; Hitler was dead and the Wehrmacht had received the order to take over full powers. Hagen and the officer in command of the regiment, Major Otto Ernst Remer, were suspicious of this order and, to make sure, had therefore decided to contact Goebbels.
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The suspicions of Remer and Hagen were justified. In fact, after the bomb attack in the Führer headquarters by Colonel Stauffenberg, the military conspiracy planned to set in motion Operation Valkyrie, which had been designed to deal with emergencies. The Reserve Army was to take over power in the Reich in order to prevent potential unrest. Only a small group of senior officers within the Reserve Army was privy to the plot; the majority of officers and men were to be used by the plotters without being aware of the political background to the events in which they were involved.

Hagen was admitted to see Goebbels around 5:30
P.M
. It was only then that Goebbels became aware that the assassination attempt in the Wolf’s Lair was part of a comprehensive coup. He asked Hagen to
fetch his commander, Remer; in the meantime, having spoken to Hitler on the telephone, he had discovered that the assassination attempt had been carried out by Stauffenberg, the chief of staff of the Reserve Army.

When Remer arrived at the Propaganda Ministry after 7:00
P.M.
, he was still unaware what role he and his troops were playing in the dramatic events that were taking place that day. For in the meantime he had learned that Goebbels’s arrest had been ordered as part of the purge going on in the government district. Was Goebbels part of a coup that was in progress, or was the action also directed against him as one of the most important representatives of the regime? His encounter with Goebbels soon clarified matters. Goebbels agreed to arrange for him to speak to Hitler on the telephone; Hitler then informed him about the background to the assassination attempt and ordered him to crush the coup in Berlin. Remer thereupon ordered his battalion to assemble in the garden of Goebbels’s official villa, where Goebbels addressed the soldiers. After that some of these troops took part in the occupation of the Bendlerblock (War Ministry), the headquarters of the plot. The plotters were arrested, and four officers, including Stauffenberg, were shot on the spot.

However, at this point the coup had already failed, even if Goebbels later tried to dramatize his own role in the affair.
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What was decisive was the fact that Hitler had not been killed. An additional factor was the hesitation of the conspirators. By waiting for Stauffenberg to arrive in Berlin in the afternoon and only then issuing the order for Operation Valkyrie, they gave the Führer’s headquarters the opportunity to launch countermeasures.
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From Goebbels’s point of view the attempted coup had occurred at a very opportune moment. Who after July 20 could now seriously oppose the measures for “total war” that he and Speer were demanding? Thus he was convinced that “the general crisis will lead rather to a strengthening than a weakening of German resistance,”
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and in this he was proved right. The winners from the July 20 crisis were those who had been advocating a radical course in the conduct of the war: Himmler, Bormann, Speer, and Goebbels himself. Himmler had already
been appointed commander of the Reserve Army on July 20 and had been given the task of surveying the Wehrmacht in order to assign as many men as possible to frontline duty. Bormann had also been instructed by Hitler on July 20 to “issue the necessary orders […] to ensure total engagement in the war” by the Party.
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In Goebbels’s view, the meeting that set the agenda for this issue, which took place in the Reich Chancellery on July 22, went “exactly along the lines that I wanted.” Lammers began by acknowledging the work of the Committee of Three, whose effectiveness had nevertheless been limited by the personal interventions of individual ministers with Hitler. Goebbels was somewhat surprised that Lammers then proposed that “now substantial powers should be granted to individuals”: to Himmler to “reform the Wehrmacht” and to Goebbels “to reform the state and to reform our public life.”
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Goebbels then spoke for an hour about his program for “total war.” At the end of his speech he announced that he was willing “to take on the responsibility if I am given the necessary powers.” Once again he was surprised when Keitel gave him unqualified support, declaring that he was prepared to transfer responsibilities in the military sphere to Himmler. He was also supported by Bormann but with certain qualifications. Finally, Goebbels got his way with his proposal that they should go and see Hitler on the following day and propose that “he must grant wide-ranging powers covering, on the one hand, the Wehrmacht and on the other the state and public life.” The obvious candidates for these comprehensive powers were: “Himmler for the Wehrmacht and me for the state and public life.” Bormann was to have comparable powers for the Party, while Speer already had sufficient powers in the armaments sector. According to Goebbels, these decisions had created what was “virtually a wartime dictatorship on the home front.”

Goebbels then met Hitler; it was the first time since the coup attempt. He was “deeply moved” by the greeting he received: “I have the feeling that I’m standing in front of someone who is working under the protection of the hand of God.” To begin with Hitler showed him the damaged barracks in which the assassination attempt had taken place and explained that he was determined “to exterminate the whole clan of generals who have been working against us root and branch.” Goebbels was delighted. He saw a purge coming such as the Party had gone through during the “time of struggle”
because of Strasser and Stennes. He was “concerned,” however, about the fact that “the Führer has gotten very old” and is making “a really frail impression.” On the other hand, he was the “greatest historical genius of our time. With him we shall be victorious or with him we shall die as heroes.”

On July 23 the decisive meeting with Hitler, to which Goebbels attributed “historical significance,” took place in the Führer’s headquarters. To begin with, Hitler dismissed some misgivings from Göring, who, conscious of his status as Reich marshal, felt marginalized in view of the far-reaching reforms proposed. Then Hitler addressed the basic issues raised by “total war.” Goebbels was pleased to note that Hitler’s line of argument was very similar to that contained in his memorandum of July 18, 1944, which, according to Goebbels, the “Führer” had evidently “studied […] diligently.”

After Hitler’s statement Goebbels in a long presentation once more outlined his ideas on “making the war a total war.” Hitler then supported the points he had made and, Goebbels noted, shook him “very warmly” by the hand. Hitler then left the meeting. When it came to approving the final draft, Göring dug in his heels. He declared that if the draft was signed off in its present form, he would be “more or less forced to resign.” Goebbels, who continued to believe that Göring’s authority must be sustained at all costs because he realized that Hitler did not yet want to dismiss him, proposed a compromise. The “Führer’s Edict for Total War” that was signed two days later stated that Göring would recommend to Hitler a “Reich Plenipotentiary for Total War,” a pure formality since it was clear that there was only one candidate for the position: Joseph Goebbels. This Reich Plenipotentiary was assigned the task of examining “the whole of the state apparatus […] with the aim of freeing up the maximum amount of manpower for the Wehrmacht and the armaments industry through a completely rational deployment of men and equipment, by closing down or restricting activities that are of marginal importance for the war effort and through a rationalization of organization and procedures.” He was authorized to request information from the responsible supreme Reich authorities and issue them with instructions.

A careful perusal of the edict, however, shows that the powers of the Reich Plenipotentiary to direct the authorities were by no means total. The edict even included the right of appeal against his “instructions”;
the issuing of “legal provisions and fundamental administrative regulations” in the sphere of total war was reserved to the supreme Reich authorities and the formula stating that Bormann would support these measures “by deploying the Party” made it clear that Goebbels’s powers did not apply to the Party.
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Lammers then subsequently issued a list of those agencies to which the instructions of the Plenipotentiary did not apply.
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Goebbels, however, tended to ignore such niceties. On the evening of July 23 he believed he had reached his goal. “I can leave the Führer’s headquarters having achieved what is probably the greatest success of my life.”
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The fact that he had achieved this “success” in a situation in which, by means of a final effort, the Nazi leadership was seeking to avert a catastrophic defeat was, characteristically for Goebbels, of secondary importance.