Goebbels: A Biography (94 page)

In the meantime the military situation had deteriorated dramatically. At the beginning of March an offensive had been launched in Hungary under Waffen-SS General Sepp Dietrich through which Hitler aimed to regain control of the Hungarian oil fields. By the middle of March, however, it had come to a halt; under pressure from a Soviet counteroffensive the German troops had to withdraw to Austria.
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At the beginning of February the British and American offensive in the northern sector of the Western Front had begun and succeeded in driving the Wehrmacht back over the Rhine. On March 7 the Americans were unexpectedly able to cross the Rhine at Remagen, news that surprised Goebbels so much that at first he considered it “more or less out of the question.” But during the following days it became clear that, while the Americans had succeeded in consolidating
the bridgehead, it did not provide a suitable strategic basis for continuing Allied operations in the German interior.
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It was only two weeks later that Goebbels received the next terrible news from the Western Front: the Americans’ success in crossing the Rhine near Darmstadt on March 22 and the British advance over the Rhine near Wesel on March 24.
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It was now, he noted despondently “a question of whether we can hold the Rhine”; the war in the west had “entered its decisive phase.”
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But the following day he was already confidently predicting that “we shall succeed once again in placing a barrier somewhere in the way of the eastward march of the English and Americans.”
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In the meantime the air war, which according to Goebbels’s information had already cost 253,000 deaths,
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was continuing relentlessly. The final raids on Berlin in February and March caused another thousand deaths.
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On March 13 the Propaganda Ministry was at last destroyed in a Mosquito raid.
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Goebbels noted in short diary entries the total destruction of the cities of Würzburg on March 15 and Hildesheim on March 22, both of which had hitherto been spared raids, commenting resignedly: “The consequences of the air war can no longer be recorded in detail.”
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On March 14 Speer, who had just returned from a trip to western Germany, had already informed him on the basis of his impressions there that “economically speaking the war was more or less lost.”
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On the following day Speer was to express this negative view in a memorandum he presented to Hitler on March 18. Goebbels agreed with Speer on March 14 that a policy of “scorched earth” should be rejected, for “if the food supplies and economic lifeline of the German people are to be cut off, then that can’t be our job; that must be the enemy’s job.”
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Hitler responded to Speer’s memorandum with the “Nero order” of March 19 in which he ordered that all “military, transportation, communications, industrial, and supply facilities as well as all material resources within the territory of the Reich that the enemy can use for the continuation of their struggle, either now or in the foreseeable future,” should be destroyed.
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A few days later Hitler informed Goebbels of his intention to replace Speer with his state secretary, Karl-Otto Saur. Hitler explained: “Speer is more of an artist type. He’s very good at organization, but he’s politically inexperienced and too untrained to be absolutely reliable during this critical period.” He
could not accept Speer’s statement that he was “not prepared to lend a hand in cutting off the German people’s lifeline.”

As so often in the past, Goebbels immediately adopted Hitler’s line and opposed Speer’s standpoint: “It’s absolute nonsense to claim that we ought not to accept responsibility for destroying our war potential. […] We must take the responsibility for it and must prove ourselves worthy of it.”
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Speer protested vehemently against this course of action, and Goebbels learned that, at the end of the month, during “a very dramatic confrontation” and with his dismissal appearing imminent, he succeeded in persuading Hitler decisively to modify the Nero order of March 19 by issuing an additional order. Now it was no longer a question of destroying but rather of temporarily paralyzing infrastructure and industry, and Speer was now made responsible for implementing all of these measures.
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The conflict led to an irreparable breach between Hitler and his armaments minister. Goebbels had used the conflict to make it clear to Hitler that, in contrast to Speer, he unreservedly supported his policy of either/or. In one of his frequent conversations with Hitler, he also made clear in a similar manner that he had differences with Bormann. For “as far as the radicalization of our conduct of the war is concerned, [Bormann] has not done what I expected of him.” Both Bormann and Speer were “too bourgeois.[…] But now the revolutionaries must take over. I make this point to the Führer, but the Führer tells me that he’s got very few of those at his disposal.”
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Moreover, in the course of several tête-à-têtes with Hitler, Goebbels had learned that Himmler, who for a few weeks had taken over command of Army Group Vistula, which in fact existed largely on paper, had been discredited by his military failure. Hitler accused him of “blatant disobedience,” and Goebbels appears to have done nothing to try to defend the Reichsführer.
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On the contrary, after a further conversation with Hitler on March 31 he noted what was for him the decisive point. Hitler had told him that he had “allowed himself to be talked into it by Keitel, Bormann, and Himmler, and he hadn’t done what was necessary, and I am the only one who has been right all along, which the Führer freely admits.”

During this last phase of the war Goebbels evidently placed great stock in distancing himself in Hitler’s eyes from his former allies, Speer, Himmler, and Bormann, the men with whose help Hitler had
established the “wartime dictatorship on the home front.” As far as he was concerned, Göring was already finished.

Finally, his old rival for control of the press was also removed. At the end of March Hitler decided to suspend the Reich press chief, Dietrich, according to Goebbels because of his complaint about the former’s work. He recorded the deposing of his rival with grim satisfaction: “Dr. Dietrich is an absolute weakling who’s not up to the present crisis.” And he determined to “rapidly purge the press department of obstructive and defeatist elements.” When Dietrich’s longtime colleague Helmut Sündermann tried to court him, he was shown the door. Goebbels issued a slogan for the press instructing it to focus all of its energies on increasing the war effort and strengthening morale.
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At this time the situation on the Western Front was developing very rapidly. On March 27 Goebbels noted a surprising advance by the Americans in the direction of Aschaffenburg; on March 30 they had reached Fulda, and two days later they were close to Kassel and were getting ready to advance into Thuringia. From the end of March 1945, Goebbels, who had long been calling for partisan warfare in the event of the Allies occupying German territory, began to get actively involved in practical aspects of guerrilla warfare. “I’m now,” he wrote, “in the process of organizing the so-called ‘Werwolf Action’ on a grand scale.” This was in fact one of Goebbels’s usual exaggerations. The Werwolf organization that had been established in September 1944 was in fact firmly controlled by Himmler and the SS. Although it did not succeed in producing a guerrilla war behind the Allied lines, it was responsible for a considerable number of assassinations of Allied soldiers and German “collaborators.” Thus, at the end of March members of the Werwolf murdered Franz Oppenhoff, who had been appointed Oberbürgermeister of Aachen by the Allies, and, with the help of some Berlin Party comrades, Goebbels hoped to inflict the same fate on the mayor of Rheydt—the town had been occupied by the Americans on March 1—though without success.
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He was particularly annoyed that the inhabitants of his hometown were cooperating with their new overlords.
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However, his ambitions for an underground struggle went further. At the end of March 1945 he announced that he wanted to get Hitler to transfer the leadership of the Werwolf to him because the SS was not sufficiently systematic and too slow.
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As he was unsuccessful he tried at least to support the Werwolf through propaganda. He personally drafted “an extraordinary revolutionary appeal” for the first program of a Werwolf radio station on the old wavelength of the Deutschlandsender (German Station), which according to his diary was actually broadcast.
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He intended his Werwolf propaganda to unleash once again the old “fighting spirit” that had characterized the first years of
Der Angriff
.
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During this period Goebbels kept trying to boost his morale with memories of that period. One evening he rummaged in old papers and found “a whole lot of reminiscences of the movement’s time of struggle, which gave me hope.” In those days they had kept managing “to turn around even the most difficult situations,” and it will “be the same this time as well.”
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Goebbels had given considerable thought to his decision to stay in Berlin with his family, whatever happened. He had already told Hitler at the end of January that Magda was also determined to stay in Berlin and wanted to have the children with her. Hitler thought this decision was “not right but admirable.”
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A few days later Hitler, who had moved into the Reich Chancellery’s air raid shelter after his living quarters had been destroyed in the air raid of February 3, told Goebbels that he had decided to stay in the capital.
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In his broadcast address of February 28 Goebbels had announced quite frankly that in the event of a defeat he would put an end to his life and that of his close family. If the enemy is victorious he would consider his life “no longer worth […] living, neither for me nor for my children.” What he meant by this strange way of expressing himself was that in that case he, Joseph Goebbels, did not think his children’s lives would be worth living.
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However, as in all important matters affecting the Goebbels family during the past fourteen years, putting this decision into effect required Hitler’s express approval. At the beginning of March Goebbels
once again told Hitler about his plan to stay in Berlin with his family. He noted that “after a certain amount of hesitation” the latter had approved his proposal.
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In the middle of April Goebbels once again publicly confirmed his decision to put an end to his life and that of his family. In an article in
Das Reich
of April 15, “Committing One’s Own Life,” he had posed the rhetorical question: Who after a defeat “could imagine wanting to continue to live in such a situation.”
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The last of the surviving diary entries was on April 10 and contains only a report on the military situation, on which Goebbels did not comment. The report contained the information that in Vienna the Red Army had penetrated as far as the Danube Canal, that the garrison under siege in Königsberg had been reduced to holding a small pocket, while the British were close to Hanover and the Americans were occupying Göttingen. The entry for April 10 was in any case the last that was microfilmed for security purposes, which Goebbels had begun doing in November 1944.
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In March 1941 he had deposited the existing volumes in the vaults of the Reichsbank.
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His last article in
Das Reich
appeared on April 22. He chose the title “Resistance at All Costs.” This war will be decided, he told his readers, “in the very last minute”; apart from that he called for a “people’s war” against the Allied armies, even if this were to result in “heavy casualties.”
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The death of the American president, Franklin D. Roosevelt, on April 15 seemed once again to give Goebbels grounds for great optimism. This might, he speculated, be the event that would lead to the breakup of the enemy coalition.
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But such illusions were soon shattered. On April 16 the Red Army began its attack on Berlin, and the scratch German forces that remained had to prepare to defend the capital.
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On April 19, for the last time, Goebbels gave a radio address to mark Hitler’s fifty-sixth birthday, which was the following day. To begin with, Goebbels used the opportunity to talk about himself and his relationship with the Führer: “For over twenty years I’ve been at the Führer’s side, I’ve participated in his rise and that of his movement from the smallest and most obscure beginnings until the seizure of power and I’ve done my best to give it my support. Sharing joy and sadness with the Führer, I’ve lived through the years 1939 to today, years that have been so rich in victories that were historically unique as well as in terrible setbacks, and I’m still standing by him
since fate is now confronting him and his people with the final and most difficult challenge and will then, and of this I’m sure, present both of us with the laurels.” Goebbels then praised Hitler as the “man of this century,” “the heart of the resistance against world decline”; he was “Germany’s bravest son and the one among us with the strongest will.” He will “follow his path to the end” and lead his people into a “period in which ethnic Germans will blossom as never before.” The address ended with an emotional declaration of loyalty: “Never will history be able to report of this time that a people abandoned its Führer or a Führer abandoned his people.”
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Numerous prominent Nazis assembled in the Reich Chancellery once again to celebrate Hitler’s birthday, but after the celebration major figures such as Göring, Ley, Rosenberg, and Himmler left Berlin.
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On April 21 Soviet artillery began to shell Berlin from Marzahn on the outskirts of the city.
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On this day Goebbels held his last ministerial conference; according to the notes of his personal assistant, he conducted it “in a routine manner.”
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At the military conference on the same day Hitler became very agitated, blaming the failure of his generals and announcing that he had decided to remain in Berlin in order to take over personal direction of the defense of the city.
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Goebbels and others succeeded in calming him down. On the same day Goebbels and his family moved from his Berlin apartment into Hitler’s bunker, taking over a total of five rooms.
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On the following day, April 22, Hitler announced how he envisaged organizing the defense of the city. He ordered the armies of Walther Wenck and Theodor Busse, together with Steiner’s corps, to relieve the city by mounting counterattacks. In fact these were units that had been thrown together, units that no longer possessed any combat strength and had no chance of mounting a successful counterattack against the Red Army.
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On April 22 and 23 Goebbels addressed two appeals to the German people. In the first one he announced that Lieutenant-General Hellmuth Reymann had been appointed to conduct the military defense of Berlin. Goebbels also announced that he, together with his staff, was “of course remaining in Berlin” and his wife and children “are here and will stay here.” In his appeal of April 23 he announced that Hitler too was staying in Berlin and had taken over supreme
command of the defense of the city. The Führer had deployed all available forces “against Bolshevism.”
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On April 23 a radio message came from Göring, who, in the meantime, had arrived in Berchtesgaden. He announced that, unless he received instructions to the contrary, he would in a few hours take over the “overall leadership of the Reich” since this would presumably mean that Hitler had lost his freedom of action. The “Führer” responded with a fit of rage, dismissing Göring from his position as commander-in-chief of the Luftwaffe.
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During the last military conferences Hitler, who still believed that Wenck and the others would succeed in breaking through to him, was clinging to a fantasy: “If I can keep going and hold the capital then perhaps there’s a chance that the English and Americans may decide that in certain circumstances and with the help of Nazi Germany they could still cope with this threat. And I’m the only man capable of doing it.” Goebbels encouraged him in his decision: “If such an idea is at all feasible, then you’re the only one who could bring it off, and you could only do it here. If you leave this city then you will lose everything else.”
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Two days later Hitler returned to this idea. “There are signs of an anti-Russian mood developing, so if we can successfully defend Berlin, then you’ll see that the people who have the necessary broad vision will gain courage in the face of this colossus. These people will then say to themselves: If we work together with Nazi Germany, then we may be able to cope with this colossus.” Goebbels agreed with him: “It would also encourage the other side to do a deal. If Stalin sees the way things are developing among the western states as a result of our successful defense of Berlin, then he’ll say to himself: I’m not going to get the Europe I’m looking for. I’m only uniting the Germans and the English. So I’ll get together with the Germans and reach some sort of deal with them.”
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He added: “If it works, it’s fine. If it doesn’t work and if the Führer were to suffer an honorable death in Berlin and Europe were to become Bolshevik, at the latest within five years the Führer would have become a legend and Nazism a legendary movement because he would have been immortalized by his final magnificent actions and all the human failings for which he is now criticized would be swept away at a stroke.”
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On April 28 Hitler and the bunker community finally realized that they could no longer rely on being relieved from the outside.
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On
the same day the BBC broadcast the news that a few days earlier Himmler had met the Swedish Count Folke Bernadotte in Lübeck and offered to surrender to the western Allies. Hitler was furious about this betrayal by his “loyal Heinrich,” whom he later dismissed from all his offices in his will. Evidently this contributed to his decision to have Himmler’s liaison officer at Führer headquarters, Hermann Fegelein, shot for defeatism.

On the same day Hitler decided to marry his long-standing partner, Eva Braun (she was related to Hermann Fegelein by marriage). The simple ceremony in the bunker took place during the night of April 29 in the presence of a registrar summoned for the purpose. Goebbels and Bormann were witnesses, and afterward there was even a small celebration.
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Goebbels and Bormann were both among the witnesses who signed the two wills that Hitler wrote after the wedding. Among other things they contained Hitler’s appointment of his successors. He named Grand Admiral Dönitz as Reich president and Joseph Goebbels as Reich chancellor.

Goebbels added a postscript to the will stating that he would not follow Hitler’s instructions to leave the capital if Berlin’s defenses collapsed. “For the first time in my life I must categorically refuse to obey an order of the Führer’s. My wife and children join with me in refusing to do so.” “For reasons of humanity and personal loyalty” he could “never bring himself to abandon the Führer in his greatest hour of need.” Moreover, he believed that in doing this he was “acting for the best as far as the future of the German people is concerned for in the difficult times that are approaching models to live up to will be more important than men.” He and his wife were determined not to leave Berlin “and rather to end our lives side by side with the Führer, a life which in any case is of no more value for me if I cannot live it in the Führer’s service and by his side.” This “decision” he was also making for his children, “who are too young to be able to express themselves, but if they were old enough would entirely agree with this decision.”
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It took more than a day, until the afternoon of April 30, before Hitler finally decided to take his own life. He had been forced to face the fact that the reserves he had requested had not managed to break through to Berlin. After saying goodbye to Joseph and Magda Goebbels and the other occupants of the bunker, he withdrew into his private apartment. A few days earlier he had presented Magda with a
golden Party badge.
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Otto Günsche, Hitler’s servant, reported after the war that at this point Magda had wanted to speak to Hitler and urged him to leave Berlin, but the Führer had categorically rejected her request.
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After a few minutes Günsche told those who were waiting that the Führer and Eva Braun had committed suicide. Goebbels, together with some other occupants of the bunker, now entered Hitler’s private room in order to establish that Hitler had in fact died. Shortly afterward he was one of the small group who, standing at the entrance to the bunker, watched Günsche burning the bodies of the recently married couple.
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That sealed the fate of Joseph Goebbels and his family. Twenty-four hours later, after his attempt to start peace negotiations with the Soviet Union had been rejected, Joseph and Magda Goebbels murdered their six children and followed Hitler’s example by committing suicide.
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