Goebbels, Josef (1897–1945),Nazi minister of propaganda from 1933 until he committed suicide in the Führerbunker on 1 May 1945.
Born in the Rhineland town of Rheydt of Catholic working-class parents, Goebbels was awarded scholarships and then a university grant (which he refused to repay until taken to court). After reading for a degree in philology he completed a doctorate at Heidelberg in 1921. He started to write—articles, plays, a novel—but could not find employment. He became involved in politics and soon fell under Hitler's spell. In 1926 he was made Berlin's
Gauleiter, and in 1930 the Nazi Party's propaganda chief, conducting a series of successful election campaigns that led to Hitler becoming Chancellor. It was he who introduced the greeting
Heil Hitler! between party members in Berlin and also the name
Führer, making its use compulsory. It is no exaggeration to say that he created Hitler's public image, not merely as a political leader but also as saviour of his people.
In March 1933 Goebbels entered Hitler's second cabinet to head the new Reich Ministry of Information and Propaganda which was also responsible for the arts. He created the Reich Chamber of Culture (see
Germany, 10) which regulated every aspect of creative life and purged from it anyone who was a Jew or who failed to applaud the Third Reich. This led to the mass emigration of the country's most talented novelists, dramatists, and musicians. But it was as a propagandist for Hitler and
Nazi ideology that Goebbels excelled. He grasped the enormous possibilities of disseminating the Nazi message by radio and saw to it that the manufacture of inexpensive sets was encouraged. He was a brilliant speaker and soon drew huge radio audiences, and in 1935 he began the world's first regular television service, a closed circuit one restricted to Berlin.
Once the war started, Goebbels developed radio propaganda services against Germany's enemies—including the use of American and British broadcasters (see, for example, ‘
Axis Sally’ and
Joyce)—the sweeping victories of the early years greatly simplifying his task. His propaganda machine worked to undermine the morale of Polish and French troops, encouraged the belief that
fifth columnists were at work, and built up the image of generals such as
Rommel. But when he distorted events—such as his version of the sinking of the liner
Athenia—it fooled no one, and as a civilian surrounded by military men, whom he mostly loathed, it seemed early in the war as if his star was on the wane. He turned to making propaganda visits at home and abroad, planning new public projects, and initiating collection drives for the war effort. When the Allied
strategic air offensive against Germany became more intense he toured the towns and cities, organized motorized units which brought relief to their bombed-out populations, and worked on improving the morale of their inhabitants, all of which helped to restore his popularity. And when disaster struck at
Stalingrad in January 1943, he played it up, seeking by such reverses to drive the German people into the ‘total war’ he now advocated.
Goebbels was a victim of his own propaganda; his loyalty to his leader was total. Right to the end he managed to maintain Hitler's public image as a true German who sacrificed himself for the good of his people. After the July 1944 bomb plot to assassinate Hitler (see
Schwarze Kapelle) he acted promptly to control the situation in Berlin by assuming military command of the city. This act of loyalty gave him the power he had long sought and for which he had constantly intrigued. Hitler appointed him ‘Reich Plenipotentiary for Total War’, which made him, after Hitler and
Himmler, the most powerful person in the Third Reich. He introduced the 60-hour week, shut down all forms of entertainment, and raised special battalions from the medically unfit.
In April 1945 he entered the Führerbunker with his family. He witnessed Hitler's marriage to
Eva Braun and was named the Reich Chancellor in Hitler's political testament. But the day after Hitler committed suicide he had his children killed, and he then had his wife and himself shot by an orderly.
Unlike most of the other leaders of the Nazi Party, Goebbels was a man of some intellectual stature. He was unprepossessing in appearance, and suffered from a club foot. Neither stopped him from being a womanizer (one scandalous liaison in the late 1930s threatened his marriage and his career), but his disability embittered him and from it probably stemmed his basic cynicism and contempt for mankind.
Bibliography
Heiber, H. , Goebbels (London, 1973).
Reimann, V. , The Man who Created Hitler (London, 1977).
Trevor-Roper, H. (ed.), The Goebbels Diaries: The Last Days (London, 1978).
