EVEN though his stiff face was calm, Dr. Joseph Goebbels is raging. That morning, April 29, 1945, the situation of the city of Berlin was increasingly tense considering the Soviet Union increasingly approached the Führerbunker or bunker in the Reichkanzlei complex (German Chancellery). It was on this day that for the first time Goebbels refused Hitler’s orders.
After attending a breakfast “party” Hitler’s marriage with Eva Braun, Goebbels asked Hitler to try to get out of the city of Berlin. Hitler felt compelled to be a captain who had drowned with his ship.
Traudl Junge, Hitler’s personal secretary, still remembers very well when Goebbels entered his room. At that time, Junge was outsourcing the handwriting of Hitler to his typewriter.
“Suddenly Goebbels entered without me noticing. His face looked pale as white as chalk. Tears ran down her cheeks … her usually clear voice trembled. ‘The Führer wants me to get out of Berlin, Miss Junge. I was ordered to lead a new government in the north. But I cannot leave Berlin and the Führer! I am Gauleiter (district head) Berlin and this is my place. “If the Führer dies, my life is meaningless,” Junge was quoted as saying by T. Thacker in Joseph Goebbels: Life and Death.
Goebbels then dictated his will and asked to type Junge. “For the first time in my life, I had to refuse to obey the Führer’s orders. Likewise my wife and children. “My heart cannot leave the Führer alone when he needs it … with my wife, it is better to end life on the Führer’s side,” reads the piece of Goebbels’ will.
The next day, Goebbels also awaited the end of Hitler’s life. From the far end of the door of the room, Goebbels heard himself twice the sound of a gun burst from behind the door. He could only stand stiff when the Führer’s body was taken to the outside courtyard of the bunker to be burned with gasoline. The day after, May 1, 1945, Goebbels with his wife and six children followed the Führer to the afterlife.
Assembling Boy and Devout Catholic
Paul Josep Goebbels, that’s the name given to the baby born Katharina Odenhausen, a German-Dutch crossbreed woman, in Rheydt, a “district” in Mönchengladbach, on October 29, 1897. The fourth child of six siblings lived in a middle-upper family, where his father earned a living as a clerk in a factory.
Citing Goebbels’ information, historian Peter Longerich in Goebbels: A Biography revealed, Goebbels in his childhood became a disease boy. In addition to experiencing problems with his lungs, he has a CTEV (Congenital talipes equinovarus) abnormality on his right foot, making his right leg thicker but shorter than his left leg.
As a result, Goebbels is limping and must always wear special shoes of different sizes. The disorder also made him refused entry to the military when World War II raged. But he was not broken. He remained a devout Catholic young man and was diligent in church.
His parents hope he becomes a priest. However, Goebbels is more fond of literature and world history. Then that was the direction he took when he got the Albertus Magnus Society scholarship and was accepted at Prinzenuniversität (now Bonn University).
A brilliant Goebbels student. He completed his studies at Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg, Albert-Ludwigs Universität Freiburg, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, to Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg. He earned a doctorate after completing a dissertation on the literary figure Wilhelm von Schütz. He chose the topic on the advice of Max Freiherr von Waldberg, a professor of Jewish blood who was his supervisor.
Goebbels did not mind being guided by a Jew because his youth had never been in contact with antisemitic matters. Goebbels’ student period was only filled with greed devouring a variety of books, including books left by Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Rosa Luxemburg, August Bebel, and Gustav Noske.
“But starting in 1924, Goebbels began to fall in love with the charisma of Adolf Hitler. Especially when Hitler sat on the defendant’s chair in February 1924 over the Beer Hall Putsch incident (8-9 November 1923). “His trial became hot news in the newspapers and Goebbels began to build his admiration for Hitler,” Longerich revealed.
Nazi Minion to Death
Out of his admiration, Goebbels regarded Hitler as his mentor when Goebbels chose to go into politics and join the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeitpartei (German Socialist National Workers’ Party) which was popularly known as the Nazis. Goebbels began to become a cadre in December 1924, after Hitler was released from prison.
Goebbels’ first assignment as a cadre was in the office of the secretariat of the Rhine-Ruhr District branch of the Nazi Party under Gauleiter (branch head) Karl Kaufmann and Gregor Strasser. Only two years later he met Hitler for the first time. It happened at the Bamberg Conference, February 14, 1926, where Hitler summoned all party branch heads.
“I really love him … He has a mind that encompasses everything. His thinking is really brilliant. I bow to this great figure, a genius politician, “Goebbels said flatteringly in his diary, quoted by Ian Kershaw in Hitler: A Biography.
During the meeting Hitler also felt Goebbels as an accomplished orator like himself. Hitler then promoted him as Gauleiter Berlin as of August 1926. Since then, Goebbels and Hitler have been inseparable.
Of all the reforms carried out by Goebbels, where he only reported directly to Hitler, there were two things that became the main factors supporting Hitler’s permanence as party leader. First, Goebbels overhauled party membership. As a pilot project, in the Berlin district it leads, Goebbels set membership fees and requires each member to pay again to be able to attend party meetings. That was done to consolidate and clean the party of members who could potentially deflate Hitler. The reshuffle resulted in a reduction in members of the Berlin district from approximately 1,000 to 600 committed members. The step was then followed by all other districts.
Second, Goebbels advised Hitler to film every party parade and Hitler’s speeches. Goebbels saw the film media was booming in Germany at that time. He also predicted the films could later be screened and would reach wider investigators.
Goebbels’ maneuvers helped Hitler’s steps to the throne as chancellor on January 30, 1933. To celebrate Hitler’s reign, Goebbels insisted on the holding of the torch relay in the streets of Berlin which included 60 thousand cadres of Sturmabteilung (SA) and Schutzstel (SS). The grand celebration was broadcast on the radio and filmed.
“But he was disappointed because in the new cabinet formed by Hitler, he was not given the position of minister of culture. The position he coveted. It was only on March 14 that Goebbels was given a position in the newly formed ministry, the State Ministry for Information and Propaganda, “continued Longerich.
With this position Goebbels made grand events like the 1934 Nürnberg Parade which was then filmed by filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl with the title Triumph des Willens. The film even won the Venice Film Festival gold medal in 1935.
With this position, Goebbels also created anti-Semitic doctrines. He began by summarizing a decree related to the boycott of Jewish businesses, signed by Hitler on April 1.
Goebbels also helped move the submission of Germany to host the 1936 Olympics. The global stage could be used as a promotion for the hegemony of the Nazi regime on German soil. That was done in order to cover up a number of Nazi antisemitic doctrines and policies. One of Goebbels’ famous racist policies was to require every Jew to wear the yellow star of David.
Not only the Jews, the Nazi regime also had a clash with the clergy, both from the Catholic Church and Protestants. As a result, many religious people were executed. Protest from Pope Pius XI through his exclusion, “Mit brennender Sorge”, Goebbels replied with a speech before 20,000 Nazi masses in Berlin, May 28, 1937 campaigning that the Catholic Church in both Germany and the Vatican was morally corrupt. Furthermore, Goebbels used his authority to prohibit lectures in the church relating to the criticism of the Nazi regime.
After Hitler began World War II, Goebbels was responsible for censoring all news from the battlefield. Propaganda of victory from the front lines is sure to be news that may be milling about on radio broadcasts.
Entering 1944, when Germany was near defeat, Goebbels initiated the formation of Volksstrum, a kind of paramilitary army, on October 18, 1944. Recruitment at Volksstrum was initially voluntary, but when the Soviet Union began to surround Berlin, all citizens were required to take up arms, regardless of the boy’s runny nose or already. old.
Berlin’s increasingly tense condition in April 1945 made him think that it was impossible for him and his family to live in Germany without Nazism. Goebbels also refused Hitler’s order to get out of Berlin.
On May 1, 1945, Goebbels and his wife, Magda Rietschel, stuffed cyanide capsules to their six children: Helga, Hildegard, Helmut, Holdine, Hedwig, and Heidrun. Then at 20.30, Goebbels and Magda went out to the bunker yard. With a gun in hand, Goebbels shot Magda and then shot himself in the head. Both of their bodies were doused with gasoline and burned by Goebbels aide, Captain Günther Schwägermann, just like Hitler who had gone to the afterlife the day before.
Satoko 