Abstract
Toby Thacker, Joseph Goebbels: Life and Death, Palgrave Macmillan: Basingstoke, 2009; 407 pp., 46 illus.; 9780230228894, £25.00 (hbk)
Toby Thacker has written an interesting and provocative biography of the dynamic Nazi Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels. Thacker stresses Goebbels’ close relationship with Adolf Hitler as the Nazis rose to power, his key role as Propaganda Minister during the war, and his surprisingly pivotal involvement in setting the stage for the Holocaust.
With a PhD in literature, Goebbels had far more formal education than any of the other Nazi leaders. Culture, particularly music, film and literature, were his passion, and Thacker describes how Goebbels used his skills as a writer to rise to prominence in the Nazi movement. As his political ideas began to form, he wrote articles and editorials to advocate for the cause. His diaries – 26 volumes in total – constituted another of his major writing projects. Thacker argues that, although Goebbels had no hesitation about lying in his propaganda work, he scrupulously told the truth in his diaries, thus making them a tremendously important source for understanding the man, his hero Adolf Hitler, the Nazi movement, and the era.
During the Nazi drive towards power, Goebbels became a master of the many tools he would use as Propaganda Minister. He worked with Hans Schweitzer who, under the name Mölner, drew cartoons and posters, with Albert Speer to create rallies and parades, and with Leni Riefenstahl on films. Goebbels even used funerals to create martyrs and unify the faithful, most spectacularly in the case of the thug Horst Wessel whom he transformed into a national hero and whose poem he made into a second national anthem.
Thacker describes how Goebbels found his voice and became an enormously successful speaker, second only to Hitler in the Nazi movement. Goebbels particularly liked speaking to hostile audiences and, although small and with a deformed foot, relished the physical violence that accompanied the speeches as the Nazis drove towards power. Goebbels was an advocate of violence towards his enemies, particularly Germany’s Jews.
His role in planning Kristallnacht was critical. ‘I lay the whole matter before the Führer’, Goebbels wrote in his diary. ‘He agrees: let the demonstration proceed. The police to hold back. The Jews for once get a feeling of the Volk’s anger. That is correct. I immediately give corresponding instructions to the police and party. Then I speak briefly before the party leadership. Strong applause. All rush straight to the telephone. Now the Volk will act’(206). Although Thacker makes the questionable assumption that Goebbels had a conscience of sorts, he argues that Goebbels had no sympathy for Jews. ‘His racially centred view of the world’, Thacker states, ‘put the Jews beyond any of this [sense of conscience]; he considered them as a whole and without exception, so fiendish and diabolical that they merited absolutely no empathy’ (207).
One of the striking features of the book is Thacker’s argument that Goebbels played a major role in the development of Nazi policy. ‘Although [Goebbels’] formal office as Propaganda Minister might suggest that he was involved directly only with presentation and with the manipulation of opinion’, Thacker concludes, ‘he used his position to intervene more widely in the formation of policy’ (178).
Goebbels participated as the Nazi leadership discussed war. Violent as he was towards internal enemies, Goebbels initially feared war because he doubted Germany’s capacity to win, and he advised Hitler to wait at least until Germany was better prepared. Then, caught up in the early military successes, he briefly envisioned victory, underestimated the Russians and Americans, and supported Hitler’s public dismissive attitude towards Germany’s enemies. Thacker thinks that Hitler underestimated the Americans, but there is evidence that he had a more accurate assessment of the Americans and knew they were key to Germany’s defeat in World War I, even though he publicly attributed the defeat totally to enemies at home. Goebbels’ enthusiasm wore off quickly, however, and he saw defeat coming long before Hitler acknowledged it.
Early in the book, Thacker focuses on Goebbels’ unfulfilled relationships with women, particularly Anka Stahlherm and Else Janke, noting that these women saved themselves a great deal of grief by resisting Goebbels’ sexual advances. In contrast, Magda Quandt, a divorcée, married Goebbels, had six children with him in spite of a continually stormy relationship, and shared suicide with him in Hitler’s bunker in 1945 after poisoning their children. Hitler was close to Magda, and Thacker speculates that he might have considered her as a partner for himself. He played a role in their family life, mediated disputes, and pressured Goebbels to break off his relationship with his mistress, the Czech actress Lisa Barova.
This biography is an important addition to the study of the Nazi era and its successful Propaganda Minister. It raises important questions about how policy was made and what led to such key events as the Holocaust. All serious students of the Nazi regime should read it.