By the second half of the s, state control over the German film industry had become even tighter, thanks to the Film Credit Bank created in June by the regime to help film-makers raise money in the straitened circumstances of the Depression.
By it was funding nearly three-quarters of all German feature films, and was not afraid to withhold support from producers of whose projects it did not approve. The next year, Goebbels's hand was further strengthened by a crisis in the finances of the two biggest film companies, UFA and Tobis, which were effectively nationalized. By , state-financed companies were producing nearly two-thirds of German films. A German Film Academy, created in , now provided technical training for the next generation of film-makers, actors, designers, writers, cameramen and technicians, ensuring that they would work in the spirit of the Nazi regime.
Encouragement was to be provided, and cinemagoers' expectations guided, by the award of marks of distinction to films, certifying them as "artistically valuable", "politically valuable", and so on. As Goebbels intended, there were plenty of entertainment films produced in Nazi Germany. Taking the categories prescribed by the Propaganda Ministry, fully 55 per cent of films shown in Germany in were comedies, 21 per cent dramas, 24 per cent political.
The proportions fluctuated year by year, and there were some films that fell in practice into more than one category. In , however, only 10 per cent were classed as political; 41 per cent were categorized as dramas and 49 per cent as comedies.
The proportion of political films had declined, in other words, while that of dramas had sharply risen. Musicals, costume dramas, romantic comedies and other genres provided escapism and dulled people's sensibilities; but they could carry a message too.
All these films of whatever kind had to conform to the general principles laid down by the Reich Film Chamber, and many of the movies glorified leadership, advertised the peasant virtues of blood and soil, denigrated the Nazi hate-figures such as Bolsheviks and Jews, or depicted them as villains in otherwise apparently unpolitical dramas. Pacifist films were banned, and the Propaganda Ministry ensured that the correct line would be taken in genre movies of all kinds.
Thus for example in September i, the Film-Courier magazine condemned the Weimar cinema's portrayal of "a destructive, subversive criminal class, built up through fantasies of the metropolis into a destructive gigantism" - a clear reference to the films of Fritz Lang, such as Metropolis and M - and assured its readers that in future, films about crime would concentrate not on the criminal "but on the heroes in uniform and in civilian dress who were serving the people in the fight against criminality.
Once Hitler said after Goebbels had left: "A giant in a dwarf's body, a man of size! Goebbels's lively and amusing conversation spellbound not only all listeners but also Hitler himself. If Goebbels got the better of a guest at the dinner table with his sharp tongue and irony - this would often be Reich press chief Dr Dietrich - he would always manage to extract humour from the situation.
Dietrich, the calm and prudent press man, whose private pleasure was angling, allowed all the fireworks to pass over his head without comment, particularly when Hitler was involved in it. Because of his ostentation, Goring was one of Goebbels' favourite and regular targets.
Everything about Goring would have tempted a comedian to make a caricature or impersonation. Goebbels portrayed him as a "Sunday hunter" clad in furs and barricaded into his automobile, he was transported to what he was pleased to call "the wild" and there set up his rifle with telescopic sight in the forked branch of a tree. Hitler, who did not have a high opinion of amateur hunters and preferred the courage of the hunter-trapper, took pleasure in hearing this criticism of his Reich hunt-master.
Although Hitler did not always excel in the selection of his colleagues, in Goebbels he had found a man who filled the office of propaganda minister in masterly fashion. He was "a direct hit", as Hitler once said. When Goebbels addressed thousands, all hung on his words and were equally fascinated and convinced by him as were we who sat around him in a small circle.
In addition to these capabilities there was another part of his character which Hitler liked to stress: Goebbels had courage, steadfastness and the will to see things through. At table Goebbels liked to reminisce about the "hall brawls" during the period of struggle, a subject that in times of crisis was seized upon as a "heartener". In Berlin, where the Rhinelander Goebbels felt at his best, he was known as "the little doctor", a term which was in no way derogatory.
Everybody knew that like few others before , he had proven his courage and cunning. That these qualities were inherent in his personality I was often able to observe for myself. Goebbels was not frightened to bring to light improprieties resulting from abuses committed by Party members. He reported to Hitler quite candidly on irregularities in the state medical funds, a sector in which SA people had risen to key positions after the seizure of power.
When they were unable to justify the trust placed in them, Goebbels stepped in, and after Hitler declined to act Goebbels appealed to the Party court and won. Goebbels cleaned up the pigsties where the old cronies held sway and put a stop to the orgies. That he did not spare his old comrades spoke well for him. Those who were disciplined and considered that their wings had been clipped against the Fuhrer's wishes, staging a protest outside the Propaganda Ministry, ran into an obstacle of granite.
Hitler fell in behind Goebbels, who would not allow himself to be intimidated Hitler acknowledged the value of Goebbels as a propagandist to his closest circle, where he often would not spare the blushes in being blunt. I often noticed how artistes and starlets of film and theatre would swarm around him, rivals for his favour.
Goebbels - of whom Hitler secretly wished "if only he had two healthy legs and feet" - had no armour against female wiles, and love affairs were the consequence. She exercised such a spell over Goebbels that he quite lost his head and almost wrecked his until then happy marriage with wife Magda. His Secretary of State, Karl Hanke, the personal confidante who knew about Goebbels's affairs, was a person who held Frau Goebbels in the highest regard and was thus at a loss to know which road he should now follow.
He came and asked me "to arrange a date to see the Fuhrer", which I did, and now Hitler discovered what lay behind all the rumours.
Happy at having resolved the crisis he brought the reconciled couple himselfto the NSDAP guesthouse on Obersalzberg and wished them jokingly "a happy second honeymoon". The evil genius of the second half of Hitler's career was Goebbels.
Even Magda, whom he led a dog's life, was not spared his complexes. He had a private cinema-show in his house one time, and just as he was on his way out, up some highly polished wooden steps, to stand and greet his guests as they left, he slipped on his club foot and all but fell down.
Magna managed to save him and pull him up beside her. After a moment to recover and before the whole company, he gripped her by the back of the neck and forced her right down to his knee and said, with that sort of mad laughter, "So, you saved my life that time. That seems to please you a lot. What Roehm wanted was, of course, right in itself but in practice it could not be carried through by a homosexual and an anarchist.
Had Roehm been an upright solid personality, in all probability some hundred generals rather than some hundred SA leaders would have been shot on 30 June. The whole course of events was profoundly tragic and today we are feeling its effects. In that year the time was ripe to revolutionise the Reichswehr. It is questionable whether today we can ever make good what we missed doing at that time. I am very doubtful of it. Nevertheless the attempt must be made.
Goebbels brought verve and wit into the conversation. He wasn't at all handsome, but I could see why the girls in the Reich Chancellery ran to the windows to see the Propaganda Minister leave his Ministry, but took hardly any notice of Hitler. No one around the Fuhrer's table could stand up to his sharp tongue, least of all the Reich press chief, who made the slightly improper remark that he got his best ideas in the bathtub, to which Goebbels, of course, promptly replied, "You should take a bath more often, Dr Dietrich!
So the chatter round the table went on, and Goebbels aimed his sallies, which hit their mark and were not returned. A Decree on the Exclusion of Jews from German Economic Life in banned Jews from all independent business activity, from cornershops to wholesale trade.
A Law on the Use of Jewish Assets meant that securities went into closed accounts and that Jews could no longer buy or sell jewels, precious metals or works of art freely. A bald recitation of these measures does not convey the political dynamics of the discussion, the antisemitic humour, nor the future possibilities which were aired during its interminable course. For these people as often revealed that they thought far ahead, as they appeared to react to unforeseen circumstances.
The bluff chairman did most of the talking. Bored by the complexity of the financial and insurance issues arising from the pogrom, Goering ventured the thought that it would have been better had two hundred Jews been killed than that such material damage had been incurred.
Actually, that number had been killed, but he appeared not to have noticed. Surveying the measures agreed upon, he commented, "the swine won't commit a second murder so quickly. I must confess, I would not like to he a Jew in Germany," Contemplating the prospect of a war in the near future, he went on, "it is obvious that we in Germany will first of all make sure of settling accounts with the Jews".
Goebbels' interventions were both frivolous and malicious. He wanted Jews banned from baths, beaches, cinemas, circuses, theatres and German forests. Goring suggested confining them to certain parts of forests which could then be populated with animals "which look damned similar to Jews - yes, the elk has a curved nose". There was a bizarre digression about whether or not to create segregated compartments for Jews in trains. What if only one Jew wanted to catch a certain train?
Should he be given a carriage to himself? Of course not, for laws had their limits: "We will kick him out and he will have to sit all alone in the lavatory all the way. Reinhard Heydreich : In almost all German cities synagogues are burned. New, various possibilities exist to utilize the space where the synagogues stood. Some cities want to build parks in their place, others want to put up new buildings. Hermann Goering : How many synagogues were actually burned?
Reinhard Heydreich : Altogether there are synagogues destroyed by fire, 76 synagogues demolished, and 7, stores ruined in the Reich. Hermann Goering : What do you mean "destroyed by fire"? Reinhard Heydreich : Partly they are razed, and partly gutted. Joseph Goebbels : I am of the opinion that this is our chance to dissolve the synagogues.
All those not completely intact shall be razed by the Jews. The Jews shall pay for it. There in Berlin, the Jews are ready to do that. The synagogues which burned in Berlin are being leveled by the Jews themselves. We shall build parking lots in their places or new buildings.
That ought to be the criterion for the whole country, the Jews shall have to remove the damaged or burned synagogues, and shall have to provide us with ready free space. I deem it necessary to issue a decree forbidding the Jews to enter German theaters, movie houses and circuses.
Hermann Goering : In that case, I think it would make more sense to give them separate compartments. Hermann Goering : Just a moment. There'll be only one Jewish coach. If that is filled up, the other Jews will have to stay at home. Joseph Goebbels : Furthermore, there ought to be a decree barring Jews from German beaches and resorts. Last summer. Hermann Goering : Particularly here in the Admiralspalast very disgusting things have happened lately.
Joseph Goebbels : Also at the Wannsee beach. A law which definitely forbids the Jews to visit German resorts. Joseph Goebbels : It would have to be considered whether we'd give them their own or whether we should turn a few German resorts over to them, but not the finest and the best, so we cannot say the Jews go there for recreation.
It'll also have to be considered if it might not become necessary to forbid the Jews to enter the German forest. In the Grunewald, whole herds of them are running around. It is a constant provocation and we are having incidents all the time. The behavior of the Jews is so inciting and provocative that brawls are a daily routine.
Hermann Goering : We shall give the Jews a certain part of the forest, and the Alpers shall take care of it that various animals that look damned much like Jews -the elk has such a crooked nose - get there also and become acclimated.
He said he would repeat these raids night after night until the English were sick and tired of terror attacks. Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi Propaganda Minister and Gauleiter of Berlin, was one of those who took the lead that summer in pushing for the Jews of Berlin to be forcibly deported East.
As they did so often, the Nazis had created for themselves the exact circumstances that best fitted their prejudice. But despite Goebbels' entreaties, Hitler was still not willing to allow the Berlin Jews to be deported. He maintained that the war was still the priority and the Jewish question would have to wait. However, Hitler did grant one of Goebbels' requests. In a significant escalation of Nazi anti-Semitic measures, he agreed that the Jews of Germany should be marked with the yellow star.
In the ghettos of Poland the Jews had been marked in similar ways from the first months of the war, but their counterparts in Germany had up to now escaped such humiliation.
The Jews are now being forced eastwards from the General Government, commencing with Lublin. The former Gauleiter of Vienna Globocnik is in charge of this operation, and is doing it with considerable circumspection and with methods which do not attract much attention.
What the Fuhrer prophesied in the eventuality of the Jews bringing about a new world war has begun to be realised in the most terrible fashion. Here too, the Fuhrer is the untiring advocate and champion of a radical solution, which the situation demands, and which therefore appears inevitable. Himmler has had a bad attack of angina but is now on the mend. He gives me a slightly frail impression. Nevertheless we were able to have a long talk about all outstanding questions.
In general Himmler's attitude is good. He is one of our strongest personalities. During our two-hour discussion I established that we are in complete agreement in our estimate of the general situation so that I need hardly refer to that.
He used strong language about Goring and Ribbentrop, whom he regards as the two main sources of error in our general conduct of the war, and in this he is absolutely right. As far as the front is concerned Himmler is extremely worried, particularly about developments in Pomerania and the West.
At present, however, he is even more worried about the food situation, the outlook for which is pretty gloomy over the next few months. The morale of the troops has undoubtedly been affected. This Himmler admits on the basis of his experience with Army Group Vistula. In every field Goring and Ribbentrop are obstacles to successful conduct of the war.
But what can one do? Himmler summarises the situation correctly when he says that his mind tells him that we have little hope of winning the war militarily but instinct tells him that sooner or later some political opening will emerge to swing it in our favour. Himmler thinks this more likely in the West than the East.
He thinks that England will come to her senses, which I rather doubt. As his remarks show, Himmler is entirely Western-oriented; from the East he expects nothing whatsoever. I still think that something is more likely to be achieved in the East since Stalin seems to me more realistic than the trigger-happy Anglo-American Roosevelt.
This evening's Mosquito raid was particularly disastrous for me because our Ministry was hit. The whole lovely building on the Wilhelmstrasse was totally destroyed by a bomb. The throne-room, the Blue Gallery and my newly rebuilt theatre hall are nothing but a heap of ruins. I drove straight to the Ministry to see the devastation for myself. One's heart aches to see so unique a product of the architect's art, such as this building was, totally flattened in a second.
What trouble we have taken to reconstruct the theatre hall, the throne-room and the Blue Gallery in the old style! With what care have we chosen every fresco on the walls and every piece of furniture! And now it has all been given over to destruction. In addition fire has now broken out in the ruins, bringing with it an even greater risk since bazooka missiles are stored underneath the burning wreckage. I do my utmost to get the fire brigade to the scene as quickly and in as great strength as possible, so as at least to prevent the bazooka missiles exploding.
As I do all this I am overcome with sadness. It is 12 years to the day - 13 March - since I entered this Ministry as Minister. It is the worst conceivable omen for the next twelve years. He too is very sad that it has now hit me. So far we have been lucky even during the heaviest raids on Berlin.
Now, however, we have lost not only a possession but an anxiety. In future I need no longer tremble for the Ministry. All those present at the fire voiced only scorn and hatred for Goring. During the interview I have with him he is very impressed by my account of things. I give him a description of the devastation which is being wrought and tell him particularly of the increasing fury of the Mosquito raids which take place every evening.
I cannot prevent myself voicing sharp criticism of Goring and the Luftwaffe. But it is always the same story when one talks to the Fuhrer on this subject. He explains the reasons for the decay of the Luftwaffe, but he cannot make up his mind to draw the consequences therefrom.
He tells me that after the recent interviews he had with him Goring was a broken man. But what is the good of that! I can have no sympathy with him. We ought not, after all, to send our people to their doom because we do not possess the strength of decision to root out the cause of our misfortune.
But we have heard it so often before that we can no longer bring ourselves to place much hope in such statements. In any case it is now plenty late - not to say too late - to anticipate any decisive effect from such measures.
He tells me that he is hardly sleeping at all, is continually plunged in his work and that he is being totally worn down in the long run by continually having to prop up his feeble characterless staff. I can imagine that this must be a worrying laborious process. Nevertheless I cannot abandon my demand that he speak to the people as soon as possible.
He must call off one or two conferences for a day or two. The most important thing is that he should reconsolidate the people; I can do the rest. To achieve this aim all resources must be harnessed to produce a direct and indirect impact on readers and audiences. Anything which can be detrimental to this aim or runs counter to it, even only passively, can have no place in press or radio in these decisive days of our fateful struggle.
Anything which contributes to the achievement of this great purpose should be expressly promoted and henceforth be a central feature of our newscasting. The brutal Anglo-American air war is sufficient proof of our Western enemies' bestiality and shows that all their ostensibly conciliatory phrases are mere camouflage designed to paralyse the German people in their stubborn defence of their right to exist.
Our task is to point out again and again that Churchill and Roosevelt are just as merciless as Stalin and will ruthlessly carry out their plans for annihilation should the German people ever give way and submit to the enemy yoke. They should not be presented as isolated examples but should act as a stimulus for everybody and a challenge to the whole nation to emulate these shining examples of the struggle for our freedom.
These columns too must use every method to assist in reinforcing our national resistance and our war morale. The particular job of the cultural editor is to express in lofty varied language what has been said in the political section on the military and political struggle of the day. In these weeks superficial intellectual vapourings, divorced from the war as if it was "far away in Turkey", have no justification for appearance.
A plethora of tasks and multifarious possibilities are now open to the cultural editor. Discussion of Clausewitz' writings, descriptions of the Second Punic War, comments on Mommsen's Roman History, dissertations on Frederick the Great's letters and writings, the careers of great warlike geniuses all through human history - these are only a few indications of the new tasks which will do more to promote our purpose than innocent entertaining anecdotes without political or moral content.
No measures of communal or local significance issuing from Party, State or Wehrmacht should be presented to the reader without simultaneously impressing upon him forcibly that our struggle for existence requires the mobilisation of all forces and the expenditure of all reserves of manpower and morale. Any sacrifice in the interests of the war, however small and mundane, serves to concentrate our forces and increase our capacity for resistance and must be explained to thereader in this sense.
The first use of our suicide fighters has not produced the success hoped for. The reason given is that the enemy bomber formations did not fly concentrated so that they had to be attacked individually. In addition our suicide fighters encountered such heavy defensive fire from enemy fighters that only in a few cases were they able to ram.
But we must not lose courage as a result. This is only an initial trial which is to be repeated in the next few days, hopefully with better results. The situation at the front has never been so bad. We have to all intents and purposes lost Vienna. The enemy has penetrated deep into Konigsberg. The Anglo-Americans are not far from Braunschweig and Bremen. In short, on the map the Reich looks like a small strip running from Norway to Lake Comacchio.
We have lost the most important areas of food supply and arms potential. In any case, with the potential available to us, we shall not be able to breathe much longer.
Always act in such a way that we need not be ashamed of it. Germany will survive this fearful war but only if examples are set to our people enabling them to stand on their feet again.
We wish to set such an example. You may be proud of having such a mother as yours. You should have only one duty in future: to show yourself worthy of the supreme sacrifice which we are ready and determined to make. I know that you will do it. Do not let yourself be disconcerted by the worldwide clamour which will now begin. One day the lies will crumble away of themselves and truth will triumph once more. That will be the moment when we shall tower over all, clean and spotless, as we have always striven to be and believed ourselves to be.
Goebbels sat down at his office desk to record what he knew would be his last speech to the German nation. During the recording, Russian shell bursts brought down plaster from the ceiling, and, General Reimann, who was present, took shelter under a desk. But Goebbels flicked the plaster from his manuscript and kept right on with the speech. It was then put into cans, to be broadcast as close as possible to the end, although it was actually broadcast several days before Hitler's death.
Sometime between the recording of the radio speech, and his appearance next morning, Saturday, at his last staff conference, Goebbels momentarily lost his composure. Although only forty-seven, the strain was now telling both on his frail body and his overloaded emotions. The twenty-two senior ministry officials, who had been seeing Goebbels every day were shocked to see him so suddenly haggard, his eyes bloodshot, his temples twitching.
His complexion, normally tawny, seemed to have turned to chalk overnight, a ghostly effect in the candlelight, for all windows had been boarded up against the danger of flying glass. At the conference Goebbels launched into a vitriolic monologue - the theme of which was that the Fuehrer was surrounded on all sides by traitors. This thesis, familiar enough in the Bunker, was quite new to the mandarins of the Propaganda Ministry.
Goebbels made a scathing attack on German generals, the soldiers, the civilian population. One of the star propagandists, radio commentator Hans Fritsche, dared to talk back to Goebbels. While there may have been a few traitors here and there, the record reveals that the German people have shown this regime more good will than any people in history.
Placed at the head of a small, conflict-ridden organization, Goebbels rapidly succeeded in taking control and undermining the supremacy of the Strasser brothers in northern Germany and their monopoly of the Party press, founding in and editing his own weekly newspaper, Der Angriff The Attack. He designed posters, published his own propaganda, staged impressive parades, organized his bodyguards to participate in street battles, beer-hall brawls and shooting affrays to further his political agitation.
With the skill of a master propagandist he transformed the Berlin student and pimp, Horst Wessel , into a Nazi martyr, and provided the slogans, the myths and images, the telling aphorisms which rapidly spread the message of National Socialism.
Goebbels was gifted with the two things without which the situation in Berlin could not have been mastered: verbal facility and intellect. For Dr. Goebbels, who had not found much in the way of a political organization when he started, had won Berlin in the truest sense of the word. Hitler had indeed cause to be grateful to his Propaganda Leader, who was the true creator and organizer of the Fuhrer myth, of the image of the Messiah -redeemer, feeding the theatrical element in the Nazi leader while at the same time inducing the self-surrender of the German masses through skillful stage management and manipulation.
A cynic, devoid of genuine inner convictions, Goebbels found his mission in selling Hitler to the German public, in projecting himself as his most faithful shield-bearer and orchestrating a pseudo-religious cult of the Fuhrer as the savior of Germany from Jews, profiteers and Marxists. We shall become Reichstag deputies in order that the Weimar ideology should itself help us to destroy it. He was rewarded on March 13, , with the position of Reich Minister for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda, which gave him total control of the communications media - i.
For five years Goebbels chafed at the leash as the Nazi regime sought to consolidate itself and win international recognition. His opportunity came with the Kristallnacht pogrom of November , , which he orchestrated after kindling the flame with a rabble-rousing speech to Party leaders assembled in the Munich Altes Rathaus Old Town Hall for the annual celebration of the Beer-Hall putsch.
Goebbels was a womanizer before and after his marriage in to Magda Quandt, a fervent admirer of Hitler. In , when Magda tried to divorce him because of his endless love affairs with beautiful actresses, it was Hitler who intervened to straighten out the situation.
Scholl was executed for high treason in February after distributing anti-war leaflets at the University of Munich. Pomsel describes herself as a product of Prussian discipline, recalling a father who, when he returned from fighting in the first world war, when she was seven, banned chamber pots from the family bedrooms. She was 31 and working for the state broadcaster as a well-paid secretary — a job she secured only after she became a paid-up member of the Nazi party — when someone recommended her for a transfer to the ministry of propaganda in She remembers her payslip, on which a range of tax-free allowances was listed, alongside the mark salary — a small fortune compared with what most of her friends were earning.
Pomsel was also shocked by the arrest of a hugely popular announcer at the radio station, who was sent to a concentration camp as punishment for being gay. But she says that largely, she remained in a bubble, unaware of the destruction being meted out by the Nazi regime on its enemies, despite the fact she was at the physical heart of the system.
We knew nothing, it was all kept well secret. She and another colleague had been given ringside seats, just behind Magda Goebbels. It was shortly after the battle of Stalingrad and, Goebbels hoped to get popular support to pull out all the stops to fight the threats facing Germany.
The details Pomsel chooses to focus on may reflect the way she has edited her own story so that she feels more comfortable with it.
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