Joseph Goebbels
Joseph Paul Goebbels was a prominent figure in Nazi Germany, known for his role as the Reich Minister of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda. Born on April 29, 1897, in Rheydt, Germany, Goebbels faced physical challenges due to a crippled foot, but he excelled academically and earned a doctorate degree. Initially pursuing a career in literature, he struggled to achieve success, which led him to the Nazi Party in the 1920s, where he found his true calling as a skilled propagandist.
As Gauleiter of Berlin and later as the party's propaganda leader, Goebbels was instrumental in shaping public perception of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi regime. He established the Reich Chamber of Culture to control German media and culture, leading to the exclusion of Jews and other undesirables from these fields. Notably, he orchestrated events such as the infamous Kristallnacht, a violent pogrom against Jews in 1938, and was a proponent of the "final solution" during World War II, which sought the annihilation of Jewish people.
Goebbels’s propaganda campaigns not only fueled the Nazi war effort but also contributed to a societal environment that enabled widespread atrocities. His life ended in suicide on May 1, 1945, shortly after Hitler's death, alongside his family in Hitler’s bunker. Goebbels's legacy remains a chilling reminder of the impact of propaganda and state-controlled information in facilitating hatred and violence.
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Subject Terms
Joseph Goebbels
German Nazi propaganda leader
- Born: October 29, 1897
- Birthplace: Rheydt, Germany
- Died: May 1, 1945
- Place of death: Berlin, Germany
Cause of notoriety: As a high-ranking official in the Nazi Party, Gobbels was a fanatic supporter of total war and the extermination of Jews.
Active: 1924-1945
Locale: Germany
Early Life
Joseph Paul Goebbels (GURB-uhls) was born in the small industrial town of Rheydt in Rhineland, Germany. He was the son of devout Roman Catholic, lower-middle-class parents. Although physically handicapped by a crippled foot as a result of illness, Goebbels excelled in school, graduating in 1917. Exempt from military service because of his handicap, he then studied Germanics, literature, and history in five different universities. Goebbels completed his doctorate degree under the guidance of a Jewish professor in Heidelberg. After graduation, his career as a litterateur was a failure: He could not get his plays accepted by a Berlin theater, and he failed to obtain a job as a journalist for the distinguished liberal newspaper Berliner Tageblatt. For a few months in 1923, he worked in a bank in Cologne but then concentrated on writing his novel, Michael, which was not published until 1929.
Nazi Career
Unsuccessful in his literary career, Goebbels found a place within the Nazi movement beginning in the summer of 1924 in Weimar. On August 21, 1924, he established a local outpost of the Nazi movement in München-Gladbach in western Germany. Moreover, he discovered that he was an effective speaker. After editing a small weekly Nazi newspaper in 1924, he joined Gregor Strasser the following year to publish the Nationalsozialistischen Briefe (Nazi letters), a newspaper espousing views from the leftist faction of the Nazis. In November, 1926, Adolf Hitler appointed Goebbels Gauleiter (Gau leader) of Berlin, and by the next year Goebbels launched another weekly, Der Angriff (the Attack), in Berlin in order to expand the party’s influence. Because of Goebbels’s propaganda successes, in 1930 Hitler then named him Reich propaganda leader of the party, a position Goebbels used both to advance the Nazi cause in elections and to help create the “Hitler myth” of a caring and dedicated national leader.
On May 10, 1933, barely six weeks after Hitler became chancellor of Germany, Goebbels was appointed Reich minister for public enlightenment and propaganda while still retaining his post as Nazi Party propaganda leader. This new position gave him power not only over propaganda but also over all cultural facets of German society and mass media. On September 22, 1933, Goebbels organized the Reichskulturkammer (Reich Chamber of Culture), which was divided into separate chambers devoted to radio, press, literature, music, films, and theater. Anyone denied membership in one of the professional chambers was then barred from his or her profession. In effect, this allowed Goebbels to control the news, the arts, and films in Germany and helped him purge Jews from these fields. Also in 1933, he organized the April 1 boycott of Jews in Germany, and in May of that year, he orchestrated a massive burning of undesirable books by Jews and Marxists. In 1937 and 1938, he viciously attacked the Catholic clergy and monks for alleged moral and financial violations.
Goebbels was also in charge of the Winter Relief Program, which provided food and heating material to the needy. The funds for this program were raised by massive public donation drives initiated in the fall of each year. Goebbels and the Nazi regime used these campaigns both to generate and to measure public support for the regime.
On November 9, 1938, Goebbels convinced Hitler to unleash a violent attack on Jews, allegedly as a retaliation for the murder of a German official in Paris by a Jewish youth. Addressing party leaders gathered in Munich to commemorate the Beer Hall Putsch of 1923, Goebbels launched a poisonous attack on Jews. After the meeting, party formations throughout Germany launched a vicious attack on Jewish businesses and synagogues during what came to be known as the Kristallnacht (the night of broken glass). Windows of Jewish businesses were smashed, synagogues were burned, and a number of Jews were murdered.
During World War II, Goebbels strove to remove all Jews from Berlin, and he supported the “final solution” to the Jewish problem implemented by Hitler and Heinrich Himmler. In early 1943, he published an article in his paper Das Reich (the Reich) in which he admitted that the annihilation of Jews was a Nazi goal. On February 18, 1943, he launched a massive propaganda campaign for total war, which not only helped to prolong the war but also ensured that the mass murder of Jews would continue.
During this time, Goebbels repaired the damage that his affair with a Czech actress had caused to his relationship with Hitler, who adored Goebbels’s wife, Magda. He also played a critical role on July 20, 1944, in helping to crush the attempted coup by Klaus von Stauffenberg and some German officers who had attempted to kill Hitler.
Goebbels was appointed general plenipotentiary for total war in July, 1944, with enormous powers to harness the population to the war effort. During the last weeks of the war, he moved his family into Hitler’s bunker complex. On May l, 1945, one day after Hitler’s death and after having already poisoned his six children, Goebbels and his wife also committed suicide.
Impact
Joseph Goebbels played a crucial role in helping Hitler gain total control over German culture, and he purged Jews from the arts and entertainment industry after 1933. His anti-Semitism and his tight control over all artistic expression in Germany helped create an atmosphere in Germany that made it possible for the Nazis to commit terrible atrocities against Jews, homosexuals, and other minorities.
Bibliography
Fröhlich, Elke. “Joseph Goebbels, the Propagandist.” In The Nazi Elite, edited by Ronald Smelser and Rainer Zittelmann, translated by Mary Fischer. New York: New York University Press, 1993. A short, perceptive summary of Goebbels’s career by the editor of Goebbels’s massive diaries, which are available only in German. Includes a convenient bibliography of primary and secondary sources.
Knopp, Guido. Hitler’s Henchmen. Translated by Angus McGeoch. London: Sutton, 2000. Includes a chapter on Goebbels, which offers numerous interviews with his associates and other contemporaries. A documentary film version is available from cable television’s History Channel.
Lemmons, Russel. Goebbels and Der Angriff. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1994. Demonstrates how Goebbels used the newspaper Der Angriff successfully for propaganda in Berlin in order to expand Nazi influence.
Reuth, Ralf Georg. Goebbels. Translated by Krishna Winston. New York: Harcourt Brace, 1993. Using Goebbels’s complete diaries, this account by a journalist attributes Goebbels’s behavior to his frustrations in childhood and adolescence. The author maintains that Goebbels’s propaganda was crucial for the Nazi triumph.