History of Joseph Goebbels

Paul Joseph Goebbels was born on 29 October 1897 in Rheydt, an industrial town south of Mönchengladbach near Düsseldorf, Germany. Both of his parents were Roman Catholics with modest family backgrounds.

Goebbels was educated at a Gymnasium, where he completed his Abitur (university entrance examination) in 1917. He was the top student in his class and was given the traditional honor to speak at the awards ceremony. He studied literature and history at the universities of Bonn, Würzburg, Freiburg, and Munich, aided by a scholarship from the Albertus Magnus Society.

At Freiburg, he met and fell in love with Anka Stalherm, who was three years his senior. She went on to Würzburg to continue school, as did Goebbels.

In 1921, Goebbels wrote a semi-autobiographical novel, Michael, a three-part work of which only Parts I and III have survived. Goebbels felt he was writing his "own story".

At the University of Heidelberg, Goebbels wrote his doctoral thesis on Wilhelm von Schütz, a minor 19th-century romantic dramatist. After submitting the thesis and passing his oral examination, Goebbels earned his Ph.D. in 1921.

Goebbels returned home and worked as a private tutor. He also found work as a journalist and was published in the local newspaper. His writing during that time reflected his growing antisemitism and dislike for modern culture. In the summer of 1922, Goebbels met and began a love affair with Else Janke, a schoolteacher. After she revealed to him that she was half-Jewish, Goebbels stated the "enchantment [was] ruined." Nevertheless, he continued to see her on and off until 1927.

The lack of income from his literary works (he wrote two plays in 1923, neither of which sold) forced him to take employment as a caller on the stock exchange and as a bank clerk in Cologne, a job he detested.

Goebbels was dismissed from the bank in August 1923 and returned to Rheydt.

In February 1924, Hitler's trial for treason began in the wake of his failed attempt to seize power in the Beer Hall Putsch of 8–9 November 1923.

During this period, he read avidly and was influenced by the works of Oswald Spengler, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, and Houston Stewart Chamberlain, the British-born German writer whose book The Foundations of the Nineteenth Century (1899) was one of the standard works of the extreme right in Germany. He also began to study the "social question" and read the works of Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Rosa Luxemburg, August Bebel, and Gustav Noske. According to German historian Peter Longerich, Goebbels's diary entries from late 1923 to early 1924 reflected the writings of a man who was isolated, preoccupied with "religious-philosophical" issues, and lacked a sense of direction. Diary entries of mid-December 1923 forward show Goebbels was moving towards the Völkisch nationalist movement.

He wrote two plays in 1923, neither of which sold. which caused a lack of income from his literary works.

Goebbels continued for several years to try to become a published author. His diaries, which he began in 1923 and continued for the rest of his life, provided an outlet for his desire to write.

Goebbels first took an interest in Adolf Hitler and Nazism in 1924. Goebbels was drawn to the NSDAP mostly because of Hitler's charisma and commitment to his beliefs. He joined the NSDAP around this time, becoming member number 8762.

In late 1924, Goebbels offered his services to Karl Kaufmann, who was Gauleiter (NSDAP district leader) for the Rhine-Ruhr District. Kaufmann put him in touch with Gregor Strasser, a leading Nazi organizer in northern Germany, who hired him to work on their weekly newspaper and undertake secretarial work for the regional party offices.

The trial attracted widespread press coverage and gave Hitler a platform for propaganda. Hitler was sentenced to five years in prison but was released on 20 December 1924, after serving just over a year.

In 1926, Goebbels published a pamphlet titled Nazi-Sozi which attempted to explain how National Socialism differed from Marxism.

In February 1926, Goebbels gave a speech titled "Lenin or Hitler?" in which he asserted that communism or Marxism could not save the German people, but he believed it would cause a "socialist nationalist state" to arise in Russia.

Goebbels was first offered the position of party Gauleiter for the Berlin section in August 1926.

Members of Strasser's northern branch of the NSDAP, including Goebbels, had a more socialist outlook than the rival Hitler group in Munich. Strasser disagreed with Hitler on many parts of the party platform, and in November 1926 began working on a revision.

At Hitler's invitation, Goebbels spoke at party meetings in Munich and at the annual Party Congress, held in Weimar in 1926.

Goebbels' tactic of using provocation to bring attention to the NSDAP, along with violence at the public party meetings and demonstrations, led the Berlin police to ban the NSDAP from the city on 5 May 1927.

The ban on the NSDAP was lifted before the Reichstag elections on 20 May 1928.

Goebbels used the death of Horst Wessel (pictured) in 1930 as a propaganda tool against "Communist subhuman". By 1930 Berlin was the party's second-strongest base of support after Munich. That year the violence between the Nazis and communists led to local SA troop leader Horst Wessel being shot by two members of the Communist Party of Germany. He later died in hospital. Exploiting Wessel's death, Goebbels turned him into a martyr for the Nazi movement. He officially declared Wessel's march Die Fahne Hoch (Raise the flag), renamed as the Horst-Wessel-Lied, to be the NSDAP anthem.

In late April 1930, Hitler publicly and firmly announced his opposition to Gregor Strasser and appointed Goebbels to replace him as Reich leader of NSDAP propaganda.

Goebbels took charge of the NSDAP's national campaign for Reichstag elections called for 14 September 1930.

In late 1930 Goebbels met Magda Quandt, a divorcée who had joined the party a few months earlier. She worked as a volunteer in the party offices in Berlin, helping Goebbels organize his private paper.

The Reichstag changed the immunity regulations in February 1931, and Goebbels was forced to pay fines for libelous material he had placed in Der Angriff over the course of the previous year. Goebbels continued to be elected to the Reichstag at every subsequent election during the Weimar and Nazi regimes.

Goebbels and Quandt married on 19 December 1931.

For two further elections held in 1932, Goebbels organized massive campaigns that included rallies, parades, speeches, and Hitler traveling around the country by airplane with the slogan "the Führer over Germany".

For two further elections held in 1932, Goebbels organized massive campaigns that included rallies, parades, speeches.

Support for the party continued to grow, but neither of these elections led to a majority government. In an effort to stabilize the country and improve economic conditions, Hindenburg appointed Hitler as Reich chancellor on 30 January 1933. Goebbels was disappointed not to be given a post in Hitler's new cabinet. Bernhard Rust was appointed as Minister of Culture, the post that Goebbels was expecting to receive. Like other NSDAP officials, Goebbels had to deal with Hitler's leadership style of giving contradictory orders to his subordinates, while placing them into positions where their duties and responsibilities overlapped.

The NSDAP took advantage of the Reichstag fire of 27 February 1933, with Hindenburg passing the Reichstag Fire Decree the following day at Hitler's urging.

On 5 March, yet another Reichstag election took place, the last to be held before the defeat of the Nazis at the end of the Second World War. While the NSDAP increased their number of seats and percentage of the vote.

Goebbels finally received Hitler's appointment to the cabinet, officially becoming head of the newly created Reich Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda on 14 March.

Goebbels' first productions were staging the Day of Potsdam, a ceremonial passing of power from Hindenburg to Hitler, held in Potsdam on 21 March.

He composed the text of Hitler's decree authorizing the Nazi boycott of Jewish businesses, held on 1 April.

Goebbels converted the 1 May holiday from a celebration of workers' rights (observed as such especially by the communists) into a day celebrating the NSDAP.

Less than two weeks later, he gave a speech at the Nazi book burning in Berlin on 10 May.

On 2 June 1933, Hitler appointed Goebbels a Reichsleiter, the second-highest political rank in the Nazi Party.

By June 1933, virtually the only organizations not in the control of the NSDAP were the army and the churches.

The Reich Film Chamber, which all members of the film industry were required to join, was created in June 1933.

On 4 October 1933 the Schriftleitergesetz (Editor's Law), which became the cornerstone of the Nazi Party's control of the popular press.

At the end of June 1934, top officials of the SA and opponents of the regime, including Gregor Strasser, were arrested and killed in a purge later called the Night of Long Knives. Goebbels was present at the arrest of SA leader Ernst Röhm in Munich.

Goebbels gained control of radio stations nationwide and placed them under the Reichs-Rundfunk-Gesellschaft (German National Broadcasting Corporation) in July 1934.

On 2 August 1934, President von Hindenburg died. In a radio broadcast, Goebbels announced that the offices of president and chancellor had been combined, and Hitler had been formally named as Führer und Reichskanzler (leader and chancellor).

At the 1935 Nazi party congress rally at Nuremberg, Goebbels declared that "Bolshevism is the declaration of war by Jewish-led international subhumans against culture itself."

At the 1935 Nazi party congress rally at Nuremberg, Goebbels declared that Bolshevism is the declaration of war by Jewish-led international subhumans against culture itself.

Goebbels had been pressing for the expulsion of the Berlin Jews since 1935, there were still 62,000 living in the city in 1940.

Goebbels was involved in planning the staging of the 1936 Summer Olympics, held in Berlin.

Goebbels was involved in planning the staging of the 1936 Summer Olympics, held in Berlin. It was around this time that he met and started having an affair with the actress Lída Baarová.

Goebbels was one of the most enthusiastic supporters of Hitler aggressively pursuing Germany's expansionist policies sooner rather than later. At the time of the Reoccupation of the Rhineland in 1936.

Goebbels to intensify his work on the issue in February 1937 he stated he wanted to eliminate the Protestant church.

Goebbels's speech of 28 May in Berlin in front of 20,000 party members, which was also broadcast on the radio, attacked the Catholic church as morally corrupt.

A major project in 1937 was the Degenerate Art Exhibition, organized by Goebbels, which ran in Munich. The exhibition proved wildly popular, attracting over two million visitors.

Free radios were distributed in Berlin on Goebbels' birthday in 1938.

The situation was further inflamed by a speech Goebbels gave at a party meeting on the night of 8 November, where he obliquely called for party members to incite further violence against Jews while making it appear to be a spontaneous series of acts by the German people.

Manufacturers were urged by Goebbels to produce inexpensive home receivers, called Volksempfänger (people's receiver), and by 1938 nearly ten million sets had been sold.

In 1938, Goebbels soon redirected his propaganda machine against Poland. From May onwards, he orchestrated a campaign against Poland, fabricating stories about atrocities against ethnic Germans in Danzig and other cities. Even so, he was unable to persuade the majority of Germans to welcome the prospect of war.

Goebbels continued his intensive antisemitic propaganda campaign that culminated in Hitler's 30 January 1939 Reichstag speech.

On 2 September 1939 (the day after the start of the war), Goebbels and the Council of Ministers proclaimed it illegal to listen to foreign radio stations. Disseminating news from foreign broadcasts could result in the death penalty.

By 1939 all such schools were disbanded or converted to public facilities.

After the Invasion of Poland in 1939, Goebbels used his propaganda ministry and the Reich chambers to control access to information domestically.

Goebbels used Polish officers that had been killed in the Katyn massacre was by the Red Army in 1940 attempted to drive a wedge between the Soviets and the other western allies.

By 1940, he had written 14 books.

The German city of Cologne was bombed in 262 separate air raids by the Allies during World War II, all by the Royal Air Force.

The thousand-bomber raid on Cologne (May 1942), the Allied victory at the Second Battle of El Alamein.

On 16 November 1942 Goebbels, like all Gauleiters, was appointed the Reich Defense Commissioner for his Gau. This enabled him to issue direct instructions to authorities within his jurisdiction in matters concerning the civilian war effort.

Goebbels decreed in late 1942 that 20 percent of the films should be propaganda and 80 percent light entertainment during World War II.

Goebbels pressured Hitler to introduce measures that would produce "total war", including closing businesses not essential to the war effort, conscripting women into the labor force, and enlisting men in previously exempt occupations into the Wehrmacht.

On 15 January 1943, Hitler appointed Goebbels as head of the newly created Air Raid Damage committee, which meant Goebbels was nominally in charge of nationwide civil air defenses and shelters as well as the assessment and repair of damaged buildings.

After receiving an enthusiastic response to his speech of 30 January 1943 on the topic, Goebbels believed he had the support of the German people in his call for total war.

The catastrophic defeat at the Battle of Stalingrad (February 1943) – was difficult matters to present to the German public, who were increasingly weary of the war and skeptical that it could be won.

Goebbels's next speech, the Sportpalast speech of 18 February 1943, was a passionate demand for his audience to commit to total war, which he presented as the only way to stop the Bolshevik onslaught and save the German people from destruction. The speech also had a strong antisemitic element and hinted at the extermination of the Jewish people that was already underway.

On 1 April 1943, Goebbels was named Stadtpräsident of Berlin, thus uniting under his control the city's highest party and governmental offices.

Goebbels and Speer continued to press Hitler to bring the economy to a total war footing.

Goebbels was appointed on 23 July as Reich Plenipotentiary for Total War, charged with maximizing the manpower for the Wehrmacht and the armaments industry at the expense of sectors of the economy not critical to the war effort.

Goebbels noted in his diary on 21 January that millions of Germans were fleeing westward.

He and Magda may have discussed suicide and the fate of their young children in a long meeting on the night of 27 January.

Goebbels knew how to play on Hitler's fantasies, encouraging him to see the hand of providence in the death of the United States, President Franklin D. Roosevelt, on 12 April.

He knew how the outside world would view the criminal acts committed by the regime, and had no desire to subject himself to the "debacle" of a trial. He burned his private papers on the night of 18 April.

Most of Hitler's inner circle, including Göring, Himmler, Ribbentrop, and Speer, prepared to leave Berlin immediately after Hitler's birthday celebration on 20 April.

On 23 April, Goebbels made the following proclamation to the people of Berlin: I call on you to fight for your city. Fight with everything you have got, for the sake of your wives and your children, your mothers, and your parents. Your arms are defending everything we have ever held dear, and all the generations that will come after us. Be proud and courageous! Be inventive and cunning! Your Gauleiter is amongst you. He and his colleagues will remain in your midst. His wife and children are here as well. He, who once captured the city with 200 men, will now use every means to galvanize the defense of the capital. The battle for Berlin must become the signal for the whole nation to rise up in battle ...".

Hitler then took secretary Traudl Junge to another room and dictated his last will and testament. Goebbels and Bormann were two of the witnesses.

After midnight on 29 April, with the Soviets advancing ever closer to the bunker complex, Hitler married Eva Braun in a small civil ceremony within the Führerbunker.

Goebbels was depressed and stated that he would walk around the Chancellery garden until he was killed by the Russian.

Later on 1 May, Vice-Admiral Voss saw Goebbels for the last time: "... While saying goodbye I asked Goebbels to join us. But he replied: 'The captain must not leave his sinking ship. I have thought about it all and decided to stay here. I have nowhere to go because with little children I will not be able to make it, especially with a leg like mine.

Goebbels carried out his sole official act as Chancellor. He dictated a letter to General Vasily Chuikov and ordered German General Hans Krebs to deliver it under a white flag. Goebbels' letter informed Chuikov of Hitler's death and requested a ceasefire. After this was rejected, Goebbels decided that further efforts were futile.

On the evening of 1 May, Goebbels arranged for an SS dentist, Helmut Kunz, to inject his six children with morphine so that when they were unconscious, an ampule of cyanide could be then crushed in each of their mouths.

Goebbels and Magda left the bunker and walked up to the garden of the Chancellery, where they killed themselves.