In modern times, we look back at the Nazi’s Third Reich and wonder how on earth anyone
could have followed Adolf Hitler when he was so clearly an evil dictator.
This was all thanks to Joseph Goebbels, the Minister of Propaganda.
He knew exactly how to manipulate the minds of a nation with fake news, Nazi-idealized
books, and propaganda films.
Goebbels was single-handedly responsible for brainwashing entire populations, and destroying
people who were caught in his web of lies.
Today, on Biographics, you’ll learn just how one man convinced millions of normal German
people to become faithful Nazis.
Early Life Paul Joseph Goebbels was born on October 29,
1897 in a small town outside of Düsseldorf.
His father, Fritz, worked in a factory, and his mother stayed at home to take care of
him and his four other siblings.
His family never had a lot of money, but they still paid for him to go to a private all-boys
Roman Catholic High School.
Goebbels was born with a disability where the bone marrow of his feet never developed
properly, and he had a club foot.
His parents paid for him to have an operation to correct the issue, but even when both of
his feet were pointing in the right direction, he still needed to wear a metal brace on his
leg for the rest of his life.
The operation stunted his growth, and one leg was permanently shorter than the other,
causing him to permanently limp.
He also had chronically inflamed lungs, and got sick often.
He grew up to be very angry at the world, and felt that life was unfair.
He decided to focus a lot of his time and energy into reading books and getting good
grades.
His disability prevented him from military service during World War I.
He was able to earn an academic scholarship, and attended the University of Heidelberg.
He stayed in school for years, until he earned a PhD in Philosophy in 1921.
At this point, he completely rejected the teachings of the Catholic Church.
He wrote about his personal ideas of how he thought the world should be, and saw himself
as a great philosopher and thinker.
Unfortunately for him, though, no one else agreed.
He was very loud and outspoken, and was always trying to get noticed.
Even then, he was anti semitic, and many of his opinions were so hateful, his articles
and books were rejected for publication.
He decided to create his own publication for his opinions, but very few people actually
cared to read it.
By all accounts, he was a failed writer, and an incredibly damaged little man.
He made a bit of money from being a tutor, and finally sold a few articles, but other
than that, he had little to no money to speak of.
All of this motivated him to join the Nazi Party in 1924.
At that time, Germany was going through a tremendous financial depression, and the Nazis
promised that they would fix the country.
With the Nazis, Goebbels finally found a home, and a group of people who were actually willing
to read his work.
They thought that he was great at creating pro-Nazi propaganda, and it was good enough
to convince new members to join the party.
His work helped get Adolf Hitler elected.
When he rose to power, Hitler appointed Goebbels as the Minister of Propaganda.
Since he was unemployed at the time, this very literally changed his life overnight.
Suddenly, his life had meaning, and he truly looked up to Adolf Hitler as his best friend
and savior.
Hitler gave Goebbels the task of censoring any media that may have conflicted with the
Nazi ideals.
He began to give the order of burning books that were written by certain authors.
Some of the books that Goebbels destroyed made a lot of sense, like the socialist philosophy
of Karl Marx.
However, some of choices in banned authors seem to be a bit random, and there is no logical
explanation as to why Goebbels would want to erase them from history.
This has led some people to believe that he wanted to destroy certain authors out of petty
jealousy that they were better writers than he was.
He was beginning to know the taste of control, and he absolutely loved it.
Lights, Camera, Action Aside from censoring the media, Goebbels set
out creating new content to replace it.
Joseph Goebbels knew that one of the most powerful ways to insight emotions in human
beings was through the movies.
The largest film studio in Berlin is called the Universum Film-Aktien Gesellschaft, or
the UFA for short.
They were well-respected throughout the world for producing beautiful silent films like
Metropolis in 1927.
One of Goebbels’ first orders of business was to forcibly take over the studio on behalf
of the Nazi government.
Goebbels and Hitler were both huge movie buffs, but they made the decision to censor American
films from the public, as well.
Adolf Hitler still had all of the new releases from Hollywood in his personal collection,
but no one in the general population was ever allowed to see them.
Joseph Goebbels set out to make sure everyone working in the German film industry was loyal
to Hitler.
Any of the actors who refused to shun any Jewish people from their lives and join the
Nazi party were blacklisted from ever working again.
Many of them were even prevented from leaving the country, and some actors even chose to
commit suicide.
Actresses throughout Europe who auditioned for the prestigious UFA studio had no idea
that they were walking into a trap, and many of them signed multi-year contracts before
the Nazis came into power.
So, while there were some actors who were Nazis, many of them were forced to participate
in these films against their will.
Goebbels set out to create German versions of some of the big blockbuster hits in America.
He also created movies where the only goal was to brainwash people into believing Nazi
ideals.
Some of them were clearly propaganda, like one called Hitler Youth Quex, but other films
were so cleverly disguised, that they convinced the German people to change their opinions
to suit the needs of the Nazis.
For example, the 1941 movie I Accuse was orchestrated to get the general population to agree with
the Aktion T4 Program, which pushed for the euthanization of disabled and terminally ill
people.
The plot of I Accuse is about a doctor at the peak of his career.
He get married to a beautiful young woman, only to find out that she has been diagnosed
with MS.
Back then, the treatment for MS was nothing like it is today, and there is no cure for
the disease.
This means that the wife was dying a very slow and painful death.
She begged for him to give her a lethal injection, so she could be put out of her misery.
He struggled with the decision, but ultimately assisted in her suicide.
Much of the movie takes place in a court of law where they are trying to decide if this
man should be guilty of his wife’s murder, or if he was doing her a favor by killing
her.
The film was actually very well written.
Even today, anyone who watches the film may find themselves questioning their own morals,
which is why it is considered to be one of the most dangerous propaganda films ever made.
The movie convinced people that assisted suicide was only going to help their friends and family
members who were suffering.
So, The Aktion T4 program was passed.
Innocent people were taken from their homes and killed, in the name of a perfect master
race.
This same kind of brainwashing happened over, and over again in the movies.
Personal and social life The
Nazi party didn’t just change Goebbels’ career.
It also helped him get into a relationship.
After graduating from his all-boys school, he was not used to speaking to girls.
At 34 years old, he married a fellow Nazi named Magda in 1931.
Hitler was his best man at their wedding.
In the public eye, they appeared to have the perfect German marriage.
They had several children together, and they lived on a huge gated compound in the woods
outside of Berlin.
However, Joseph Goebbels had a reputation for objectifying women, and since he was surrounded
by beautiful actresses, he completely took advantage of his position.
According to the testimony of a woman named Anneliese Uhlig, she was given the starring
role in one of the movies that was to be made at the UFA studio.
Goebbels asked her if she wanted to go for a drive to talk about the movie, and he drove
her straight to his compound, instead.
He offered her a drink, and began to force himself on her.
She started kicking and screaming, and got free from him.
He said that if she did not meet his demands, he would make sure that she never had a career
in the movies.
She decided to take her chances, and ran out the door.
But when she showed up to work the next day, there was an announcement that the film was
canceled, and Anneliese Uhlig was blacklisted from ever working in Germany again.
Joseph Goebbels did this to women on a regular basis, but he actually did fall in love with
one woman named Lida Baarova.
She was one of the few actresses who truly was a faithful Nazi, and she even turned down
opportunities to work in Hollywood in favor of moving to Germany.
She moved from Prague to Berlin in 1935, and married an actor named Gustav Frohlich, who
divorced his Jewish wife in order to continue his successful acting career.
According to Lida Baarova, she felt pressured into being in a relationship with Joseph Goebbels,
because she had heard all of the stories about him ruining other actor’s careers.
She knew if she said “no”, there was a huge chance that she and her husband could
never work again.
But she must have been a good actress, because he became convinced that they should run away
together.
Goebbels told his wife, Magda about the affair, and said he wanted a divorce.
Magda went straight to Adolf Hitler, saying that Lida Baarova was seducing him and trying
to tear their marriage apart.
Goebbels begged for Hitler’s permission to get a divorce.
He also wanted to move to Japan, and give up his position of power.
He was willing to give up everything to be with Lida.
But even as one of the most powerful Nazis in the Third Reich, Joseph Goebbels was still
a prisoner to Hitler’s power.
Hitler refused to let Goebbels quit his job, because he was far too valuable to the Nazi
cause.
The two men got into a screaming match that was witnessed and heard by dozens of people.
Hitler urged him to give his relationship with Magda a second chance.
He insisted that they give themselves another three months of living together to try to
repair the relationship.
If they could not fix their marriage within the three months, he could get a divorce.
Hitler ordered Lida Baarova her to leave Germany within 24 hours, giving her a one way ticket
to Prague.
After this incident Joseph Goebbels was no longer one of Hitler’s favorite men, his
wife hated him, and his lover was gone.
He was no longer invited over for dinner to Hitler’s place, and they barely spoke.
The other higher Nazi ups believed that Goebbels had become weak, and that he was going insane.
They questioned his loyalty, and he was no longer seen as the powerful man he once was.
If he wanted to be back in good graces with Hitler, he would need to do something extreme.
Inciting Hate Against the Jews Goebbels was desperate to regain Hitler’s
trust again.
So, in 1939, he incited a mob by publishing a fake story in the newspaper that a German
man has been shot by a Jewish man in Paris.
He spoke in the streets, claiming that Jews were trying to destroy society.
He lead an angry mob to burn down a synagogue.
That same year, he traveled to Poland with a documentary film crew to show what life
was like inside of a Jewish ghetto.
The people living in the ghetto had sunken faces, wore rags, and were generally dirty
and sick.
We now know that this is because the Nazis forced them into the inhumane conditions in
the first place.
However, Goebbels took this as an opportunity to compare them to animals, saying that they
were choosing to live that way.
He said that they are less than human, and that they need to be exterminated.
This film was called The Eternal Jew, and it premiered in 1940.
In this movie, he tried to say that Jews were all criminals, and that if The Nazis ever
lost the war, then they may even take over the world, forcing the German people to live
in squalor.
He said, “Humanity would sink into eternal darkness, it would fall into a dull and primitive
state, were the Jews to win this war.
They are the incarnation of that destructive force that in these terrible years has guided
the enemy war leadership in a fight against all that we see as noble, beautiful, and worth
keeping.
For that reason alone the Jews hate us.
They despise our culture and learning, which they perceive as towering over their nomadic
worldview.
They fear our economic and social standards, which leave no room for their parasitic drives.”
This documentary genuinely frightened the German people, and they felt that concentration
camps were justified.
After visiting Auschwitz in person, Joseph Goebbels wrote that he death and torture of
these prisoners was so gruesome, that he did not even want to write the details in his
private journal.
He wrote, “It may be barbaric, but they truly deserve it.”
All of his efforts to incite hate against the Jewish people actually paid off, and Adolf
Hitler begin to trust Joseph Goebbels once again.
Their mutual hate was enough to repair their friendship, but it was at the cost of millions
of lives.
At this point, Hitler began to trust Joseph Goebbels with more decisions in the government,
and he had even more power than he ever did before.
Hitler stopped making so many public appearances, and allowed Goebbels to speak on his behalf,
instead.
He even gave him the authority to declare war.
In 1941, Joseph Goebbels announced over the radio that Germany would be going to war with
the Soviet Union.
Goebbels did exactly what he did when he filmed The Eternal Jew in Poland.
He brought yet another documentary film crew to show Soviet prisoners who were living in
the mud, looking half-dead.
He claimed that this is how the Russian people normally lived, and that the Bolshevik party
was controlled by Jews who were trying to take over the world.
He successfully convinced the German public that by fighting Russia, they were fighting
for their freedom.
He stood in front of a crowd of thousands of people at a sports stadium in Berlin, saying
that there needed to be a “total war”.
He was met with thunderous applause.
But, as you may already know, Germany’s invasion of Russia is what lead to their downfall.
The Germans could not handle the harsh winters, and the United States had joined the Allied
Forces.
Italy switched over the the Allies, as well, and their stronghold in World War II was suddenly
falling like dominos.
Descending into Madness Now, you can probably tell so far in this
story that Joseph Goebbels was always a bit crazy.
But after the invasion of the Soviet Union, his mental state became more and more unraveled.
He encouraged elderly man and young boys to sacrifice their lives for the sake of Germany,
and baby-faced child soldiers were sent off to war.
He said that every man, woman, and child needed to be ready to die for the motherland.
According to Wilfred von Oven, a man who worked on Joseph Goebbels’ staff, they were at
a meeting when a bomb was dropped in the garden of his house.
The glass of all of the windows shattered.
While everyone else on the staff ducked for cover, Joseph Goebbels never flinched.
He simply brushed the broken glass off of his notes, and continued reading his speech,
as if nothing happened.
He somehow remained completely composed on the outside, while the panic was secretly
tearing him apart.
At the end of the war, Hitler told Goebbels that he knew that they were going to lose
the war.
He was preparing to go to his bunker, with plans to commit suicide.
He appointed Goebbels as the new Chancellor of Germany, and he wanted him to stay behind
and run the government once the Allies invaded.
Goebbels was so devoted, that he refused to live without Hitler.
He told his wife and all of his children to clean themselves, put on their Sunday best,
and go to the Fuhrer's bunker.
On April 30, Hitler committed suicide, leaving Goebbels as Germany’s new chancellor.
It’s not a position he would hold for long.
The following day, Goebbels and Magda poisoned their six children, before ending their own
lives as well.