Throughout Nazi Germany and Hitler’s Third Reich, the dictator and his party had strong
beliefs as to how women should act and behave.
They tried to control what women wore, and even tried to coerce them to have as many
children for Hitler’s Empire as possible, with the hope that the sons of these women
would become soldiers.
It was clear by the Nazi beliefs that they wanted women to stay at home, look after the
house and have children whilst the men either worked or went away to fight.
But there was one woman who Hitler was incredibly close to, and that was the wife of one of
his closest friends Joseph Goebbels.
Hitler and Magda Goebbels had an incredibly tight knit friendship, and the Dictator himself
would even provide the pair with marriage counselling and advice.
But Magda Goebbels was a murderer, and she had died alongside her husband in the same
place as the man she had devoted her life to, Adolf Hitler inside of the Fuhrerbunker.
Join us today as we look at ‘The DISGUSTING Crimes of Magda Goebbels,’ remember to support
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Before marrying the Head of Hitler’s Propaganda Ministry, Magda was married before.
She met Gunther Quandt who was a rich German industrialist and was also twice her age.
She was around 19 and he was around 40, and Quandt would shower her in lavish gifts to
win her affection.
The pair had a child, but Magda grew frustrated as her husband spent little time with her
and instead favoured working on his business.
But in 1929, her husband discovered that Magda had been having an affair, and the pair separated
and then divorced with Magda getting a handsome amount of wealth from her now ex husband.
However, it was in 1930 where she would become obsessed and captivated by the Nazi Party
and their ideology.
She attended a meeting of the Nazis, and she was incredibly impressed by a short man who
was speaking and whipping the crowd up into a frenzy.
This man was Joseph Goebbels, the Gauleiter of Berlin, and shortly after this she officially
joined the party and got involved in some volunteer work for the party.
She was not really at this time politically motivated, but then she moved into the party
headquarters in Berlin, and became a secretary to Hans Meinshausen, the deputy to Goebbels.
But following her work with Meinshausen, she then began to take over more responsibility
for Goebbels, and she looked after his own private papers.
Whilst on a trip to Weimar along with friends, Magda and Joseph became romantic and intimate
in February 1931 and they then struck up a relationship.
Joseph was a dreamer and believed that one day Nazism would take over Germany, and the
pair would plan their future together.
Goebbels claimed in his diary that, ‘We have made a solemn vow to each other.
When we have conquered the Reich, we will become man and wife.
I am very happy.’
It was inside of Magda Goebbel’s flat that along with her boyfriend, many other high
ranking Nazis would meet and talk.
Hitler would regularly frequent Magda’s flat, and would talk long into the night joined
by other members of the Nazi Party.
Despite their relationship having problems, Goebbels actually became jealous that Magda
was capturing the eye of Hitler, but nonetheless the couple married on the 19th December 1931.
Hitler would be a witness, and as Hitler would wish to remain unmarried, many believed that
Magda Goebbels would become the ‘First Lady of the Third Reich,’ and as she was becoming
more politically ambitious, she would along with her husband be involved closely in politics
she hoped.
As a close link to the senior hierarchy of power, she would get thousands of letters
from women across Germany, many who asked for help with child custody issues, and others
about domestic matters and even divorce.
But it was clear that Magda Goebbels was enjoying the life of luxury, and their Berlin home
was remodelled and they bought other properties across Germany.
Together Joseph and Magda had 6 children, even despite her husband engaging in many
different affairs with actresses.
Magda turned to Adolf Hitler about this, and Hitler would demand Goebbels broke off his
affairs and focussed on his marriage, as he could not allow one of his closest ministers
and friends to be swept up in waves of scandal.
The pair though despite getting back together, would regularly fall out.
Now as the Second World War broke out, Magda’s eldest son Harald Quandt joined the Luftwaffe
and then was captured by the Allies later on.
After his capture, he would never see his mother again.
Goebbels served almost as that First Lady of the Reich, as she would entertain dignitaries
and also foreign heads of state and support war widows and also call for help for the
German Army.
But both of the Goebbels’ received much benefit from their closer relationship with
Hitler but it was Magda who began to first doubt the war effort as things were beginning
to turn on the Eastern Front.
She would during a gathering of friends hear a speech from Hitler and claim it was a load
of rubbish.
As 1944 came, and Hitler was seemingly leading Germany to defeat, Magda claimed that ‘He
no longer listens to voices of reason.
Those who tell him what he wants to hear are the only ones he believes.’
But cruelly, Magda had a dark secret.
Her own stepfather was Jewish and she did not at one point attempt to save him, and
it’s believed that he actually died inside of the Concentration Camp.
But Magda Goebbels was often ill, and during the war she was known to have suffered from
depression and also nerve pain or neuralgia.
Her condition affected her face, but this often led to her being hospitalised and also
confined to her bed.
Magda was a dedicated Nazi, and she would also publicly support the evil regime by doing
many of the tasks alongside her husband such as allowing meetings to take place in her
home.
However, her greatest crimes came in the final days of the Second World War in Europe, and
took place inside of the Fuhrerbunker.
In April 1945, Hitler had already confined himself to the bunker for a number of months
deciding that he would die in Berlin rather than attempt a breakout.
Joseph Goebbels made the decision to stay with Hitler and then moved his family into
the Fuhrerbunker.
The family lived inside of the Vorbunker which was the upper level of the bunker complex
found under the Reich Chancellery garden.
Inside the bunker, Magda wrote to her eldest son Harald who was being held inside a Prisoner
of War camp in North Africa.
She said, ‘Harald!
My beloved son!
By now we have been in the Führerbunker for six days already—daddy, your six little
siblings and I, for the sake of giving our national socialistic lives the only possible
honourable end ... You shall know that I stayed here against daddy's will, and that even on
last Sunday the Führer wanted to help me to get out.
You know your mother—we have the same blood, for me there was no wavering.
Our glorious idea is ruined and with it everything beautiful and marvelous that I have known
in my life.
The world that comes after the Führer and national socialism is not any longer worth
living in and therefore I took the children with me, for they are too good for the life
that would follow, and a merciful God will understand me when I will give them the salvation
... The children are wonderful ... there never is a word of complaint nor crying.
The impacts are shaking the bunker.
The elder kids cover the younger ones, their presence is a blessing and they are making
the Führer smile once in a while.
May God help that I have the strength to perform the last and hardest.
We only have one goal left: loyalty to the Führer even in death.
Harald, my dear son—I want to give you what I learned in life: be loyal!
Loyal to yourself, loyal to the people and loyal to your country ... Be proud of us and
try to keep us in dear memory.’
It was clear that Magda had decided that she would never leave the bunker, but following
the death of Hitler and Eva Braun, her husband would become the chancellor.
Inside of Hitler’s last will and testament, it was said that Goebbels and the family should
leave the bunker and should continue the Nazi government elsewhere, however Joseph defied
Hitler’s final order and along with his family decided to die inside the bunker.
Magda was one of the last people to see Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun before they took their
own lives.
But the greatest crime she would commit would be to murder her own children inside of the
bunker.
It’s clear that she and her husband had considered the step to kill their children
for a while, and it was said a month before that she was contemplating doing this.
She told her sister in law that they were going to poison the children, and her great
fear was that after the war they would be targeted for their links to their father and
the Nazi regime.
She also feared what would happen if they fell into the hands of the soviets after hearing
stories of their brutality.
It was said that Magda mentioned to her friend, ‘We will take the children with us, they
are too good, too lovely for the world which lies ahead.
In the days to come Joseph will be regarded as one of the greatest criminals that Germany
has ever produced.
His children would hear that daily, people would torment them, despise and humiliate
them.
They would have to bear the burden on his sins and vengeance would be wreaked on them.’
On the 1st May 1945, they arranged for an SS dentist, Sturmbannfuhrer Helmut Kunz to
kill the Goebbels children by injecting all 6 children with morphine so that they would
be sedated and unconscious.
After this, it was planned that cyanide ampules would be crushed inside of their mouths killing
them.
Kunz did as he was instructed, and said that although he gave the children the morphin
injections, it was Madgda and also Hitler’s personal doctor Ludwig Stumpfegger who administered
the cyanide.
Another witness, Rochus Misch the telephone and radio operator at the Fuhrerbunker stated
that he had heard that Dr Stumpfegger had given the children something sweet to drink,
and that they were told that they were leaving Berlin for Berchtesgaden and the Berghof region
in the morning.
It was claimed by another that Magda Goebbels reassured the children saying that they needed
inoculations as they would be staying inside the bunker for a long time and would be suspetible
to infection underground.
It’s believed that Magda Goebbels herself was the one who murdered her children.
She was the one who was given the cyanide capsule and then crushed this into the mouths
of her young children.
There were accusations that an SS doctor Ludwig Stumpfegger was the one who administered the
poison to the children, but most believe it was Magda Goebbels who did this.
The children were all wearing nightgowns ready for bed and were put in their bunkbeds before
injected with the sedative and then poisoned with cyanide by their mother.
Helga Goebbels was 12 when she was killed, Hildegard was 11 when killed, Helmut was 9,
Holde was 8, Hedwig was 6, four days short of turning 7, and Heide was just 4.
Magda would then tie ribbons in the hair of her daughters, before she then took her own
life alongside her husband.
The body of Magda Goebbels was found burned inside the Reich Chancellery garden, and a
few days after the deaths the Soviets arrived in the bunker and discovered the bodies of
the Goebbels children.
But Magda Goebbels was a key member of the Nazi Party and was a sounding board at times
for the dictator of Germany.
She had a very close relationship with Hitler and was considered his best friend.
But here greatest crime during the Second World War would take place inside the Fuhrebrunker
as she murdered her children.
She also refused to do anything about the evils of the Nazi regime, and was complicit
in the horrors that they committed.
Today many of Magda Goebbels’ crimes remain untold.
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