The Goebbels Experiment

I really shouldn’t be writing about Nazis again. First of all, the last thing I want to do is attract neo-Nazis to my site and you wouldn’t believe the creepy searches I already get because of what I wrote earlier this year about the German movie “Downfall,” a dramatic film that depicts Hitler’s final days in the bunker. Second, the minute I include any photos of Hitler or his buds, I can just hear people clicking off my site in disgust. Third, I’m writing this from my usual weekend perch on La Brea Blvd. in the heart of the most ultra-orthodox neighborhood in Los Angeles. I feel guilty enough that the religious Jews passing me on their way to synagogue are witnessing my disregard for the Sabbath, but if they or one of their many children happen to see a swastika dancing across my computer screen, they might think that I am a bona fide anti-Semite looking for trouble.

Oh well, fears of Googling neo-Nazis and judgmental Chasids aside, I feel compelled to comment on the documentary I saw the night before last called “The Goebbels Experiment.” This is an absolutely riveting and revealing portrait of a Hitler’s maniacal minister of propaganda, Joseph Goebbels, told exclusively through the journals he kept from the mid-1920s until his murder/suicide in Hitler’s bunker in 1945. Unlike the propaganda techniques he mastered for the benefit of the Third Reich, Goebbels’ own diaries expose all his warts, his rapidly changing moods, his alternating reveries and rants about his wife Magda and his mentor Adolf Hitler, his tempestuous affair with actress Lida Baarova, and his vicious hatred of the Jews including his fervent hope that every last one of them would be exterminated. Again, there’s not a single word of narration in the film, every comment comes straight from Goebbels own twisted brain, as read (quite effectively) in English by actor Kenneth Branagh. Accompanying his ravings are rare films from the German archives of Goebbels in action and unsettling home movies of the picture-perfect Goebbels family.

The diary entries provide an amazing glimpse into what made Goebbels tick, and it isn’t pretty. To start with, he had a botched operation on his foot when he was young that left him with a permanent brace and made him the subject of frequent ridicule. It also prevented him from fighting in World War I which was a big source of shame. (How many of the world’s most evil figures were gripped by shame in their youths?) Goebbels was always trying to reinvent himself and gain credibility and in 1921 he received a PhD from the University of Heidelberg. He was a frustrated writer and managed to publish a novel called “Michael” that didn’t exactly set the German literary scene on fire. Joining the fledgling Nazi party in 1924, Goebbels took an immediate liking to Hitler and pronounced him the most brilliant man he’d ever met (it’s taking all my self-control to not focus on Harriet Miers’ recent comments about Bush—I’ve already made several comparisons between Karl Rove and Joseph Goebbels and I really have to stop).

Here’s the scary thing, and if you haven’t clicked off my site yet, you may in a second: I could relate to many of Goebbels’ pre-war ravings. Not his vile politics, of course, or his fascination for the charismatic orator from Austria. But hearing him go from A to Z in a single diary entry, full of angst and despair one minute and rabid enthusiasm about his life the next, it reminded me of some of my own mood swings and questioning. It’s a good thing I didn’t have the perversion, hatred, or ideological zeal that Goebbels had or I might have gone to the Dark Side during the difficult periods in my life.

After several bouts with severe depression and a couple of failed romances, Joseph Goebbels met divorcee Magda Quandt and married her in 1931. His best man was none other than that romatic softy Adolf Hitler who apparently made a very moving toast to the loving couple (oy). You get the feeling that Magda (who grew up with a Jewish stepfather she refused to help during the war—he died in Buchenwald) was even more of a staunch Nazi supporter than her husband and it seems like she had a real thing for Hitler.

Magda had a son, Harald, from her first marriage, and she began popping out Aryan youth for her new husband in rapid succession. Their six tow-headed children were named Helga, Hilde, Helmut, Hedda, Holde, and Heide. Cute, huh? Were all the “H” names in honor of the kids’ godfather Hitler? The home movies of the family reminded me of the creepy films that Joan Crawford forced her adopted children to participate in (Crawford rivaled Goebbels in her ability to employ propaganda techniques to further her own career). The Goebbels children were always dressed in ridiculous frilly costumes and they looked impossibly blond and blue-eyed as they were paraded around in front of the camera. Apparently, like their contemporaries, the von Trapps of Salzburg, the Goebbels children were known to “spontaneously” break into song (after frequent rehearsals led by Magda) at official Nazi events and parties. They were the models of everything Hitler claimed was good and pure about Aryan youth. The poor kids never stood a chance.

I had never heard of Goebbels’ intense affair with actress Lida Baarova. The clips from several of Baarova’s popular films revealed one of the most beautiful women I’ve ever seen, and an excellent actress. If only she had managed to hightail it out of Germany with Marlene Dietrich instead of falling into Goebbels’ clutches, I have no doubt that she would’ve been snapped up by MGM and we’d all know her name today. Instead, it sounds like her affair with Goebbels reached all sorts of hideous dysfunction and came to a head when the formidable Magda found out about it. Magda went straight to Big Daddy Adolf to complain about her husband’s philandering and found a very sympathetic ear. Adding to Hitler’s disgust was the fact that Baarova was Czech and thus an inferior race, not worthy of his Germanic friend. Goebbels longed to leave Magda during this time and emigrate to Japan with Lida but Hitler ordered him to end the affair at once. He was despondent at first and attempted suicide in October 1938, but he eventually did break it off. Some say to get back in Hitler’s good graces he orchestrated the infamous Kristallnacht pogrom in November 1938 in which many Jews were killed and countless synagogues and Jewish businesses were destroyed.

Lida Baarova didn’t know it, but Magda Goebbels probably saved her life. Because of Magda’s intervention, Lida was forced to leave Germany and survived the war in Prague. Returning to Germany in 1945, Baarova was promptly arrested by the American military forces as a collaborator. She was imprisoned briefly in Munich, and then extradited back to Czechoslovakia. Unable to shake her reputation as Goebbels’ lover, she moved to Argentina where she lived in poverty. Lida attempted a movie comeback in the 1950s and moved back to Europe where she appeared in Fellini’s “I Vitelloni.” One of her last films was Fassbinder’s “The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant.” She published her autobiography in 1995 in which she wrote “There's no doubt that Goebbels was an interesting character, a charming and intelligent man and a very good storyteller.” Lida Baarova died in Austria in 2000.

The documentary also reveals Goebbels’ love-hate relationship with Leni Riefenstahl, who, with Goebbels’ support, made some of the Nazis’ most successful propaganda films including her masterpieces “Triumph of the Will” and “Olympia” which she shot at the 1936 Berlin Olympics. “Today I was treated to more of Riefenstahl’s lunatic histrionics,” he complains in his journal as we see him on the screen extolling her virtues at an awards ceremony. Looking at Riefenshtal in her acting days and then directing her films, I was struck also by Leni Riefenstahl’s stunning beauty. (Yikes, is this my new thing? Next I’ll be changing the name of my blog to “Hot Babes of the Third Reich.”) Even though he couldn’t bear Leni personally, Goebbels recognized that her masterful filmmaking talents would serve his propaganda needs beautifully. Riefenstahl spent the rest of her life trying to distance herself from Goebbels, Hitler, and the Nazi Party (“No anti-Semitic word has ever crossed my lips,” she claimed in later years. “I have thrown no atomic bombs. I have never betrayed anyone. What am I guilty of?”) and I used to defend her to a limited degree. But watching her in this footage as she is shooting her films and mingling with the top echelon of Nazi society, it is hard to see her as a naïve victim. At best, Riefenstahl was an immensely talented opportunist whose work helped push an entire nation into a 12-year bout of insanity. Like Baarova, it’s a shame Riefenstahl didn’t join Dietrich in exile. However, if you look at it from purely a career perspective, it’s unlikely that any of the Hollywood honchos would have ever permitted her to direct an Andy Hardy film, much less the kind of major productions she was able to make with the support of Goebbels’ propaganda ministry. When Riefenstahl visited Hollywood before the war in 1938, the Jewish studio heads (to their credit) refused to meet with her. Her only allies during that trip were Henry Ford, himself a raging anti-Semite and Nazi supporter, and Walt Disney. But whatever her politics, Riefenstahl was a genius behind a camera lens and she continued working well into her 90s. She died in September 2003 at the age of 101.

Did you know that Joseph Goebbels was actually Chancellor of Germany…for a day? Following Hitler’s suicide on April 30, 1945, Goebbels became the official leader of the Third Reich, per Adolf’s final wishes. On May 1, after realizing that they were not going to be rescued from the bunker by German troops, Joseph and Magda put their murder/suicide plan into action. The cheerful, singing Goebbels kids had no idea what their parents had in store for them. It would be fascinating to hear from them today, and had they lived they would now range in age from 72 to 65. But they did not survive. Knowing that Germany was about to lose the war, Magda couldn’t bear the thought of her children living in a world without National Socialism so she slowly and methodically put them to sleep with morphine and then cracked cyanide into their mouths, killing them one by one. Joseph didn’t participate in the murders, but he agreed to Magda’s plans. Oddly, this was one of the few things that all of the survivors of the bunker agreed on—during their interrogations after the war everyone who was there condemned the killing of the Goebbels children by their mother’s own hand.

Joseph and Magda then went into the courtyard where Joseph shot Magda and then himself. SS officers were instructed to burn the bodies and the film shows the charred remains of the propaganda minister. It also shows footage of the still pajama-clad Goebbels children who were found in their bunks where they died. In 1970, the remains of the Goebbels family along with Hitler and Eva Braun were reburned and scattered in the Elbe River by the Soviets.

Joseph Goebbels was nothing if not a prolific journal writer. He undoubtedly would have made an excellent blogger. But now I need to stop shielding the images in this post from the religious community that is walking by and go pick up my daughter from her rehearsal. She’s playing Captain von Trapp in “The Sound of Music” in early December and today she is working on one of the captain’s anti-Nazi diatribes. What can I say? The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree? (Did you know that was originally a German expression?)

Comments

[Mikal]

Danny,

Once again, an interesting post. I've always considered Joey G. the great-granddaddy of modern propagandists and cutting-edge tech hate-peddlers.

So your daughter is playing Captain Von Trapp? Interesting gender reversal, but I suppose the role could be Frau Kapitan as well...

Speaking of which, I always thought that character was probably an Engelbert Dollfuss supporter. Herr Dollfuss was a hardline Austrian Christian nationalist, but he had no illusions about the evil the pagan, Jew-killing National Socialists represented, and was martyred opposing them...

[Danny]

Joseph Goebbels absolutely influenced our modern propagandists. He perfected the "Big Lie" technique of propaganda:

"If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State."

I'll let you all make your own allusions between that quotation and current policies.

Interesting speculation about Georg von Trapp. I guess it's possible that he was a Dollfuss supporter although I haven't found any research corroborating that and I have my doubts. I realize that the historical Captain von Trapp was NOT Christopher Plummer but Dollfuss was still a right-wing dictator and it seems that the von Trapps would not have gone for that. And while Dollfuss hated Hitler, he did have a fondness for Mussollini.

No, Leah is playing von Trapp as a man (her theatre troupe is very low on boys!) and loving it. Did you know that this year marks the FIRST time that a theatrical production of "The Sound of Music" is playing in Austria? And they've only shown the film once. It seems that they're very wary of anything that evokes their Nazi past since, unlike Georg von Trapp, most Austrians were only too happy when Germany annexed their country in 1938.

[OldLady Of The Hills]

What a powerful and frightening post; frightening in that it once again reminds us that the Nazi's, i.e. Hitler and his gang of fanatics brought such pain and destruction down upon so many many many people; relatives of mine perished as I'm sure many peolpe who read this blog could testify to that, as well, so it's never far from the memory, especially when a film such as this jogs that memory.
I LOVE your writing Danny and that you are able to inject some levity where there is none amazes me..(well, I gues there is always something funny in all things tragic..).
As to the filmaker, Miss Leni, I have never understood how anyone could defend her, but, it just means her propaganda machine functioned very well where her reputation was concerned after the war. I'm glad you saw her for what she was...and boy did you ever hit that one on the head, but good! Thank you for gving us all a needed reminder to look to history, and to never forget. I wish I'd seen that documentary though I think it would have made me very angry...but now, I do want to see it, because of your cogent thoughtful words about it, and that whole terrible period of time.

[OldLady Of The Hills]

Sorry to post again, but, on a lighter side...The Von Trapp Family came to my High School and gave a concert during the time I was in....maybe, 9th or 10th grade...You jogged that memory, too!

Break A Leg, Leah!

[Laura Argiri]

It always interests me that so many writers portray these children as blonde, and kiddie actors hired to play them onscreen generally are fair and towhaired.

Unlike their father, they all had pleasant features. But, as the many pictures show, the oldest four had dark hair and eyes, as did Dr. Goebbels, and the younger two had lighter brown hair that would have probably darkened if they'd lived to grow up.

What's interesting about these kids is that at least one of them, the only son, Helmut, was academically quite slow, which must have worked Goebbels's nerves.

[Ella]

I heard that Albert Speer and some of the other top Nazis offered to take the Goebbels family to safety, but Magda refused, saying, "I belong to my husband, and my children belong to me." She knew, by the end of the war, if not before, of the genocide going on, and thought that the children would be hated for being the children of Nazis, and she believed in reincarnation, so she thought she could give them a better life through killing them.
I think the Goebbels children, who were described as "charming" were as innocent as any other children who were murdered during this time...

[Countryfellow]

Lida Baarova was spied by the Gestapo in Prague during the war. The love affair destroyed her entire life.

[Celia]

I have just discovered your website as I was looking on Google for info. re. the Goebbels. Not that I like the schmendrick or anything that he stood for, but I have just watched "The Bunker" and those of us who were born after all these things occurred would like to know more facts.
Thank you for such an interesting site.
Regards,
Celia from Australia

[WIM MULDER]

SWEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEETTTTT

[julie]

I absolutely loved your blog, historically factual and so funny at the same time, how can you possibly be funny in an appropriate way about this subject without being disrespectful about the horror of the holocaust, and yet you managed to pull it off, just wonderful.

[Erin Long]

Interesting, and factual in most places. Goebbels in fact despised Miss Leni because Hitler allowed him no influence over her. Goebbels believed in subtle discreet propaganda such as Jud Suss, an entertaining film with a horrible message. Leni's films were far from subtle, showing Hitler as a god and Goebells could do nothing. He despised the woman but had to tolerate her because Hitler loved her films. Probably due to the fact that he was in just about every shot.

[glenn nordin]

i am planning to do a music project and cal it høbba gøbbels
and wish to present pictures of the gobbels children on slide show to the music/(the meaning of this is of cause to remind and inform
the humanity of the sic energy of war and hate) do you know any
possible place to contact to get a rent or help with the pictures ?

[annabelle jacobs]

Bless you. I read about Hitler and his buds without the slightest concern for the feelings of other people. Well, that's not totally true. I'm taking Star Trek to the airport.

[Carl]

Sounds like Fox News Channel.

[[email protected]]

she was hot as shit

[Michael in the Bay Area]

That was fascinating. Good post.

[Rose Wnuk]

This was interesting. The last survivor of the bunker gave an interview where it was clear Magda at least killed some of the children herself, also that she killed them in the bunker because people would have stopped her if she had done it upstairs. She then came out of the room crying, sat down and played cards until it was time for her to die. Frighteningly fanatic, she was more for her cause than her husband, although she realized Hitler was over the edge long before the end came.

[Jarka]

Lida Baarova payed a lot: her father lost a leg due to inflammation, her mother died during interrogation(because of Lida's contacts with Germans) and her sister Zorka, talented actress, commited suicide. Zorka was attacked by several actors that she does not deserve to be an actress because of her sister and suffering with depressions, she ended her life. Lida died in salcburg, austria, lonely. Never it was proved that she hurted anybody, even she helped some people because of her contacts. Oftes is said that she payed a lot for her beauty and naivity.

[Sheryl]

I enjoyed your chatty informative review of Goebells life. Although I do not agree with the comparison of Karl Rove and Goebells as the same kind of person. I disagree with this analogy because I think Karl Rove has a very different heart than Goebells.
I also find it strange that no one mentions where Goebeels learned his Propaganda. From the USA. The Wilson Administration. Wilson was a bigot. And had the premier of the KKK movie in the White House. Interesting no one ever mentions the connections about that.

[Helen B]

Good article! Actually, I have always been attracted to exploring how good and evil can exist in people simultaneously. Goebbels was one of those people who life dealt a crappy hand and was trying to validate himself by any means. It didn't matter if you thought of him with adoration (which he'd prefer) or loathing, as long as you thought of him. We're all still playing into his master plan (and I don't mean race)...

Many people will disagree with my psychological assessment but on the scale of 1 to 10, Goebbels rates a 5 for psychopathology. What! Why? Well, for all his hate spewing, Goebbels was quite tame. He knew how to talk a good game, but follow through wasn't his strong point. We hear how he instigated Kristalnacht, but really he never threw a punch. Even when wifey was poisoning his children he didn't participate and stayed away. If you really wanted crazy, there was Heydrich (who perfected the concentration camp system in Poland), Eichman (who dreamt up the final solution), Himmler, of course Hitler...Sometimes, I doubt Goebbels ever really cared for the Nazis as much as he used them as a springboard for his fame and notoriety which would have been denied him any other way had things turned out differently. When I hear his name, I think about Landau from Inglorious Basterds - he'd gladly cut a deal to sell everyone out for a house in Nantucket and a pardon.

Goebbels revealed his doubts about National Socialism quite frequently to Lida and even used to make fun of Hitler by pantomiming him. He never wanted to marry Magda - many people suspect it was "asked" of him because Hitler wanted to marry her but swore to stay unmarried to serve Germany. Since Goebbels was quite close to Hitler, this kept the two secret lovebirds in close proximity without scandal. Yeah, Goebbels sweated her for a short time, but he never talks about it as more than infatuation. Typical Scorpio man....

Magda seems to be the one who wore the pants. She was REALLY the Nazi's Nazi and Joey often hated to even be around her. About the kiddie murder thing...well, I'm out on that one. Yeah, it's totally F'ed what happened to them. Her rationale about not living in a world without Nazism is maybe partially true, but I'm thinking they had in mind what could possibly happen to them when the Ruskies got their hands on them (think rape, torture, horrible execution lingering for hours). Perhaps she died for an idea, I think he died to evade Russian retribution and accepted her decision to out the kids on those grounds.

Don't mistake me, I'm not a sympathizer or Goebbel's apologist. It's just that there's always a psychology as to why we do what we do and when it comes to humanity, the black and white answer doesn't always suffice when you consider all the shades of grey. What an awful time for Germany and it's people, this statement includes the Jews, who were also German citizens! It was so scary for everyone. God willing it's never repeated.