Goebbels

by Helmut Heiber, John K. Dickinson (Translator)

An unlikely candidate for prestige and power within the Third Reich, Joseph Goebbels remained a frustrated "artist" throughout his life. He turned to politics only as a last resort, suggests Helmut Heiber in this fascinating biography of the infamous Propaganda Minister. When Goebbels could neither publish his early novel nor secure an editorial position in one of the respected German publishing houses, he took to the speaker's stand. He was, according to the author, an excessive romantic in search of a hero and a cause until he "discovered" Adolf Hitler.
Quoting from his subject's sentimental and sophomoric novel, Michael, Heiber stresses Goebbels' urgent need for a viable system of beliefs after he abandoned the security of his family and Catholicism. "It is almost immaterial what we believe in, so long as we believe in something," spoke the young Goebbels prophetically. Once under Hitler's tutelage, he began to shift his beliefs to fit the system. Heiber traces each shift in Goebbels' development, from the vaguely ambitious, academic son of a German Catholic bookkeeper to the emotionally broken Nazi official constantly forced to bend under his Führer's commands. Riding the waves of his own rhetoric, Goebbels adopted many credos that were essentially false to him. Heiber discusses Goebbels' professed anti-Semitism, as well as his fear and distrust of the war, suggesting that he was never prepared for the role he was to play in the Reich and was drawn to it solely to satisfy his insatiable ego.
Treating each complexity of character as it figured in Goebbels' megalomaniacal public life, Heiber also considers Herr Doktor's personal intrigues. The author sheds new light on Goebbels' early affairs, his unsatisfying marriage, and his all-consuming passion for Lida Baarova, the fiery Czech actress who almost cost him his position in the Nazi party. Yet even in his one real love relationship Goebbels failed, for in love - as in war - he was no more than a trumpeter who jumped when Hitler ordered.
Heiber concludes that Goebbels had attached himself to Hitler because the Führer was the only one who took him seriously and who acknowledged his talents. He was Hitler's trumpeter; Hitler was his drummer: "Consequently, the trumpeter had served faithfully and with dedication, as long, anyway, as success followed the drummer's flag. And when this was no longer the case, the name of the trumpeter was so inseparable from that of the drummer that abandonment was impossible even for one so agile." Only through his death could Goebbels achieve more notice than Hitler, for Goebbels' decision that his innocent children should die with him and his wife was his last pathetic attempt to leave his own mark, separate from that of the madman who had made him.

Genres: Biography

400 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1962

Reviews

[A. A. Kerr · Rating 4 out of 5]

Heiber's semi-humorous, often sarcastic syntax is sometimes difficult to commensurate with the sheer evil of the man whom this book concerns, but it is an excellent work of scholarship nonetheless. The work is (expectedly) slightly dated, and more modern scholarship is sure to be more well-rounded, but those interested in Holocaust history or propaganda/political language should surely read this book in any case.

The conclusion of this biography remains the most well-crafted ending to any nonfiction book I have yet read. Heiber must be commemorated for the total masterpiece he created in the ending of the book alone.