Goebbels - Showman To The Last

A club foot kept Paul Josef Goebbels (1897-1945) out of World War One. He spent most of the war at Heidelberg University, where he gained a doctorate with a thesis on an obscure German romantic dramatist, Wilhelm von Schiitz. Goebbels joined the Nazi party in 1926 and became its chief intellectual and a master of propaganda. In 1926, he was appointed Nazi Gauleiter (district leader) in Berlin and in 1927 he founded the party's Berlin newspaper, Der Angriff ('The Attack'). He was largely responsible for building up the Nazi power base, until then mostly concentrated in Bavaria, in the German capital. When Hitler came to power, Goebbels became Minister of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda, controlling the press, radio, publishing, theatre and cinema. He shared Hitler's fanatical belief in the 'spiritual struggle' against the Jews, and was the instigator of Kristallnacht. Always a showman, Goebbels faced the war's last throes with unbent pride and unbowed spirit. 'Gentlemen,' he told a propaganda ministry meeting in April 1945, 'in a hundred years' time they will be showing a fine colour film describing the terrible days we are living through. Do you not wish to play a part in that film) ... Hold out now, so that a hundred years hence the audience does not hoot and whistle when you appear on the screen.'


Propaganda genius Josef Goebbels' inestimable gift to the Nazi party was his understanding 01 mass psychology. This was shown in the mounllng of numerous hysterical rallies, precision street marches and torchlight parades that brainwashed a nalion.

Joseph Goebbels

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This shows where the mental aspect played a role in the war.