Goebbels: A Biography Read Free Page B

was an intimate adviser to whom he was revealing the closest secrets of his policies and ideology.

CHAPTER 23

CHAPTER 24

CHAPTER 25

CHAPTER 26

CHAPTER 27

CHAPTER 28

CHAPTER 29

CONCLUSION
    In this biography we have gotten to know Goebbels primarily in three roles. In the first part we saw his development from a failed writer and intellectual to a Nazi agitator; in the second part his efforts as propaganda minister to introduce uniformity into the media, cultural life, and the public sphere; and in the third part we concentrated on his role as a wartime propagandist and advocate of “total war.” Or, to express it in visual terms, we have described the life of a person who initially preferred to wear a proletarian leather jacket or a worn trench coat, then once in power appeared in carefully selected suits or in exclusive leisure clothing, and finally, during the war, normally wore his Party uniform, however unflattering it was to his figure. But however Goebbels presented himself, the most important driving force in his life was a deeply narcissistic personality, which fed a desire for recognition that was never satisfied.

I
    Goebbels’s ambition and narcissism cannot be attributed to an attempt to compensate for his disability and his origins in a depressing lower-middle-class milieu. His tendency toward narcissism had developed before his disability, which occurred during his primary school years. It originated in his failure to develop independence atthe ages of two and three; his dependence on his mother, the model for his future girlfriends and his wife, lasted throughout his life. The image of a joyless youth and an unrecognized loner derives mainly from Goebbels’s own literary fantasy during the manic-productive phase of the years 1923–24. In fact he definitely experienced recognition and affection during his childhood and youth in Rheydt, had friends and love affairs, and, finally, in 1917, was free to choose the life he wanted to lead.
    The year 1923, which we have chosen for the start of this biography, sees Goebbels as a failure and as someone in despair. Despite having studied and acquired a doctorate, his plans to play a leading role in the reordering of the intellectual landscape of his fatherland had failed as a consequence of his own lack of ability; of his social background, which meant that he lacked an entrée into the middle-class intelligentsia; and of the times in which he was living. He was at odds with the Catholic faith in which he had been raised and was seeking “redemption” or rather a “redeemer” figure, which, after several detours, he finally found in Adolf Hitler. Goebbels’s development from being a seeker after Christ to the follower of a political Messiah, Hitler, can be traced in great detail. This phase of his life could function as a textbook for the phenomenon of political religion.
    He was inspired by the idea of finding a place in the
völkisch
movement as a political and cultural journalist, the prospect of which lifted him from his depression. He still had little time for ordinary politics, but his ambition and his passionate fixation on his idol, Hitler, and also his low regard for the political program of the Party’s “left wing,” with which he had at first been associated, all contributed to his winning a place in the leadership of the Nazi Party, albeit not yet in its innermost circle. His appointment as Gauleiter of Berlin in 1926 occurred in the context of Hitler’s seeking to achieve a balance among various Party groups. Goebbels developed his own style of agitation appropriate to this city, with its hectic way of life and penchant for sensation, a combination of rowdy propaganda and violence, aiming to focus attention on the Party at all costs, challenge the left for control of the public sphere, and provoke the authorities. During the 1920s he was already making propaganda for himself by publishing “Fight for Berlin” as the story of his