Nazi Intrigues And Hatreds: Goebbels Diary

Greymouth Evening Star, 6 April 1948, Page 8

Nazi Intrigues And Hatreds: Goebbels Diary

(From E. G. WEBBER. N.Z. Press 1 Association Correspondent.) LONDON, April 5. If further proof were needed of the fatal misconceptions entertained by the Nazi war leaders about their enemies, and of the bitter intrigue and hatreds which divided their own ranks, it is provided by the private diary of Goebbels, the Reich Propaganda Minister, published by the firm of Hamish Hamilton. The diary, which Goebbels dictated every morning during the war years until Allied air raids brought the centre of Berlin tumbling about his ears, was very nearly lost when it was cast out as waste paper by Russians, who were ransacking the Reich Chancellery after the occupation of the German capital. It was rescued from the dustbin by a former American military attache in Berlin, who handed it over to an American journalist, Louis Lochner. Tirade Of Abuse The diary as it now appears has been translated and edited by Lochner, and in the process has been reduced from 7000 pages of typescript to 450 printed pages. The authenticity of the diary is unquestioned, but there is some doubt whether it was not written more with an eye to effect than to historical accuracy. Amid the tirade of abuses which he heaps upon almost all his war-time colleagues, Goebbels remains studiously non-committal on the subject of Himmler. His only words of praise are Reserved for himself and Hitler, who was plainly his idol. Goebbels spared few of his colleagues. Rosenberg and Frick he described as “nincompoops” and Sauckel as “the dullest of the dull.” Ribbentrop was a special target for his vituperation. The final passage in the diary has this comment: “If Ribbentrop is as clever in his foreign policy as he is in dealing with his colleagues on domestic policy, I can well understand why we achieve no notable successes in our dealings with foreign nations.” Germany’s Generals Goebbels reserved the fullest measure of his detestation for German generals, and his dislike was apparently shared to the full by Hitler. He records that by the spring of 1943 Hitler had become so antagonistic to his army leaders that he refused to eat with them or even to speak to them unless it was absolutely necessary. On May-10, 1943, Goebbels wrote: “The Fuhrer is absolutely sick of generals—his opinion of them is devastating. All generals are liars, all generals are cowards, all generals are incompetent.” Goebbels did not spare the Allied military leaders, and Mr Churchill he describes as “that old rogue, this ogre,” and “this insolent liar,” but he admitted that Mr Churchill was the best leader for Britain in time of war, and commented that his slogan of “blood, sweat, and tears” made him immune from attack because “he is like a doctor who has prophesied that his patient will die and who every time the patient’s condition worsens smugly explains that he prophesied it.” Mr Roosevelt, according to Goebbels, was “one of the worst enemies of modern culture,” and Mr Stalin a “brutal revolutionary.” Goebbels apparently welcomed all British talk of beating Germany to her knees, as he considered that this stiffened the German will to resist. He comments at one stage that the Germans should erect a statue to Lord Vansittart, who urged that Germany be completely subjugated. Franco And Mussolini Goebbels detested and despised Franco (“this inflated peacock, this bourgeois coward”), but he had a certain respect, which the Fuhrer apparently shared, for Mussolini. Of the Italians he says: “Old Hindenburg was right when he said that Mussolini could never make anything of the Italians, but Italians.” Goebbels claims that Rommel was withdrawn from the Axis command in Africa at Mussolini’s request.

Racially, Goebbels distributed his hatred impartially between Jews and Russians. He makes it plain that he was the chief instigator of the policy of extermination pursued against the Jews. He describes the Russians as devils, and prophesied that if the Allies won the war Britain would become a bond slave of America and that Mr Stalin would set about the complete Bolshevisation of Europe.

He describes the Americans as “a racial hedge podge,” but several times comments on British tenacity and describes the British as “the only tried combat soldiers” among the Allies. They were also, however, “the Jews among the Aryans,” and the House of Commons was “a Jewish exchange.” Impotent Fury The mounting, power of the Allied air offensive plainly filled Goebbels with increasing forebodings and impotent fury. He inveighs against the failure of the Luftwaffe to stop these attacks, and although he considered that Goering had charm and ability he became more and more out of ■patience with him as an air leader. The book is a chronicle of hatred and intrigue, but it shows that whatever else he lacked, Goebbels did not want for personal courage or loyalty to his leader. He speaks at one stage rather wistfully of his desire to settle down quietly with his family after the war. Instead, when all was lost, he poisoned them and ordered S.S. men to shoot himself and his wife and burn their bodies in the garden of the Reich Chancellery.