Dr Joseph Goebbels

Early Life

• Born: Rhineland, 1897
• Attended Heidelberg University
• WWI Rejection: clubbed foot, stature
• Spent 10 years writing plays, novels and poems
• Unable to find a publisher: claimed due to Jewish control of publishing houses

Personality

• Self conscious & embittered:
• Feeling of physical inferiority
• Rejection from army & Treaty of Versailles
• Womaniser, claimed to be the only cause of conflict between Hitler and himself

EARLY CAREER

• Joined party in late 1924
• 1926 - 30, Berlin
• 1928 & 30 - election to Reichstag
• 1929 - control of propaganda machine

During rise to power

• 1933: Minister for Enlightenment and Propaganda
• 'The Poison Dwarf'
• Colour film
• 'The Eternal Jew', 'Triumph of the Will'
• Nuremberg displays

Hitler and Goebbels

• Womaniser, claimed to be the only cause of conflict between Hitler and himself
• Hitler gave him his wrist watch - he was the only seniour Nazi to remain with him to the end

During WWII

• Convincing Germany war going well
• Battle of Stalingrad
• 'Total War'
• 1944: Reich Commissioner for Total Mobalisation

End of WWII and death

• April 28 1945: Invited to Führerbunker
• May 1st: poisoned his 6 children, shot his wife and then himself
• Primary sources