From National Bolshevik to Hilterite and From Reich Minister to Reich Chancellor
[In the following excerpt, Remain examines Goebbels's novel Michael and his diaries for the years 1942 and 1943.]
MICHAEL: A GERMAN FATE
Goebbels' literary output from 1921-24 included several plays, most of them unfinished: one about Christ, Judas Iscariot; another, Heinrich Kämpfert; and plays called The Sowing and The Wanderer. The Wanderer was produced on November 6, 1927, by the National Socialist experimental stage company in a matinee performance of a memorial service at the Wallner Theater in Berlin. This play, consisting of a prologue, fourteen scenes, and an epilogue, borrows its form from Dante's Divine Comedy. Just as Virgil leads the Italian poet through Inferno, so the wanderer leads the despairing author "over the heights and through the valleys of German history." A repeat performance given five days later was to be the last.
Early in the twenties Goebbels was obsessed by the idea of his literary vocation. In Michael he described his powerful creative impulse:
July 15: I am lying in bed sleepless, wrestling with the powers that press upon me.
There is in me rebellion, indignation, revolution. An idea grows inside me to grandiose proportions. Danse macabre and resurrection.
July 18: I feel as if I no longer belong to this world. I rave in a state of intoxication, in a dream, in anger.
I divine new worlds.
Farawayness grows in me.
Give me the strength, Lord, to say what I suffer.
At first his novel Michael—a mere 160 pages—was not published. It was written in the form of a diary and described the spiritual evolution of a young German searching for the meaning of life, for God, for the sense of mankind's true task and calling. Since the German universities with their antiquated system failed to give him an answer, he turns to the common people, becomes a miner, and dies down in the mine, mortally wounded by a falling rock. The story is frequently interrupted by reflections on every kind of topic. These aphorisms are neither particularly original nor well formulated. Most of them are stylistically reminiscent of Nietzsche, though they are sadly lacking in Nietzsche's language and wealth of thought.
There are four main figures in this novel: Michael; Herta Holk, his girl friend; Iwan Wienurowsky, a Russian student; and Michael's school friend, Richard. Michael has much of Goebbels' mental outlook, but Michael's appearance is that of his friend, Richard Flisges, to whom the novel was dedicated. (Flisges had actually died in an accident in a mine in Bavaria in July 1923.)
This composite figure of Goebbels and Flisges is hardly convincing. A Michael who thinks like Goebbels can never be a glorious hero but only pose as such:
June 20: I put my helmet on, draw my sword and declaim Liliencron.
Sometimes I am overcome by a yearning to be a soldier, to stand guard.
One must be a soldier always.
A soldier serving the revolution of one's people.
On the other hand, a Michael who looks like Flisges cannot think like Goebbels. He will be by nature much more straight, more simple, even if he indulges in his own pessimism, as Flisges used to. Goebbels' failure to present a convincing hero came from his inability to create a living figure rather than a projection of his own wish fulfillment.
While Michael expresses the thoughts of Goebbels, Iwan Wienurowsky presumably represents those of Flisges. But Iwan, too, lacks a clear outline. He remains a cliché—a Russian as Goebbels would imagine him after reading too much Dostoevsky. But compared with Dostoevsky's deep psychological insight and the profound and tortured revelation of his hero's guilt, Goebbels' attempt looks like scraps picked up from the floor of the master's workshop.
Michael liberates himself—as any good German would—from Iwan's influence. And Wienurowsky's last letter to Michael strikes the note of things to come:
July 8: I wish Russia had created a new world. Rome has come to an end. The new Rome: Russia … for me you represent the German youth about to liberate itself, you are strong, but we will be stronger!
Michael: Yes, we will cross swords. The German and the Russian man. Germans and Slavs!
Michael's school friend, for whom Fritz Prang served as a model, plays only a minor part. He becomes a bourgeois, so Michael loses all interest in him.
July 2: The political bourgeoisie has no significance and does not wish to have any. All they want is to live, and live in a primitive way. That is why they will perish. I hate the bourgeois because he is a coward and no longer prepared to fight. He is just an animal in a zoo, that is all.
In Michael's view the bourgeoisie should be thrown on the rubbish dump of world history and be replaced by the working class. After his attack on the bourgeoisie, Michael writes:
July 2: The working class has a mission to fulfill, particularly in Germany. It has to liberate the German people within Germany, as well as in her relationship with the outside world. This is a mission of universal importance. If Germany perishes, then the light of the whole world will go out.
Soldiers, students, and workers will build the new Reich. I was a soldier, I was a student, I want to be a worker. I must pass through all three stages to show the way.… The new man will be born in the workshops and not in books.
Alas, Goebbels missed the first and the third stages. He had never been a soldier nor a worker. He was excluded from the former by his physical shortcomings; and as for the latter, it soon would have spoiled his well-groomed hands.
Michael was probably written at the end of 1923 and the beginning of 1924. Its original title was: Michael Voormann: The Diary of a Man's Fate. It was published only in 1928, not, as Goebbels had wished, by Ullstein, but by the National Socialist party's official publishers. Both title and content had undergone changes. In the title the name Voormann was dropped and a Man's Fate had become the Fate of a German. The differences between the original (1923) and the published version (1928) were probably due to the fact that Goebbels had met with Hitler and had meanwhile risen to a high position in the party. The numerous anti-Semitic outbursts in the published version could hardly have been included in the original submitted for publication to the Jewish Ullstein publishing house. In many places one can trace the influence of Hitler's Mein Kampf which was still unpublished when Goebbels wrote the original Michael. In the original Goebbels had addressed himself to mankind. In the published version mankind in general was replaced by the Germans in particular. The wings of the idealist have been clipped. Before us stands a meekly conforming member of the party.
Michael is the work of a beginner, with all the corresponding weaknesses. It was Goebbels' first attempt at creating a hero. But Goebbels absolutely lacked any true feeling for nature and any real curiosity about the intricacies of the human soul. Michael is no more than a collection of slogans, not even particularly well presented. But while Goebbels strained to create the book of a true writer, he was neglecting the talent that later made him into the greatest propagandist of all time. Goebbels' new religion was a concoction of Faust, Christ, and Zarathustra. Three books are found in Michael's drawer after his death: Goethe's Faust, the Bible, and Nietzsche's Zarathustra. The Bible was always an important element in Goebbels' strange Weltanschauung. And it is perhaps significant that he left this sentence, "I took with me two books, the Bible and Faust," in the published version. The Bible has first place, and Zarathustra isn't even mentioned. It is surprising that no critic has ever remarked on the dominant part the image of Christ plays in Goebbels' Michael.
August 12: … in the evening I sit in my room and read the Bible. From afar I can hear the pounding of the sea.
I lie awake for a long time and think of the quiet pale man of Nazareth.
The figure of Christ remained powerfully present in Goebbels' imagination to the very end. Even quite late he was still planning a book about Christ: "I cannot think of a more fascinating personality in history than Christ.… I know no more powerful speech than the Sermon on the Mount. Every propagandist ought to study it."
THE WARTIME DIARY
Goebbels' wartime diary of the years 1942-43, like that which he kept in 1925-26, contains observations primarily on contemporary events and personalities; however, the strong personal accent of his earlier diary is absent. In 1942 Goebbels was a mature man. He was no longer beset by griefs of young love, and in any case, times were far too serious for sentimental problems. He was fully preoccupied with the political or military position; everything personal had to take second place.
Historically this diary is interesting, insofar as it differs from that of 1925-26, in that it was written with an eye to posterity. Goebbels might have planned to use it as material for some books he expected to write one day; but as he became increasingly aware of the fact that the war might be lost, the diary more and more assumed the character of a political testament. Perhaps the most striking feature of this wartime diary is the author's complete amoralism. This amoralism had its predecessors in Nietzsche, Machiavelli, and, above all, in Hitler. It appears that Goebbels threw his own moral concepts overboard and adopted Hitler's. Examples are his praise of Heydrich's policy in the protectorate and his open admission that he was more concerned with an ostensible than a real pacification of the subjugated peoples. He did not hesitate to make promises for the future to certain countries, knowing full well they would never be kept. Goebbels' brutal policy of destruction of the Jews, as recorded in his wartime diary, is also new. All this painfully demonstrates his assimilation of Hitler's ideas. In the twenty years that elapsed between the two diaries, Goebbels' thoughts had cleared up considerably, but they had also become far more primitive and brutal. All humanitarian considerations had disappeared.
The wartime diary is also interesting as a critical analysis of that particular period. It covers two years, from January 1942 to December 1943. In these two years the tide turned against Germany. In December 1942 the tragedy of Stalingrad threw its chilling shadow over Germany's fate. In summer 1943 Italy joined the enemy camp. The Anglo-American air forces established their unchallenged superiority and dominated the airspace over the German homeland. One town after another fell in ruins; this, in fact, failed to destroy the morale of the population or diminish production appreciably, but it revealed Germany's impotence. The "Baedeker raids" that obliterated Germany's most beautiful towns and monuments were militarily useless and obviously barbaric, but destroyed much that the Germans were proud of. [The term "Baedeker raids" was used for the first time in connection with Germany's air attacks on English towns of no military importance. They preceded those mentioned here.] On the Eastern front the Soviet advance continued, and Germany's strong ally in the Far East, Japan, had begun its "planned retreat."
Interesting, also, in the diary are Goebbels' judgments of his contemporaries. His views on Churchill and Roosevelt have been mentioned, but they were not the only foreign politicians to get bad marks. Generalissimo Franco is called a "bigoted churchgoer," "an inflated peacock" who permits "Spain to be practically ruled by his wife and his father-confessor." About Quisling, Goebbels says, "I have the impression that Quisling is just Quisling. I cannot feel much sympathy for him."
For Stalin, however, in his diary Goebbels has only admiration. There is a marked divergence between his private entries in his diary and his official pronouncements. He was most impressed with Stalin's brutality. "He got rid of all opposition within the Army and thereby cut out any defeatist tendencies. The introduction of political commissars had a most salutary effect on the fighting capacity of the Red Army."
Goebbels saw other advantages in Bolshevism, such as "the liquidation of all opposition in Russian society." Goebbels also welcomed Stalin's brutal methods used against all opposition within the Church, "which remains a real headache for us."
Goebbels' views on how to deal with France were profoundly deceitful. He had adopted Hitler's line. Reading Goebbels' notes, one never has the feeling that he was seriously concerned with the question of how to build a new Europe, since he proposed to exclude all peoples, including such a highly cultivated nation as the French, from playing any important role. He drew on Hitler for his moral excuses.
Whoever possesses Europe will soon lead the world. In this context we cannot even begin to discuss the question of right or wrong. A lost war will put the German people in the wrong; victory will assure us every right. Altogether, only the victor will be in a position to put over to the world the moral justification of this war.
Goebbels accused the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of lacking initiative in its European policy; he published his own statements, promising all European peoples freedom and prosperity after a German victory. At the same time he confided to his diary his views on France, which prove that his promises were brazen lies.
It would be a mistake to hope for too much from France. The French people are to my mind ill and worm-eaten. They are no longer able to make any significant contribution toward the construction of a new Europe.…
The Fuehrer's policy toward France has proved correct in every way. One must put the French on ice. As soon as one flatters them it goes to their heads. The longer one leaves them hanging in the air the readier they will be to submit.
While the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is inclined to support the French demand for a preliminary peace, all the more so since the French government declared its readiness "to actively take part in the war," Goebbels sided with Hitler who, reluctant to play his aces too soon, thought he could do without French armed assistance. He intended to obtain "truly historical results from the war against France."
What are these "historical results"? "Whatever the war may bring, he [Hitler] says France will have to pay dearly; after all, she has caused this war and initiated it.… [This statement completely contradicts Goebbels' propaganda line up until the French campaign in May 1940.] France will be reduced to its frontiers of the year 1500 … which means that Burgundy will be integrated into the Reich. We will win a territory superior in beauty and riches to almost any other German province."
But woe to any other nation that pursued a similarly egotistical and ruthless policy. This is exemplified by Goebbels' reference to Mussolini's fall. In May 1943 Tunisia had been lost, and on July 10, Anglo-American forces landed in Sicily. This appeared to be the moment for Italy to seek a divorce à l'Italienne from her Axis partners. Italy's inner political situation made this relatively easy: The Italians still had a ruling King, not to mention the Pope, in their midst. Mussolini was completely spent after twenty-one years of government. There was precious little left of his animal-of-prey nature, of being "the big wild cat," as Ezra Pound had described him once. Driven by sheer greed, Mussolini had entered the war too hastily. The ignominious defeats the Italian armies sustained in Greece and North Africa only revealed to the world Italy's military and economic weakness. This, in its turn, reduced Mussolini from his position as Hitler's partner to that of Hitler's factotum—if that. And when on July 25, 1943, Mussolini was deposed by the Great Fascist Council and arrested by the King, no one in Italy raised a finger to help Mussolini. Over twenty years of fascism seemed to have been blotted out overnight.
Goebbels had never set great store by Italy or fascism: "The Italians are not only incapable of any valid military effort, but they have also failed to produce anything important in art. One can almost say that fascism had a sterilizing effect on the Italian people.…"
But when Goebbels was told of Mussolini's fall, he stared at his press officer "with a mixture of unbelief and horror." Goebbels sat down, incapable of uttering a word, for a quarter hour: "An expression of complete despair appeared on his face, slowly changing into grim bitterness. The first words he then uttered were 'What a shit of a man.' Then he added: 'Fascist Italy was never anything but a blown-up rubber lion.… And a clever ventriloquist made him roar, so that some people believed the lion had real teeth and claws. But one little pinprick and—puff—the whole monster collapses.'"
Goebbels immediately left for the Fuehrer's headquarters in Rastenburg. Hitler, too, had been taken by surprise, since the German Diplomatic Service, as well as the Secret Service, had obviously been caught by surprise. As soon as Hitler heard that Marshal Pietro Badoglio had taken over the government, he knew the revolt was directed against Germany. Badoglio's declaration that he would continue the war on the side of the Axis powers could not deceive Hitler.
For once, Hitler managed to keep his composure better than Goebbels who, in his consternation, hardly knew how to break the terrible news to the German people. At first he broadcast that Mussolini had retired "for health reasons." Goebbels refused for three weeks to write an editorial in Das Reich, which gave rise to all kinds of rumors.
Events in Italy developed slowly but according to plan. On September 8, an armistice was proclaimed between Italy and the Western powers. Badoglio had already signed the agreement on September 3, when Anglo-American forces landed in southern Italy. Yet on September 8, the Italian marshal told the councilor of the German legation, Rahn, that he had not the slightest intention of quitting the fighting Axis powers. The Germans would see "how an Italian general kept his word."
Goebbels, who before had never missed a chance to employ aristocrats in his entourage, became after the events in Italy a real hater of the aristocracy:
The conspiracy that was built up against us in Rome consisted of the monarchy, aristocracy, society, high-ranking officers, Freemasons, Jews, industrialists, and clerics. The Duce fell victim to this conspiracy.
The Fuehrer is taking all measures to exclude, once and for all, the possibility of anything of this kind happening over here. All German princes are expelled from the German Wehrmacht. I suggested to the Fuehrer that we confiscate without any further delay the great estates belonging to the former ruling families.
Eighteen years earlier, Goebbels and the Strasser group had supported the proposal of the German left parties to dispossess the princes without compensation. At that time Hitler had opposed the Goebbels-Strasser group. Once again, Hitler recoiled from taking this drastic step, while Goebbels more and more reverted to the National Bolshevist ideas of his political beginnings. Goebbels openly leaned toward Stalinist policy, trying to prepare the German people for co-operation with Stalin.
Had Goebbels learned his lesson from the events in Italy? His diary reveals his determination to apply still harsher methods in order to prevent anything similar from happening in Germany. "I will from now on beat up anybody who says anything against the war or against the Fuehrer. Or I will put him before a court, or shut him up in a concentration camp."
Get Ahead with eNotes
Start your 48-hour free trial to access everything you need to rise to the top of the class. Enjoy expert answers and study guides ad-free and take your learning to the next level.
Already a member? Log in here.