Paul Joseph Goebbels (29 October 1897 – 1 May 1945) was a German philologist, propagandist and politician, one of the central figures of Nazi Germany.
Few to no historical names have been as associated with the evils and lies of totalitarian state propaganda and total control of the media to spread it as this guy's own, to the point that he's the go-to name when casting aspersions on someone for perceived propaganda tactics. He was one of Adolf Hitler's closest and most devoted followers, known for his skills in public speeches and his rabid hatred of Jewish people.note
He was born in a modest Catholic family in Rheydt, North Rhine-Westphalia. He was afflicted with osteomyelitis and a club foot, which reformed him from military service in World War I. In school, he was brilliant, but unpopular among his peers and teachers. He obtained a doctorate in philology from the University of Heidelberg in 1921. He joined the Nazi newspaper ''Völkische Freiheit" and the NSDAP itself in 1924, working with Gregor Strasser in its northern branch, during which time he advocated kicking Hitler out of the Nazi Party before fully embracing his leadership in 1925. He was part of the first batch of Nazi deputies at the Reichstag in 1928.
On March 11, 1933, Hitler appointed him "Reichsminister of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda". He took total control of German media such as cinema (he was heavily involved in the production side of a lot of films of Nazi Germany, most notoriously Jew Süss), radio, press and even early television to tighten the Nazi regime's grip on the population and spread its ideology. He advocated progressively harsher discrimination against categories of people/races the regime deemed "inferior", particularly Jewish people, organizing a massive media and social engineering campaign that converted or cowed many people who were not previously hostile or apathetic to the Jews by spreading the narrative that everyone already hated them and wanted them removed from public life or reduced to second-class citizens. He also had a leading role in inciting the massive pogroms of November 9, 1938, the Kristallnacht. These all laid the groundwork for The Holocaust.
The apex of his propaganda madness was reached mid-World War II with the speech he gave on February 18, 1943 at the Sportpalast hall in Berlin, in which he pushed for "total war" once the war against the Soviet Union was starting to go very badly for Germany after the Stalingrad disaster, chaining Germany even further to the path of destruction Hitler had dragged it on. He then tried various ways of boosting the morale of the German population, via films most notably, and failed at it as Allied air raids brought more and more devastation upon the country.
While he wanted his family (his wife Magda, née Behrend, and their six children) to look as wholesome as possible and "exemplary" by the regime's standards, he had a lot of affairs, notably with actresses he had ministerial control over, and Hitler had to personally mediate in his marital disputes with Magda more than once, something Goebbels was none too keen in entertaining; when Hitler tried to tell Goebbels to abandon Lída Baarová, a Czech actress, Goebbels did not relent, and both engaged in a screaming match that many witnessed. The incident with Baarová was so severe that Goebbels temporarily lost Hitler's favor and rarely spoke to him, though he would regain it later on through his exemplary work as propaganda minister.
Towards the end of the war in March-April 1945, Goebbels's undying loyalty to Hitler had him take his family with him into the Führer's bunker in Berlin, and they remained there by the Führer's side as the Red Army started besieging the capital city. Hitler, after appointing Goebbels Chancellor and Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz President in his last will, took his own life on April 30. Goebbels and his wife followed suit the next day (May 1) with cyanide pills, but not before Magda killed their six children with the same poison. Of the Goebbels family, only Harald Quandt, the son of Magda with her first husband industrialist Günther Quandt, who served as a lieutenant in the Luftwaffe, survived the war due to having been taken prisoner (he died at age 45 in an air crash in Italy in 1967).
Goebbels kept a diary throughout the war, which has become a notable primary source into the inner workings of the Nazi regime.
Documentaries about/featuring Goebbels:
- Triumph of the Will (1935), the most famous propaganda film by Leni Riefenstahl, features his speeches at the 1934 Nuremberg rallies. Unlike Hitler, he wasn't happy with how the film turned out, likely due to it featuring the S.A.
- De Nuremberg à Nuremberg (1989) features some of his speeches (including from Triumph of the Will) and quotes.
- Language doesn't Lie
(2004), about works and observations on Nazi propaganda, the terminologies they used and their impact on German language, by philologist Victor Klemperer. Goebbels is featured quite a bit.
- The Goebbels Experiment (2005), about his life and personal writings.
Appearances in fiction:
- In the Alternate History comic book Block 109, Hitler is assassinated in March 1941, Heinrich Himmler takes over with the shadowy help of Reinhard Heydrich, and starts a purge. Hermann Göring, Sepp Dietrich, Martin Bormann, Rudolf Hess, and some others are accused of high treason, arrested by The Gestapo and hanged a few days later. Goebbels, on the other hand, is spared, thanks to his propaganda talents. He gets shot to death during the second purge in 1953, this time on the orders of Hochmeister Zytek (who took power in 1947).
- Über: Goebbels is one of Hitler's few confidantes who is still in power by the time the Nazi "Über" Super Soldiers appear on the battlefield during the Battle of Berlin. After Hitler's death at Siegmund's hand, Goebbels has his face surgically altered by another Über to pull off a Dead Person Impersonation and continues his former leader's scorched earth campaign against all the enemies of Germany, also spearheading an invasion of the American East Coast.
Historical/Biopic films:
- The Last Ten Days (1955). Portrayed by Willy Krause.
- Ivan's Childhood (1962) includes the Real Life footage of the discovery of Goebbels's dead children near the bunker in Berlin when the Red Army starts occupying the city.
- Days of Betrayal (1973). Portrayed by Fred Alexander.
- Moloch (1999). Portrayed by Leonid Sokol.
- Downfall (2004), about the final days of the Nazi leaders in Hitler's Bunker in Berlin. Portrayed by Ulrich Matthes.
- Valkyrie (2008), about the attempted coup of the same name. Besides Field Marshal Keitel (who was literally standing next to Hitler during the attempted assassination in the Wolf's Lair), Goebbels probably has the second-largest bad guy role in the film because he was the only member of Hitler's inner circle who was present in Berlin during the attempted coup. He plays a pivotal role in reversing the coup by convincing the local batallion commander, Major Otto Remer, to switch sides by putting him on the phone with Hitler. Portrayed by Harvey Friedman.
- Jew Süss: Rise and Fall (2010), about the making of the 1940 antisemitic film Jew Süss. Portrayed by Moritz Bleibtreu.
- Race (2016), about black American athlete Jesse Owens during the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin. Leni Riefenstahl records Owens' performances against Goebbels' orders (which was never issued in real life). Goebbels is portrayed by Barnaby Metschurat.
- American Traitor: The Trial of Axis Sally (2021). Portrayed by Thomas Kretschmann.
- Goebbels and the Führer (2024), about the last seven years of his life. Portrayed by Robert Stadlober.
Others:
- Churchill: The Hollywood Years (2004). Portrayed by David Schneider.
- La niña de tus ojos (1998): A Spanish film about a group of Spanish filmmakers being invited by Goebbels to shoot a musical in Germany in 1938; while initially happy to be able to get away from their own war, it soon becomes clear that Goebbels is actually interested in the film's starlet (played by Penélope Cruz). Largely based on the shooting of the real-life 1938 Spanish film Carmen, la de Triana in Nazi Germany. Portrayed by Johannes Silberschneider.
- My Führer (2007). A German comedy in which a depressed Hitler hires a Jewish speech coach. Portrayed by Sylvester Groth.
- Inglourious Basterds (2009). He gets ridiculed as a gross and lousy lover in the thoughts of Shosanna Dreyfus, and in an Alternate History bit, he gets gunned down alongside Hitler by the Basterds in Shosanna's cinema seconds before bombs go off in the place. Portrayed once again by Sylvester Groth.
- The Bunker (1981). Portrayed by Cliff Gorman.
- Inside the Third Reich (1982). Portrayed by Ian Holm.
- Goebbels and Geduldig (2001). A German black comedy film in which Goebbels happens to have a Jewish lookalike named Harry Geduldig. Both were portrayed by Ulrich Mühe.
- Hitler: The Rise of Evil (2003). Portrayed by Justin Salinger.
- Operation Valkyrie (2004). Portrayed by Olli Dittrich.
- Speer Und Er (2005). Portrayed by Wilfried Hochholdinger.
- The Man in the High Castle (2015): He's apparently still Reich Minister of Propaganda in 1962, but he's never seen. His "niece", Nicole Dörmer (who is implied to be one of his bastards resulting from Goebbels's many affairs) got herself a cushy job as a documentary filmmaker because of her connections in the Nazi government.
- In the Hearts of Iron 4 mod Red Flood, Goebbels is an available leader for the German Socialist Räterepublik. While his regime is authoritarian and nationalistic, he lacks the rampant antisemitism and genocidal tendencies that made him infamous in our timeline and is more influenced by the German revolutions of 1848. Ironically, if Germany is led by Ernst Graf zu Reventlow, Goebbels would be killed off for opposing his antisemitic and ultranationalist ideals.
- Der Fuehrer's Face (1943). He plays the trombone.
