Joseph Goebbels was the most notorious demagogue of the twentieth century, and Hitler's closes confidant. This book uses his complete diary from 1923 - 1945, only recently released from the former Soviet Union, and a range of other sources, to present a challenging new interpretation of his life. It charts Goebbel's rise from provincial obscurity in the Rhineland, through his emergence as the most dynamic speaker of the Nazi Party and the Gauleiter of Berlin in the 1920s, to his appointment as Hitler's Propaganda Minister in 1933. Combining analysis of Goebbels' relationships with women and of his political career, it argue that there were clear threads running through his life, from a turbulent adolescence through to his death. Goebbels' love of German culture, his obsession with 'sacrifice', his fascination for Hitler, and his hatred of the Jews led him into a fatal involvement with German politics which culminated in his suicide, together with his wife and six children, in Hitler's bunker in 1945.
TOBY THACKER is Lecturer in Modern European History at Cardiff University, and has published two previous books relating to Nazi Germany: Music after Hitler, 19451955 and The End of the Third Reich: Defeat, Denazification, and Nuremberg, 1944-1946.
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More About This Textbook
Overview
Joseph Goebbels was the most notorious demagogue of the twentieth century, and Hitler's closes confidant. This book uses his complete diary from 1923 - 1945, only recently released from the former Soviet Union, and a range of other sources, to present a challenging new interpretation of his life. It charts Goebbel's rise from provincial obscurity in the Rhineland, through his emergence as the most dynamic speaker of the Nazi Party and the Gauleiter of Berlin in the 1920s, to his appointment as Hitler's Propaganda Minister in 1933. Combining analysis of Goebbels' relationships with women and of his political career, it argue that there were clear threads running through his life, from a turbulent adolescence through to his death. Goebbels' love of German culture, his obsession with 'sacrifice', his fascination for Hitler, and his hatred of the Jews led him into a fatal involvement with German politics which culminated in his suicide, together with his wife and six children, in Hitler's bunker in 1945.
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Meet the Author
TOBY THACKER is Lecturer in Modern European History at Cardiff University, and has published two previous books relating to Nazi Germany: Music after Hitler, 19451955 and The End of the Third Reich: Defeat, Denazification, and Nuremberg, 1944-1946.
Table of Contents
List of Illustrations viii
Acknowledgements xi
A Note on Translation xiii
Introduction 1
1 'This Awful Waiting' 10
2 'Starting to Find Firm Ground' 33
3 'The Coming Dictator' 56
4 'You Are the Nobility of the Third Reich' 78
5 'We Will All Three Be Good to One Another' 100
6 'These Masses Are What Matter' 124
7 'We Are Not Suited to Be Executioners' 152
8 An 'Indissoluble Community of Destiny' 178
9 'This People's War Must Be Carried Through' 204
10 'A Life and Death Struggle' 227
11 'We Have Done the Right Thing' 250
12 'How Distant and Alien this Beautiful World Appears' 276
Epilogue 305
Notes 333
Bibliography 380
Index 392