Goebbels: A Biography (61 page)

On April 7 there is the first mention in Goebbels’s diary of an imminent “extension of the war” by Britain. It refers to the British plan—
the Norwegian government had been put in the picture by London—to lay mines in Norwegian waters in order to disrupt German shipping.
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The British action appeared to play into the hands of German policymakers, as Goebbels pointed out: “That’s the excuse we were looking for.” In fact, however, at this point he was not yet aware of how far German plans for extending the war to Scandinavia had already proceeded.
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In fact, from the end of 1939 onward, the Germans had been pursuing a plan to invade Norway and Denmark and thereby secure control over the iron ore transportations that went via the Norwegian port of Narvik and use the Norwegian coast as a strategic base for continuing the war against Britain.
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It was only on April 8, the day before the invasion of Norway and Denmark, that Hitler considered it fit to inform his propaganda minister about the impending operation. When the German invasion troops had already left their harbors he summoned Goebbels in order to explain his plans to him during a walk. Impressed, the latter noted: “Everything has been prepared down to the last detail. The action will involve around 250,000 men. Most of the guns and ammunition have already been transported concealed in ships.” Hitler appeared to be confident of victory. Resistance “was inconceivable.” But would the operation not have repercussions in terms of America’s attitude? According to Goebbels he was “not interested in that at the moment. Its material aid would only have an impact in around 8 months and, as far as people were concerned”—a revealing utterance, that—“in around 1½ years.” But, Hitler explained to his propaganda minister, “we must achieve victory this year. Otherwise the other side’s superiority in terms of matériel would become too great. Also a long war would be difficult to cope with psychologically.”

Goebbels improvised—he had to. “Secretly and unnoticed got the radio mobilized. Prepared quarters in the ministry. It’s very difficult to do because I can’t talk to anyone. The main thing now is to keep it secret, then afterward we can do things properly.” The following day he had his staff get “out of their beds” and explained the operation to them, issuing guidelines as to how it was to be treated.
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The invasion of the two Scandinavian countries began in the early morning. While the German troops succeeded in getting control of Denmark on the same day, the operations in Norway came up against much greater difficulties. The plan for a rapid takeover of Oslo by a
combined air and sea operation failed, giving the Norwegian government time to organize military resistance and escape from the Wehrmacht. The landings in the other Norwegian ports were largely successful, but this success came at the cost of heavy losses by the German navy. All in all, the surprise attack had failed: The expeditionary force found itself caught up in fighting that was to last until June; it probably ended in victory only because of the successful campaign in western Europe. In addition, looked at over the medium and longer term, because of the significant weakening of the navy as a result of the operation, the bases could not be strategically exploited and the extensive Norwegian merchant fleet had gone over to the enemy camp.
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On the morning of April 9 Goebbels had the task of reading out the German memoranda communicated to the Danish and Norwegian governments: “Our well-known position: protection for Copenhagen and Oslo. Oslo is still resisting.”
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On the same day Goebbels issued detailed guidelines for the “protective custody of Scandinavia”; that these contained, to put it mildly, certain flaws in their arguments is clear from the directive that he issued to his staff at the same time, namely that “this line about protective custody should not be questioned by you, let alone be ridiculed.”
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On the following day Hitler outlined to Goebbels his thoughts on the future of the two occupied countries. He did not want a “protectorate, more an alliance. Uniform foreign, economic, and customs policies. We shall acquire the most important military bases as our own property, take over their protection, and the two states will cease having any armed forces. The aim: a north-Germanic confederation.”
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On the same day—it was the third day of the invasion—in view of the losses Goebbels felt obliged to instruct German propaganda to be less defensive about the question of Norway: Success was what counted; losses would have to be accepted.
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“Propaganda: with Denmark tact, discretion, no pushiness, emphasis on the particular character of the Danes and its legitimacy; no talk of a protectorate etc. Whereas with Norway: senselessness of resistance. Example of Poland. We want peace. Nothing can alter the facts. This will get us through for the time being.”
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It soon became apparent, however, that the invasion of Norway was not going as smoothly as Hitler and his propaganda minister had
anticipated.
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On April 13 a unit of the Royal Navy succeeded in penetrating the Narvik fjord and sinking eight German destroyers or forcing them to scuttle.
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The Germans were forced to the defensive both militarily and in terms of their propaganda.
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On April 16, when Goebbels made his midday visit to Hitler, he found him looking “very serious.”
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He was very hesitant in mentioning the news of the loss of the destroyers: “We praise the heroism of our navy that will go down in German history.” He admitted, however, that “people were getting a bit worried about our secrecy.”
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On April 20 the Reich Chancellery celebrated Hitler’s birthday. After the congratulations and a big meal, Goebbels took part in a discussion in a small group in which Hitler outlined his next goals: “Italy seems to want to intervene. It can’t avoid it.” England, on the other hand, appeared not “to have any idea of the seriousness of its situation. The Führer intends to give it a knock-out blow. And nevertheless he would make peace this very day. Condition: England must leave Europe and return our colonies, but rounded up. […] He doesn’t want to crush England at all or destroy its empire.”
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In addition to the lack of clarity about the military situation in the north of the country, Goebbels was also concerned about political developments in Oslo. On April 24 his old comrade Josef Terboven, the longtime Gauleiter of Essen, had been appointed Reich commissioner in Norway. Terboven’s main problem turned out to be the appointment of a new government in Norway. Vidkun Quisling, the leader of the small Norwegian Nazi party who had peremptorily appointed himself prime minister on April 9 but then resigned a few days later, considered himself the right candidate for the job, a view supported by Alfred Rosenberg.
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Whereas Terboven was working for a political solution without Quisling, Goebbels wanted at least to hold him in reserve; on the occasion of a short visit to Berlin on April 25 Terboven agreed to this.
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Goebbels also spoke to Rosenberg in favor of Quisling: He was “a greater German patriot,”
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they should not drop him completely. During the coming months Goebbels’s view of Quisling would fluctuate.
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Toward the end of the month, the military situation appeared to be gradually improving from the German point of view. German troops succeeded in advancing from the Oslo area toward Trondheim, where in the meantime a German expeditionary force had
been cornered by British and French troops; these were now forced to re-embark.
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The situation in Narvik in the north of Norway, where British and French troops had landed at the end of April and were soon to be reinforced, was still giving cause for concern.
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Gobbels was already assuming that the three thousand men based there would inevitably be interned in Sweden.
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Thus the official propaganda line was: “Narvik should never be mentioned and on no account be turned into a matter of prestige.”
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A few days before the start of the war in the west, Hitler once again explained his policy to Goebbels: “England must be given a major blow but not destroyed. For we can’t and don’t want to take over its empire. So much wealth wouldn’t even make one happy.”
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Goebbels spent May 9 largely in the company of his Italian colleague, Alessandro Pavolini, who had come to Berlin in order to coordinate Italian and German propaganda. The day was taken up with meetings and sightseeing, followed by a visit to the State Theater for a performance of Mussolini’s play
Cavour;
afterward there was a reception at the Haus der Flieger (Pilots’ House). Goebbels spent the following night in the ministry, since nothing much new was happening: “The Führer is determined to launch the attack in the west. It is taking place in great secrecy.”
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During the night he and Dietrich decided on “how our publications will handle it.”
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The following morning Goebbels read out on the radio the text of the memoranda the Reich government had sent to the governments in Brussels and The Hague a few hours earlier. They accused the Netherlands and Luxembourg of breaching neutrality and demanded that all three governments offer no resistance to the German troops.
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Meanwhile, his high-ranking Italian visitor had to cool his heels: “I ditch the whole program with Pavolini. He’ll have to look after himself for a bit. I entrust him to Esser.”

The war began on May 10 with a series of spectacular and generally successful German commando raids against Belgian and Dutch bridges and fortresses; other paratroop operations, such as the attempt to capture the Dutch government quarters in The Hague, proved unsuccessful.
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On the first day of the war the city of Freiburg had already suffered an air raid that killed twenty-four people. After initial hesitation, Hitler decided to use the raid for a big propaganda campaign, threatening the western powers with massive retaliation. Goebbels, who made occasional references in his diary to the “terrible consequences” of the raid, wanted to go on “exploiting” the incident, but the Luftwaffe was wary of doing so because it wanted to secure air superiority before making any threats of retaliation. Although Goebbels was certainly aware of it, he did not make any mention in his diary of the fact that the bombs had been dropped by German planes by mistake. As far as he was concerned, the official lie that was being put out was inviolable fact.
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Right at the start Goebbels used a ministerial briefing to lay down certain basic ground rules for the way propaganda should deal with the campaign. Thus, on May 10 he instructed that “during the conflict in the west the press [should] neither go in for exaggerated optimism nor indulge in panic mongering.”
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On the following day he ordered that all usable material should be put together for foreign news outlets; in the current situation “news [is] more important than polemics.” Moreover, “any enemy reports that are not accurate or can be at all dangerous for us” should be immediately and decisively denied; there was no need to check “whether or not the details of the report [are] true.”
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He was pleased at Churchill’s appointment as British prime minister: “Clear battle lines: That’s what we like.”
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During the following weeks he devoted considerable attention to studying Churchill’s personality, read some of his speeches, and concluded that the man was “a strange mixture of heroism and triviality. If he had come to power in 1933 we wouldn’t be where we are today. Moreover, I believe that he will be a hard nut to crack.”
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The rest of the war would give him little reason to alter this assessment.
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Meanwhile the German invasion had been making progress. While on May 15 the 18th Army forced the Dutch armed forces to capitulate, on May 13 and 14 the tanks of the 4th and 12th Armies had crossed the Meuse and now were making major advances toward the west in a sickle cut formation. On May 20 they reached the mouth of the Somme and thereby prevented the British and French forces in Belgium from retreating back into France.
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Goebbels followed the announcements of these victories with great enthusiasm; he informed himself of the current situation
through daily telephone conversations with Dietrich at the Führer’s headquarters. The basic propaganda line during the war was “quite clear: At home celebrate victory […] abroad create panic and confusion.”
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The “secret stations” broadcasting from German radio stations played a special role: They claimed to represent opposition groups in the enemy countries and were intended to create confusion and cause demoralization. During the first days of the campaign they broadcast “subversive propaganda to the Netherlands and Belgium”;
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a few days later the emphasis was on “panic propaganda” aimed at Britain and, in particular, France.
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Goebbels noted that he wrote “most of the commentaries” for the radio propaganda himself, and “I very carefully supervise the others.”
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At the end of May, after Belgium’s capitulation and with Hitler’s encouragement, he increased the output of the secret stations targeted at France and unleashed a wave of anti-French propaganda within Germany.
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At the beginning of June Dunkirk fell after more than three hundred thousand British and French troops had managed to escape over the Channel to Britain. After this came the second phase of the war in the west. Goebbels noted: “The aim is for France’s total defeat.”
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Goebbels now concentrated on the secret radio station “Humanité,” which claimed to be staffed by French communists. He hoped that it would produce revolutionary unrest, particularly in Paris, which was now within striking distance of the Wehrmacht. Goebbels had compelled several communists, including the former head of the KPD Reichstag parliamentary group, Ernst Torgler, who had already been given a few jobs by the regime,
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to write scripts for the station.
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His decision to do this was evidently influenced by a sense of triumph over his former opponents. On June 8 he noted: “I have a funny feeling about instructing our former dangerous opponents in how to write our propaganda.”

Paris fell on June 14.
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Hitler ordered “3 days of putting out the flags and bell ringing.”
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On June 17 Marshal Philippe Pétain took over the French government and on the same day Hitler informed Goebbels on the telephone of France’s capitulation.
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Goebbels’s interpretation of the French request for an armistice on June 17 as a “capitulation” was naturally not a misunderstanding but the official line. On June 18 he instructed the media “to nip in the bud” all attempts by the French “to turn what had been a capitulation into some
kind of amiable surrender arrangement.”
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Two days earlier he had ordered that France must “once and for all [be excluded] from Europe as a power that has to be taken seriously. […] For this reason we must deal a lethal blow to France’s national honor and pride.”
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For the time being, however, the military operations in France were continuing, so Goebbels geared his propaganda to deal with that.
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Finally, Hitler ordered that negotiations should take place at Compiègne in Marshal Ferdinand Foch’s historic railway coach in which, on November 11, 1918, a German delegation had signed the armistice. Goebbels issued the following instructions for the ceremony: “No demonstrative humiliation, but the disgrace of November 1918 must be erased.”
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The negotiations in Compiègne began on June 21; to begin with, Hitler attended in person but left Keitel to lead the discussions. The negotiations continued until the following evening, with the propaganda minister nervously following the proceedings.
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The treaty that finally emerged established the German occupation of the majority of French territory and the substantial demobilization and disarming of the French armed forces, with the exception of the navy.
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On June 22 Goebbels ordered an announcement that the war had ended to be broadcast on all radio stations: “With a prayer of thanksgiving. Very grand and solemn. Then the final report from Compiègne. So much historical greatness comes as quite a shock.”
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