Books

Crowing and roaring

Hugh Trevor-Roper

The Goebbels Diaries 1939-41

Translated ranslated and edited by Fred Taylor (Hamish Hamilton £9.95)

Whatever their value as evidence, the

diaries of Joseph Goebbels are a significant historical document. He intend- edthem to be the basis of an official history written by himself. Luckily, he was denied this oPportunity, and the raw material re- mains raw. Three sections of it have so far i een published. This new section — 'the 'argest portion yet to be printed', we are told, with dubious accuracy — covers parts 1941e period from 1 January 1939 to 8 July h All the sections previously published Tave carried their credentials with them. 11F Publishers of this section are curiously reticent. The German text has not been Published. We are not told how that text was acquired, or where it is. There are no acknowledgements, no reference to other sources from which we might deduce the answers to such questions. The editor, who is the translator (a very readable translator) he a novelist, gives nothing away. Perhaps he does not himself know. We get the im- ression that the publishers do not wish us Purl' rknow. So let us begin by enquiring. The ri''n°1ishers of hitherto unpublished m°euments ought to be more open. Thoughout his active life, Goebbels was a '.411Pulsive diarist. At first he kept his dVaries in long-hand. But in the spring of 941, when the bombs were falling on Berlin he began to fear for the safety of h , ese valuable documents and took special Precautions 'I shall put my diaries in the Mv4ults of the Reichsbank', he wrote on 29 arch, 'to protect them from fire and air- riu. They will be safer there'. Three days fa 1 e rs it , was done: 'I have my diaries, twenty va` v°111mes, deposited in the underground Datilt h of the Reichsbank', he wrote. 'They ti.,°vide a picture of my entire life and our ta,les. If fate allows me a few years for the 14—,"' I intend to edit them for the sake of soLure generations. They may well be of fie interest to the world at large'. Later, as his the Preoccupations grew, he took a fur- Dehrk stet). Lacking the time to write, and tec.laPs fearful for the survival of a single to from 9 July 1941 he dictated his diaries ty a shorthand typist. Two copies were typed, of which one was kept in his in11,,_IstrY, the other, presumably, deposited wartne Reichsbank. In the last days of the Ph ' micro-copies were also made on „dt.ographic plates and buried in a wood ourtside

, Berlin. After the fall of Berlin some 11111“.ese documents were discovered by the [

chi,ssians and disappeared into their ar- 44;es. Others lay abandoned in the rubble " cattle finally into American hands. The

latter included the original typescripts for 1942-3, of which a selection — just as long as this new selection — was published by Louis P. Lochner in 1948, and the manuscript diaries of 1923-4, which were published by the Institut fur Zeitgeschichte in Munich in 1960. The originals of these are now in the Hoover Institution at Stan- ford. Several years later, the Russians began to exploit their hitherto disregarded booty. For some reason best known to themselves, they neither acknowledged their possession of these and such documents nor entrusted them to historians nor allowed them to be published in communist countries. They leaked them furtively through journalists for publication exclusively in the West. In this way, through an East German jour- nalist, a West German publishing house ac- quired copies both of the handwritten and of the typewritten texts of Goebbels' diaries, extending (with gaps) from 1924 to 1945. From these were published, in 1977, the entries for 1945, of which I edited an English version in 1978. These copies, which have marks of previous Russian ownership, are now in the Institut fur Zeitgeschichte in Munich. Such is the general history of the texts, as far as I know it. How does this newly published section of the diaries fit into it? Since the entries end on 8 July 1941, and Goebbels began to dictate his diaries on 9 July 1941, they are clearly the last of the manuscript volumes. These, we happen to know, were in Russian hands in 1945 and copies of them passed through the hands of a German journalist to Messrs Hofmann und Campe, the German publishers, in 1972, and from them to the Institute at Munich. The German copyright was ac- quired by Messrs Hofmann und Campe, but the foreign rights no doubt remain with the Swiss citizen who had skilfully pre- empted them. Since this edition carries none of the usual courtesies — no acknowledgement to the Institute in Munich, or to any other owner, no reference to any German publisher — we are left with the suspicion that, somewhere along the line, unauthorised copies have been made by persons whom the publishers find it imprudent to name. Perhaps, if it should publish its German text, the ex- cellent Institute at Munich will examine and solve this interesting little problem of Quellengeschichte.

However that may be, there is no reason to doubt the genuineness of the document, which, we are told (again with great economy of detail) has been warranted by the Wiener Library. So let us turn to it. How did Dr Goebbels view the progress of Hitler's policy, and Hitler's war, from 1939 to 1941?

In some respects, we shall find ourselves disappointed. The diaries are far from con- tinuous, and some of the gaps are disconcerting. The first dramatic episode in 1939 was Hitler's military occupation of the rump of Czechoslovakia left by Munich. With that act, the whole of the Munich 'set- tlement' was exposed as an illusion or smoke-screen, and war became virtually certain. Unfortunately (except for one unimportant scrap) there is a gap in the diaries from 5 March to 19 May 1939, so that whole adventure is unrecorded. Another large gap from 31 May to 8 Oc- tober 1939 swallows up the negotiation of the Nazi-Soviet Pact, the outbreak of war and the Polish campaign. Yet another gap stretches effectively from 13 February to 1 October 1940, thus engulfing the Norwegian campaign, the war in the West, and the Battle of Britain in equal oblivion. In 1941 the whole month of January is miss- ing, but there is a complete run of entries from 1 February to 8 July; so we have the benefit of Goebbels's comments on the Balkan campaign, the flight of Hess, and the invasion of Russia.

These gaps may of course be accidental, though the survival of occasional fragments in what are regularly described as 'books' is odd. We cannot be sure that the Russians may not have excised some parts: the Nazi Soviet Pact is not an episode that they like to remember. However, since the editor does not think it necessary to comment on such details, and we do not know how much of the evidence he has himself seen, we can only speculate. Other gaps, of course, may be due to Goebbels's own reticence. He was, we must remember, a propagandist, and he was not going to

record the real arcana imperil, even if he knew them. His business was to record the outward triumphs of Nazism — and his own part in bringing them about.

Generally speaking, his task was easy in these years, for they were the years of uninterrupted success. Military victory is its own propaganda, and the Minister has only to crow. He crowed to some tune, and without much reflexion. He crowed too about his own skill in crowing. Again and again he admires his own broadcasts, ar- ticles, speeches, directives, and inhales, with articulate complacency, the incense of- fered to him by his obsequious sub- ordinates. Of course he has some trouble with his competitors round the throne. Rib- bentrop is 'an insufferable fellow' whose abusive letters are best left unanswered. Bormann, who worms his way upwards after the flight of Hess, is a sinister and alarming creature, 'neither honest nor clear-minded'. The Italian Foreign Minister, Count Ciano, is a stupid, tactless, mannerless, insolent social climber. The Churches too are a great nuisance — they will have to be dealt with later, after victory — and the generals are hand-in-glove with them. But what are these minor domestic frustrations to one who has regular oppor- tunities of admiring the Fiihrer at close quarters, of being irradiated by his vitality and inspired by his profound ideas? These include vegetarianism (`the coming religion'), 'Jewish Christianity' (to be destroyed), the worthless Poles (to be destroyed too), Frederick the Great ('what a giant! what a universal spirit! But also what a sensitive, artistic soul!'), types of feminine beauty, and the 'huge and swift strides' that we are making towards 'a new classical age'.

For of course the Fuhrer has classical tastes. He is a man 'totally attuned to Anti- quity' and hates having to make war on Greece. He loathes the gloom and mysticism of Christianity and its cathedrals, 'cannot relate to the Gothic mind', wants `clarity, light, beauty', and therefore sees `the high-point of history in the Augusti- nian age' ('shome mishtake here', as Private Eye would say, but the editor does not notice it). Once victory had been attained, the Fiihrer would take steps to realise his new classical age. Having 'put England to the sword', destroyed France as a great power, eliminated Russia and Bolshevism, and thus ensured a permanent German hegemony in Europe and the reign of universal peace, he would 'remain in office for a few years, carry through social reforms and his building projects, and then retire'. But even in his retirement he would not cease to serve humanity. He would be 'a benevolent spirit hovering over the political world', and would write a great work, 'a

Bible of National Socialism, so to speak'. How easy it all seemed in those years, when country after country was collapsing before him! All that remained was for Brit- ain to surrender and be 'put to the sword'. Why did this not happen? Goebbels simply could not understand the blindness, folly, obstinacy, 'impudent arrogance', etc. etc. of Britain. Britain, he insisted, was totally destroyed; its morale, always rotten (he knew this from reading Somerset Maugham) has `collapsed'; London was in ruins, 'a hell on earth', a scene of 'unimaginable devastation'; why then will 'that creature Churchill' not surrender? Goebbels repeatedly demolishes Churchill. He exposes him as 'impudent and cynical', 'a lying old swine'; he cuts his speeches (those 'rag-bags of illusions') to ribbons; declares that he is universally hated in Bri- tain and only broadcasts to the people because he is afraid to appear in Parlia- ment. He is confident that, by his roaring, he will make him tremble and fall. If Chur- chill has not fallen by the end of the volume, it is certainly not for lack of roar- ing. In the end, Goebbels is reduced to revealing that Churchill drinks too much and wears pink silk underwear, and to claiming that his own speeches, even if they have not destroyed the enemy, are 'brilliant' and 'a huge success'.

Meanwhile he has to admit some other deceptions. General Franco, for instance, who had recently been 'firmly ours', has suddenly turned out to be a mere 'jumped- up sergeant-major', 'a vain, brainless peacock', 'a clown, conceited, arrogant and stupid'. Fortunately such men could never last (Franco would last another 35 years).

And then there was the 'appalling news' °f Hess's flight to Scotland — only seven months after Goebbels had described him as 'a good reliable man: the Fiihrer can rely on him blindly'. Fortunately, the British' having no genius like Goebbels, did not eii; ploit the event as they might have done: II So Goebbels was always right, and as he Minister, I were the English Propaganda M would know what to do'. He would bayed published a series of damaging lies ati,,, fathered them on Hess. Even as it was, "'" knew how to make the best of a bad .1°13; His own handling of the embarrassing a'f fair, he recorded, was 'a masterpiece ° vision, psychological skill and caution'• stowed the 20 manuscript volumes away' ltef could think only of the glorious future °' which he was the prophet and would be the historian. The Wehrmacht — helped bY a brilliant propaganda trick by himself — was now rolling into Russia: 'the Fithr', estimates that the operation will take f°Ij months. I reckon on fewer. Bolshevism will collapse like a house of cards. We face vice tories unequalled in human history'• As th„. Fiihrer said, Germany was bound to win' `and once we have won, who is going,dt, question our methods?' any case', ad e1 ed Goebbels, 'we have so much to answ! for already that we must win ...'. Her! at least, and at last, the Propaganda Minister deviated into veracity.