Goebbels contribution
brandon
No doubt he was helpful in the early struggles of the Nazi party to
come to power. But his wartime articles/speeches in newspapers and
"Hitler birthday speeches" etc etc seem jaded and repetetive. Although
he could intelligently see the coming collapse of Germany, he could
never use his closeness to Hitler to convince him to negotiate or
retreat.
--
Michael Emrys
brando...@yahoo.com wrote on 8/29/05 4:21 PM:
> What is Goebbels contribution to the Nazi war effort?
To my mind, one of his most critical contributions was to take charge and
organize the resistance to the admittedly half-baked attempt to overthrow
the Nazis July 20, 1944. In a major oversight, the coup leaders not only
failed to arrest Goebbels, they permitted the phone line from his office to
remain open. From there, he was able to contact and bring into Berlin those
forces that were fanatically loyal to Hitler and the Nazi Party.
Michael
--
ib011...@blueyonder.co.uk
the nazis but he certainly knew how to get people worked up to fight
for the nazis.
Do you not think that Nazi Germany would have collapsed a lot earlier
without the high morale somehow created by the party machine?
I know it was a combination of lies and terror that kept people in
line,but the big lie worked for a long time.
Goebells had studied how the USSR had used the press and film and big
public gatherings to make people think like a mass.
Compared to Himmler or Goering Goebbells was almost a popular
figure,his adventures with young actresses made him a more interesting
figure than some of the odder nazi leaders.
He ran a brilliant propaganda system which collapsed when the course
of the war meant that nobody could claim that the nazis were winning.
Nobody could have got Hitler to give up.
--
Don Phillipson
> What is Goebbels contribution to the Nazi war effort?
>
> . . . his wartime articles/speeches in newspapers and
> "Hitler birthday speeches" etc etc seem jaded and repetetive. Although
> he could intelligently see the coming collapse of Germany, he could
> never use his closeness to Hitler to convince him to negotiate or
> retreat.
1. As a Minister, Goebbels controlled all the radio, movie
and print publications of the Third Reich for a decade . . .
2. As a member of Hitler's inner circle, Goebbels appears never
to have wanted to persuade Hitler to negotiate or retreat. At
the end he was the only one who chose suicide like Hitler.
If we want to measure Goebbels' practical contribution
through speeches, we may need something more solid
than your impression (or mine.)
Don Phillipson
Carlsbad Springs
(Ottawa, Canada)
--
Georg Schwarz
> What is Goebbels contribution to the Nazi war effort?
I think Goebbels's propaganda did turn out quite effective in ensuring
some support for the regime up to the very end.
--
Georg Schwarz http://home.pages.de/~schwarz/
georg....@freenet.de +49 178 8545053
--
ferrante formato
nobody could avoid it
"brandon" <brando...@yahoo.com> ha scritto nel messaggio
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Rich Rostrom
>What is Goebbels contribution to the Nazi war effort?
His propaganda maintained German morale and
effort right up to the end of the war. One
historian I've read noted that he managed to
persuade Germans to keep on fighting and working
when a great many thought the war was probably
lost.
He sold them a vision of heroic defiance and
sacrifice. Selling the master-race dream of
world conquest was one thing. Everybody wants
to go with a winner, everybody likes a picnic.
But selling suffering in a doomed cause - the
historian considered this one of the greatest
propaganda feats of all time.
--
| The shocking lack of a fleet of modern luxury |
| dirigibles is only one of a great many things that |
| are seriously wrong with this here world. |
| -- blogger "Coop" at Positive Ape Index |
--
brandon
I have read the Goebbels diaries quite a while ago. In the final years,
many times he contemplates Germanys bleak scenario and possible defeat.
He mentions several times that he will remind Hitler to look into all
possible ways (i.e negotiation) to drawing the war to a succesful
settlement. He also mention that he had shared such thoughts with
Himmler who agreed with him. But at the end of the day he was also a
blind follower of Hitler and perhaps fobbed off by Hitlers
reassurances of final victory. He was also vehemently anti-Goering.
--
wedg...@yahoo.com
would go out & tour the bombed areas of Berlin. This probably boosted
his credibility with the German people.
One thing I've wondered is what would Goebbels fate have been if he had
been captured by the Brits or Americans. Would he have faced execution
or a long prison sentence?
--
Roman Werpachowski
Nah. He'd probably be a part of Adenauer's government, like some other Nazi
criminals. Why waste such a professional?
--
Po co wybiera? mniejsze z?o? Cthulu na prezydenta!
--
yaakov_...@hotmail.com
more important. Hitler stayed isolated in his
East Prussian headquarters "Wolfschanze" (sp?)
which was far from Berlin, so he lost touch
with the day-to-day problems of running Germany.
Other Nazi bigwigs had their own problems, e.g.
Goering was discredited by his failure to respond
effectively to the increasingly damaging British
and American bombing of Germany and the failure
to airlift enough supplies to the Sixth Army at
Stalingrad. Himmler was involved in organizing
genocide and empire-building. This left Goebbels
as the point-man left to deal with the real problems
of the population. As Gauleiter of Berlin, the capital
was his direct responsibility, so he had to become
involved in all the problems of overcoming the
damage of the air raids, supplying food, water
and electricity, etc. He repeatedly begged Hitler
to visit the bombed out cities and to make radio
addresses to the people but he refused to, living
this to Goebbels to do The deterioration in the
general situation brought Goebbels to think up
his "Total War" program and he made a famous
speech touting it. He made the German people
realize they were in a life-or-death struggle
and they had better be prepared for the massive
sacrifices this would need, and which they had
been led to believe before this were not necessary
since their propanganda had been telling them
that they were the Master Race and their enemies
were inferiors. Unfortunately for Europe and the
world, Goebbels was successful in bucking up
the Germans' spirit and keeping the war going
until the bitter end.
--
Jim Harker
wedg...@yahoo.com
> Execution, he was on the level immediately below Hitler.
>
>
> > been captured by the Brits or Americans. Would he have faced execution
> > or a long prison sentence?
As were Hess & Speer. I'm not proposing that Goebbels would not have
deserved a death sentence, I'm just pleading ignorance as to what
avenues the prosecutors would have traveled to get one.
On a related topic, doen't it defeat the intent & purpose of propaganda
if you are officially titled as being the minister of such? I mean, all
sides used propaganda, but it was usually veiled as being news or
information. Has the meaning (or perceived meaning) of the word changed
over the years?
--
Drazen Kramaric
>One thing I've wondered is what would Goebbels fate have been if he had
>been captured by the Brits or Americans. Would he have faced execution
>or a long prison sentence?
What is lacking in this thread is Goebbels virulent anti-semitism. I'd
say that within Hitler's inner circle, Goebbels was the biggest
anti-semite and a passionate one. Given that Allies hanged Julius
Streicher at Nuremberg (I admit I don't remember how involved
Streicher was in actual implementation of the Final Solution), I am
certain that Goebbels would have been found guilty of conspiracy
against the peace (like Hoess) and crimes against humanity (which
woulf get him a death sentence).
Drax
--
brandon
> On Sun, 4 Sep 2005 21:05:17 +0000 (UTC), wedg...@yahoo.com wrote:
>
>
>One thing I've wondered is what would Goebbels fate have been if he had
>been captured by the Brits or Americans. Would he have faced execution
>or a long prison sentence?
More interesting than that, is how Goebbels would have behaved during
the trial as a defendant? He is one of the most intelligent of the
Nazis....and a brilliant orator and a possible headache for the
Nuremberg prosecutors. He could deliver passionate speeches on the
stand such as "The coming Jewish-Bolshevik plutocracy", "Nation rise
like a storm" , "Our Fuhrer" etc. He would have been hanged anwyay, but
it would be nice to hear some more of his speeches on an international
setting.
--
lesliem...@netscape.net
(stuff deleted)
> More interesting than that, is how Goebbels would have behaved during
> the trial as a defendant? He is one of the most intelligent of the
> Nazis....and a brilliant orator and a possible headache for the
> Nuremberg prosecutors.
The only Nazi who managed to get away with oratory and cleverness was
Goering, and that was chiefly because his US prosecutor was
inexperienced and asked him questions that allowed him to go on at
length. Once Goering encountered a seasoned prosecuter (ironically, it
was the soviet one), it was Goering's turn to get flustered.
> He could deliver passionate speeches on the
> stand such as "The coming Jewish-Bolshevik plutocracy", "Nation rise
> like a storm" , "Our Fuhrer" etc.
Only if the prosecutor let him. If any of Goebbles' speeches made it
to the trial, most likely the prosecutors would limit it to a series of
short questions on select passages.
> He would have been hanged anwyay, but
> it would be nice to hear some more of his speeches on an international
> setting.
More amusing, it would have been better to see how Goebbles would react
when a judge or prosecutor shot him down. In one of his speeches
extolling the mythical virtues of the Aryan, a Luthoran minister
heckled him with the comment "A fine sample of Aryan manhood you are!"
Goebbles' only means of shutting down the heckler was to have some of
his goons drag him out and work him over (and beating up a Luthoran
Minister was not exactly one of his better moments of publicity).
Absent his goons, and with Judges able to interrupt any showboating on
his part, I doubt Goebbles would look nearly as smart as he did in
front of a captive audience.
--