History of Sorts

In the final days of World War II, as the Third Reich collapsed and Allied forces closed in on Berlin, one of the most chilling episodes of the Nazi regime’s downfall unfolded in the Führerbunker beneath the ruins of the German capital. It was there that Magda and Joseph Goebbels, Hitler’s closest propagandist and loyal Minister of Propaganda, made a horrifying decision: to murder their six children before taking their own lives. This act, driven by ideological fanaticism and despair, remains one of the most disturbing and tragic events of the war’s end.

The Children
The six children of Joseph and Magda Goebbels were:

Helga Susanne Goebbels (born 1932)

Hildegard “Hilde” Traudel Goebbels (born 1934)

Helmut Christian Goebbels (born 1935)

Holdine “Holde” Kathrin Goebbels (born 1937)

Hedwig “Hedda” Johanna Goebbels (born 1938)

Heide Goebbels (born 1940)

The children were between the ages of 4 and 12 at the time of their deaths in May 1945.

There also was a half-brother named Harald, born in November 1921, from a previous marriage between Magda Goebbels nee Behrend Rietschel and German businessman Günther Quandt, founder of several companies, including BMW. Harald served as a lieutenant in the Luftwaffe during World War II. He survived the war and with his half-brother Herbert Quandt, ran their father’s businesses, including the aforementioned BMW after the war. The photograph below is of the whole Goebbels family, including the half-brother Harald.

Ideology Over Innocence

Magda Goebbels was fiercely devoted to Adolf Hitler and to the Nazi ideology. She reportedly saw her family—and especially her children—as symbols of the future Aryan generation. As the war turned decisively against Germany, Magda expressed to those around her that life without National Socialism was not worth living and that her children should not grow up in a world without it.

While some members of the bunker staff hoped the children might be spared, Magda and Joseph Goebbels had already resolved that their fate was sealed. Joseph had no intention of surrendering or living in a post-Hitler world. Magda, similarly, did not want her children to be taken and raised by others or used as propaganda tools by the Allies.

The Murders

On the night of May 1, 1945, Magda Goebbels, with the assistance of Ludwig Stumpfegger, Hitler’s personal physician, sedated her children. Each child was reportedly given a mixture of morphine and later cyanide capsules while asleep. There are differing accounts of the exact method used—some say the capsules were crushed in their mouths, others that they were administered in liquid form. What remains certain is that the children were murdered in their sleep, in the confines of the bunker that had become their final home.

Shortly after the killings, Joseph and Magda Goebbels left the bunker and walked into the garden of the Reich Chancellery. There, they committed suicide—Joseph by gunshot and Magda by cyanide. Their bodies were partially burned by SS aides, though not to the extent of Hitler and Eva Braun’s earlier that day.

Aftermath and Legacy

The murder of the Goebbels children shocked the world when it became known after the war. To many, it illustrated the depth of Nazi fanaticism and the terrifying consequences of an ideology that placed a political system above human life—even the lives of one’s own children.

In the years since, historians have debated Magda Goebbels’ motivations. Some have portrayed her as a deluded ideologue, others as a mother tragically enslaved by the cult of Hitler. Joseph Goebbels’ role, as Hitler’s propagandist and one of the chief architects of Nazi messaging, only deepened the horror of the crime, showing how power and belief can utterly distort morality.

The remains of the children were discovered by Soviet troops, and in later years, they were reburied at an undisclosed location. Their brief lives have come to symbolize the innocence lost amid the crimes and catastrophes of Nazi Germany.

sources

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41415-019-0992-1

https://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/murder-in-hitler-s-bunker-who-really-poisoned-the-goebbels-children-a-

653981.htmlhttps://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31844231/

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