History of Sorts

Before joining the Nazi Party (NSDAP), Joseph Goebbels (1897–1945) held a doctorate in German literature but struggled to establish himself as a writer and was unemployed. His exceptional rhetorical skills enabled him to rise rapidly within the party, where he became a key figure in disseminating National Socialist, anti-republican, and antisemitic propaganda.

Adolf Hitler rewarded Goebbels’ loyalty and effectiveness by appointing him Gauleiter of Berlin in 1926 and Reich Propaganda Leader in 1930. Goebbels’s diaries reveal an almost fanatical devotion to Hitler. On March 13, 1933—six weeks after Hitler became Reich Chancellor—Goebbels was appointed head of the newly created Reich Ministry for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda. From this position, he directed the Gleichschaltung (coordination) of cultural and media institutions, including the press, visual arts, music, and literature, while issuing strict guidelines governing their content.

Through an aggressive and pervasive propaganda apparatus, Goebbels sought not only to secure public loyalty to the Nazi regime but also to psychologically prepare the German population for the wars Hitler intended to wage. Ironically, Goebbels himself did not conform to the “Nordic-German” physical ideal promoted by Nazi racial propaganda. Short in stature and affected by a clubfoot, he was frequently the subject of ridicule from political opponents and members of the public alike.

Joseph Goebbels was born in 1897 in Rheydt, Germany, in the Rhineland, into a strict Roman Catholic family. He completed his primary and secondary education in Rheydt before attending several German universities. When World War I began in August 1914, Goebbels was rejected for military service due to a clubfoot, which limited his mobility.

In 1920, he earned a doctorate in German literature from the University of Heidelberg. He subsequently worked as a writer, journalist, and clerk. In 1924, Goebbels joined the Nazi Party and became editor of the party’s newspaper, Völkische Freiheit (Folkish Freedom), in Ebersfeld, Germany, marking the start of his prominent role in National Socialist propaganda.

Joseph Goebbels aimed to “Nazify” German art and culture. To this end, he ordered the public burning of all so-called “un-German” books on May 10, 1933. He also leveraged radio broadcasts and propaganda films to win supporters and played a central role in cultivating a cult of personality around Adolf Hitler.

In November 1938, following the assassination of a German diplomat in France by a Jewish youth, Herschel Grynszpan, Goebbels orchestrated a violent anti-Jewish pogrom, which he cynically named Kristallnacht. During World War II, he directed the Nazis’ psychological warfare campaigns, inciting hatred against Jews and other “enemies” through lies and repeated propaganda. He promoted the concept that a lie, if repeated often enough—and if sufficiently audacious—would eventually be believed.(a concept used by some of Today’s politicians)

Although Goebbels was a devoted admirer of Hitler, the admiration was not always reciprocated. Their relationship stabilized after Goebbels publicly supported Hitler following a failed assassination attempt. In the final days of the war, Hitler named Goebbels as his successor, but Goebbels refused. The day after Hitler’s suicide in his Berlin bunker, Goebbels and his wife also took their own lives, after murdering their six children. Their bodies were identified by Russian troops several hours later.

We should remember Paul Joseph Goebbels, as a small man with a disproportionately large head, a clubfoot, and a physically fragile body.

sources

https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/joseph-goebbels-1

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/goebbels-biography/

Click to access microsoft%20word%20-%206307.pdf

https://ghdi.ghi-dc.org/sub_image.cfm?image_id=2267

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Goebbels

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