Goebbels On The Jews

 Context: Jews and Germans in History

Before turning to the diary entries themselves, I need to give a fair amount of historical context. All events related to National Socialism and its Jewish policy have roots that reach back centuries. German actions were not some aberrant phenomenon, and not invented from whole cloth by Hitler. Harsh, critical and hostile words and actions against the Jews in Germany have a long and distinguished pedigree; and despite modern-day impressions, they have considerable justification. Here I will look at the main historical critiques of Jews by Germans, and in the next chapter I will examine the lead-up, conduct and aftermath of World War One.

Long before anyone in Germany even contemplated the possibility of a world war, Jews were there, causing problems. They had resided among the Germanic people for centuries, at least since the Dark Ages. Gradually they rose to positions of prominence, attaining significant influence under the reigns of Charlemagne (800-814) and Louis the Pious (813-840). Their power stemmed from money, as they had long been associated with usury and lending at interest, something that was banned for others by Church authorities of the time. When the Black Death hit Europe in 1348 and 1349, many Jews were blamed and thus banished from Germanic territories. Yet they persisted, returning again to positions of power and influence among German nobility. This angered many, in particular the noted theologian Martin Luther. In 1542, he remarked that “I intend to write against the Jews once again because I hear that some of our lords are befriending them. I’ll advise them to chase all the Jews out of their land. … They’re wretched people”.9 The following year he published a striking work, On the Jews and their Lies. Referring to that “miserable and accursed people” and their “poisonous activities,” Luther catalogued a whole litany of vices: self-glory, conceit, lying, blasphemy, usury, theft, arrogance. If all else fails, “we must drive them out like mad dogs,” he exclaimed.10By the late 1700s, prominent German intellectuals were taking note of the Hebrews. In 1791, Johann Herder referred to Jewry as a “widely diffused republic of cunning usurers,” one that managed to dominate the finance and commerce of the host Germans. Their financial gains, coming primarily from interest, were thus drawn directly from the wealth of the German masses—a situation that Herder likened to “parasitical plants on the trunks of other nations” (1968: 144). Two years later, the philosopher Immanuel Kant observed that Judaism, as originally constituted in the Old Testament,

excludes from its communion the entire human race, on the ground that it [Jewry] was a special people chosen by God for Himself—[an exclusiveness] which showed enmity toward all other peoples and which, therefore, evoked the enmity of all. (1793/1960: 117)

In a later work, Anthropology (1798), Kant examined the ethics of deception—a fitting topic for the race at hand:

[The Jews], living among us, or at least the greatest number of them, have, through their usurious spirit since their exile, received the not-unfounded reputation of deceivers. It seems strange to think of a nation of deceivers; but it is just as strange to think of a nation made up of nothing but merchants, which are united for the most part by an old superstition that is recognized by the government under which they live. They do not seek any civil honor, but rather wish to compensate their loss by profitably outwitting the very people among whom they find protection, and even to make profit from their own kind. It cannot be otherwise with a whole nation of merchants, who are nonproductive members of society… (1978: 101)

Georg Hegel was briefer but no less pointed. In his philosophical examination of Christianity, he remarked that “the only act Moses reserved for the Israelites was… to borrow with deceit and repay confidence with theft” (1975: 190). Another noted intellectual, Johann Fichte, saw the need to question the Jewish proclivity for creating an inbred and isolated socio-political system of their own, as a means of circumventing the rule of German law and morality. Fichte condemned this Jewish “state with the state”: “this state is fearful—not because it forms a separate and solidly united state but because this state is founded on the hatred of the whole human race” (in Poliakov 1965: 512). These concerns evidently did not hold sway, however, because the Jews of Germany gradually attained full civil rights: in Prussia (1812), Württemberg (1826) and upon German unification in 1870 in the whole nation.

In the mid 1800s, Arthur Schopenhauer saw the need to comment on “this wretched religion of the Jews,” one that “occupies the lowest place among the dogmas of the civilized world”.11 For Schopenhauer, Jews were a gens extorris, a refugee race, eternally uprooted, always seeking but never finding a homeland: “Till then, it lives parasitically on other nations and their soil; but yet it is inspired with the liveliest patriotism for its own nation” (vol 2: 262). The “contemptible little Jewish race” (393) has held far too much influence in Western religion and culture; it is telling, says Schopenhauer,

how much the Jews were at all times and by all nations loathed and despised. This may be partly due to the fact that they were the only people on earth who did not credit man with any existence beyond this life and were, therefore, regarded as beasts… Scum of humanity—but great master of lies [grosse Meister im Lügen]. (357 note)

Above all, the corrupt Jewish ideology had to be purged: “We may therefore hope that one day even Europe will be purified of all Jewish mythology” (226).

The problematic role of German Jews affected even Karl Marx—himself a German Jew. In a famous early essay, he comments on “the real Jew,” the “everyday Jew,” for whom religion is something secondary. What truly matters for Jews, said Marx, are material goods: “What is the profane basis of Judaism? Practical need, self-interest. What is the worldly cult of the Jews? Huckstering. What is his worldly god? Money” (1843/1978: 48). Present disputes over the “emancipation” of German Jews were best resolved through the “emancipation of mankind from Judaism.”

It was around this same time that a well-known German historian, Theodor Mommsen, produced a major study on ancient Rome. Among other things, he made pointed observations on the Jewish role at that time. Mommsen wrote, “Also in the ancient world, Judaism was an effective ferment of cosmopolitanism and of national decomposition” (1856/1871: 643).12 In other words, Jews were a disruptive force, agitating for social and political changes that would serve to benefit them. They would disturb and even disintegrate the social order, no matter the cost to other peoples, simply because they stood to gain in power and wealth. This idea caught the attention of Goebbels and Hitler, both of whom frequently referred to the Jews as the “ferment of decomposition”.13With the formation of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1867 and German unification in 1870, Jews throughout the Germanic world found great opportunities to further enhance their wealth and prestige. As Jerry Muller (2002: 348) observes, “[n]o group had benefited more from the liberal era than the Jews.” Their rapid success in Austria, for example, was astonishing:

By the end of the empire [in 1918], between a quarter and a third of students at the University of Vienna were Jewish. Jews dominated the liberal professions of medicine and law. They owned many of the major Austrian banks as well as the most important newspaper in the country, the Neue Freie Presse.

Albert Lindemann quotes a German-Jewish writer who lived in Vienna around 1900: “[A]ll public life was dominated by Jews. The banks, the press, the theater, literature, social organizations, all lay in the hands of the Jews…”14 All this was made possible by “liberal principles of equality” and the democratic ideal; and hence one can well understand how it is that, in the present day, such principles are proclaimed as the highest accomplishments of mankind.

In Germany, meanwhile, Jews quickly took up dominant positions in finance and commerce after unification, and they became closely associated with free-market capitalism and the stock exchange. “Many highly visible Jews made fortunes in dubious ways… Those Jewish newly rich in Germany… were widely regarded as especially offensive… [T]hey were unusually ruthless in their quest for monetary gain.” In 1874, a popular liberal magazine reported that “90% of brokers and stock promoters in the capital [Berlin] were Jews”—“which,” admits Lindemann, “may have been true” (119-120). Sarah Gordon cites a whole range of impressive statistics on German Jews of that era:

Before the First World War, for example, Jews occupied 13 percent of the directorships of joint-stock corporations and 24 percent of the supervisory positions within these corporations. … [D]uring 1904 they comprised 27 percent of all lawyers, 10 percent of all apprenticed lawyers, 5 percent of court clerks, 4 percent of magistrates, and up to 30 percent of all higher ranks of the judiciary. … Jews were [also] overrepresented among university professors and students between 1870 and 1933. For example, in 1909-1910… almost 12 percent of instructors at German universities were Jewish… [I]n 1905-1906 Jewish students comprised 25 percent of the law and medical students… The percentage of Jewish doctors was also quite high, especially in large cities, where they sometimes were a majority. … [I]n Berlin around 1890, 25 percent of all children attending grammar school were Jewish… (1984: 10-14)

Astonishing numbers, given that Jews never exceeded 2% of the German population.

Such a turn of affairs gave further impetus to criticism. Journalist Wilhelm Marr declared in 1879 the “victory of Jewry over Germandom.” Germans had proven themselves unable to fend off the invader, and were now suffering the consequences:

The slick, cunning, elastic Jews wormed their way into this confused, clumsy Germanic element. The Jews were well-suited by their purely realistic intelligence—their slyness—to look down upon Germandom, and to subdue the monarchical, knightly, lumbering German by enabling him in his vices.

Famed composer Richard Wagner fully agreed with this sentiment. In an 1881 letter, he wrote:15I regard the Jewish race as the born enemy of pure humanity and everything that is noble in it; it is certain that we Germans will go under before them, and perhaps I am the last German who knows how to stand up as an art-loving man against the Judaism that is already getting control of everything.

That same year he also published an essay titled “Know thyself” in a Bayreuth newspaper, again criticizing the negative effects of Jews on German society. Wagner wrote (1881, Vol. 6, pp. 264-274):

The Jew, on the other hand, is the most astonishing example of race consistency ever produced by world history. … Even racial mixing fails to harm him; he mixes male or female with the most foreign of races, and a Jew always comes to light. … He has not the slightest contact with the religion of any civilized nation, for in truth he has no religion at all, but only the faith in certain promises of his God, which in no sense extend to a life beyond this temporal life, as in every true religion… Thus the Jew has neither to think nor ponder, nor even to calculate, because the hardest calculation lies in his instincts which, closed to any ideality, are perfectly finished in advance. A wonderful, incomparable phenomenon: the plastic demon of decay of humanity, in triumphant security—and German citizens as well, of a Mosaic denomination, the darling of liberal princes and guarantor of our imperial unity. (emphasis added)

Again, as with Mommsen, this striking phrase caught the eye of Goebbels, who often referred to Jews as “plastic demons of decay” in both his diary and his speeches.

And then there is the critique offered by Friedrich Nietzsche, which is so intricate and far-reaching that it demands a separate study of its own. Much of his case it too complex to be synopsized here, but in short, he blames Christian morality—or rather, Judeo-Christian morality—for the decline of the West, which was marked in its greatness by the worldviews of ancient Greece and Rome:

The symbol of this battle, written in a script which has remained legible through all human history up to the present, is called “Rome against Judea, Judea against Rome.” To this point there has been no greater event than this war, this posing of a question, this contradiction between deadly enemies. Rome felt that the Jew was like something contrary to nature itself, its monstrous polar opposite, as it were. In Rome the Jew was considered “guilty of hatred against the entire human race”.16 And that view was correct, to the extent that we are right to link the health and the future of the human race to the unconditional rule of aristocratic values, the Roman values. (OGM, I, Sec. 16)

If one thing is certain, he says, it’s that the Jews are, in some sense, deeply untrustworthy:

People of the basest origin, in part rabble, outcasts not only from good but also from respectable society, raised away from even the smell of culture, without discipline, without knowledge, without the remotest suspicion that there is such a thing as conscience in spiritual matters; simply—Jews: with an instinctive ability to create an advantage, a means of seduction out of every superstitious supposition… When Jews step forward as innocence itself, then the danger is great. (Will to Power, Sec. 199)

Because of this, they seem to have never moved beyond their historical role as subverters of society and culture. As Nietzsche writes in one of his final works, Antichrist (1888):

[T]he Jews are the most catastrophic people of world history… The Jewish nation… took the side of all decadence instincts… because it divined in them a power by means of which one can prevail against ‘the world.’ The Jews… have a life-interest in making mankind sick, and in inverting the concepts of ‘good’ and ‘evil,’ ‘true’ and ‘false’ in a mortally dangerous and world-maligning sense. (sec. 24)

In the hands of the Jewish priests—Paul above all—Christianity becomes radically falsified: a lie perpetrated against the pagan masses in order to propagate a lowly ‘slave morality,’ thus undermining the local base of the Roman Empire:

In Christianity, all of Judaism, a several-century-old Jewish preparatory training and technique of the most serious kind, attains its ultimate mastery as the art of lying in a holy manner. The Christian, the ultima ratio of the lie, is the Jew once more—even three times a Jew. (sec. 44)

Such observations form the backdrop for the rise of National Socialism. Knowledge of them is crucial for an understanding of Nazi attitudes and actions.

(...)

The opening entry in the diary is dated 17 October 1923. Just five days later comes the first reference to the Jews, and in a manner that indicates some depth of thinking:

22 October 1923 (I.1:1.35)

I think about the Jewish Question very often. The problem of race is, after all, the deepest and most mysterious thing that penetrates into public life today. … There’s something very destructive in its essence, especially in the spirit. But this doesn’t appear visibly because the spirit is not raised up through to its prime.

Ich denke so oft über die Judenfrage nach. Das Problem der Rasse ist doch das tiefste und geheimnisvollste, das heute in das öffentliche Leben hineingreift. ... In ihrem Wesen liegt etwas stark Destruktives, vor allem im Geistigen. Nur tritt das nicht so sichtbarlich hervor, weil das Geistige in ihr nicht bis zur Blüte emporgetrieben ist.

This entry came at the culmination of the period of hyperinflation in Germany, triggered by the French occupation of the Ruhr valley. The German mark had completely collapsed and people were pushing around wheelbarrows of cash to buy basic goods. Unemployment soared and general economic chaos ensued. Hitler and his young NSDAP took this as a sign that times were ripe for revolutionary action, and so they constructed a plot to takeover Munich and then the rest of Bavaria. The so-called Beer Hall Putsch thus was launched on November 9. It ended in failure; 15 party members died and the ringleaders, including Hitler and Göring, were arrested. Hitler was tried in February 1924 and sentenced to five years in prison, but would only serve one year. It was during this time that he wrote volume one of his monumental work, Mein Kampf.

The trial, however, was a great propaganda victory for the NSDAP and Hitler personally, and for the first time they gained a truly national reputation in Germany. It certainly caught the attention of the young Goebbels; we see his first explicit reference to Hitler on 15 March 1924.

As we saw previously, Hitler, Goebbels and others were very concerned about the detrimental effect that Jews were having on German culture. And Jews were indeed dominant at this time, especially in theater, literature, and film. Goebbels remarks on a specific event:

14 November 1923 (I.1:1.51)

Last night saw Kurt Goetz’s Lohengrin and The Lampshade in the playhouse. These little pieces are full of wit, malice, sarcasm, and irony. Nonsense has become king. Seemingly profound slogans create an apparent foundation. All in all, a Jewish construction, sneering at doom; the unsuspecting philistine sits there and laughs at himself. The Jew understands and has it right, and one would like to punch him in the face.

Jewry is the poison that kills the ethnic body of Europe. Nothing can be done about it. We have old sins to carry. …

Jewish wit is malicious and hurtful. It’s the typical expression of the destructive, decomposing element in Jewry. There’s no trace of humor in the Jews either. They make you laugh, but you never feel the resolution, the release. The laughter is impure and, in a higher sense, sinful.

Gestern abend Kurt Goetz „Lohengrin“ und „der Lampenschirm“ im Schauspielhaus. Die kleinen Sachen sind gepresst voll von Witz, Bosheit, Sarkasmus und Ironie. Der Blödsinn wird zum König ernannt. Tieftuende Sprüche schaffen ein scheinbares Fundament. Kein Stück wird doch ein Stück. Alles in allem jüdische Mache, die den Untergang glossiert; der biedere Spiesser sitzt dabei und lacht sich selbst aus. Der Jude versteht’s und hat recht, und man möchte ihn doch in die Fresse schlagen.

Das Judentum ist das Gift, das den europäischen Volkskörper zu Tode bringt. Es ist nichts daran zu machen. Wir haben alte Sünden auszutragen. ...

Der jüdische Witz ist boshaft und tut weh. Er ist der typische Ausdruck des niederreissenden, dekompositorischen Elements im Judentum. Vom Humor liegt im Juden auch nicht die Spur. Er macht lachen, aber man fühlt nie dabei die Lösung, die Befreiung. Das Lachen ist unrein und im höheren Sinne sündhaft.

We note the biological imagery: Jewry is a “poison” in the body of Europe. But as yet he can conceive no remedy; “nothing can be done about it.” In fact, it would take years before any sort of plan would materialize, either by him or others.

Into 1924, more frustration, as seen in a short passage from March:

20 March 1924 (I.1:1.109)

The Jewish Question cannot be resolved unless one is first hard and relentless.

Die Judenfrage lässt sich nicht lösen, es sei denn, man ist einmal hart und unerbittlich.

Then, beginning in April, we find a series of lengthy reflections. Goebbels has now become active in the NSDAP, and they are beginning to wrestle with the Jewish Question as seen in two fascinating entries on Henry Ford and the infamous Protocols of the Elders of Zion:29

5 April 1924 (I.1:1.118-119)

Yesterday we founded a National Socialist local group. We talked essentially about anti-Semitism. Jewish culture has long ended. The Jew confronts Western man only as an interested spectator. He doesn’t suffer from the excruciating dualism between head and heart. He’s not emotionally bound to our Faustian cultures. That’s why he’s well ahead of us in capturing and exploiting material things. But he’s therefore also a great danger for us.

The anti-Semitic idea is a world idea. This is where Germanic and Russian people meet. …

The Jew poisons us by insidious, tempting means.

The open Zionist is still the most decent Jew. You know where you stand.

The so-called nationalist-thinking Jews are the most dangerous. They are the snakes that we nourish on our own breast.

Why despair of Zion’s overwhelming power. Aren’t we strong enough, and stronger than they are, because we are bound to the national idea with all feeling and thought?

Let’s use all the vigor of our strong German heart.

Gestern haben wir eine nationalsozialistische Ortsgruppe gegründet. Wir haben uns einmal im Wesentlichen über den Antisemitismus unterhalten. Die jüdische Kultur ist langst zu Ende. Der Jude steht dem abendländischen Menschen nur noch als interessierter Zuschauer gegenüber. Er leidet nicht an dem qualvollen Dualismus zwischen Hirn und Herz. Er ist in unserem faustischen Kulturkreise nicht gefühlsmässig gebunden. Deshalb ist er uns in der Erfassung und Ausnutzung der realen Dinge ein gut Stück voraus. Aber er ist deshalb auch eine grosse Gefahr für uns.

Die antisemitische Idee ist eine Weltidee. Da treffen sich germanischer und russischer Mensch. ...

Der Jude vergiftet uns mit schleichenden, süsen Mitteln.

Der offene Zionist ist noch der anständigste Jude. Da weiss man, wo man dran ist.

Die sogenannten nationaldenkenden Juden sind die gefährlichsten. Sie sind die Schlangen, die wir am eigenen Busen nähren.

Warum verzweifeln der Übermacht Zions gegenüber. Sind wir nicht stark genug und stärker als sie, weil wir mit dem ganzen Fühlen und Denken an die nationale Idee gebunden sind?

Setzen wir den ganzen Elan unseres starken deutschen Herzens ein.

8 April 1924 (I.1:1.119)

The Jewish Question is the hottest issue at the moment. It has to be solved before one can go on to the refortification of Europe. Maybe Russia will make a start. What I already suspected—namely that the current Russian situation is only Jewish soap scum atop a heavy nationalist dishwater—I now find confirmed in all authentic opinions.

I read Henry Ford’s The International Jew today. The book is very interesting and salutary. But one shouldn’t let oneself be too taken in by the author’s captivating evidence. He also writes a bit ‘to the home crowd.’ All the same, a lot is revealed in the book. One can see the implications of the Jewish Question in the non-German lands. Strange: Henry Ford, the richest man in the world, makes Jewish capitalism his target. The world is a big theater.

Lenin, Trotsky, Chicherin are Jews. How stupidly one can sometimes judge political and economic processes, if one doesn’t know the most necessary material. A major part of Ford’s book discusses the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. But the text itself is missing. I have to reorient myself about this question another time. I won’t rest until I have clarity about the Jewish Question. The solution to these things may change my whole inner nature.

Die Judenfrage ist die brennendste der Gegenwart. Sie muss gelöst werden, bevor man an die Neubefestigung Europas gehen kann. Vielleicht wird Russland den Anfang machen. Was ich immer schon ahnte, – nämlich dass die russische Gegenwart nur jüdischer Seifenschaum ist, darunter die schwere nationale Lauge liegt, – das finde ich jetzt in allen authentischen Urteilen bestatigt.

Ich las heute Henry Fords „der internationale Jude“. Das Buch ist äusserst interessant und heilsam. Nur darf man sich nicht allzusehr von der bestrickenden Beweisführung des Autors gefangennehmen lassen. Er schreibt wohl auch etwas pro domo. Immerhin wird in dem Buch ungeheuer viel aufgedeckt. Man kann einmal in die Verwicklungen der Judenfrage in den ausserdeutschen Ländern hineinschauen. Sonderbar: Henry Ford, der reichste Mann der Welt, setzt sich den jüdischen Kapitalismus als Zielscheibe. Die Welt ist doch ein grosses Theater.

Lenin, Trotzki, Tschitscherin sind Juden. Wie dumm kann man manchmal über politische und wirtschaftliche Vorgänge urteilen, da man das notwendigste Material nicht kennt. Einen Hauptteil des Fordschen Buches nehmen Erörterungen über die „Protokolle der Weisen von Zion“ ein. Doch der Text fehlt. Ich muss mich über diese Frage anderswo nochmal orientieren. Ich will nicht ruhen, bis ich über die jüdische Frage Klarheit habe. Vielleicht wird die Lösung dieser Dinge meinen ganzen inneren Menschen umkrempeln.

Like Hitler, Goebbels is fascinated with both Ford’s ideas and with the Protocols. On Russia, he rightly identifies the Jewishness of Lenin (one-quarter; likely he was unaware of this) and Trotsky, but is mistaken on the third; Georgy Chicherin was a non-Jewish Commissar for Foreign Affairs for Russia from 1918 to 1930. Chicherin’s staff, though, was heavily Jewish, and this is likely the source of confusion. But Goebbels’s main point is correct: unless one recognizes the Jewishness of the various figures involved, their actions can make little sense, or their motives can be wrongly interpreted. Two days later, a follow-up comment:

10 April 1924 (I.1:1.120)

I believe that the Protocols of the Elders of Zion are a forgery; not because the worldview expressed in it or the Jewish aspirations seem too utopian and fantastic to me—one can see today how the claims of one protocol after another are realized, how a systematic plan of decomposition leaves the world in ruins—but because I don’t consider the Jews to be so boundlessly stupid that they couldn’t keep such important records secret. Hence, I believe in the inner, but not factual, truth of the protocols.

One’s hair stands on end when reading these shameful pieces. And yet race and system lie within it. The biggest mistake of anti-Semitism is that it underestimates the Hebrews in their spiritual resources. It may perish due to this.

One thing has now become for me an unbreakable truth: the Jew is in reality, for the Faustian man, “the plastic demon of decay,” “the ferment of national decomposition.”

It’s up to us to help ourselves. No one helps us. If our national strength is no longer large enough to overcome the Jewish corrosion, then we deserve to go under.

I stand on the folkish side: I hate the Jew out of instinct and out of reason. In my deepest soul, he is hated and repulsive.

Ich glaube, dass die Protokolle der Weisen von Zion eine Fälschung sind; nicht, weil mir das darin ausgesprochene Weltbild oder die jüdischen Aspirationen zu utopisch und phantastisch erschienen – man sieht ja, wie sich heute eine Forderung aus den Protokollen nach der anderen verwirklicht, wie ein systematischer Plan der Zersetzung die Welt in Trümmern legt, – sondern weil ich die Juden nicht für so grenzenlos dumm halte, dass sie derartig wichtige Protokolle nicht geheim zu halten verstünden. Also: ich glaube an die innere, aber nicht an die faktische Wahrheit der Protokolle.

Die Haare stehen einem zu Berge, wenn man diese Schandstücke liest. Und doch liegt Rasse und System darin. Der grösste Fehler des Antisemitismus ist, dass er die Hebräer in ihren geistigen Hilfsmitteln unterschätzt. Vielleicht wird er daran zu Grunde gehen.

Eins ist jetzt in mir zur unverbrüchlichen Wahrheit geworden: der Jude ist in Wirklichkeit für den faustischen Menschen „der plastische Dämon des Verfalls“, „das Ferment der nationalen Dekomposition.“

Es liegt an uns, uns selber zu helfen. Es hilft uns niemand. Ist unsere nationale Stärke nicht mehr gross genug, die jüdische Zersetzung zu überwinden, dann verdient sie den Untergang.

Ich stehe auf der völkischen Seite: ich hasse den Juden aus Instinkt und aus Verstand. Er ist mir in tiefster Seele verhasst und zuwider.

Here, for the first time in the diaries, Goebbels cites the two famous phrases by Wagner and Mommsen—though, oddly, without mentioning either man by name. Presumably the phrases were common knowledge by that time.30

Then two short remarks from the next couple of days:

11 April 1924 (I.1:1.121)

I read more and more about the Jewish Question. I’ll have to get out of this tight circle soon. Turn the knowledge into a fruitful power.

Ich lese immer mehr über die Judenfrage. Ich muss bald wieder aus dem engen Kreis heraus. Das Erkannte zur fruchtbringenden Macht gestalten.

12 April 1924 (I.1:1.122)

The Jewish question deepens in me. If I solved it even halfway, then it would make me a whole new person.

Die jüdische Frage vertieft sich in mir. Wenn ich sie halbwegs löse, dann macht sie einen ganz neuen Menschen aus mir.

Into May and June we find a growing awareness of the problem posed by Jewish Marxism, along with comments on the pending 1924 national election:

5 May 1924 (I.1:1.130)

Marxism, with its hollow phrases, party careerism, and Jewish corruption in business, politics, art, and culture, has completely poisoned the people. We must tread carefully if we want to inject an antidote into the national body. Gradually, in small doses, becoming stronger and stronger. National Socialism is the antidote to Jewish corrosion and contamination.

Such an election, with all its mindless gestures, its tirades, its phrase-mongering and buzzword contests, has something embarrassingly tormented and coerced about it. If I didn’t know that I was working for the folkish-social block, and at the same time for the great idea of the ethnic purification of our inner and outer life—by God, I wouldn’t have descended into the lowlands of the election campaign.

The gentlemen Jews have targeted me. First on the blacklist. It’s a shame and disgrace that, in one’s own Fatherland, one cannot be completely safe from this rabble of half-Asiatic scoundrels.

Der Marxismus mit seinen hohlen Phrasen, das Parteibonzentum und die jüdische Zersetzung in Wirtschaft, Politik, Kunst und Kultur hat das Volk vollständig vergiftet. Wir müssen vorsichtig zu Werk gehen, wollen wir dem Volkskörper ein Gegengift einspritzen. Allmählich, in kleinen Dosen, immer stärker werdend. Der nationale Sozialismus ist das Gegengift gegen jüdische Zersetzung und Verpestung.

So eine Wahl mit all ihren geistlosen Anzapfungen, mit ihren Tiraden, mit ihrem Phrasengedresch und Schlagwortkampf hat etwas peinlich-Gequältes und Gekrampftes an sich. Wenn ich nicht wüsste, dass ich so ich für den völkisch-sozialen Block arbeite, zu gleicher Zeit für die grosse Idee der völkischen Reinigung unseres inneren und äusseren Lebens schaffe, – bei Gott, ich wäre nicht in die Niederungen des Wahlkampfes heruntergestiegen.

Die Herren Juden haben mich aufs Korn genommen. Erster auf der schwarzen Liste. Es ist eine Schmach und Schande, dass man sich in seinem eigenen Vaterlande vor diesem Geschmeiss halbasiatischer Lausebengels nicht ganz sicher sein kann.

10 June 1924 (1.1:1.147-148)

We live in a century of expiring liberalism and rising socialism.

Socialism (in pure form) is the individual being bound to State welfare and the national community: this has nothing to do with the Internationale.

The Jew is international, just like the nomad and the gypsy are.

Are there any national Jews? I don’t think so. For my part, I know only Jews who are at best interested observers.

Marx is heartless. We raise socialism as an ethical and national imperative.

‘Comrade’ is the name of the neighbor, the compatriot. Every neighbor in our German Fatherland is an ally in the struggle for human rights.

Democracy is foolish egalitarianism. The Jew wants to make us equal, so that he can surpass us.

People are not equal. But all are human. This results in our social imperative.

‘The majority is bad and stupid. Chop off the good, the noble, and the clever head. Then democracy will come.’ —That would be in the interests of the Jews.

The democratic State—the biggest Jewish fraud since the time of Adam.

Wir leben im Jahrhundert des ausgehenden Liberalismus und des aufgehenden Sozialismus.

Sozialismus (in der reinen Form) ist Gebundenheit des Inidividuumes der [sic] Staatswohl und der Volksgemeinschaft gegenüber: Das hat nichts mit Internationale zu tuen.

Der Jude ist international, wie der Nomade und der Zigeuner international ist.

Gibt’s nationale Juden? Ich glaube nicht. Ich meinesteils kenne nur Juden, die der Nation gegenüber bestenfalls als interessierte Zuschauer stehen.

Marx ist herzlos. Wir stellen den Sozialismus als ethische und nationale Forderung auf.

Sozius heisst der Nachbar, der Bundesgenosse. Für uns ist jeder Nachbar im deutschen Vaterlande ein Bundesgenosse im Kampfe um das Recht als Mensch.

Demokratie ist öde Gleichmacherei. Der Jude will uns gleichmachen, damit er über uns hinauskann.

Die Menschen sind nicht gleich. Aber Menschen sind sie alle. Daraus resultiert unsere soziale Forderung.

Die Mehrzahl ist schlecht und dumm. Schlagt den Guten, Edlen und Klugen die Köpfe ab. Dann führt die Demokratie ein. – Das läge im Sinne des Juden.

Der demokratische Staat – der grosste Judenschwindel, der seit Adam erdacht wurde.

The year closes with two small observations:

18 June 1924 (I.1:1.151)

Money and the Jew: Siamese twins. If one kills one of them, then the other must die too. Kill the spirit of Mammonism in you. Then the Jew will also have to die.

Das Geld und der Jude: die siamesischen Zwillinge. Tötet man einen von beiden, dann muss der andere auch sterben. Tötet den Geist des Mammonismus in euch. Dann wird der Jud auch sterben müssen.

14 July 1924 (I.1:1.169)

The internationals in communism are Marx, Liebknecht, Radek, Scholem etc., that is, Jews.

Die Internationalen im Kommunismus sind die Marx, Liebknecht, Radek, Scholem etc., also die Juden.

Then, somewhat surprisingly, Goebbels’s substantive remarks on Jews fade away. For a full two and a half years, we find virtually no relevant comments in the diary. And even for another 10 years after that, we find only sporadic remarks. The Jews simply were not that big of an issue, at least in Goebbels’s mind. They were a problem, a nuisance, a danger—but apparently little more. It would not be until 1938 that lengthy and sustained writings resumed. And then once into the war years, we see a dramatic increase in both number and length of relevant entries.

But to finish out the decade: Though there were no meaningful diary comments in either 1925 or 1926, this does not mean that Goebbels neglected to address the Jewish Question. He contributed a few short essays to the periodical NS-Briefe, including “National Socialism or Bolshevism?” and “The Radicalizing of Socialism,” both from October 1925.31 But the pieces are not well-written, adopting a vague and confusing anti-Jewish stance that is ancillary to the main thrust. Goebbels seems to not quite yet have worked out a consistent view of the Jewish problem. At that time, he was only beginning to delve into Mein Kampf, as he tells us in his diary entry of 14 October; a full reading of that text would likely have clarified many issues for him. In any case, his views would sharpen in the following year or two, as we see in such essays as “The Jew” from early 1929—reprinted below (starting on p. 58).

All the while, Goebbels and the NSDAP were gaining steadily in power and influence throughout Germany. In 1926, Hitler named Goebbels as party gauleiter, or district leader, in Berlin—a prize promotion. Then into 1927 we find two short remarks on Jews, both related to the Berlin cultural scene:

3 January 1927 (I.1:2.167)

We Germans in Berlin theaters will soon have to be placed under foreign legislation. 80% are Jews, the other 20% German idiots.

Man muss uns Deutsche in den Berliner Theatern bald unter Fremdengesetzgebung stellen. 80% Juden, die übringen 20% deutsche Trottel.

28 October 1927 (I.1:2.284)

“Hoppla, we live!” On the communist stage. Impossible drama. Toller is a Jew, and the Jew is the ferment of decomposition. If I castigate the political presence and don’t say a word about the Jews, then I’m just a Jew or Jew-slave, and I have no claim to a good mindset, and so on.

„Hoppla, wir leben!“ Auf der Kommunistenbühne. Das Drama unmöglich. Toller ist Jude, und der Jude ist nun einmal das Ferment der Dekomposition. Wenn ich die politische Gegenwart geissle und sage nicht ein Wort über den Juden, dann bin ich eben Jude oder Judenknecht, habe keinen Anspruch auf gute Gesinnung und so.

“Hoppla, we live!” was a stage play by Jewish playwright and part-time politician Ernst Toller. As noted in Chapter Two, Toller was part of the band of revolutionary Jews who tried to take over Berlin in 1919. He was arrested and spent some five years in prison, getting released in 1925, upon which time he returned to the Berlin entertainment industry. He would be driven out of the country in 1933, settling in the United States until his death in 1939.

In 1928, just one entry of interest:

12 May 1928 (I.1:2.367)

Frightening amount of work all day. Middle of the election campaign. Piles of leaflets and propaganda material in the party office. All at high pressure. The Jews are working intensely against us. It’s a happy hunt.

Den ganzen Tag unheimlich Arbeit. Mitten im Wahlkampf. Die Geschäftsstelle starrt vor Flugblättern und Propagandamaterial. Alles auf Hochdruck. Die Juden arbeiten intensiv gegen uns. Es ist ein frischfröhliches Jagen.

Then into 1929, we find a series of short but sharp essays on the Jewish Question—notably the following piece, “The Jew,” that was published in Der Angriff on 21 January. This brief essay is reprinted here in full:

THE JEW

Everything is discussed openly in Germany and every German claims the right to have an opinion on any and all questions. One is Catholic, the other Protestant, one an employee, the other an employer, a capitalist, a socialist, a democrat, an aristocrat. There’s nothing dishonorable about choosing one side or the other of a question. Discussions happen in public and where matters are unclear or confused one settles it by argument and counter argument. But there is one problem that is not discussed publicly, one that is delicate even to mention: the Jewish Question. It is taboo in our Republic.

The Jew is immunized against all dangers: One may call him a scoundrel, parasite, swindler, profiteer, it all runs off him like water off a raincoat. But call him a Jew and you will be astonished at how he recoils, how injured he is, how he suddenly shrinks back: “I’ve been found out.”

One cannot defend oneself against the Jew. He attacks with lightning speed from his position of safety and uses his abilities to crush any attempt at defense.

Quickly he turns the attacker’s charges back on him and the attacker becomes the liar, the troublemaker, the terrorist. Nothing could be more mistaken than to defend oneself. That’s just what the Jew wants. He can invent a new lie every day for the enemy to respond to, and the result is that the enemy spends so much time defending himself that he has no time to do what the Jew really fears: attack. The accused has become the accuser, and loudly he shoves the accuser into the dock. So it always was in the past when a person or a movement fought the Jew. That’s what would happen to us as well, were we not fully aware of his nature, and if we lacked the courage to draw the following radical conclusions:

1. One cannot fight the Jew by positive means. He is a negative, and this negative must be erased from the German system or he will forever corrupt it.

2. One cannot discuss the Jewish Question with the Jews. One can hardly prove to a person that one has the duty to render him harmless.

3. One cannot allow the Jew the same means one would give an honest opponent, for he is no honorable opponent. He will use generosity and nobility only to trap his enemy.

4. The Jew has nothing to say about German questions. He is a foreigner, an alien, who only enjoys the rights of a guest, rights that he always abuses.

5. The so-called religious morality of the Jews is no morality at all, rather an encouragement to betrayal. Therefore, they have no claim to protection from the state.

6. The Jew is not smarter than we are, rather only cleverer and craftier. His system cannot be defeated economically—he follows entirely different moral principles than we do. It can only be broken through political means.

7. A Jew cannot insult a German. Jewish slanders are but badges of honor for a German opponent of the Jews.

8. The more a German person or a German movement opposes the Jew, the more valuable it is. If someone is attacked by the Jews, that’s a sure sign of his virtue. He who is not persecuted by the Jews, or who is praised by them, is useless and dangerous.

9. The Jew evaluates German questions from the Jewish standpoint. As a result, the opposite of what he says must be true.

10. One must either affirm or reject anti-Semitism. He who defends the Jews harms his own people. One can only be a Jewish lackey or a Jewish opponent. Opposing the Jews is a matter of personal hygiene.

These principles give the anti-Jewish movement a chance of success. Only such a movement will be taken seriously by the Jews, and only such a movement will be feared by them.

The fact that he shouts and complains about such a movement therefore is only a sign that it is right. We are therefore delighted that we are constantly attacked in the Jewish gazettes. They may shout about terror. We answer with Mussolini’s familiar words: “Terror? Never! It is social hygiene. We take these individuals out of circulation just like a doctor does to a bacillus”.

A strikingly blunt and insightful essay. It’s interesting that Goebbels would write so strongly in early 1929, when the NSDAP was still a very minor party, struggling to grow a national reputation and to earn a few seats in the Reichstag. Returning to the diaries, we see in the following month more short observations on culture and politics.

(...)

7 January 1945 (II.15.82)

In the afternoon I write an article about the Jewish Question. Once again it proves necessary to treat the Jewish Question in all its breadth. This topic should not rest. Jews around the world, however, won’t be pleased with my argumentation.

Nachmittags schreibe ich einen Artikel über die Judenfrage. Es erweist sich wieder einmal als nötig, die Judenfrage in aller Breite zu behandeln. Dies Thema darf nicht einschlafen. Die Juden in aller Welt werden allerdings über meine Argumentation nicht gerade begeistert sein.

The article in question was his last major piece on the Jews, titled “Creators of the World’s Misfortunes.” It is a passionate and prescient essay. I reproduce it here in full:

CREATORS OF THE WORLD’S MISFORTUNES

One could not understand this war if one did not always keep in mind the fact that International Jewry stands behind all the unnatural forces that our united enemies use to attempt to deceive the world and keep humanity in the dark. It is, so to speak, the mortar that holds the enemy coalition firmly together, despite its differences of class, ideology, and interests. Capitalism and Bolshevism have the same Jewish roots—two branches of the same tree that in the end bear the same fruit. International Jewry uses both in its own way to suppress nations and keep them in its service. How deep its influence on public opinion is in all the enemy countries and many neutral nations is plain to see: it may never be mentioned in newspapers, speeches, and radio broadcasts.

There’s a law in the Soviet Union that punishes ‘anti-Semitism’—or in plain English, public education about the Jewish Question—by death. Any expert in these matters is in no way surprised that a leading spokesman for the Kremlin said over the New Year that the Soviet Union would not rest until this law was valid throughout the world. In other words, the enemy clearly says that its goal in this war is to put the total domination of Jewry over the nations of the Earth under legal protection, and to use the death penalty to threaten even a discussion of this shameful attempt.

It is little different in the plutocratic nations. There the struggle against the impudent usurpation of the Jewish race is punished not by the executioner, but rather by death through economic and social boycott and by intellectual terror. This has the same effect in the end. Stalin, Churchill, and Roosevelt were made by Jewry. They enjoy its full support and reward it with their full protection. They present themselves in their speeches as upright men of civil courage, yet one never hears even a word against the Jews, even though there is growing hatred among their people as a result of this war—a hatred that’s fully justified.

Jewry is a taboo theme in the enemy countries. It stands outside every legal boundary and thus becomes the tyrant of its host peoples. While enemy soldiers fight, bleed, and die at the Front, the Jews make money from their sacrifice on the stock exchanges and black markets. If a brave man dares to step forward and accuse the Jews of their crimes, he will be mocked and spat on by their press, chased from his job or otherwise impoverished, and be brought into public contempt. But even that’s apparently not enough for the Jews. They want to bring Soviet conditions to the whole world, giving Jewry absolute power and freedom from prosecution. He who objects or even debates the matter gets a bullet in the back of his head or an axe through his neck. There is no worse tyranny than this. This is the epitome of the public and secret disgrace that Jewry inflicts on nations that deserve freedom.

This is all long behind us. Yet it still threatens us in the distance. We have, it’s true, entirely broken the power of the Jews in the Reich, but they have not given up. They didn’t rest until they had mobilized the whole world against us. Since they could no longer conquer Germany from within, they want to try it from without. Every Russian, English, and American soldier is a mercenary of this world conspiracy of a parasitic race. Given the current state of the war, who could still believe that they are fighting and dying at the Front for the national interests of their countries! The nations want a decent peace, but the Jews are against it. They know that the end of the war would mean the dawn of humanity’s knowledge of the unhealthy role that International Jewry played in preparing for and carrying out this war. They fear being unmasked, which has in fact become unavoidable and must inevitably occur, just as day follows night. That explains their raging bursts of hatred against us, which are only the result of their fear and their feelings of inferiority. They are too eager, and that makes them suspicious. International Jewry will not succeed in turning this war to its advantage. Things are already too far along. The hour will come in which all the peoples of the Earth will awaken, and the Jews will be the victims. Here, too, things can only go on for so long.

It is an old, often-used method of International Jewry to discredit education and knowledge about its corrupting nature and drives, thereby relying on the weaknesses of those who easily confuse cause with effect. Jews are also masters at manipulating public opinion, which they dominate through their network of news agencies and press concerns that reaches throughout the world. The pitiful illusion of a free press is one of the methods they use to stupefy the publics of enemy lands. If the enemy press is as free as it pretends to be, let it take an open position, for or against, on the Jewish Question. It won’t do that because it cannot and may not do so. Jews love to mock and criticize everything except themselves, although everyone knows that they are most in need of public criticism. This is where the so-called freedom of the press in enemy countries ends. Newspapers, parliaments, statesmen, and church leaders must be silent here. Crimes and vices, filth and corruption are covered by a blanket of love. Jews have total control of public opinion in enemy countries, and he who has that is also master of all of public life.

Nations that have to accept such a condition are only to be pitied. Jews mislead them into believing that the German nation is backward. Our alleged backwardness is actually proof of our progress. We have recognized the Jews as a national and international danger, and from this knowledge have drawn compelling conclusions. This German knowledge will become the world’s knowledge at the end of this war. We think it our primary duty to do everything in our power to make that happen.

Humanity would sink into eternal darkness, it would fall into a dull and primitive state, were the Jews to win this war. They are the incarnation of that destructive force that, in these terrible years, has guided the enemy war-leadership in a fight against all that we see as noble, beautiful, and worth keeping. For that reason alone, the Jews hate us. They despise our culture and learning, which they perceive as towering over their nomadic worldview. They fear our economic and social standards, which leave no room for their parasitic drives. They are the enemy of our domestic order, which has excluded their anarchistic tendencies. Germany is the first nation in the world that is entirely free of the Jews. That is the prime cause of its political and economic balance. Since their expulsion from the German national body has made it impossible for them to shake this balance from within, they lead the nations they have deceived in battle against us from without. It is fine with them—in fact it’s part of their plan—that Europe will lose a large part of its cultural values in the process. Jews had no part in their creation. They don’t understand them. A deep racial instinct tells them that since these heights of human creative activity are forever beyond their reach, they must attack them today with hatred. The day is not distant when the nations of Europe, yes, even those of the whole world, will shout: The Jews are guilty for all our misfortunes! They must be called to account, and soon and thoroughly!

International Jewry is ready with its alibi. Just as during the great reckoning in Germany, they will attempt to look innocent and say that one needs a scapegoat, and they are it. But that will no longer help them, just as it didn’t help them during the National Socialist revolution. The proof of their historical guilt, in details large and small, is so plain that it can no longer be denied, even with the cleverest lies and hypocrisy.

Who is it that drives the Russians, the English, and the Americans into battle and sacrifices huge numbers of human lives in a hopeless struggle against the German people? The Jews! Their newspapers and radio broadcasts spread the songs of war while the nations they have deceived are led to slaughter. Who is it that invents new plans of hatred and destruction against us every day, making this war into a dreadful case of self-mutilation and self-destruction of European life and its economy, education, and culture? The Jews! Who devised the unnatural marriage between England and the USA on one side and Bolshevism on the other, building it up and jealously ensuring its continuance? Who covers the most perverse political situations with cynical hypocrisy from a trembling fear that a new way could lead nations to realize the true causes of this terrible human catastrophe? The Jews, only the Jews! They are named Morgenthau and Lehmann, and stand behind Roosevelt as a so-called brain trust. They are named Melchett and Sassoon, and serve as Churchill’s moneybags and order-givers. They are named Kaganovich and Ehrenburg, and are Stalin’s pacesetters and intellectual spokesmen.74 Wherever you look, you see Jews. They march as political commissars behind the Red Army, organizing murder and terror in the areas conquered by the Soviets. They sit behind the lines in Paris and Brussels, Rome and Athens, and fashion their reins from the skin of the unhappy nations that have fallen under their power.

That’s the truth. It can no longer be denied, particularly since, in their drunken joy of power and victory, the Jews have forgotten their ordinarily so-carefully maintained reserve and now stand in the spotlight of public opinion. They no longer bother—apparently believing that it’s no longer necessary, that their hour has come. And this is their mistake, which they always make when they think themselves near their great goal of surreptitious world domination.75 Throughout the history of nations, whenever this tragic situation developed, good providence saw to it that the Jews themselves became the gravediggers of their own hopes. They did not destroy the healthy peoples, but rather the sting of their parasitic effects brought a realization of the looming danger to the forefront, leading to the greatest sacrifices to overcome it. At a certain point, they become that power that always wants evil but inadvertently creates good. It will be that way this time, too.

The fact that the German nation was the first on Earth to recognize this danger and expel them from its organism is proof of its healthy instincts. It therefore became the leader of a world struggle whose results will determine the fate and future of International Jewry. We view with complete calm the wild Old Testament tirades of hatred and revenge against us by Jews throughout the world. They are only proof that we are on the right path. They cannot unsettle us. We gaze on them with sovereign contempt and remember that these outbursts of hatred and revenge were everyday events for us in Germany, until that fateful day for International Jewry—30 January 1933—when the world revolution against the Jews began that threatened them not only in Germany, but in all other nations.

It will not cease before it has reached its goal. The truth cannot be stopped by lies or force. It will get through. The Jews will meet their Cannae at the end of this war.76 Not Europe, but rather they will lose. They may laugh at this prophecy today, but they have laughed so often in the past, and almost as often they stopped laughing sooner or later. Not only do we know precisely what we want, we also know precisely what we do not want. The deceived nations of the Earth may still lack the knowledge they need, but we will bring it to them. How will the Jews stop that in the long run? They believe their power rests on sure foundations, but it stands on feet of clay. One hard blow and it will collapse, burying the creators of the world’s misfortunes in its ruins.77All in all, an astonishing essay by a leading figure in a world power. As before, Goebbels is writing to the world more than to his fellow Germans, who were being slaughtered daily by the Jewish-backed allies. The Jews, of course, did not stand defeated at the end of the war, and in fact grew in power and influence over subsequent decades. But an anti-Jewish ideology was unleashed on the world that has yet to fully play itself out. They may yet “meet their Cannae.”

19 January 1945 (II.15.153)

In the parts of Poland newly-occupied by the Soviets, the Jewish Question now becomes extraordinarily relevant. The Lublin Commission appears not to want to have much to do with the Jews. It gives an explanation from the standpoint that, after we have rooted out the larger part of Polish Jewry, now Polish anti-Semitism must be taken into account. Naturally, the Lublin Commission has not elaborated on how this is going to happen.

In den von den Sowjets neu besetzten Teilen Polens wird jetzt die Judenfrage ausserordentlich aktuell. Der Lubliner Ausschuss scheint mit den Juden nicht viel zu schaffen haben zu wollen. Er vertritt in einer Erklärung den Standpunkt, dass, nachdem wir den grössten Teil des polnischen Judentums ausgerottet haben, nunmehr dem polnischen Antisemitismus in irgendeiner Weise Rechnung getragen werden müsse. Wie das geschehen soll, darüber lässt sich der Lubliner Ausschuss selbstverständlich nicht weiter aus.

20 January 1945 (II.15.163)

The fact that anti-Semitism in England is growing from week to week is, on the one hand, clear, but on the other hand, gives no reason for the British government to take any account of this tendency in the British public. My article against the Jews in Das Reich [“Creators of the World’s Misfortunes”] arouses considerable interest among the foreign public. It generates lively discussion. As soon as the Jews are touched, they raise a great cry. But experience shows that they will wise up again in two or three days, and return to their silence.

Auch dass in England die Judenfeindlichkeit von Woche zu Woche wächst, steht einerseits fest, gibt andererseits aber der englischen Regierung keinerlei Veranlassung, auf diese Tendenz im britischen Publikum irgendeine Rücksicht zu nehmen. Mein gegen die Juden gerichteter Artikel im „Reich“ erregt in der ausländischen Öffentlichkeit erhebliches Aufsehen. Er wird sehr lebhaft diskutiert. Sobald die Juden angefasst werden, erheben sie ein tolles Geschrei. Aber erfahrungsgemäss werden sie dann in zwei, drei Tagen wieder klug und begeben sich wieder in ihr Schweigen zurück.

On February 13, Britain fire-bombs Dresden; at least 45,000 more civilians perish. Ten days later it does the same to Pforzheim, with another 17,000 fatalities. Allied barbarity knows no bounds. Perhaps it was these on-going mass slaughters of innocents that led to the following comment:

14 March 1945 (II.15.498) *B

The Jews are reemerging. Their spokesman is the well-known and notorious Leopold Schwarzschild, who is now arguing in the American press that under no circumstances should Germany be given lenient treatment. Anyone with the power to do so should kill these Jews like rats. In Germany, thank God, we have already thoroughly attended to this. I hope the world will take this as an example.

Die Juden melden sich wieder. Ihr Wortführer ist der bekannte und berüchtigte Leopold Schwarzschild, der jetzt in der amerikanischen Presse dafür plädiert, dass Deutschland unter keinen Umständen eine mildere Behandlung zuteil werden dürfte. Diese Juden muss man einmal, wenn man die Macht dazu besitzt, wie die Ratten totschlagen. In Deutschland haben wir das ja Gott sei Dank schon redlich besorgt. Ich hoffe, dass die Welt sich daran ein Beispiel nehmen wird.

As mentioned in the first chapter of this book, this is the one and only instance of Goebbels explicitly calling for the death of Jews—in the 178 entries that I have documented here. Clearly, all cards are now on the table; no more euphemisms, code words, or diplomatic niceties. So a question: Why did he not say, “Thank God we have now shot or gassed some 6 million of them”? Why didn’t he say, “Thank God we had Auschwitz, Treblinka, Belzec, and all those other extermination camps”? Or maybe the truth was that Germany was indeed virtually cleared of Jews, most by deportations, and that many thousands—perhaps 500,000 or more—had indeed “died like rats” in the process. But once again, this is a far cry from 6 million or complete annihilation.

15 March 1945 (II.15.509) *B

It’s almost grotesque to hear that the Palestinian Jews are carrying out a one-day strike, which they want to fill with prayer, and that this strike is intended as a sympathy campaign for the European Jews. The Jews are playing a very wicked and frivolous game. It isn’t yet clear which nations will be on the losing side and which on the winning side at the end of the war. But the fact that the Jews will be on the losing side is beyond any doubt.

Fast grotesk wirkt die Nachricht, dass die Palästina-Juden einen eintägigen Streik durchführen, den sie mit Gebet ausfüllen wollen, und zwar soll dieser Streik als Mitleidaktion für die Juden in Europa gedacht sein. Die Juden treiben ein sehr frevelhaftes und leichtfertiges Spiel. Man kann noch nicht genau sagen, welche Nationen am Ende des Krieges auf der Verlierer- und welche auf der Gewinnerseite stehen werden. Dass die Juden aber auf der Verliererseite zu finden sein werden, das steht wohl ausserhalb jeden Zweifels.

Though not a formal entry on the Jews, the following passage from his diary of March 18 is interesting because it lays bare the attitudes and brutality on the Allied side:

In the evening, Washington officially states that even the unconditional surrender of the Reich would no longer be enough for the enemy. In all circumstances their intention is to occupy the whole Reich territory. For the time being, they don’t yet make any further demands. Perhaps they still think that we will all hang or shoot each other. The destructive will of the enemy today yields the strangest fruit. The vengeful excesses recorded in the English and American Jewish press are incomparable. In the process, they show a cynicism that is unbeatable. It prides itself on the destruction of German cities, yes, German cultural monuments in all openness and thus bears witness to the present age, which makes one blush. It also can be seen from the last Churchill speech that a gloomy view prevails in leading English circles about the future of Europe. This speech exploded like a bomb on the conservative party. Churchill’s plan is to split both the Conservative and Labor parties and form a new party out of the torn pieces of the two. Churchill is a destructive element. He will certainly go down in world history as the Herostratus of Europe, who could perpetuate his name by no other means but by destroying what many generations have built up over many centuries.78He will soon meet with the American Jew Baruch, who also wants to visit Stalin. In these discussions, the plundering of the Reich is being determined in every detail. On the other hand, the Western enemy is unable to point to even one positive achievement.

4 April 1945 (II.15.674) *B

The Jews have already registered for the San Francisco Conference [on post-war plans]. It is characteristic that their main demand is to ban anti-Semitism throughout the world. Typically, having committed the most terrible crimes against mankind, the Jews would now like mankind to be forbidden even to think about them.

Die Juden haben sich bereits für die Konferenz von San Francisco angemeldet. Charakteristisch ist, dass ihre Forderung vor allem dahin lautet, den Antisemitismus in der ganzen Welt zu verbieten. Das würde den Juden so in den Kram passen, dass, nachdem sie die schauderhaftesten Verbrechen gegen die Menschheit begangen haben, nun der Menschheit verboten werden sollte, darüber überhaupt nachzudenken.

Indeed, we are still forbidden to think of such things, even 75 years later.

The very last entry in the diary is dated 9 April 1945. It includes one passing mention of Jews, and so I include it here as the last in my list.

9 April 1945 (II.15.692)

The Soviets have again got powerful momentum through their military successes in the Vienna area. They are now fighting in the Vienna suburbs and are slowly penetrating into the center. The Viennese suburbs have for the most part surrendered to the Red Army, which of course has created rather desolate conditions in the city. … The Führer has already correctly sized up the Viennese. They are a disgusting racial mishmash of Poles, Czechs, Jews and Germans. But I believe that the Viennese could have been better kept in check if a decent, and above all an energetic, political leadership had been at the helm. Schirach was not the right man for that. But how many times have I said that, and how many times have I not been heard!

Die Sowjets haben durch ihre militärischen Erfolge im Wiener Raum wieder mächtig Oberwasser bekommen. Sie kämpfen jetzt in den Wiener Vorstädten und dringen langsam in das Zentrum vor. Die Wiener Vorstädte haben zum grossen Teil die Waffen zugunsten der Roten Armee erhoben, wodurch natürlich in Wien ziemlich desolate Zustände entstanden sind. ... Der Führer hat die Wiener schon richtig erkannt. Sie stellen ein widerwärtiges Pack dar, das aus einer Mischung zwischen Polen, Tschechen, Juden und Deutschen besteht. Ich glaube aber, dass die Wiener doch besser hätten im Zaume gehalten werden können, wenn dort eine anständige und vor allem eine energische politische Führung am Ruder gewesen wäre. Schirach war dazu nicht der geeignete Mann. Aber wie oft habe ich das gesagt, und wie oft bin ich dabei nicht gehört worden!

Goebbels’s final days must have been horrifically distressful, under conditions we can scarcely imagine. The only bright spot came on April 12, the day that FDR died; Nazi leadership held out hope that, just maybe, this was a sign of a pending miraculous turnabout. But it was not to be. After celebrating Hitler’s 56th birthday on April 20, the few remaining individuals—Hitler, his longtime girlfriend Eva Braun, Goebbels and his family (wife and six children), and Martin Bormann—retreated to Hitler’s underground bunker in Berlin to await the end. Hitler married Eva Braun on April 29; the next day, both committed suicide. In his final will, Hitler named Goebbels as Reich Chancellor—in effect, leader of the Third Reich.

Goebbels held this lofty title for just one day, April 30. On May 1, he ordered one of the remaining doctors to inject each of his children with morphine, to make them unconscious. His wife, Magda, then worked with an SS assistant to crush a capsule of cyanide in the mouth of each child. In his final act, at 8:30 that evening, 47-year-old Joseph Goebbels and his wife committed suicide—either by shooting or cyanide, reports vary. Thus ended the Third Reich.

* * *

Today, with the benefit of 75 years of hindsight, we can ask: Was Goebbels right? Was Hitler right? Did the destruction of the Third Reich result in the Bolshevization of Europe, or the world? Technically no, but in a larger sense, yes. With the end of the war, Stalin and the West divided Europe between them. Stalin’s Bolshevist Soviet Union took control of several east European nations, including Poland, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, the Baltic States, Ukraine and Central Germany. The Western alliance consolidated under the umbrella of NATO, which originally comprised the US, UK, France, Italy and Norway, among others; by the early 1950s, Greece and Turkey were added. The USSR encompassed 180 million people, of whom around 70 million were non-Russians. This division set the stage for a 45-year Cold War between the USSR and the West, which drained national economies on both sides and kept some 500 million people under perpetual threat of nuclear annihilation.

The dreariness, pessimism and deprivation under Stalin’s Bolshevist empire are well-known and need not be recounted here. Though historically Jewish, in the postwar period Stalin began to purge his Soviet leadership of Jews. By 1950, very few retained prominent positions; among these were Kaganovich and Mekhlis. Hence postwar Bolshevism was no longer Judeo-Bolshevism, although it retained much of the original Marxist ideology and values. With Stalin’s death in 1953, formal Bolshevism came to an end, and his successors—Malenkov, Bulganin and then Khrushchev—evidently viewed themselves more as communists rather than Bolshevists. But Marxist communism carried on right through the demise of the USSR in 1991. Thus, for many decades, the Soviet Empire was, de facto, “Bolshevized”—with all the attendant pain and suffering.

On the Western side, the Anglo-Saxon “plutocrats” and their Jewish backers flourished. With the creation of the state of Israel in 1948, the Zionists now had a secure base for their global operations. In America, the Jewish Lobby—which had had substantial influence from the early 20th century—rapidly grew to attain a stranglehold on government and foreign policy. Into the 1950s, Jewish influence was well attested by Secretary of State John Foster Dulles. In a phone call of 11 February 1957 to Harry Luce, Dulles said, “I am aware how almost impossible it is in the country to carry out a foreign policy not approved by the Jews. Marshall and Forrestal learned that. I am going to try to have one.” A conversation the next day included a complaint about “the terrific control the Jews have over the news media, and the barrage which the Jews have built up on Congressmen.” A week later, in a phone call with a church leader, Dulles said:

I am very much concerned over the fact that the Jewish influence here is completely dominating the scene and making it almost impossible to get Congress to do anything they don’t approve of. The Israeli Embassy is practically dictating to the Congress through influential Jewish people in the country.79This governmental influence only strengthened in the 1960s, and by the end of the decade, the Jewish Lobby was the dominant group in Washington. In the realm of finance, Jewish billionaires grew in number over the postwar decades, and today Jews comprise roughly half of the richest Americans. And of course, Jewish dominance in US media and Hollywood became further solidified, to the point that, today, they dominate all major entertainment and media conglomerates.80 They successfully stifle critics and skeptics with smears of ‘neo-Nazi,’ ‘anti-Semite,’ ‘white supremacist’ and ‘hate-speech.’ Pro-Israeli, pro-Jewish, anti-Muslim, anti-white propaganda is regularly pumped out over television and radio airways. Given that American media and films have influence globally, and that America is the sole global superpower, much of the world has indeed been ‘Bolshevized’—just as Goebbels predicted. “Jews rule the world by proxy.”

* * *

As explained in Chapter One, Goebbels’s diaries are not well known or cited, even among the so-called experts. I think we can now see why: These entries offer very little support for the orthodox view, and raise lots of troublesome issues that must be explained away—not the least of which is the fact that, if we are to believe the exterminationists, Goebbels systematically lied to himself or otherwise falsified his own private diary, for years, for the sake of some unknown future events. This is simply not credible. Nor is the possibility that he was unaware of the mass killing that was allegedly happening. By all reasonable indications, the revisionist account—the literal reading of the diary—is most likely true.

The primary consequence of this is that the Holocaust story, as commonly told, is badly distorted. In all likelihood, only some 500,000 Jews died during the war years; this is less than 10% of the infamous 6 million figure. “So what?” says the apologist; “It’s still a terrible, tragic number.” Indeed. And so is the number 60 million—the number of non-Jews who died during the war. Jewish deaths thus comprise about 0.8% of the total for World War Two. Rightly, then, the Jewish ‘Holocaust’ should occupy 0.8% of books on the war, and 0.8% of films made, and 0.8% of university lectures given. Needless to say, this is not the case. We need to understand why this is so.

Worse still is the fact that we continue to be deceived by our experts, our authorities, and our colleagues. If the 6 million were understood to be the lie that it is, a vast segment of our society would be discredited. Finger-pointing would become endemic: “I was only repeating what I was told!” True—except that these very people today are so sure of their correctness, so sure, that they are willing to commit the gravest of crimes—moral and legal—simply to protect the existing story of Jewish suffering. Those who do so are well-paid and highly rewarded. Those who question the story are slandered, abused, threatened, denigrated, beaten, and jailed. Obviously it is very important to certain people that the ‘6 million’ figure be maintained at all costs.

For those with a higher sense of integrity, honesty and justice, the conventional story is simply unsustainable, and worse—it is criminal. The price paid by global society has been, and continues to be, enormous. It must therefore be exposed. And it will. “The truth will get through,” as Goebbels rightly said.

The ferment of decomposition, the plastic demons of decay, the destroyers of higher and nobler civilization—whether Jews or Gentiles—are still out there, still calling the shots, still running the show. They are still bribing politicians, directing military adventures, monopolizing stock markets, amassing riches, censoring books, giving lectures and churning out propaganda. We must never think that war propaganda ended with the war; far from it. Propaganda is produced on a monumental scale today, and few seem to know or care.

If there is a saving grace in all this, it is that Goebbels’s ideas did not die with him. Through the best of fortune, we have his entire diary and his many essays and speeches left to us. They continue to resonate with people, 75 years later, and their long-term consequences have yet to be fully realized. Time will tell.

Goebbels On The Jews

The Complete Diary Entries – 1923 to 1945

Joseph Goebbels

Edited and Translated

by

Thomas Dalton, PhD