Joseph Goebbels

Paul Joseph Goebbels (German pronunciation: , often called Dr. Goebbels; 29 October 1897 in Mönchengladbach – 1 May 1945 in Berlin) was a German politician and the minister of propaganda during the Nazi regime. He studied literature and philosophy at the Heidelberg university.

He was a close friend of Adolf Hitler. Goebbels stayed with Hitler in the Führerbunker until Hitler's suicide on 30 April 1945. After Hitler's death, Goebbels was chancellor of Germany for one day, before he and his wife Magda Goebbels killed themselves. Just before she died, Magda killed their six children with poison.

Early life 
Joseph Goebbels was born as Paul Joseph Goebbels in Mönchengladbach on 29 October 1897. His father, Friedrich Goebbels, was a bookkeeper and his mother was Maria Goebbels (born Oldenhausen). He was the third child of the family and grew up with five siblings. Due to an illness in his childhood in 1901, Goebbels' right foot was malformed and he was . He went to a Roman Catholic school in Rheydt in 1908. In 1914, Goebbels went to high school in Rheydt. When the First World War started in August 1914, he volunteered to be part of the Army. This was refused because of his limp.

Goebbels took his Abitur (school exams) in 1917. He was the best in his class. He gave a speech at the end of the school year. However, his headteacher said, that he would not become a good speaker. Later, in 1917, Goebbels studied ancient philology, history and German philology at the University of Bonn. He received his PhD in Drama from the Heidelberg university in 1921. In 1923, Goebbels worked for the Deutsche Bank.

Involvement in the Nazi Party 
Goebbels joined the National Socialist German Workers' Party in 1926. In the same year, Hitler made him a Gauleiter for Berlin and Brandenburg. In 1927, Goebbels published the first Nazi newspaper, Der Angriff (The Attack), in Berlin. The newspaper was printed twice a week. In 1928, he became a member of the German Reichstag. He kept this position until 1945. In 1929, Goebbels saw his first movie with sound,  "The Singing Fool". He said it would be the future of propaganda.

In 1930, he became the Reichspropagandaleiter (Chief of the German Propaganda) and the deputy of Heinrich Himmler. Goebbels married Magda Quand in 1931. Franz Ritter von Epp and Adolf Hitler were the witnesses at the wedding.

When Hitler became Chancellor in 1933, Goebbels became the Reich Minister for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda.

The Nazi regime

Pre-World War time 
In 1934, Goebbels moved to a villa near Berlin. On 30 June 1934, he saw the arrest of Ernst Röhm in Bad Wiessee. Goebbels gave the order to confiscate about 650 art exhibits in 1937. He put them on display in show called Degenerate Art. On 9 November 1938, a German diplomat was killed in France by a Jewish teenager. Because of this murder, Goebbels gave the order to the SS for what is now called Kristallnacht.

Second World War 
At the start of the Second World War, Goebbels ordered to broadcast special announcements at the cinema  and on the radio. On 26 May 1940, he published the new weekly newspaper Das Reich (The Imperium) for the first time. In 1942, Goebbels took part in the Wannsee Conference. He was one of the Nazi leaders who planned the Final Solution to kill all the Jewish people. In 1943, he gave a well known speech in the Berlin Sportpalast where he called the Germans to support total war. The coup on 20 July 1944 failed, because of Goebbels' quick thinking. He broadcast on radio that the coup had failed, before the plan of Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg could succeed.

On 22 April 1945, two days after Adolf Hitler's birthday, he arrived in the Führerbunker in Berlin. He was one of the witnesses to the marriage of Hitler to Eva Braun. On the same day, he took over the leadership from Hitler. After Hitler's suicide on 30 April, he became the Chancellor of Germany. He only held this job for one day, because on 1 May 1945, his wife poisoned their six children with the help of an SS doctor. Immediately afterward he and his wife went up to the garden of the Chancellery, where they killed themselves. The details of their suicides are uncertain. After the war, Rear-Admiral Michael Musmanno, a U.S. naval officer and judge, published several accounts apparently based on eye-witness testimony: According to one account. "While Schwägermann was preparing the petrol, he heard a shot. Goebbels had shot himself and his wife took poison. Schwägermann ordered one of the soldiers to shoot Goebbels again because he was unable to do it himself." One SS officer said they each took cyanide and ordered an SS trooper to shoot them both. According to another account, Goebbels shot his wife and then himself.

References 
 

1897 births
1945 deaths
Chancellors of Nazi Germany
Former Roman Catholics
Gauleiters
Government ministers of Nazi Germany
Holocaust perpetrators
Members of the Reichstag (Nazi Germany)
Members of the Reichstag (Weimar Republic)
Murderers
Nazis who committed suicide
People from Mönchengladbach
Politicians from North Rhine-Westphalia
Politicians of the Nazi Party
Politicians who committed suicide
Suicides by firearm in Germany